9781250816214

Recommendations

Info

Eat it, you fucking pig, eat it.But she cannot. The atoms of her will not allow it. She was not built toallow it. She grimaces. His blood wells up under her nails. It will leave ascar. It will leave a scar and maybe that will be enough. For the next one. Tomake her understand. The way the last one made her understand. She willsee a wound shaped like a woman’s nails in her husband’s neck and she willwonder. A neck that should be smooth and kind because the world knowsno suffering yet.Does he feel it? Does he see? Her breath comes quick and fractured.“Eat, darling,” she says through a frozen, devoted, perfect smile. “Yourpie is getting cold.”Adam closes his hands on her throat. He kicks the plate away. It burstsinto pieces against the door.“I love you,” Sophia wheezes, and she does. She loves him so much andshe keeps loving him right up until the moment when her pupils blow outand it all burns away, the parks and the pools and the roses in the windowboxes and the animals and the wide, generous streets and the amphitheaterand the lions yawning on the grass next door beside the silvery fish and theclever minks and the lazy lambs and the busy bees in the market and theroof shingles in Gevurah Grey and the walls of the house that was hers inInnocence. The long stark gate and the desert beyond and that lone andlonely tree bending so low its fruits touch the hungry, waiting earth. Hergreat soft bed like an inland sea, her great grand mirror like a quiet friend,her sad little soap molds and half-empty pie plate and the bowl of wiltedorange roses, white chrysanthemums, and three bright fuchsia hibiscusbranches teetering on the edge of the table, frozen in space, about to tumble,about to fall.The dear, familiar, adored shape of him receding into a gulp ofblackness.It all burns away and the ashes slip from her fingers and she can neverlove anything ever again.
PINK LADYI was made for him.It is morning, which is to say, it is the beginning of all things. It is brightand it is sharp and it is perfect and so is Eve, who wakes alone to thissingular thought, as she does every morning; to this honeyed, liquid thoughtand sunlight and sparrowsong and the softness of green shadows in a housethat has always been hers and hers alone. Her husband spoils her and she isgrateful.Eve runs her hand over the place beside her where her husband sleepsevery night and thinks it again, with as much joy:I was made for him.
Page 2 and 3:
Begin ReadingTable of ContentsAbout
Page 4 and 5:
For Kris, Cylia, and SarahTurtles a
Page 6 and 7:
WINESAPI was made for him.It is mor
Page 8 and 9:
million detailed leaves she must po
Page 10 and 11: And then, for no reason whatsoever,
Page 12 and 13: and hot sands stretching away into
Page 14 and 15: EMPIREMrs. Lyon lounges grandly on
Page 16 and 17: know that look. We all know it. The
Page 18 and 19: “What did she do? The criminal, I
Page 20 and 21: “We’re all happy, Maestro,” M
Page 22 and 23: SNOWSWEET10. Holiday displays and o
Page 24 and 25: That’s all the chairs have ever b
Page 26 and 27: her stomach floods itself with acid
Page 28 and 29: CAMEOThe moon melts in through the
Page 30 and 31: of them, strolling the parks, check
Page 32 and 33: “No,” she gasps. “Never. I lo
Page 34 and 35: GALAThe night dazzles Sophia.Firefl
Page 36 and 37: of Bliss to Come unfolds onstage as
Page 38 and 39: sauce on the earth. But when Sophia
Page 40 and 41: BRAEBURNThe house lies dark on a da
Page 42 and 43: But Sophia didn’t. She still does
Page 44 and 45: BLACK TWIGSophia runs until her bre
Page 46 and 47: salesman? Is there something you la
Page 48 and 49: “NO,” she screams in his face,
Page 50 and 51: “I lied because he would have mad
Page 52 and 53: “Ask me,” he says in defeat.
Page 54 and 55: JUBILEESophia reassembles her house
Page 56 and 57: and the Lord God my Father breathed
Page 58 and 59: “Your Father is my Father too. He
Page 62 and 63: ALSO BYCATHERYNNE M. VALENTEThe Lab
Page 64 and 65: Prix Imaginales. Valente has also b
Page 67 and 68: This is a work of fiction. All of t
show all

9781250816214

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?