They found her body in the lavender fields out back. Bees trailed through the towering stems..Her eyes were shut tight and the pale golden light of the setting sun cast a peaceful glow across her slight figure. A faint scar sat upon her glowing skin, above her right eyebrow. Her lips were colored like berries, and her lashes were blossoming lilies. She wore a ragged, white dress, silken and smooth. Lace aged gray from wear clung to the hem. I thought it was something that I might see on the black and white actresses of the film noir screens. It was a dress to hypnotize and enchant, a siren dress to poison and ensnare victim men. I imagined the cool passion, leading the benighted man, overcome with sensory data, to throw it off carelessly, to settle in a swell of fabric at the foot of the bed. I heard the distant sound of the wind caressing the hills, weaving its way through our town.
Must be poison, for I’ve never seen anyone who looked so peaceful and dead at the same time.
