A Feather of Stone #3 by Tiernan Cate

stood up, pushing her hair off her shoulders. She reached down for her purse. Richard couldn’t go near her.
    She hadn’t looked at him for several minutes. Now she left without a word, walking down the hall, shutting the front door behind her. All without meeting his eyes.
    Despair was nothing new to Richard—it was more of a constant companion. But this gut-turning misery, this twisted yearning, the desire and the horror all mixed up—that was new.
    Now that she was gone, Richard lay down on his bed. In a minute he would get up and drink about a half a bottle of scotch. That would be good. Shut his mind down, shut his body down.
    The front door opened again and closed. Richard’s heart flared—had she come back? If she’d come back, he would take her. No matter what, he would hold her and kiss her and lose himself in her and forget everything but the deep pleasure of not thinking for a while.
    “Hey.” Luc stood in his doorway. Richard felt like his life had become a surreal movie.
    “Hey,” he managed, his mind reeling.
    “You okay?” Luc frowned at him.
    “Yep.”
    Sighing, Luc leaned against the doorway. “Marcel’s here. In town.”
    Richard’s stomach clenched tighter, if that was possible. Perfect. His day was now complete.
    “And Claire. She’s at Jules’s.”
    “Good.” Richard liked Claire.
    “You wanna get something to eat?”
    Richard thought about it. “Yeah. Give me a minute to grab a shower.” A really cold one.

True Love
    It was getting darker earlier every day, Sophie thought, hurrying down the street. She’d left her car several blocks away, seizing the first free parking space she’d been able to find. Now she walked quickly away from the river, away from the more touristy parts of the French Quarter, toward the quieter, residential blocks.
    Even here in the city, surrounded by lights and noise, one could still notice the changing of the seasons. Sophie thought longingly of the several years she and Manon had spent in northern Virginia. For an almost perfect, storybook balance of seasons, Virginia was the place to go—even better than Paris. Three months of real winter, including actual snow. Three months of glorious spring, the kind of spring that had first inspired the goddess’s festivals: a giddy, heady rebirth of life in all forms, painting the earth in a wash of fresh, bright colors. Three months of actual hot summer, hot enough to go swimming in rivers and lakes, hot enough to bask in the sun, feeling languid and soft. Then autumn, the first tingly breezes leaving one’s cheeks chilled; the fiery, painted leaves as trees shut down for winter. Apples, leaves crunching underfoot, Récolte and Monvoile celebrations. Each season brought its own particular joys, its own painful beauty. The rhythm and cycle of seasons and time, the yearly death and rebirth that was the basis for the bonne magie .
    Now she was back in New Orleans, and though the days were growing shorter week by week, still—it was hardly a real autumn.
    Sophie crossed a street, easily walking between two cars that were inching toward Canal Street.
    New Orleans basically had nine months of summer, then three months of ugly weather. Very few trees lost their leaves, and the ones that did didn’t turn gorgeous colors first. Just brown. Then an ugly, wet, usually chilly but sometimes depressingly warm and muggy winter. Then a spring that lasted about a week. Then summer again.
    Some of it was beautiful. There was a certain attractive lassitude that came over one after months and months of unrelenting heat. As if keeping up emotional and behavioral standards were too much effort after so many hot months. It broke you through to another place, a place where you acted differently, thought differently, went further and dared more.
    Sophie smiled slightly. She’d written a dissertation on this topic in 1983. It was still fascinating to her. She’d shown that to Ouida, hadn’t she? Ouida would probably enjoy