Handfast

By John Burke

Handfast is a supernatural tale by British fantasist John Burke.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Jul 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781479465163

John Burke

John Burke and his wife, Kathy, founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, in 1998. Since then, Gateway has grown to over 3,000 people, 70 percent of whom are in their twenties and thirties, and consists mostly of unchurched people who began actively following Christ at Gateway. Burke is also the author of No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture in the Church.

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

HANDFAST

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1998 by John Burke.

Reprinted with the permission of the Cosmos Literary Agency.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

Wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

HANDFAST

JOHN BURKE

He waited. A decorous month after Rachel’s death before going to bed with Marion.

It was a rather unnecessary formality. That first week he had felt winded, with a sort of sick emptiness in the guts; but he had no cause to feel guilty. There was no question of a heartbroken Rachel committing suicide because she sensed him reneging on their covenant. The explosion which killed her had been due simply to a faulty gas cooker in her kitchen. If he had been with her that evening, he might have been killed as well. He spent a few pensive, nostalgic evenings looking back over what had been and might have been, and then shook himself out of it and allowed himself to succumb to Marion.

It was only a fancy, a guilt he had no reason to feel, that in his head he should hear Rachel’s accusation: You ought to have waited. The year’s not up yet.

She had been so beautiful, yet so difficult. Marion wasn’t difficult. Marion was easy and insatiable. Very good for a man’s morale. He could hardly be expected to honour a pledge laid down by someone who was no longer alive to fulfil her own part of it.

Marion opened her legs, threshed madly in his arms, and raved words and non-words in his ears. Enough to drown out that ridiculous reproach: The year’s not up yet.

After that first