Neither of them heard when I opened the back door. Neither of them heard when I closed it behind me and stepped out into the rain. It was warm and smelled of rosemary or honey or baking bread or something I thought I remembered from being a girl. My feet sank into the earth, the depressions filling with water as soon as I moved, and I almost laughed at how like Hansel and Gretel it was. Like leaving breadcrumbs behind to mark not where you’d been, but the terrible place you were going. Not an invitation but a warning.
Perhaps I imagined I would find Thomas there, his frail body huddled under a tree, his eyes like two hollow flames as the rain fell over him. “I got lost,” he would tell me, and we would understand that the thing wearing his skin inside our house was something else, and we would go in together to tear our mother from this false son and smooth our hands over her face and mumble words that sounded like, “It will be okay. We’re here. Everything is fine.” I circled my thumb and forefinger and turned back to the house, gazing at the world through the small hole I’d created, but it was the Thomas I knew standing next to our mother inside the house, his body rocking side to side as he swayed on his feet. My mother had covered her face with her hands, but I could still see one of her eyes, the deep brown of it staring at Thomas in confusion. She blinked and dropped her hands, her mouth going slack, and then she turned, and I could not see her anymore.
Thomas came to the window and pressed his mouth to the glass. All I could see were his teeth, but I could hear him screaming.
I went to the river, stood apart from that surging, foaming water, and told myself it would be easy to walk out into it, to let the current tug at my legs, my hips, and then let myself be carried along, my lungs crushing in on themselves like paper, tearing and dissolving until I became something new. Something gilled and finned or made of stone so that the water could pass over or through me, and I would be changed. A transfiguration. Like Thomas had said.
I’d touched my feet to the water, the current already an insistent, needy thing, when my mother called my name, and I stumbled backward, the mud cold and wet and darker than pitch and clinging to my arms. I went back to the house. I did not look back.
“What were you doing?” My mother touched my hair, my face, her fingers wrapping around my chin so I could look only at her and not at Thomas who stood just behind her, his mouth still frozen in a silent scream.
I held myself still and let her look me over, let her touch my shoulders, my neck as if she had forgotten what it meant to have a daughter. She encircled my wrists with her hands, measured out the weight of me with her touch. “You’ve gotten so thin.” She said this as if it was something she had always known. A secret she’d carried with her through dreams and waking and had only now let spill out of her.
“Yes,” I said, and Thomas opened his mouth wider. “Stop it,” I said.
My mother leaned her forehead against mine. Her breath was metallic, the sharp smell of pennies or wire. “Is he still there? Behind me?”
“Yes,” I said, and Thomas raised his hand like a child begging to be called on in school.
My mother closed her eyes.
“It’s just Thomas. He’s always been here. Just like I have,” I said, and she cocked her head at that but said nothing else as she backed away, not turning to face him, not taking her eyes from me.
“You’re so thin,” she said again. If her words were made of meat, I would devour them while they lived.
Only when she was gone, did Thomas lower his hand and close his mouth. The skin around his lips was chapped and raw, as if he had been passing his tongue over and over the thin flesh there. “You were gone a long time,” he said, and his voice was like the sound of deep water, of silt gone still after a long period.
“I wasn’t. It was just a few minutes.”
He shrugged, and the movement was unnatural, a quick skittering that made me think of the bent angles of a spider’s legs.
“You were, though. Gone for a long time. I waited for you to come back and made myself quiet so I could hear when you came through the door. The same way you always knew to listen for me. Like hearing where your own breath leaves off but knowing there should be something else there. Some other sound to finish it.”
Outside, something crashed to the earth. A branch, or a tree, or the sky itself. There was no way of knowing which or of knowing if it mattered because Thomas had opened his mouth again. Such a round, perfect circle. Something you could press your own lips to and learn what it meant to taste something you’d always wanted, what it meant to find your heart buried underneath mud and dead leaves and water when the world upended itself. I leaned forward and touched his teeth, curved the pad of my index finger around his canines, testing their sharpness. If there was to be any bloodletting, it was right that Thomas would be the one to open me up.
There were no teeth in what came after.
Thomas went to the front door and opened it on the water slowly rising. I had hoped for suffocation before. In the end, this was what I found.
“Did I dream you into life, or was it the other way around? Or was it Mother all along? So desperate for a child that she somehow called two of us into existence when there should have only been one?” Thomas said and brought his mouth to mine.
When we were young, he whispered stories into the dark of the tiny creatures that crept into bedrooms in the night to steal the breath of sleeping children. My heart would seize as I listened, but then he would squeeze my foot, and I would sleep long and deep and would not dream. In the morning, I would wake with my chest tight and in fear that somehow I had slipped out of my skin while I slept and tumbled back into the wrong body, but Thomas would be there beside me, his hand covering his eyes and his hair pushed away from his face, and I could breathe again.
He inhaled, and I remembered the strange suction of his kiss. So many mornings struggling to breathe. “You were mine,” I tried to say, but Thomas pulled my breath from me. It was possible I was never here, that my body was not solid, that Thomas called me out of the darkness. My memories a carefully constructed memory palace built from the same gossamer lightness of moth wings.
The heaviness in my chest was a wonderful thing to sink into. Like warm water overflowing its banks.
“Was it like a dream? Was it like coming back after seeing the other side of death?” Thomas said.
“I had a mother,” I said because I could not think of how else to tell him I had been real.
“There are so many words for change. So many things you can speak to bring something into life. I said them all. It was time to be quiet. Time to swallow down all of the things I tore out of myself. I have fed myself on your fear, on your awe.”
The water reached the porch and then the door itself, and still the paper heart Thomas had given me beat and beat and beat.
“She braided my hair,” I said as the water curled around my ankles.
“She braided your hair,” my brother agreed.
This was the thing I remembered. This was the thing that made me bare my teeth.
When I finally bit down, Thomas screamed. My brother imagined suffocation to be an act of mercy.
I was not so kind.
A Benediction of Corpses
Stephanie M. Wytovich
This haunting in my mouth, the cry of
church bells against my ears, do you see
the ghosts of surgery tables? Smell the rot
of my potential amongst the silver shears,
the misplaced stitches?
See, I am an amalgamation, the river that runs
through science and death: taste the rancid swill
of chemicals in my eyes, the way my skin shines,
glistens like a widow’s smile, all this poisoning,
these exterminations. I’m sewn together like a
botched-autopsy confession, a man-made monster
embroidered with possibility, my sutures open,
the scent of grave dust still dry on my cheeks
Yet I cringe when you touch me, every moment
of my life a disfigured plea, a reverse exorcism,
my genetic makeup filled with murder, my heartbeat
a collection of cut-off screams. Can you hear
the trepidations of my soul? All the moans and
aches of those trapped inside me, their caskets,
my bones, their ashes, my marrow?
It hurts to look at my reflection, the taste of language,
of love, foreign on my tongue. I brace and name myself
demon, wanderer, prophet: my title a benediction of corpses,
a holy awakening, this my second chance to walk in the
garden, the reaper’s forgiveness a welcoming sacrament,
a true gift to behold.
But you—my maker, my creator—you fear me!
Your disgust a mask of anxiety and guilt. I exist
as a consequence of your obsession, my knees
bruised from prayers, from all your blessings
that burned my skin. It’s my job to exist
in this body, to live out my days as an outcast,
your approval lost somewhere in the air of angels,
me, your nightmare, your breathing question mark:
I’m the child of another God.
The Making of Asylum Ophelia
Mercedes M. Yardley
Being mad wasn’t enough. She also had to be beautiful. Thankfully, Brigitte, whose name meant “strong, firm, healthy woman,” chose the perfect name for her baby girl.
She named her Ophelia.
What is in a name? So very much, Brigitte thought. The name Ophelia brings so many things to mind! Wonderful things. Emotive things. She knew her lovely daughter would wander around with a garland of flowers in hair. How did she know this? Because she, Brigitte, with her sturdy hands, would make that garland herself. She would weave it through Ophelia’s long, loose curls.
Ophelia’s tresses would tumble, of course. She would grow her hair long and sit at her mother’s knee while Brigitte cooed and sang and brushed Ophelia’s wild locks.
She would sing songs of madness. She would sing songs of want. She would sing them in her husky voice until her winsome daughter sang them back to her, her voice clear like a bird’s.
Ophelia wanted to wear Wonder Woman shirts and dinosaur pajamas like the other kids she saw from her window, but Brigitte, like her name, and her solid orthopedic shoes, stood firm.
“No, Ophelia,” she said. She put her hands on her hips for emphasis, as her own mother had taught her. “Pretty little girls should only wear white nightgowns. They look lovely when you ghost down the halls. When you become a woman, they’ll flutter behind you as you walk on the moors in the night. Can you see in your mind’s eye how you will glow under the moon? An unearthly thing of beauty? The evening’s chill will prick your arms and legs, but you won’t even feel it. You’ll dance in bare feet, humming and swaying gracefully to music that only you will be able to hear.”
“What if I can’t hear it?” Little Ophelia asked. She wanted to play with trucks. She wanted to watch movies on her mother’s tablet. But Firm Brigitte took these things away and made sure she played with charmingly clumsy handstitched dolls and wooden figurines instead.
“You’ll hear it,” Brigitte said loosely. “We’ll begin music lessons soon so that you can always hear the music in your soul.”
Ophelia didn’t go to school like other little boys and girls. Her mother taught her at home. She had teachers come in to teach her ballet and embroidery and Shakespeare. Brigitte worked at the large store across the moors, the local Walmart, and she locked Ophelia inside the house while she was gone. Ophelia learned how to curl up prettily in a soft chair in the reading room and pour over books. Both legs pulled up, clean feet tucked away. She wasn’t allowed to sprawl or spread her knees in a horrid, unladylike way, lest she spend the rest of the day in the closet.
One day, as a young teen, she appeared in her mother’s doorway. Her pale face had two bright spots of color in her cheeks.
“Mother, I am reading Hamlet.”
Brigitte’s eyes were stars.
“My favorite. What a powerful story, yes? Family and betrayal and murder and madness.”
Ophelia’s pretty mouth twisted.
“Let’s talk about this madness. It’s an epidemic.”
“It seems to be.”
“Everybody loses their lives.”
Brigitte nodded.
“Hamlet is Shakepeare’s greatest tragedy.”
Ophelia shifted uncomfortably in her flowing nightdress. It had long bell sleeves which fell demurely over the leather book she held. All of her books were bound in leather. She wore a nightdress day and night, her feet kept bare or perhaps slippered in soft-soled velvet shoes if the night was especially cold.
Except for lessons. Her mother allowed her to change into corseted dresses for lessons. Ophelia’s teachers had commented on the strangeness of a thirteen-year-old girl showing up for singing, piano, and dance lessons in a nightgown.
“Mother, I want to ask you about Ophelia. In the story.”
Brigitte’s eyes glittered, and her unpainted lips showed strong teeth.
“Isn’t she lovely? So charming. So tragic. Do you see how everybody responds when she hands them flowers? Isn’t she the most wonderful thing? Their hearts go to her. Their mouths tremble. They accept her gifts and wear them near their hearts. She brings them together.”
Ophelia’s jaw set, and Brigitte had never seen such an ugly thing on a child.
“She’s mad, mother. She isn’t charming. She’s crazy. She needs a psychiatrist and somebody to watch over her. She needs medications to stabilize her moods. She needs to get help and live somewhere other than that wretched place where they just let her pinwheel off into the water to die.”
Sturdy, firm Brigitte stood up. Her legs were strong, her dark eyes imposing. She filled them with steel. Ophelia shrank back, her white fingers fluttering to her face as they should.
“None of this unseemly talk, Ophelia. You will not abuse your namesake. Heaven knows the dear girl has had enough of that.”
Ophelia blinked large, dewy eyes and peered at her mother’s face.
“You do realize that she is just a character in a story, mother? She isn’t … real?”
She asked so beautifully. She asked so charmingly. Brigitte smiled and brought her rough hands to rest on Ophelia’s feminine shoulder.
“Such sweetness in you, my child,” she murmured, and kissed Ophelia’s forehead. “You will be remembered.”
“Was I going to be forgotten?” Ophelia asked, but her mother was already hard at work, head bent low over a new pair of slippers for her charming daughter.
More than anything in the world, Ophelia longed for a friend. She didn’t want to spend her evenings staring at the giant moon, which looked low and fat and rather carnivorous. Her mother got her a kitten, a fluffy white thing with a feminine ribbon tied around his neck, but he escaped into the night.
Ophelia wished she could follow.
“You should,” Brigitte urged, her eyes glowing hotly. “Flee across the moors, shouting his name. You won’t find him, of course, but won’t you be such a sight? Your tears will shine in the moonlight. Sadness makes a woman extraordinarily lovely. Grief is the finest of jewels.”
“Did you flee across the moors into the darkness once, mother?” Ophelia asked, and Brigitte’s face became an old house. It was a rugged thing, weathered, and shutters fell over her eyes to protect them.
“The midnight moors are not kind to a woman named Brigitte,” she said simply, and left. Ophelia did not go out to search for her kitten that night, a
lthough the front door was left not only unlocked, but standing open. The moon ran a tongue over its teeth outside.
Brigitte plaited Ophelia’s hair, twining flowers here and there. Ophelia couldn’t lie down or rest her head for fear of smashing the pansies, rosemary, and violets.
“They make me weary, mother,” she said.
“There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me,” her mother answered.
Ophelia touched Brigitte’s brown locks. They were shot through with silver, wiry and looking somewhat wild.
“Shall I plait flowers into your hair, mother?” she asked.
Brigitte’s hands flew to her hair, patting it far too quickly like a dying bird. Her fingernails slid down and cut deep furrows in her cheeks. Blood bubbled up like the clear brook Shakespeare’s Ophelia drowned in.
“Go read, child,” she said. Ophelia’s cornflower eyes grew wide and she flew, prettily, to her room. Brigitte smiled after her.
Ophelia the Lonely grew quieter, paler, sadder. The air inside her home changed, as if the house itself was holding its breath in dark anticipation. She began feeling unwell, her stomach hurting after she ate, and she caught her mother heaping spoonful after spoonful of strange herbs into Ophelia’s food and drink. She ceased eating and her cheeks hollowed. Her head drooped like the thirsty flowers in her hair.
Her caring dance teacher slipped her a note. She patted Ophelia’s cheek and looked her in the eye meaningfully. Ophelia read the spidery handwriting and color returned to her face. She slipped the note in between her lips and it was the first thing she had eaten in days.
Brigitte didn’t notice her sturdiest pair of shoes go missing from her closet. She lost the scissors from her mending kit. Ophelia ghosted about the house, a winning thing, all hair and robes and silver secrets.
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