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One woman of the village had lain awake, watching the fading wick and flickering flame, touching her fingertips to the melted wax and rolling it to soft putty between them. She had loved the gravedigger as a brother, and she had wept over his senseless death, and she had known... known it could not be long for her. When her companions, her deadly companions, had spoken against her, she had known.
She laid awake in the darkness, watching her light dwindle, feeling the draft through the open window she had been certain to close and lock. She knew. She had heard the call, seen the darkest sliver of night in motion. It was time, and she whispered pretty thoughts, sad thoughts, thoughts of days she could not know to herself with brief clarity of finality.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," she murmured, no fear in her eyes, "creeps in this petty place from day to night and night to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life is nothing. This too brief life is nothing; fleeting and bitter and cruel. We are all but walking shadows."
She looked to her ceiling and let her eyes close. A soft tendril breath of breeze unlit her candle, and as the dark came, so did her long goodnight.
When the village awoke, their sweet Roa was not amongst them.
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