A Lesson in Vengeance

by Victoria Lee

Thirteen thousand feet above sea level, you can drown in air like water.

I am not lichen. I am limestone and schist, veined with quartz. I am immovable.

When classes start, Godwin will be home to a brand-new crop of students: third- and fourth-years with bright eyes and souls they sold to literature. Girls who might prefer Oates to Shelley, Alcott to Allende. Girls who know nothing of blood and smoke, the darker kinds of magic.

And I will slide into their group, the last relic of a bygone era, old machinery everyone is anxiously waiting to replace.

But I want to find a loose thread on the collar of her shirt and tug. I want to unravel her.