by the blue-black, iridescent starling feathers that cover her arms, by the whiteness of
her teeth when she clamps into Angelique’s prized hog.
We knew that she would.
When she has taken from us all that she wanted, the dead goddess leads us into
the dead land. In the dead land, we bathe in a river that makes us forget our heartbreaks.
We spend the evening sipping on wine made not from grapes but from some fruit we’ve
never been able to find in our world. We take turns combing out each other’s long locks
and braiding them with dandelions, peonies, and lilies. In the dead land, we all become
something we could never be at home. In the dead land, we do thing we could never
speak of in daylight. So, they go unsaid, even now.
There are no rules in the dead land but one. You may never speak a word of
where you’ve been once you’ve returned. The dead goddess commands so little. We bare
our teeth for her before she can even ask. We do as she commands, and yet…
There are faces missing year after year and we whisper at what happened to
them. Martha, who had made such perfect pumpkin scones. Cynthia and her sister
Claire, who would smith knives from their own hearth. Gone. We tell our young ones,
obey. Do as the dead goddess commands for she will make you one of her starlings and
then, you’ll never die.
But alas, not all of us can be starlings.
Don’t tell about the dead land.
For sometimes, after we’ve returned to our homes, to our beds, to our husbands,
and sons, and brothers, we dream of the thing that happens. We know this so deeply
without knowing. We know it as though we’ve seen it through the eyes of the missing,
and perhaps somehow, we have.
When our lips betray us, we wake to the dead goddess at the foot of our beds. Her
teeth are bared. Her feathers are outstretched. She clutches in her hand her husband’s
scepter. We feel a fear beyond fear and tell no one.
Speak a word of it, we warn ourselves without words, and she’ll tear you from
existence.