The next are at my hairline, the blade digging into the tender flesh of my forehead and scalp. I squeeze my eyes shut as it drips over my brows and down the bridge of my nose. I’m breathing hard, biting down on my tongue to keep from making noise because I have felt worse, and I will feel worse. The point is not the pain; it is the blood. Symbolic flagellation, symbolic crown of thorns, and now all I need is to wash the blood in the river, and it will all be over.
Reverend Brother Ward looks to Mom, as if asking her a question. What kind of answer does he need? He’s done hundreds of these. Please, just get it over with. Let this be over with. I can’t breathe. I’m shaking. Let this end.
Mom says, “Seraph will heal her. Do it.”
Theo says, “Wait, what’s happening?” and Ward grabs me by the left wrist and plunges the blade through my palm.
It doesn’t hit all at once. At first, it’s a crushing weight slamming down on my hand, like the world has been dropped onto it, then something wedging all the little bones apart, and then the pain of it finally snaps, and I scream.
“The sinful blood has been let!” Reverend Brother Ward cries, pulling out the blade, still shiny with my blood, and handing it off to Brother Tipton. This wasn’t supposed to happen, what is happening, what the fuck is happening—”You have felt half the pain of Jesus just as you, blessed Seraph, will follow in His footsteps and continue our journey toward God.”
I stare at the black hole in my hand, just like the black hole in Dad’s head, streaming rot-tinged blood into the river. I think I’m screaming, but I’m not sure because I can’t hear a thing besides the howling of the river, the howling of the monster between the trees, and the howling of Reverend Brother Ward.
“Let the water wash away your sins; let yourself be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb!”
Ward grabs me by the shoulders and plunges me into the river.
The beast between the trees, monster of fangs, feathers, and flesh, Seraph—it chooses that moment to explode.
The agony is instant. White-hot burning from my hand to every inch of me, climbing up my spine to the spot behind my eyes. My vision cuts out under the murky water of the river, and my hearing comes rushing back all at once, shrieking. My body is being dragged to shore, and every bone creaks like branches in a storm. I fall to the river rocks and vomit up what looks like an organ, almost whole, a bundle of wet black flesh that washes away with the tide. Sister Kipling grabs one of my arms, and Theo grabs the other, and I scream and pull away but Sister Kipling grabs my hair and holds me to her chest.
She’s barking orders, “To the lab! Get the fuck out of here!” Then Theo is on the ground, clutching a broken hand, and I think for a blurry moment, Did I do that? just as his index finger snaps on its own. Brother Abrams clutches his skull before it splits down the side, revealing a gaping maw of teeth. Reverend Brother Ward stares at the dark liquid trickling from his mouth, dripping off his chin.
Something moves underneath the bloody skin of my back before erupting—the raw, new flesh ripping me to shreds, then a second, then a third, unfurling and tearing me apart.
I realize, as Mom and Sister Kipling drag me into the grass, that they are wings.
And then, in the last second, even through the pain, another—I did not give the order. I did not whisper for the Graces to turn on their masters. My word will not spread from Grace to Grace like a plague, dragging this horrible place down into the flames.
Nick will not be coming for me.
We have made so many mistakes. Am I the only one unable to sleep at night?
—Sister Kipling’s notes
There are no bodies on the culling field today, so it can’t be real. There’s no buzzing of flies, no metronome dripping of blood. A crow hops from branch to branch in search of food that isn’t there. The water flowing down the stream is fresh too, so clear I could drink from it.