The object makes instant contact.
I know immediately what it is.
Uncle Henry made me learn at a young age how to slaughter pigs. Some winters, slaughtering farm animals was the only way to survive.
And I know the exact sound a blade makes when it sinks into flesh.
The woman’s eyes somehow get bigger. Blood seeps from her neck where the hilt of the blade sticks out from her pale flesh.
Dark crimson eats away at the white of her dress.
Her lips move, as if trying to form words, but there is only the sound of blood filling her windpipe.
She comes at me, her hands clawing at my nightgown. Blood spurts from the wound, splattering across my face, splashing down my front.
She bears down on me and we stumble through the broken screen door, stumble across the front porch. Her fingers are like talons digging into me, and the horror of what I’ve done makes the world spin and my stomach knot.
Together, we spill out into the yard and my feet tangle in tall grass.
We go down. She’s nothing but deadweight now and I blink up at the sky, my breathing shallow and fast.
Am I safe?
Is she dead?
I killed her.
The seconds tick by. She doesn’t move. Not a single breath.
I think I did.
I think I killed her.
Horror seeps into my veins.
I shove her off and roll onto all fours and when I finally get my feet beneath me and stand up, I realize I have an audience.
Not one, not two. At least a dozen people. Mouths open, eyes wide. They stand beneath a darkened sky edged in midnight silver.
“She’s killed the witch,” one of them says.
“We are free,” another shouts.
“All hail the great sorceress!” a third man yells.
They shout in celebration, fists pumping toward the sky.
“What the fuck is happening?” I shout.
SIX
Cleo
There is blood everywhere and the snowdrop field to the south of the Yellow Brick Road is alive with celebration.
A liberation.
Cleo stands beside the witch’s body. She can’t take her eyes away, afraid that the witch is pretending. Because if she’s pretending, she will kill Cleo. Kill her dead for bringing her to this spot where a house fell from the sky.
