Virtual Author Readings / Podcasts

Laurentian Mountains, Québec, 1988

Mirabelle Beauchamp knelt by her husband’s gravestone in the small cemetery. The wind whisked the crisp autumn leaves in small eddies around her. She looked up, listening, and tensed for flight. Did I just hear a howl in the woods?

It didn’t sound like the local shifter clan. Probably a pack passing through the mountains on the way to their winter residence. Nothing to worry about.

She looked back at the gravestone and traced Jacques’ name on the marker.

“Three years,” she whispered. “Why did it end this way?” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and pulled her long coat around her middle.

Her friends in Montreal didn’t understand. They thought she should have buried her husband in the city. But her best memories of her husband came from this village in northern Québec. Their walks through the little streets, the dances at the parish hall. The times before things got bad.

She rested her head on Jacques’ gravestone, her shoulder-length brown bob falling over her face, shutting her off from the world.

“I’m trying to move on, but I can’t,” she whispered. “Damn you!” There was still a giant hole in her chest where her heart used to be. She wondered how it wasn’t visible from the outside.

The little town was her refuge these days. The villagers made it a point to check in on her. Pushing herself to become involved in the community eased the grief and anger a little.

“I’ve been trying to keep busy, but it’s not working. I’m spinning around with nothing to hang onto.”   . . .