Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 12

Love
By Jim King

life, the men she must choose between tonight, the one
who would make her a woman and the one she would
never see again.

Sally Ann clutched her thin cotton nightdress tightly
around her so it didn’t tangle her legs as she walked
across the yard. She was sixteen now but her father
still made her wear a nightdress like a little child.
Wasn’t proper for a girl to dress like some city tart, he
would say. If only she was brave enough to run away,
but perhaps when she chose tonight things would be
different. She hurried across the yard, little puffs of
dried dust thrown up behind her bare feet as she hurried toward the barn.

The wooden door squealed as it opened, hinges that
hadn’t felt the touch of grease or oil for years heralding her entry to the shadows within, the smell of old
straw and rotting timbers wafting out to greet her like
a memory of childhood games of hide and seek.
The barn was lit by columns of silver moonlight that
streamed down from the windows set in the steep
pitched roof. Sparkles floated across the moonbeams
as dust drifted gently in the air.

The full moon had risen above the fields of waving
grass and summer corn like an ocean of silver flowing across the land. The walls of the old wooden barn
seemed to gleam in the wane light like some palace
out of the tales of fantasy. Tonight she would choose.
Tonight she had to pick between them, and then her
life would change forever.
She reached the side door and paused then ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair. She had to look her
best for them, the two men who were the centre of her

Two men stood in the barn, facing each other but
standing as far apart as it was possible to do in the
length of the barn, each by accident or design standing
in the shadows away from the moonlight.
At the back of the barn stood a tall muscular man, by
look in his mid-twenties, his light brown hair tousled

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