Homecoming
Cat Yudain for The Velvet Coffin
She took the spindles from the ends of her hands and inserted them through my gaping maw. They felt less like fingers and more like spiders entering my throat, and though my continence thrashed against the hands gripping open my jaw, in truth my body sat helpless.
Warm liquid welled in my eyes, obscuring my vision, and I let it fall freely, glad to be gifted any sort of distraction.
The way those creeping spiders burned! Curious archaeologists searching every fold of my larynx until I felt my jaw crane further and the real heat began. Pulsing pressure just beyond my solar plexus, My eyes now dry in their panic and I see the crone step back, observant. I cast my vision to every periphery to find the hands that once held me now sit by their owners sides, all of them back from me. WHY CAN I NOT WRENCH FREE.
Slowly they regard one another, reaching delicately for one another’s hands as school girls at play. They have made a joyous ring around this posey and follow, skipping, laughing, crying, all the while clutching one another’s hands in sisterhood. I, contrarily, feel the flames inside me begin to move up. Up and out. A thick beam coursing out from beyond my teeth from who knows where, and shooting straight up towards the stars. I cannot tell if the droplets that fall are its embers or rain scurrying to snuff the flames. The beam courses through my body like a regurgitation, as if expelling exceptionally bad shrimp. The mothers and maidens are singing, chanting, now as the circle. The crones gleefully in step as- peculiar. As the pulsing begins to wane. The beam now shrinking as when a hose loses its source. My rigid body softens and I feel the grass kiss my knees, then my hips, then my face.
My eyes blacken. I hear soft drops still. It must have been rain. I blink my eyes open and surrounding me are my sisters. Hands reach for me and pull me seated, then help me to my feet. I look down at my frock, slopped with stains I care not to know the origin of. “What- what h-”
“Na gabh dragh. It’s done.” My sister, Isobel, comforted.
“It’s all over now, hen.” It was the sweet dear, Agnes, who plies the young women of the town with her recipes for jams that spoke.
I took in the women surrounding me, and beyond them a certain carnage I knew I would come to learn in time, though doleful it may have been my doing. Still the women closed me in an embrace, and began pulling detritus from my hair, pulling it into a plait, and wiping my tear (and whatever else)-stricken face with their own skirt hems and led me gingerly back towards the town. Or what was left of it.
“Dinna you mind that.” Agnes barked as my breath caught. I looked at the curious stains dressing me, then up, pleading to know what had I done. Lilias, to her left spoke first, “If you ask me, they had it coming.” The others staunchly nodded and reached for one another in agreement. This, bringing me comfort, allowed me to fix my gaze ahead, eyes aloft, as we stepped over the dismembered remains and made our way back into our town. The unlit pyre standing pristine, welcoming us home.