dark fantasy short story / "But the children died gently, in their sleep."

I'm looking for a dark fantasy short story that I believe I read online within the past five years; it felt like a fairly modern story to me, so it probably was a recent publication.

It was about a very ugly woman who lived in a coastal city that was tormented with a terrible plague, like a long and painful wasting sickness with no known cause and no cure. Because the woman was ugly, she lived her life unwanted and alone, until she suffered a rape that left her inadvertently pregnant with her beloved daughter Pearl. But Pearl eventually caught the wasting sickness and in the woman's desperation to save her daughter she fought against Death, but failed and watched her daughter die.

The woman then began endlessly roaming the streets of the city and fishing for endless hours in sea, casting wider and wider fishnets that kept hauling up heavier and heavier loads, making her body become stronger and stronger. When she same across her rapist again, one night in the city, she wrestled him effortlessly to the ground and snapped his neck, and she knew she was ready to fight with Death again. But Death laughed at her even as she won their battle, and the task of being Death was passed to her. And she dealt with the deaths of every city inhabitant pitilessly and well, but the children who caught the sickness died gently and without pain, in their sleep.

Does this summary ring a bell with anyone? Thanks!

I remember reading it in print, I'm guessing ten plus years ago, and unfortunately I don't remember who wrote it or which book it was in. If I had to guess, I'd pick one of these two authors: Robin McKinley or Orson Scott Card. Maybe this will help ring some bells for someone.

I found a summary of McKinley's stories here (link) and a summary for the anthology she edited here (link) and nothing seems to match this plot. I got all excited for a moment over spotting the title of McKillip's story, 'The Old Woman and the Storm,' in the anthology, but while it does have an ugliest old woman in it, it doesn't have any other similarities.

Card might be a stronger likelihood. I'm not well-read in him, and he's a prolific writer.

Well, I had a few spare minutes, so I glanced through the four OSC anthologies that I had. That's only a bit of his output, as you noted he's a prolific writer and many of his short stories are rather macabre which is what made me think of him. The story wasn't there, but as I was putting the last one back, I coincidentally saw Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress collection.

OK, it wasn't coincidence, I shelve alphabetically by author within categories, so it was the next shelf up. It occurred to me that the story could be in one of those, and probably one of the earlier ones (the writers got more professional the farther you go in the collection.)

Sure enough, your story was in Sword and Sorceress IV. It's Death and the Ugly Woman by Bruce D. Arthurs, copyrighted 1987. I think the S and S books are still reasonably easy to find. Enjoy.

Edited to add the touchstone for the series, which I was unsuccessful at. Instead, here's the LT link: http://www.librarything.com/series/Sword+and+Sorceress

Thank you! I'm so very glad you had a better sense of where you read it and when than I did!!