Read To Make Death Love Us for Free Online

around them and they were unaware of it. What
they believed to be so became so, as far as they were concerned.
    Their principal
outing of the year occurred upon the seventh of October. Upon that day, they traveled— largely
afoot, since their attempts to hire a horse-drawn carriage presented great difficulty—to
Westminster Churchyard.
    There they placed a
rose-encrusted wreath upon the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
    They almost never
spoke to the people they passed on the street. Upon occasion they would nod to the verger of
Westminster Church and he would nod in return and wish a good day to Mr. and Mrs. Enoch
Pratt.
    Enoch would regale
his wife on their return journey— back to their home and to the century that was more to their
liking—with the oft-told tale of how it had been his own great-great-great-grandfather who had
long ago pub­lished many of Edgar Allan Poe's works.
    It was from that
same publishing house—printers of textbooks and inspirational works—that the Pratts de­rived
their income, that stipend that allowed them to deny nearly all that had happened in the world since the death of Poe.
    They were both
quite mad but not dangerously so.
    In the year 1940, a
natural thing happened that they could not deny. Mary Pratt became pregnant. She took to her bed
and eventually delivered a baby girl in the same bed it had been conceived in.
    The family doctor,
an old man who loved them in their gentle madness, took Enoch aside and explained a bit more of
the facts of heredity than Enoch, till then, had been aware of. Their child had been born
afflicted with albinoism.
    "And this
albinoism, pray tell, what is its cause?" Enoch Pratt asked.
    "It may be from a
total absence of pigmentation cells, interference with their migration to their intended
loca­tions during development of the embryo, or the lack of the necessary hormonal
stimulation."
    "Ah," said Enos, no
more enlightened than before. "And what is the reason for its appearance?"
    The doctor
hesitated, on the edge of knowledge he was reluctant to reveal. "Consanguinity can figure into it
prominently."
    Enoch smiled rather
coldly. "I see. At least, I think I do. Then you are saying it is a punishment for marrying first
cousin to first cousin?"
    "Not a punishment
but a consequence, perhaps," the doctor said, unruffled in the face of Enoch's own illusion. The
doctor had known them both since they were chil­dren. The truth was, Mary was Enoch's own sister,
not his first cousin. Perhaps it was incest, and their pretence that what had happened did not
happen, that had driven the Pratts into full retreat into another century. In any case, it was
not the doctor's concern; it was the child who had to be dealt with.
    "What special care
must be given to the child?"
    "She lacks the
pigmentation that normally screens against light rays. The sun will be a great danger to her,"
cautioned the doctor.
    A small smile that
might be described as complacent, or even self-satisfied, quirked the corners of Enoch's
mouth.
    "Even her eyes lack
protection. They will be painfully sensitive to light."
    Enoch's smile
broadened.
    "Well, then, what a
perfect place for her to have been born. We rarely leave the house and the shades are nearly
always drawn," he said with rather perfect logic.
    The doctor sighed,
placed his hands on his knees, and stood up. Perhaps Enoch was right. What better place for a
moon child to be born than into a fairy tale?
    When the little one
first opened her eyes in the soft glow of candlelight, they were not much dazzled. They did,
however, sparkle with those red reflections that mark the gaze of the albino. The irises were the
palest of gray and somewhat wispy, like the rings that often surround the autumn moon.
    "Oh, what a love!
What a delight!" Enoch cooed, as his wife smiled softly in the near-dark with equal
delight.
    And in their own
little world, it all seemed right and proper.
     
    In time, the fairy