Firefly Glen yomblod

but anselm did not leave, and skaigona broke further. "don't you think i know that," she asked in a small cry, unable to muster the frustration her words might convey. turning, she allowed anselm to take in the full withering of herself, only her eyes shining like coins in a gutter.
"do you think i want to just disappear, anselm? of course they'd want to see me. i want to see them!" skaigona hiccuped, her last strings of control cut by his insistence that they continue to belabor this agony.
"i want to see gideon. but do you think it's good for him to see me like this? why shouldn't he remember me the way i remember him?"
was she the selfish one? was she the one robbing ezra and gideon of something they needed. "i can't travel. not unless," another pained laugh. not unless she was dragged. carried. 
suppose she died on the way? effort for nothing; no. no.
she'd done enough. she'd taken enough. couldn't this be a gift for her sons?
"what if i lose it, anselm? what if i — what if i hurt one of them? or you? druid — didn't even know what she was doing."
her skin ached with the starvation of touch. "etienne told us that this — it's only passed through bites. sometimes it lives inside you. sometimes you never get ill. but i won't take the chance. i won't. i can't."
desperate, now she was up, but she did not dare approach; she could not bear him turning away from her outstretched hand again in the eleventh hour.