1. Three of the darkest flowers, which were pressed in a book and displayed on a lavish mahogany nightstand.
2. Only then did she describe the recurring dream, in which his luminous cufflinks gave rise to a series of house fires.
3. "I had wanted to preserve the cold white light that shone that evening. But beneath every door, a little wisp of smoke. The hallway smolders and now my armoire burning in a locked room."
4. Violence.
1. The use of physical coercion.
†2. The relative strength or duration of an emotion.
‡3. An unpleasant or destructive natural force.
5. The unpublished portion of their correspondence, which documents her pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Jude. Despite numerous appeals to divine providence, the lock of hair never appeared beneath her window.
6. Parure. Translated from the French as ornament or embellishment.
7. She told her sisters he had given her the locket, which was wrapped in green paper and tied with a cluster of ostentatious blue ribbons.
8. "The necklace was a relic from the shrine of a saint. In every charm, a white veronica and the most intricately engraved psalm."
9. A little known version of the film, in which the heroine enters a convent. After renouncing all ties with the beloved, she was plagued with visions of fire. Smoke shattering the neat rows of stained glass windows.
10. Her house contained the most elaborate memorial. His cufflinks tarnishing on a white satin pillow.
11. The wilted corsage. Every shrine burned to the ground.
Kristina Marie Darling is a graduate of Washington University. She is the author of eight chapbooks, most recently Night Music (BlazeVox Books, 2008).
