Read Online Love Is Red by Sophie Jaff - Free Book Online Page A

vision trembles. My breath catches in my chest.
    My phone lights up. I wipe my eyes and look. There’s a new message for me. I don’t recognize the number but I know whom it’s from. He’s sent me a message.
    It’s short, six words. It should be a question but it’s not. He knows I’ll say yes.
    There was no expression in her eyes. Her eyes were blank.
    Her eyes were dead.
    Don’t be stupid. You’ve had too much to drink. It’s those women you’ve been hearing about. The ones with their throats slit.
    It’s probably a very elaborate prank, a very, very elaborate prank, or it could have been performance art—maybe I’ll read about it tomorrow. Just go to sleep. Don’t think about it now. Don’t indulge in this. Think about it tomorrow, like Scarlett O’Hara.Think about it when it’s daytime, when it’s light, not raining and dark. Maybe it will make a good scary story, maybe I won’t tell anyone ever, maybe I just thought I saw—
    A naked woman standing in the rain. Red curving circles on her neck and down her side and above her breasts.
    I’m cold. I take half of one of my little white pills. I really need to sleep. “Stop it,” I tell myself aloud. My voice sounds small and strained.
    I get into bed as quickly as I can. I’m shivering even though it’s a warm night.
    They were bleeding because they were cuts carved into her skin, just like on the other women they found.
    Once in bed, I look at my phone, now charging on the bedside table. I look at the message again, the message from a man who watched me dress, an arrogant man, a man who clearly isn’t loyal to his friends. I don’t know how he got my number but he did. I think of David saying, “The guy’s a genius.”
    I read his message again.
    Sushi tomorrow at Otoro 9:00 pm
    No question mark. It’s an order, not a question. It’s a presumption. Well, there’s no need to go. I shut my eyes and wait for the little white pill to work. The rain continues to fall. It falls on the streets, and the cars and the trees. Water streams and pools and whirls into the gutters. The rain continues on, late into the night.
    Falling on no one at all.

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    The Maiden of Morwyn Castle | PART TWO
    HEN THE WORD SPREAD OF THE Maiden’s wondrous brew, people came from miles around to taste her ale, and they came in such great numbers that she toiled both night and day. And as she stirred she sang a little song with the voice of a lark:
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    Now gold may turn beggars to servants, then masters,
    And honey may sweeten a brew,
    But I’d rather your kisses than all the king’s riches,
    For there’s none so sweet as you.
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    And all the men were dazzled and proclaimed themselves to be in love and tried to win her favor, but she would laugh and make no promise to any of them, no matter what they said. The wives of the town grew weary and the young women sore of heart, for their menfolk no longer courted nor worked because they were always to be found at the tavern, giving posies and pretty compliments to theMaiden, who brewed and sang and looked so well, and then the men would fall, steeped in drink and fighting among themselves, into a noisy heated brawl.
    And so the alewife who had been bested by the Maiden gathered the women of the town together and spoke to them, saying, “Perhaps she is a witch, for surely she has bewitched our men and made them her dogs.” All the women grew to hate her and wished her far away.
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6
    You have taken to riding public transport.
    It is a thing you have not done for a long, long time, but then again you’ve only just woken up. You’ve been awakened and you’ve risen and you’re hungry to experience everything, the fumes, the smoke and perfumes, the bright and bitter scents. The taxis, and buses, and subways, the slick passing of the cards in the slots, the streets pulsing with