Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

But time passed and eventually my mind had only one thought in it as regards childhood. For any kid that gets that as an option: take that sweet thing and run with it. Hide. Love it so hard. Because it’s

going to fucking leave you and not come back.

I hefted the kite and let out the string, more and more till it was not but a speck in the sky. I could feel rain starting to spit on us, and who cared. Let it thunder.

The string was pulling hard in the wind, but I towed it back to Mr. Dick and put it in his hand. “Hang on tight,” I said, and flopped on the ground beside him, panting like a dog. He was quiet, holding that string and kite with everything he had. The way he looked. Eyes raised up, body tethered by one long thread to the big stormy sky, the whole of him up there with

his words, talking to whoever was listening. I’ve not seen a sight to match it. No bones of his had ever been shoved i...

I wanted to go home. Which was nowhere, but it’s a feeling you keep having, even after that’s no place anymore. Probably if they dropped a bomb and there wasn’t any food left on the planet, you’d still keep feeling hungry too.

Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.

I thought about what Rose said, wanting to see the rest of us hurt, because she was hurting. You have to wonder how much of the whole world’s turning is fueled by that very fire.

To be here was to be known. If Lee County isn’t that, it’s nothing.

The magic was all you, Demon.”