“I drink of my sister,” Caroline said. I watched, horrified, as she licked across my weeping cut. Her cheeks hollowed. Then, with our hands still linked, she sloshed my blood around in her mouth and spat into the cavern of the effigy’s chest. It landed frothy and pink amid the disgusting mass. She brought our hands to my mouth and fixed me with a stare. There was so much coaxing in that look. I could feel my heart everywhere, pulse straining against my skin as if I’d been turned inside out, veins on display.
