He was gone.

It happened so quickly, Desdemona was, for a fleeting moment, unsure he had ever been there to begin with. But no, that could not be true—even aside from her obvious emotional state (his fault), she could still feel his presence in the room: she knew it as well as she knew her own.

Even as they had left her, the witch had regretted her words, and now as she stood, wide-eyed and mouth agape as she stared at the place her husband had been an instant ago, Dezzie had but one question in her mind: what in the hell had possessed her?!

He was gone. Would he come back? Of course he would, the rational part of her insisted. He was her husband. Husbands came back. But this was in a sensible world, the wildness inside protested her, a world in which wives were kind and didn’t chase them away.

Desdemona sank to her knees and cried.