When Emily awoke, the morning light was just beginning to break through the thick cover of the forest.

'Strange', she thought, 'I don't feel cold, but I must have fallen asleep. What an awful dream!'

Then she looked about for the satchel, but it was gone - and so was he. It wasn't a dream; it had actually happened - for then she saw the body...

Her body - sprawled under the old oak tree. Horrified, Emily took a closer look at the corpse, at the nasty looking wound on its head.

On her head. She quickly lifted a hand (a phantom hand?) upward. The wound was there also - she could feel it - but it didn't hurt…

With a shaking hand, she reached for her throat and then to her breast to feel for a pulse, a heartbeat - any kind of assurance that she was - somehow - still alive.

But there was none: she was dead - undeniably and incontestably ... dead.

Emily screamed - in terror ... denial ... broken-hearted anger. Her 'wonderful man' Bart … (the bastard!) … had robbed her and killed her. It was only her money he had wanted all along...

In that bitter moment, she saw him for what he truly was - and she had loved him.

Daddy had been right.

She screamed again, a raw cry of grief, and disappointment, and loss. Emily closed her eyes and wailed - for what seemed to be forever - until she heard the dry husky feminine voice behind her.

"If you keep that up, miss, you'll wake up all the dead..."

She snapped her eyes open, and whirled about.

Standing close to her was a very short, stout, friendly looking lady … or something that had been a very short, stout, friendly looking lady - for her visitor was as dead as she now was. Deader, in fact - if such a thing were possible - for this woman's decay had already started.

The girl shivered.

"My name is Plum," the dead lady said. "The Elder sent me to fetch you... "

Emily shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere - I'm not ready to die yet."

"Most folks aren't," Plum sighed. "They're not ready to go... But it's your time, dear."

"I'm not going," Emily insisted. "I'm not going until ... until..."

"Until…?" prompted Plum.

"Until I get married!" Emily cried. "Until my true love comes to marry me. And to take me away from this place!"

Then she quieted and a serious expression came across her face.

"Not until then," she vowed. "I'll wait here forever, always, if I have to. Until that happens."

"Oh, no, child," Plum warned. "Don't say that. Don't wish for that..."

"I do. I swear," Emily said.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt faint and very tired. She had to sit down next to the tree and then, when her strength had ebbed further, she toppled over onto her own lifeless body.

"I swear," Emily mumbled, "to remain here till the end of time until my true love comes ... to take me as his bride ... and to set me free."

Plum looked on in horror as the girl faded before her eyes. "No, not like this… " The dead woman whispered.

Then the last of Emily's strength left her and she felt herself sink into the deepest sleep she had ever known.

The years passed while Emily slept...