I push myself upright, swaying. My palms are smeared with dust, my hair hangs loose and tangled around my face. The cloth at my finger has loosened and blood seeps faintly through it again.
Still, beneath the exhaustion, the words remain, pulse relentlessly inside my skull.
I close my eyes, but they do not leave.
My hands shake as I drag the basin from beneath the table and set it near the hearth. The wood scrapes loudly against the floor, the sound jarring through me. My hands move too quickly, knocking a spoon aside as I reach for the bucket. Water sloshes against the rim as I pour it in.
Cold. Good.
It should be cold.
I unstopper the vial and pour—more than I should. The holy water slips into the basin in a thin, shining thread. It disturbs the surface, sends slow rings outward. I tip the vial again, emptying what remains.
My fingers rise to my brow. My chest. My shoulders.
"In the name of the Father," I whisper. My voice cracks.
The door. I turn and slide the latch firmly into place. My coat falls first. Then my dress. My shift clings briefly to my skin before I drag it over my head and let it drop to the floor.
Air rushes over my skin, cold climbing me in a sudden sweep, making me shiver so hard my teeth almost knock together. My nipplestighten. The fire offers little warmth; the light from it lays thin bands across my stomach, my thighs. My body feels fevered and exposed. My skin remembers too much.
I kneel, the floor biting into me. The basin waits before me, dark and accusing. The first touch of the cloth in the water makes my fingers recoil. It is colder than I expected. I force my hand back in and soak it fully, wring it hard.
I press the cloth to the inside of my left wrist first.
"Lord have mercy."
The fabric drags over skin that still remembers his mouth. A tremor passes through me. I press harder.
"Cleanse me."
I move to the other wrist. Scrub. Scrub again.
My chest next.
The cloth lands over my sternum. Cold shocks through me. I drag it upward, across my collarbone, over the slope of my breast. My breath turns uneven.
"Cast out impurity."
I scrub harder, until my skin grows pink beneath the friction, until the cold becomes heat.
Between my thighs.
I I hesitate only a breath before pressing the cloth there. The cold steals the air from my lungs, but the memory answers it—heat beneath it, pulsing, alive. I press harder, as if I can scour it out.
"Strip me of desire."
I scrub.
Again.
Again.
The motion grows frantic. My thighs tremble under my own hand. The skin burns where I drag the cloth over and over. Water runs down the inside of my legs and pools on the floor.
"Lord have mercy."
My voice grows thin.
