Her shoes fell from her feet and dropped to the floor. Her feet were bare and sticky. She was dappled with crumbs which looked like ordinary remnants from a crust of bread, but there was a light from them. She was filled with sweetness, sweating honey, honey dripping from her pores, honey dabbing her forehead and capturing her hair, honey making her simple clothes darken from within. Her eyes were closed, but honey dripped down her cheeks like tears. He looked below her and saw many slow viscous drops falling from her body as she floated waist high above the floor, reclining with the firm dignity of the righteous dead, but she, his wife, his consort, was, of course, alive.
The drops from her body fell slowly toward the floor, but as they fell, they spread and lightened and dissipated until they were no longer gold but took on the color of the air, thinning in slow curls of light so that there was nothing of them left to hit the floor. In vision, he slowly reached out and let his fingers pass beneath her to catch a drop before it was lost. He tested his fingers with his mind’s tongue. The taste was there. Sarah knew honey. He was sure of it.
He was leaning heavily against his horse, but had reached the forted-in house. He took one more step and fumbled with the gate as the horse breathed heavily into the back of his coat. He opened it to Timothy and Eunice chasing chickens while their older sister Esther gave instructions from the kitchen door. They ran to him. Refuge. He hugged both of the little ones at the same time while they blinked in mild surprise, then kissed Esther before he led his desperate beast to drink. A bristled bug dropped from the saddle and lit on the edge of the trough. He saw it rise again before the water spilled by a thrust of the horse’s great-lipped mouth.
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