The Bride
by Janice Leadingham
This time, she is not born so much as salvaged—pulled from the cold dirt and the worms by force. When she opens her eyes, however, it’s to the same effect. The Creator whispers in her ear; he says, “Welcome.”
Her left arm, covered in pale peach fuzz, a small scar below her elbow, ends with smooth fingers that still remember the chord progression in the third bar of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11. The fingers on her right hand, calloused above the creases, itch for the embroidery needle, the performance of the French knot. She inspects both hands closely. Neither are familiar. The meal that sits heavy still in her stomach is one that never touched her tongue. When she moves to stand, it’s on feet that pull her in two directions—one towards the fields, the other towards cobblestone. She toddles across the laboratory floor to the mirror and somewhere deep in her mind is the memory of a waltz. Her face is far too pale to be her own, one eye blue, the other brown. She understands now that each part of her is a petal he plucked from a different flower, a different girl.
The memories of who she was before come back to her like the answer to a riddle. She didn’t play piano, or have much use for country walks. She loved to dance, the Valse à Deux Temps, the Polka, it didn’t matter. She had a black kitten called Miette. She preferred steak with Hollandaise sauce. Her name was Elsa.
The man she’s built for pulls her away from her reflection. He runs his hands along her rugged, black seams, gentle as not to pull. He is diligent in his discovery, but tender too, although she can’t yet feel with her new skin.
He asks her, “Friend?”
The Creator looks on, nodding, smiling, prodding her to say yes. He is so small to play God.
When she opens her mouth to scream, it is to discover her new voice.
Janice Leadingham is a Portland, OR based writer and tarot reader from somewhere-near-Dollywood, Tennessee. You can find more of her fiction in HAD, The Bureau Dispatch, and The Ghastling, among others. She has work forthcoming in Janus Literary. She is @TheHagSoup on Twitter, @hag_soup on Instagram, and at hagsoup.com