Blood

In the morning Sam is sat by Lucy with shoulders straight and solemn. Sam commences to talk as if speech is a coin hoarded¹ for these past three months.
“Wasn’t doing nobody good buried,” Sam says as Lucy folds her blanket.
“It’s stupid superstition,” Sam says as Lucy picks grass from her dress.
“It won’t even matter,” Sam says as Lucy combs her hair with her fingers and braids it as best she can. “You know what happened to that dead snake of yours? Ba took the thimble back. I sawhim. And nothing happened, right? Right?”
A week ago Lucy would’ve lapped up these confidences. Now they turn her stomach.
“He told me that the living need silver more’n the dead,” Sam says as Lucy prepares to head to town. “He told me a long time ago not to bury him proper.” Sam says, quieter, “Said he didn’t deserve it. I swear, I meant to leave the coins with him anyhow, but that night it was like he told me himself. Over the grave. Didn’t you hear him?”
Lucy studies Sam from one side, from the other. Hard as she squints², she can’t see where Sam’s stories end, where Sam’s lies begin. If there is, to Sam, any difference.
“Wait,” Sam says, gripping Lucy’s elbow. “And Ma. He said that Ma—”
Lucy pushes Sam away. “Don’t. Don’t talk to me about Ma.”
Sam doesn’t come forward again. Lucy steps back. They stare at each other. Lucy steps back, and steps back, and back, and a part of her rejoices, a part of her already in Sweetwater, already rehearsing her orphan’s story—a small, clotted³ part of her relieved that Sam won’t be there, that Sam with Sam’s strangeness won’t have to be explained
Lucy turns.
One last time Sam calls. The fear unmistakable. “Lucy—you’re bleeding.”
Lucy puts a hand to the back of her dress. It comes away wet. She lifts her skirt to find her underdrawers bloody⁴ too. Yet somehow, beneath, the skin is unbroken. She feels no pain despite the slick between her thighs⁵.

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