Red Rose ends with an epilogue. It's my first epilogue and more the kind of vignette I have missed writing for A Fine and Private Place. I have made it a cycle, or I hope I have. I believe the reader will know after all that Rose, the watcher at the window, has done that of course she will follow Jude and Scarlet into the wilderness, and there the calamity will begin, culminating to crisis once more.
The fullness of summer had waned and all was still in the old house as the first autumnal rust curled the edges of the surrounding trees. One figure moved in the old house. She kept the fire glowing, an inviting flicker to tired or curious passersby. A long braid hung comfortably over one shoulder as she lit each taper along the wall with a long match.
She extinguished the match with a blow, leaving the smoke to curl in the near-darkness. She was perfectly still, listening.
Outside of the old house, a figure made his way around the perimeter. His was a shabby form, careworn. He led an ill-kept horse behind him. He did not come to the door of the estate but continued to move through the overgrown lawn toward the orchard.
A hundred years had passed since a glass coffin had been installed at the base of the oldest apple tree. It was partially sunken into the ground, entwined with roots. In the coffin was a maiden, carefully arranged in a fine dress, her bloodless features as unchanging as those of a statue. Her hair had been arranged carefully, had grown in a hundred years to trail around the sides of her pallet and mass beneath her head and shoulders, curled like vines and black as pitch.
The passerby went to the coffin directly and knelt. He had a belt of tools which he removed and splayed upon on the ground. He began unhitching the coffin lid from its fastenings. He was as silent and inwardly-focused as the woman in the coffin. He opened the lid, which creaked painfully.
Without the separation of glass the fragility of the woman’s gown was all the more apparent. An antique preserved behind glass, it was impossible to think of touching her—but the raider did not hesitate.
As soon as his hands came down upon her, her antique eyes flew wide, terrifying glass eyes that saw nothing. Her rubicund mouth trembled in frenzy. Her impossibly long and slender fingers curled around his shoulders, feeling along him as a blind woman searching her way through a dark room. She clutched at him as he clutched at her.
He lifted her from the coffin, cradling her easily, and she curled around him willingly, still touching his face in identification and wonder. All at once her neck slenderized like a bird’s, she lifted to him and put her lips upon him, sank her teeth into his throat and drank deeply.
The immortal turned, undaunted, held the longing parasite carefully as he took her back to his horse, urged her from his wounded throat and settled her upon the horse’s back. She curled there as willingly as she had upon him. She stared at him as entranced as entrancing.
Jude took a moment to remove some medical implements from his saddlebag and repair his damaged throat. He made Scarlet once more secure upon the horse’s back, mounted up behind her, and took off with her across the lawn, urging the horse into a canter. The tools he left forgotten near the dismantled glass coffin.
As they rode away together, the pace ever more frantic, the figure in the house crept to the window to look after them, one hand delicately peeling away the thin curtain.