They lay together, her cold skin against his warm flesh.

"Don't take my memory away from me this time," he said. "Please."

"You don't know what you ask." Her breath was cold in his ear, like Rebecca's.

"I can't go back to being alone. I can't lose you."

When her next words poured into his ear, they carried more than sound, they flowed inside him like a transfusion of spiritual essence. "I wish that were true, my love."

"Why wouldn't it be true?"

There was no answer. No cold skin against his.

Jerrold opened his eyes. When had he closed them? Had it all been a dream?

He sat up. He was in the abandoned elementary school, alone and naked. The hearth held only embers, barely enough to see by. He rose at once and went to the door, throwing it open heedless of who might be out there.

There was no one.

Indeed, every cook pot was gone from the abandoned school cafeteria. Dishwater gray light slanted in from broken windows, the first feeble hints of dawn. Birds sang outside. A shaft of morning light slanted across the chamber. It touched on a foot. A foot?

Jerrold took a step closer.

It was Rebecca. She lay in pieces, like a broken china doll in a pool of dark blood, her seductress smile replaced by an open-mouthed scream.

Feeling cold and disoriented, Jerrold looked away and tried not to see or think about what he had just seen. Regardless, though, images replayed in his brain--things he hadn't remembered until now. Charlotte and Rebecca fighting like two crazed animals, tearing at each other, biting, clawing. How quick it had been, how powerful. Charlotte had torn her opponent apart, breaking her like a toy.

He took a shuddering breath.

She'd done it to protect him, or to take vengeance for harming him. What a strange thought. He smiled. Meek Charlotte had become powerful.

He got dressed. Three of the buttons were missing from the shirt. He laughed then, remembering the impatience that Charlotte, his luminous white beast of a wife, had shown with his efforts to undo them. He checked for his wallet, pulled it out and looked through it. He wasn't sure why he did that, exactly, but that was when he found the note.

Dearest Jerrold,

By now you have figured out that our marriage was not real. You never loved me, but I, by magic, held you in thrall.

Every year I cast the spell and hoped the enchantment would last, but always it faded. Thinking to discover a more potent charm, I learned to cast spells myself. While I did not succeed in making the permanent love spell I needed to keep you, I did well enough to gain the attention of the sweet witches. They offered to make me one of their own. They said the process would enhance and complete my power.

In life I was always selfish. This was never more clear to me than when you said I gave you love unselfishly, for I knew I'd taken your love against your will. In death I have attempted to remedy that failing. I don't think the other witches expected me to grow powerful enough to rule them, but I did. I took charge of the New Orleans covens. Under my rule, sweet witches do not kill humans. We take at most twelve years of their lives.

Chocolate was the key, that most powerful of plant-based magical medicines. Through its use we can enhance the potency of what we take, so we need less. We also preserve blood's mysterious power, so it can be saved and eaten whenever the desire to feed comes upon us.

It seems that the power of my last charm lingered over you longer than I expected. I hope you'll forgive me for taking advantage of its magic one last time. In exchange, I have restored three years of twelve I've taken from you. Of all the life energy swirling inside me, yours is what gives me the desire to go on working to make sweet witches a more civilized people.

With Eternal Love, Charlotte.

He stared at the note, read it a second time, then wiped his eyes. He couldn't have lost her, not after all he'd been through to find her again.

You never loved me.

Jerrold rubbed his eyes, blinked, and stared at the words again. They made sense in a way. Until he'd met Charlotte, he'd always been attracted to adventurous, strong women. Girls who liked the out of doors, the wilderness, and an element of danger.

Charlotte had been a homebody, a cook, a kitchen dweller. They'd laughed at how unlikely a couple they'd been. He'd always assumed that she'd triggered some desire in him to settle down. But that hadn't been it at all, had it?

I, by magic, held you in thrall. Every year I cast my spell and hoped the enchantment would last, but always it faded.

The chocolate rose, the cursed chocolate rose. She hadn't spent all that money on her baking supplies after all. No. Instead, it had been love spells, bought from "Charms of Blood and Bone" with a drop of his blood. Every year, when the spell wore off, he'd no longer felt in love with her and been ready to leave her.

A memory stung him, vivid and so uncannily real. The remembered pain of a blade along his wrist, the remembered softness of Charlotte's lips when she sealed the wound. He'd been to her chocolate-making ritual before. Until now, until this night, it had been locked away inside his head. Forgotten. Hidden by magic.

Jerrold sat again on the floor, naked and shaking.

All the years she'd stolen from him, not only by means of love charms, but--but--actual years of his life. Nine if he did the math correctly. She'd taken twelve of them on that first night of ritual and restored three of them last night.

And now, even now, all he could think of was how badly he wanted another bite of one of those chocolate roses.