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Right after it happened, after my father stopped swinging the hatchet, after I passed out, I woke to a quiet room. I took in my stumps. They were a perfect cross-section, the oblong of bone and the burgundy muscle and the surprising yellow circle of fat. Perfect biology. Perfect fitting-together of cells and marrow and meat. Almost like it was planned that way.
Through the fog, I sensed one of the wives slide the skin of my arms up, like the casing around sausage, and slip heavy stitches through the skin with waxed embroidery thread. The tug of each black, stitched X spelled something out in my mind: the Prophet wanted to keep me alive. The wedding would go ahead as planned.
Two of my father’s wives, Mabel and Vivienne, edged into the room sometime later, opening the door hesitantly, as though uncertain whether they’d find me alive or dead. I followed Mabel’s young face, her forehead pleated, to her hand where she held a wooden cup.
Vivienne made a choking sound and clamped her fingers over her mouth and nose. The blood covering the floor hadn’t been cleaned, though it had thickened beneath me and begun to smell like hours-old meat.
I kept my eyes lidded. I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know I was alive yet.
Mabel knelt near me, holding out the cup of green liquid, steaming in the chill air.
“The Prophet says drink this,” she whispered.
“Well, she won’t drink it now,” Vivienne chided.
“Fine. Hold her mouth open while I pour.”
At that moment, I lifted my head. They jumped back with gasps, their eyes stretched as though I was a reanimated corpse. The idea pulled a laugh from my lungs and threw the laugh into the air where it hung awkwardly, certain there had been some mistake, it couldn’t possibly belong in a place like this.
“She’s nuts,” Vivienne said.
“She’s lost so much blood,” Mabel said.
“She’s always been half-witted. Half crazy.”
“It’s in her blood.”
“Hush, Mabel! Hold her head.”
Vivienne pulled my jaws apart with rough, muscular hands. I couldn’t taste the liquid. I was too consumed with sensing that pain, that redness, that absence of fingers, that wanting to dig my fingers into a face and pull someone’s eyes out.
The liquid, whatever it was, wasn’t enough to keep me completely asleep. Again and again, I woke and passed out when the pain crashed down on top of me.
Once, I cracked open my eyes to see the outline of a woman crouching in the shadows. My mother. She wasn’t looking at me. In her hands was one of my hands, stiffening and already blue touched. Slowly, she bent the fingers back and stroked the palm, making a face like she was crying. Small noises escaped her mouth.
When I woke again, the hands were gone.
I stared at the corner where they’d been, my eyes growing blurry from tears, and it struck me as utterly pointless, the most pointless thing I’d ever do again. Cry because they were gone, wish they’d never been taken.
At that moment, waves of light spiraled around the room, so bright I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, the lights were dissolving and a boy stood over me. He was tall and wore jeans and a button-fronted shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his head tilted to the side to look at me. I remember little of his face except for two sharp, green eyes.
“Charlie?” I croaked.
Without a sound, he took a step closer. I noticed his shoes made no impression in the blood. They hovered an inch above the ground.
“L-look what they did to me,” I cried. Tears came fast down my face again. I held out my stumps. “Look!”
He kneeled near me, staring with his too-green eyes from my stumps to my face. The pupils were intelligent, but in a removed way, like camera lenses. They twitched side to side almost imperceptibly.
“Well, help me!” I shouted. “They’ll be back! Help me!”
His features didn’t change, expressionless and calm, as though he wasn’t really in the room at all, as though this was only a projection of him.
And then he moved, reaching out a hand and placing it near my forehead. From each finger shot a dozen beams of light slanting in every direction. I thought he’d touch me, and with the touch heal me. Give me back what was mine. But he only held his hand there, then stood and slid it back inside his jeans pocket. I stared at him in disbelief. On his hovering feet, he turned and began to walk away.
“Don’t go!” I cried. “Come back, please!”
But he kept walking. He opened the front door and let it fall shut behind him. The room grew dark again, and I felt every scrap of hope I had fall through my body like water out a pipe. My arms began to shake.
“I HATE YOU!” I bellowed. “I HAAAAAAATE YOU!”
I screamed my throat raw. Mabel and Vivienne hurried back into the room and shoved the liquid down my throat again. I thrashed for a moment, still trying to scream, but gave in because I knew there was no longer any reason to fight.