About Le Ankou

by Lydia Nyx
15 pages / 3500 words
Ebook zipped file contains - html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub

In old world Brittany, Mael Le Calvès lives in despair after the loss of his lover Donan to consumption. Mael contracts the disease as well, and one cold night, has a near death experience. On the other side, he discovers Donan is the parish Ankou, the Bretton death servant collecting the dying in a spectral cart. Mael is revived, but after seeing his lover, is determined to reunite with him.

Mael attempts suicide repeatedly, but is saved by well-meaning people. Fearing he will never see his lover again, he stumbles from his home on New Year's Eve night in the hopes his grief, if not his death, will allow him to see Donan one last time.

Sample

The figure on the seat rose, dressed in a long black cloak, reins gathered in delicate, pale hands. Mael knew those fingers, slender but strong, graceful but powerful. One hand lifted and drew back the hood.

Mael sighed in relief to see what he had seen in the winter -- Donan's face, ghastly white as his hands, beautiful nonetheless. He had high cheekbones, a rounded chin, and a strong nose, his exquisite features framed by thick, dark hair, draped upon his narrow shoulders. His lean, sinewy body disappeared in the baggy folds of the cloak. His eyes had once been deep blue, like the sky just after sunset, though now a white film like a cataract covered them and added to the blankness of his ghostly face. He looked much as he had when he'd died -- frail, sickly, but always the essence of him, the beauty Mael had fallen in love with so many summers ago on the banks of the Vilaine, remained just behind the shadow.

For a moment Donan's expression stayed passive. Then recognition filled his otherworldly features and his plump lips, tinted blue, opened in a gasp. His brow furrowed, what emotion he could express in his dead eyes passing through the white film.

"Mael," he said, his voice like the wind in the trees. "I have met you once already this year."

"You have." Mael tried to step toward the cart, but as before, found he could not move his feet, if they were there at all. "And last time I was snatched back from you. This time, you will take me away on your cart and we shall go off into the darkness together."