Our Hideous Progeny

by C.E. McGill

The difference between a proper young lady and a beastly little thing was that ladies were never angry; they took their moods and wove them into lace, stuffed them into pillows. They learned to hold their tongue. But I have always been a beastly little thing at heart, it seems.

Ladies are often criticized for being childish, I find – but it is hard not to be, when one’s life is so wholly in the hands of another.

‘We shall steal fire from the heavens, and I shall not repent, even for one minute – for what sort of god would condemn us to such a cold world without it? We’re merely taking what should have been ours from the beginning.’ It still felt perilously