A WHISPER OF ETERNIT

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He had not been happy with her decision, but, knowing how she loved teaching and how much she loved the children, he reluctantly agreed.

It was the week before Christmas when she came down with a headache that sent her home early from school. When she woke the next morning, she was burning with fever, then shaking with chills.

Dominic came to her late that night.

"Annie?" She heard the anxiety in his voice as he smoothed her hair from her brow. "Dominic'?Is that you?" She opened her eyes but saw only darkness.
"I'm here, sweeting,"he replied softly .

She reached for his hand, clutched it to her breast. "I love you." "And I love you, querida ."

"Have you talked to the doctor?"
He nodded.

"Then you know I'm…"She couldn't say the word. How could she be dying? She had never been sick a day in her life until now .

"Annie, please do not leave me. "
"I don't want to."

"Then stay. Trust me to help you."

"What can you do that the doctor cannot?" she asked, and listened in growing horror as he told her a tale she could not believe.

"No." She shook her head weakly. "Even if what you're saying is true, I can't live like that. "

"Annie, it is the only way!" He caught her up in his arms and buried his face in her hair. "Please, my best beloved one, please do not leave me again!"

She clutched at his shoulders as she felt the life fading from her body. "I think I shall miss you, Dominic, even in heaven."

His voice, calling her name, was the last thing she remembered…

"No!"Tracy woke abruptly, her body bathed in sweat. She glanced at the window, relieved to see that night was withdrawing her cloak from the face of the land.

On the brink of the dark sleep of his kind, he stared into the darkness, his senses filled withTracy . The