Hungerstone

by Kat Dunn

He will not discern that I have discovered his plan to murder me, because it does not enter into his understanding of the world that I might have my own agency, that I might set my will against his. I have not taught him to think any differently of me.

I see now why life is so kind to Cora. If it were cruel to her for even a moment, she would not withstand it. She would crumple and break with one blow.

I follow first my desire for space,

am a woman woken from thirty years slumber, and I would eat the world should it satisfy this empty, keening void where my heart should be. I would cry with grief over my life so unfulfilled, and drink down the salty tears, eat my worthless tongue and impotent fingers, skin this carcass and pick the bones clean.

“I’m not always the villain, you know.” Her voice was tremulous. I bit back the words I didn’t dare say: if this was her defense each time, then she would never allow herself to be the one at fault. Her demands were allowed, mine unacceptable.

Who would I be if I was someone who wanted things?

This hunger that has risen inside me—I hardly know how to parse it. I can eat and eat and will never be satisfied. I want more. I want—I want to scream, I want to dance, I want to slap Carmilla for leaving me, I want to kill Henry for what he has done, but in the same breath, he is so beautiful that the animal part of me wants to fuck him, take the pleasure that is owed me. I want to rule Nethershaw, I want to bring only those I like into my home. I want to have money and spend it as I wish. I want to travel, I want to sing, I want to see the world, I want to rule it. I want to be free.

stopped my cutting. You do not have to put yourself down to compliment me, I meant to say but I did not know how.

you know what a hunger stone is?” she asks, breath warm against my skin. I shake my head. “In times of drought, there are stones that are only exposed when the river runs so low. People mark them, so that, next time, they will know when they are to starve. Their appetite will go unfilled.” She runs my fingers over a cut in the stone. “It is a death marker.” I dip my mouth to hers but again she moves, and I raise my eyebrow in question. “You see the river now, though. This stone is long drowned. The water is free and powerful and raging.” This time, she brings my hand to her lips and sucks the length of one finger into her mouth, before releasing it with a wet sound. “It is unleashed.”

Dr. Foxfield seems pleased by this—I wonder if he has already offered such a conclusion to Henry, said that I have merely had a turn, as women are wont to do. Here I am, to prove all his cleverness right.

“How you women do let your burdens fall upon your spirit so heavily.

A little less time spent with books and solitary thoughts, I’d suggest,

“I think fucking my husband for jewelery is too much, Cora, don’t you?” On instinct, she takes another step back, away from my snarling face, but there is no more ground below her. She is out of luck.

My humiliation laid me low. I hated her, and I loved her. I wanted to be her, and I wanted to destroy her.