4
The baker had a daughter. The baker's daughter worked in the bakery. She cut the gray cakes of yeast. She mixed yeast and water for the baker. Her fingers were wrinkled with moisture and they gave off a sour odor. The nails had come loose in the nail beds. The skin that seals the nails in the nail beds was too soft to hold the nails in place. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found a string of hair. The string of hair passed lengthwise through the bread from end to end. The baker cut the hairs from the daughter's head. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found ten fingernails in the center of the loaf of bread. The baker cut the daughter's fingers at the first knuckles. One day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found the key to the bakery. The man did not tell the baker. The man came in the night to the bakery where the baker's daughter waited. The baker's daughter showed the man the sack of coins the baker hid beneath the floorboard and the man lifted out the sack of coins. He lifted the skirt around the waist of the baker's daughter and felt with his fingers beneath the skirt. His fingernails were ragged and the baker's daughter cried out so that the man put his forearm across her mouth. The baker's daughter did not cry out again. The baker was upstairs sleeping in his narrow bed. The man dropped one of the baker's coins on the floor for the baker's daughter. The next day a man cut a loaf of bread and he found a coin in the heel of the bread. The baker crushed his daughter's skull with the whetting stone. He put her beneath the floorboard in a sack.
5
The children eat and eat. The children cannot stop eating. They cannot stop while there are cakes on the tray. Even as they chew their cakes they shove more cakes into their mouths. Spot gags. He keeps chewing. He gags. Spit, I say to Spot. I put my hand below his mouth. Spit, I say. I put my fingers on his lips. The teeth are moving up and down, and the lips. The lips are wet and bits of cake cling to my fingers. My fingers are moving up and down on the lips. I want to push my fingers through Spot's lips and pull out the cake. I can see the cake between the teeth, the wet ball of cake, and the tongue swelling, and then the tongue jerks forward and the wet ball of cake rises. The wet ball of cake comes forward, comes through the teeth. It bulges through the lips. It hangs on the lips. I push the cake back into the mouth. Spot gags. I laugh. Spot reaches for another cake. Stop, I say to Spot. Spot looks at me. He pushes the cake through his lips. I push my finger through his lips. I feel the teeth. The teeth are hard in the wetness of the mouth. Ribs are hard in the wetness of the chest. I stepped between the ribs, the soft large bulge that rose between the ribs. She had lain in the field in the sun and the rain. For a moment, my foot pressed the surface, then the surface gave way. My foot pushed through the surface. There was a sound, the sound of the air going out. It smelled bad. My foot entered the cavity. Inside, it was wet. I felt the wetness seething on my skin. Her dress hung in a bush. Her dress flapped in the wind, threads caught in the thorns of the bush. A button dangled. There is no needle in the forest. I could not repair the button. It was a nice dress, stiffened with fluids. The rain could not wash the fluids from the dress. I could wash the dress in the river, the clean, cold river. I could beat the dress on the rocks. I did not want to bend too close. I did not push with my finger. I opened her lips with a stick. Her mouth was filled with fluids. She was very plump. She ate cakes with the children, cake after cake. The cakes turned to fluids in her mouth, or her mouth was open all night. Her mouth filled with rain.
6
There is a tray of cakes on the table. There is a pitcher of milk. Spot drinks from the pitcher. He coughs into the pitcher. Milk runs down Spot's chin as he puts the pitcher on the table. He lets the milk drip. He reaches for a cake. I should stop him. The cakes will sicken the children. The cook used bad flour. There is alum in the wheat. There is chalk in the wheat. The cook mixed rancid fat with the flour. She worked the fat and flour in the trough. Sweat ran down her arms. The air was hot and thick. The cook grunted. She could not see the changes to my hair and face. Not through the hot, thick air. In the kitchen, there is smoke in the air. There is soot in the air. There are flies in the air. I crouched by the trough. Lower down, the smoke clears. There is less smoke by the trough. I put my face in the trough. It smelled bad. Beneath the trough, something scurried. The cook put her heel down hard. She grunted. She scraped her heel on the edge of the table leg. Something dropped. The cook rubbed fat into the sores on her arms. She did not notice how I breathed with my face in the trough, how I gagged on the rancid smell from the trough. I crouch beside the table with the children. I break off a piece of cake and put it in my mouth. My mouth is dry. The cake comes apart. I breathe carefully, but the bits of cake fly against the back of my throat. I gag. My mouth itches. My tongue has grown fine white hairs like the hairs on Spot's cheeks. Fine white hairs cluster on my tongue. I turn my back to the children to scrape at my tongue with my nails.
7
It is a grand house. There are many rooms, closed rooms, locked rooms. The nursery is a closed room. It is a locked room. There is a key to the nursery. She had a key. She must have had a key. She locked the children in the room. Otherwise the children would crawl down the halls. They would hide in the shadows in the halls, behind the paintings in the halls, between the drapes, beneath the rugs. In a grand house, it is hard to hunt the children. The halls go on and on. The fire-places have enormous mouths, deep black mouths. I would hurry down the halls. I would listen for the grunting in the drapes. I would sniff beneath the rugs. Where are the children? I would say. Where are the children? The children do not leave the nursery. They crouch by the table. They crawl to the corners. They make their mess in the corners. The carpet is marked with fluids. It is wet with fluids. The fluids have made marks on the walls. The children make their mess against the walls, against the door of the nursery. They scratch at the door. Their fluids spread to the other side of the door. Their fluids spread through the halls. The smell of the children fills the grand house. The cook smells the nursery from the kitchen. It is stronger than the smell that rises from the trough, than the smell that hangs between the buzzing meats above her head.
8
My shoes are very large. They gape around my ankles. The soles are rimmed with offal. I have tracked the offal on the carpet in the nursery. The children have noticed the offal, the smell of the offal. They have felt the thicker offal where it smears into the slickness of the fluids. They slip on the offal when they crawl around the table on their knees. I did not intend to track offal on the carpet in the nursery. The smell in the nursery is strengthened by the offal. I must have stepped in offal on the staircase. The dogs drag the offal to the staircase. Flies crawl on the offal. Hornets crawl on the offal. The housekeeper should shovel the offal from the staircase. In a grand house, there is too much for the housekeeper to do. The fabric of the curtains makes dust. The paper on the walls makes dust. The hairs on the dogs make dust. The dust piles up higher and higher. The dust makes the housekeeper weep. She coughs. She weeps. She moves weeping through the rooms. She coughs on the dust. She weeps on the dust. I hear fluids in her cough. Fluids fall on the dust. They wet the dust. The housekeeper makes sludge. She makes mud. Mud is better than dust. Dust gets inside your nose. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your eyes. It makes your mouth spit. It makes your eyes weep. You have mud on your chin, said the farmer. He dropped a rag on my face. The housekeeper wipes mud with a rag. She empties pails. She cleans the high windows in the tower. She looks down at the orchard. The housekeeper sees what happens in the orchard. She sees through the clean windows. She sees the pigs, she sees the dogs. She sees between the black boughs of the trees, long pale hair. My hair is dark. Dark and short. My face is very long. If the housekeeper were to see me, creeping from the orchard, she would not let me near the nursery. She would run from the tower, around and around down the tower, through hall after hall. She would pull her shovel from the offal and block the staircase with her shovel. I would try to hide my dark hair with my hands. I would try to ascend. I would hide my long face with my hair. I would hide my hair with my hands. Up the staircase, the hall leads to the nursery. There is a needle in the nursery, an embroidery needle. There must be an embroidery needle. Girls must learn to embroider. With an embroidery needle, I could embroider a border of flowers on the dress. I could repair the button on the dress. The button dangles. It would go poorly with a border of flowers. I should be able to explain about the button. I should be able to explain about the border. I must have a needle, I would say, through my hair, through my hands. I am wanting a needle. The housekeeper would hear that my voice is changed. She would strike me with her shovel, sever my neck with the edge of her shovel. I will push the housekeeper, but I will slip. I will slip down the staircase. I will slip on the offal. I will bleed from my neck. My head will fall forward and my head will fall back. My chin is wet. My chest is wet. I run into the curtains. I run into the wall. My head falls back. I see the room upside down. Blood runs up my nose. Blood runs over the lower lids of my eyes. The housekeeper is red. Her shovel is red. I fit my hands inside my neck, all ten knuckles in my neck, but blood comes around my knuckles. My head falls forward. I get on my knees. I put my hands on the floor. I put my head on the floor. The dust makes me cough. I spit blood on the floor. I thicken the dust. I stir with my hands. The dust is thicker and thicker. I swallow blood with my mouth and it comes out my neck. It wets my chin. It wets my chest. I crawl with my head on the floor and push my face through the mud. I sink up to my chest in the mud. In the swamp, the mud is red. Smiths cut the mud. They put the mud in carts. They take the carts to the furnace. They heat the mud. They hammer the mud. They beat the mud until nothing can break it. The mud is black and not red.