The Library at Hellebore

by Cassandra Khaw

Far as I’m concerned, dirt’s the only holy thing in the world. It can make roses out of even the worst losers: in death, we achieve meaning.

Cruelty was like riding a bike: it became ingrained in you, became muscle memory. There was no losing the trick of it. You never forgot how to drive a knife in and twist.

But we reside as well on a planet where the efficacy of medical science is questioned and media personalities argue whether a clot of cells has more value than a woman’s life. To put it another way, these are unutterably stupid times, so I’m not taking chances.

Girls who were hurt and who discovered they could really hurt their abusers in return. You’d be surprised how many of us there are in that last category.

Paired with the docile smile she wore, her eyes made her look like a wolf serving time in the brain of a fawn, a wolf so starved it would eat through its own belly if only it could reach.

Her smile should have reduced me to worshipful cinders; it should have made me want to beg forgiveness for being such a hateful little gremlin. Under different circumstances, it even might have.

Spoiler: they ate him.