Double-Click Flash Fic by Maya Sokolovski Page B

Our only servant here, a maid residing in the nearby village, is awake and preparing breakfast as
Maman
and I walk in with our luggage. While my mother sits at the breakfast table and converses with the maid, I drift, as if in a daze, up the staircase and into my bedroom, where I slip into bed, still dressed in my outer clothes, and fall into a deep sleep as morning light streams in through the curtains.

    I awake some hours later. It is noon in summer, and I think only of leaving the drafty cottage to walk by the river. At my mother’s insistence, I bathe and change into a walking dress. I am not at all hungry, but the maid coaxes me into eating a lunch of onion soup. The meal finished, I rush out the door and down the path. At last I reach the river, and see Luc already there, skipping stones and joking with his sister. He doesn’t see me. Suddenly shy – I have not seen him since last summer – I slow down and watch as he plunges into the water.
    “Percy!” A shriek. His sister has spotted me.
    “Hello, Édith,” I mumble.
    Luc, still in the water, turns to look. He smiles and begins to wade out of the river.
    All of a sudden, I notice a scarlet flower growing in a bush by the riverbank. I draw closer, and see a dewdrop glistening on a petal which is like a soft lip.
    “
Salut
, Percy!” Luc calls out to me, and I say “Hello,” too, but my gaze is fixed on the flower. I reach out for it; I touch the petal with my fingertip. The dewdrop slides off the petal and onto the ground; I close my fingers around the stem. I pluck the flower and bring it to my nose; I inhale.
    A rumble of thunder sounds in the distance, and, as I look out to the lake, I see a strange vision: a dark figure atop a horse rising out of the waters, the animal rending the lake surface asunder under its hooves in a display of fury and ferocity. The face of the horseman is a terror of black hair and lupine teeth as he races towards me. I drop the flower and turn to run, but he catches me and pulls me onto his steed. I am writhing with fear, the sound of my own screams and the neighs of the horse filling my ears. As the horseman turns back to the river, I see Luc running to us, yelling insults at my assailant and jumping to catch hold of my hand. I am still screaming, tears flowing down my cheeks, heart throbbing against my ribs. The horseman yanks me away from Luc’s grasp and grabs him by the hair.
    “Luc! Percy!” Édith cries.
    “Édith! Run for help,
vite!
” I call to her, but she is too frightened to move.
    As the horse strides into the river, the horseman drags Luc beside him, then thrusts his head under the water. Luc struggles against the horseman’s hand, but soon stops resisting. His body goes limp. His head turns down. My eyes wide with horror, I weep for my beloved friend. The horseman lets out a roar of a laugh; the accursed flower is in his hand and he twists it into my hair. I am too weak with grief to resist him any longer. Slowly, we descend into the waters, and the last thing I see before losing consciousness is Luc’s face, his eyes an icy, piercing blue.

My Boyfriend, Boss like the Mob
    W hen I finally gave in to my feelings, after he had courted and pampered me with such patience, I fell head over heels in love as if into a bottomless pit. Which is why, one day, I filched a photograph from his desk while he was in the other room. Later, when I was alone at home in my bedroom, I lay on the carpeted floor and held the photo in my hands level with my eyes. I looked at it intently. The photo was black and white. It showed him when he was younger, 20 maybe. He had a sweater on, he was outside, there was snow on the ground, and he was playing a guitar. I could play guitar. I was the same age now as he looked to be in the photo then.
    In the photo, his lips were pursed and he was squinting a bit, caught mid-song with the sunlight hitting his face. His hair was longer, fluffed up and slicked back in a rockabilly style. His