The gray mist that stalked these mountains never stayed very long but blanketed all it touched. Like the ocean it smelled of, the fog carried salt into her wounds, scalding the marks left by Minton’s rope. If she weren’t tied she imagined maybe she could float away with it, back to the sea—disappear beneath the waves and sink to the bottom. She would be carried away into the cold grip of the water and cease to exist. She was so tired. Maybe those waters would carry her soul home to Jericho. How she longed for that.
“The sky’s very blue, Gretchen. Why do you think the sky’s very blue?” The little girl’s voice was growing weaker, and it scraped across Bone’s nerves, tightening her scalp, calling to the demon in her that wanted to end the child’s torment.
Kill. Kill. Kill. It could have been her aba’s voice or her imagination. Her father’s tone had always been frightful, taunting the hate that lived inside her even though she tried to conquer it.
Bone had not been afraid in a long time though she couldn’t remember how many days and nights she’d been here in this place of black mountains and pain. The little girl’s voice made her heart pound and her skin prickle under the rope. She searched for the reason behind the phenomenon and found it…fear.
“I’m Bullet now. Remember?” Bullet’s voice was pleading. She too was scared.
The demon rose with little effort, engulfing Bone with warmth. It fed on fear and drank from the overflowing spring of rage inside her. It didn’t matter whose fear, hurt or anger it was, the demon, once released, eclipsed all she knew. It was beyond her control.
Bone’s eyes burned and she sniffed. She would not cry here. She would not. She would hate instead and let the heat of her anger dry the wetness in her eyes. A kind’s treren reissen himlen. It was her mother’s favorite saying and how Bone remembered it now she did not know. Her mind translated the words into English, French, and Russian, the phrase rebounding through her ears in every language, eclipsing her own native Hebrew. She wasn’t allowed Hebrew any longer.
The phrase had been meant to punish and held power over her now—a child’s tears reach the heavens.
And Bone was no longer a child. Had never been a child. Tears would be fruitless.
This was their second night in the cold. The night past had been punishment because of the little girl…Ninka. The day before last had been because of Bone. Her hate and rage needed release. Without it, the demon taunted her. In her weakness she failed a test—she’d been told to engage in the rakad shel mavet with Blade, she with her fists and her sister with her sword. Bone had walked away, spitting on the ground and turning her back. Blade had done the same and they’d all been punished.
Bone had spent the night dangling over the cliff, eyes wide open, breath locked in her chest. The others had been forced to stand naked in the freezing rain, watching as Blade held the other end of the slippery rope. If Blade relaxed, or let go, Bone would fall to the river and rocks below.
She had prayed to the God of her fathers that Blade let her go. She wanted to watch the ground rush up to meet her, dash her on the rocks and spread everything she was in the water. Her shame had been great—only the weak prayed for the end—and her shame fed the demon inside her small body, making it stronger.
She worried about the things she would do to silence the evil spirit spreading its darkness inside her. She was six and all she wanted was death. Hers or others it mattered not. The only ones exempt from her hatred were the other girls. Her sisters.
How they’d all suffered—some more than others. The memories prodded, relentless and rending and she wanted to scream. She wanted to tear the ropes from her body and fling herself off this mountain. She would die here. The demon whispered it in her mind, and she believed him.
Bone couldn’t move her head. Minton had used her hair to tie her head to the tree. She was bound effectively, the bark digging into the skin of her back and buttocks, but at least she wasn’t hovering over the river in the valley below them, hundreds of the feet in the air, trying to survive the fraying threads of Minton’s ropes.
“You’re not supposed to use names, Ninka,” Blade said in a harsh whisper that carried in the eerie silence of the clearing.
“She wasn’t talking to you, Blade,” Bullet reprimanded her in a low voice.
Bullet was making noise. She’d be punished. They would all be punished. The black-eyed man would withhold food or maybe put them back in the water pit. He would let Minton tie Bone up again, the threads of the rope squeaking and groaning as they held her slight weight above the ground so far below. She was only ever a breath away from falling.
Would her end be like that of her aba and ima? They too had died bound by Minton’s ropes, the plop, plop, plop of their blood draining to the sand below them a death prayer of its own. She’d been forced to watch.
It had taken them a long time to die.
Bone closed her eyes and swallowed, then opened them again watching the fog begin to recede. Take me with you, she wanted to scream. Please! She remained silent. How much longer could Ninka survive with meager rations? How much longer could Bone contain the hate inside her before it burned her up from the inside out?