The Binding

by Bridget Collins

‘She didn’t need to be worried. I’m not a child.’ My thumb was bleeding where a sharp stalk had pierced the skin. The blood tasted of dust and fever.

I wished I had spent days shitting my guts helplessly into a pot; it would have been better than still having marks on my wrists where they’d had to tie me down.

The knock of glass on wood was louder than the smash would have been.

I stopped, because my voice was as unfamiliar as my fingers.

My hands on the table were all tendons and bones. A year ago they’d been brown and muscled, almost a man’s hands; now they were no one’s.

I spread my fingers and pressed, as if I could absorb the strength of the wood through the skin of my palms.

Alta spun round so fast her plait swung out like a rope. ‘

mizzle,

as if the walls were holding their breath. Every few hours, during that day and the days that followed, I had to go outside and listen to the dry wind in the reeds, just to be sure that I hadn’t gone deaf.

The thought of leaving was like a sudden rush of cold air into a wound.