The Knight and the Butcherbird

by Alix E. Harrow

At six, I’d thought love was a full belly; at sixteen, I’d thought it was wildflowers and gooseberries and Mayapple’s mouth on mine. At seventeen, I knew better: love is whatever you’re willing to kill for.

But she’d been willing to kill for me, and so she must have loved me, after all. As I loved May, as Sir John loved his wife, as God loved the world: with blood on our hands.

I was a knight, wasn’t I? That’s how a knight proves his love: on a pile of corpses.”