Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

The next morning I woke with my head full of scrag-ends of dreams.

On the whole I am inclined to think that a witch should not kiss. Perhaps it is the not being kissed that makes her a witch; perhaps the source of her power is the breath of loneliness around her. She who takes a kiss can also die of it, can wake into something unimaginable, having turned herself into some new species.

Once there was a stranger who half smiled as he told me the worst thing he had done in his life, and then something worse than that, and then something even worse. I let him talk all night; I never said a word of judgment. His eyes flickered on my face as he talked, as if searching for something. The sky lightened and I was still watching him. My eyes moved nearer to the cliff edge, and just as the sun was coming up the stranger let himself fall into the pointed waves.