VII | The Widow
It was as he’d hoped. The man’s wife was still awake ... sitting as though mummified by a modest hearth—her blank face become the forum for the flickering firelight. Nor did she run or even gasp—indeed, she seemed not to notice him standing there in the shadows at all, at least not at first. At length she must have noticed the amber gleam of his eyes, and said: “Why have you come?”
He stepped from the inky darkness and knelt before her.
“I have come to atone,” he said.
“He is dead, then.”
“Yes.”
She sat by the fire and said nothing. At last she asked, “How did you find us?”
“Branigan is small, madam ... I made inquiries. But that is not important. What is important is—”
“Atonement,” she interrupted. “Closure.”
Dravidian hesitated. “More than that. Will you submit t
