White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

looks, looks right down at her feet.
    She can vaguely sense something now, a greater darkness in the gloom that surrounds them.
    ‘Is that what I think it is?’
    ‘Uh-huh,’ Ferelith says. ‘And all you have to do is lie down in it.’
    ‘No way.’
    ‘That’s your dare.’
    ‘What’s it even doing here?’
    Now she knows what it is, somehow Rebecca can see it more easily. A grave. An open, unused grave, only partially dug, with the spoil from the digging piled to one side, covered in weeds.
    ‘It was being dug at the time the church wall collapsed. For someone from the village, I guess. They never filled it up again. It’s been here for years.’
    ‘I’m not doing it.’
    ‘It’s your dare. That, or the forfeit.’
    Rebecca says nothing.
    ‘Your choice.’
    She thinks.
    ‘For how long?’
    ‘As long as you want. But you have to lie down in it properly.’
    ‘Okay. But if I ruin these jeans you can buy me new ones.’
    ‘Okay. Deal.’
    Rebecca crouches, and then slowly sits down, her feet hanging into the empty space. In reality the grave is not so deep, and she can feel the bottom with her toes.
    She’s about to lower herself in, when Ferelith speaks again.
    ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘There’s one other thing. You ought to see whose grave it is, first.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    And from nowhere Ferelith pulls out a torch, flicking it on and shining it at the head of the grave. The beam plays on something pale there and for a moment Rebecca is blinded.
    She blinks and then she sees what Ferelith is showing her.
    A gravestone.
    A gravestone with a name on it, and a date, and an inscription.
    It reads, In Loving Memory. She Departs This World.
    The date is 13th August 2010.
    The name is Rebecca Case.
    She swears and then swears some more, and drags herself out of the gravehole, the Winterfold, the Norse foldaen, the entrance to the underworld, and she staggers off, away through the graveyard, swearing at Ferelith and starting to cry.
    ‘No!’ she shouts. ‘No way.’
    Ferelith lets her go, but shouts one word after her.
    ‘Forfeit!’ she cries, triumphant. ‘Forfeit!’

The Passion of Lovers
    I picked the right moment, I think.
    And having done that, I also picked up the gravestone and tucked it under my arm, thinking it might be a good idea to take it home.
    It was only two bits of painted cardboard stuck to a thick slab of polystyrene, but I have to admit in the dark it looked pretty good.
    Very realistic.
    I think it did the trick.
     
    I don’t suppose I’ll ever really understand everything that happened that summer. But I guess it had something to do with the way I felt about Rebecca.
    I loved her.
    But I hated her too.

    1798, 10m, 28d.
    Today is the Lord’s day, and I need the Lord’s love and goodness.
    But like an adulterous wife who cannot look her husband in the face, I fear I have sinned beyond all redemption.
    And yet, Lord, I only seek to know your design.
    Is that a crime? To know the world as you have created it, as from the void, from nothing to everything; the sheep, men, trees and rivers, the mountains, women, the grass, wine, potatoes, apples, the birds of the sky, and clouds, and rain, and sun, and yes, Heaven, and angels, and . . .
    And . . . ?
    If you created everything, Lord, then you must have created everything . And everything includes demons. And devils. The Lord of Decay himself. And you must have created Hell.
    Now why, Lord, would you want to do that?
     
    Today is the Lord’s day and I have never felt further from him.
    And yet I must set down here what happened at the Hall last night.
    He came.
    The young man came, past midnight, to the Hall. He spake little, and little did the doctor speak to him, save to ask him, a threetime, whether he truly wanted to know of his future.
    And each time that he was asked, all he did was to use a curse upon the Lord’s name, and looking the doctor in the eye, he gave a nod.
     
    And so this young man has become our first