A Wife’s Love

The Forming Circle glows a putrid green around the bones and blood-clay.

Lilly watches Friedrich’s fingers emerge like little anthills, then the full lips she loves to kiss. His temple’s ring shaped scar from a year ago and his deformed ribs from his fall two months back remain the same.

It took days to gather the blackened bones out of Friedrich’s immolated room. Sifting through ash, charred wood, and the chains to find them all. She wouldn’t allow him to have candles anymore.

His eyes open when the spell completes.

Lilly smiles. “Husband, you can’t ever leave me.”

He screams.