Accepting the bitterness of that truth steels me against all compassion. My newly opened heart slams shut with an iron clang, and is sealed with a lock that has no key. Once more I am cold and unfeeling, as bloodless as the plants I have preferred to humans all my life.

Now, at last, I am ready to kill.

Soon a man in a long dark coat and odd hat approaches; when he reaches the crossing he pauses and addresses me. “Repent, friend,” he warns. “The heavens are filled with omens, and sin runs rampant on the earth.”

The sun disappears, blotted out by the dark wings of a raven that circles overhead.

“Repent,” the preacher says again, with a nervous glance upward. “Repent, for the end is near.”

“Nearer than you know,” I reply. I tackle him to the ground and drag him behind the hedge where we cannot be seen from the road.

“Do not rob me, sir! I have nothing—repent! Repent!” His ceaseless chatter makes it easy to slip the poison between his lips. He gags, then swallows, and looks at me, aghast, confused. Then the convulsions begin.

I close my eyes and pin him to the ground as the life thrashes out of his body. I hold fast, and soon the flesh beneath my hands is soft, yielding, springy as wool.

I feel the gorge rise in my throat. As I was once sickened at the thought of eating a carrot, now I am revulsed by taking a human life. I think of Jessamine—how glad she would be to know that, and how much she would hate me if she knew what I have done.

Forgive me, my beloved, I am doing this for you—

I look down. It is no preacher at all. It is a young ewe that I imprison in my murderous hands, plump and covered with fleece.

Have I gone mad? I close my eyes, then look again. It is the preacher, eyes bulging, wordlessly begging for mercy.

“What is it that I kill?” I cry in despair.

Does it matter? The answer comes back, soothing, seductive, reasonable beyond measure. Death is death. If your victim lives, Jessamine dies. If it dies, she lives. Since all lives are of equal value, what difference does it make which one you save?

KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

A raw, cruel cry fills the air—is it me who screams? Or the raven?

I release my prey and stand. The convulsions have stopped, but the preacher is not yet dead. He pants and flops about on the ground, helpless as a fish as the paralysis spreads through his body, and stares at me, wild-eyed with fear.