Dee Moyza

Soulmate | 883 words | Fantasy

(Inspired by prompt 47 on this page.)

Arlene slid the books into a bag and extended her hand toward the woman for payment. As the woman counted bills into Arlene's palm, Arlene noticed the band of dark pigment around her left ring finger, a sign that she had found her soulmate, the other half of the star that had twinkled out when she’d come into this world.

"Ah," Arlene said, "congratulations."

"Pardon?"

Arlene pointed to her own finger, bare as the day she was born. "Had you known him long?"

Realizing what she meant, the woman looked at her hand and sighed. "Hardly a minute. We were waiting for a bus. He said hello, we chatted about the weather. I didn't think to look at the moment, but by the time I'd reached my stop, the band was fairly dark."

"Lucky lady."

Another sigh, this one accompanied by a shrug. "That's what everyone says. But it's been two years, and I'm still not sure I understand what they mean."

"And I could say the same of you. Aren’t happy? He's your other half!"

"I suppose I'm happy, in the sense that I'm neither anxious nor downhearted. But life is so different now, and I've yet to entirely adjust." She gave a small, sad grin, and took her bag, but made no move to leave.

"Of course it's different. You're no longer alone." Arlene smiled. "I guess it must take some time to get used to. But it only gets better, that's what everyone says. Think about it. How did you feel before, if you can remember? How did you feel the day before you met your soulmate?"

"Complete." No hesitation, no uncertainty. "I was myself, my own person, complete. My accomplishments were my own, my desires my own, my time my own. I knew who I was and where I stood in the world. Now, I'm not a person, but a half. A half of a unit, of something larger, of something that doesn't always gel.

"My husband is a good person, and we have an amicable relationship. But never, in twenty lifetimes, would either of us have chosen the other as our life's partner, had we been free to do so. Just because we're made of the same star, just because our hearts are constructed similarly, doesn't mean our minds are."

"But the will of the heavens is absolute," Arlene said, frowning. "The stars know what they’re doing, they know what is best for you, for all of us."

"Best for us? Or best for them? Because all they've done with me and my husband is put one of themselves back together, forcibly, with pieces so warped and changed by life that they hardly resemble one another anymore. Like two puzzle pieces, painted very differently -- though the pieces fit, just barely, the design they create makes no sense at all." The woman thought for a moment. "Suppose the stars continue this way, forcing their children together for their own sake, regardless of whether those children fit. What will the next generation look like, act like, think like? Who will they be but confused shadows, seeking nothing more on this earth other than their missing piece, to the detriment of the everything else they could become?"

She laughed. "No, the stars know nothing, except greed and fear of the dark. They do not wish to burn out, so they use human lives as kindling."

Arlene said nothing. She looked down at the till and brushed away a tiny scrap of paper.

"But maybe it's just me," the woman continued, her tone soft now. "Perhaps I'm just an ill fit for life itself, the daughter of a renegade star. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. I'm certain your soulmate will make you feel complete and fulfilled." She adjusted her grip on her bag and moved toward the door. "I've rambled far too long, and burdened you with my displeasure. Please excuse me, and pay no heed to what I've said."

An impossible request. The woman's words floated through Arlene's mind for days, chipping away at the foundation of her belief in the world and the heavens, her conviction that everything always turned out exactly as it should.

These thoughts clouded her vision, and muted her dreams. She shelved books and performed transactions by rote, hardly registering the words and faces of customers that passed through the shop. One must have been different from the rest, however, his presence marked by the same strain of stardust present in herself. For when she woke one morning a week later, having finally shaken the pall of the woman's story, she looked down and saw it: pale, but undeniable, a tiny band of color creeping into the skin on her left ring finger.

She sighed and bit her lip. The moment she'd anticipated for so long had arrived, but instead of the joy she'd imagined feeling, her heart was seized with trepidation. Who was he? When would he return? Would they get on well from the start, or would it be a struggle?

She set aside her reservations and began getting ready for the day. Whatever happened, there was nothing she could do.

The will of the heavens was absolute, after all. The stars knew what they were doing.

Didn't they?

Hunter | Fantasy | 2,926 words

(Prequel to “Hook and Net and Twenty Men”)

Reginald learned to hunt out of necessity. He was scarcely older than seven years when his mother passed away for the third, and final, time. His sister Marie had revived her twice, but the illness that had taken her returned each time, ravaging her body more fiercely with each resurrection, until she expressly forbade Marie from seeing her corpse, and instructed the town undertaker to burn her remains. Marie was inconsolable for weeks, even as Reginald’s other sister, Rose, crippled beneath the weight of their mother’s deathbed confessions, hobbled toward the sea and into the waves. When Marie abandoned her grief to tend to that development, Reginald’s welfare fell by the wayside.

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Hook and Net and Twenty Men | 2069 words | Fantasy

Marie was lounging in a chair in the parlor, reading through an old book for perhaps the fiftieth time, when the clock on the mantel began ticking again. It was as quiet as any clock, but after nearly three years of silence, each second cracked like a gunshot to Marie’s ears, and apprehension and curiosity immediately went to war in her heart. What had the ferryman brought this time? Would it look anything like Rose, or would Marie need to peel and scrub away layers of salt and sand, gouge out crystals of coagulated sin as bright and seductive as any ruby?

There was only one way to find out.

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