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Sharp and burning, the bone blade carved itself beneath my skin, letting rivers of blood vein down along my arm. They collected around my elbow, drip-drip-dripping onto the water where they formed circlets of crimson, seasoning the thick air with iron.
I pressed down on the flap of skin, trapping it between thumb and blade. With one swift motion, I peeled off my flesh, laying my embedded veins bare.
Shred after shred, I relieved myself of the bitter reek for a long while, peeling it off me wherever my hands reached. Whenever a new tatter of pink-tainted membrane flapped onto the damp rock, I submerged the body part, letting the salt burn away the foul putrefactions.
“Not again.” No other but my wife emerged from the dark corridor and walked up to the edge of the spring, one of her arms pressed against a boy’s chest to keep him from falling into the water. “How many times will you shed yourself like a snake?”
I was a god shaped to perfection, yet I turned my face away, hiding my temporary disfigurement with how I’d peeled myself down to meat. “As many times as it takes.”
My little one remained utterly still where she stood and stared down at me, her golden tresses woven through the spindly nest of fingers that crowned her head. How beautiful she was. The prettiest, most dangerous corpse. Why had she come?
A heavy gulp went down her throat. “Need help with your back?”
Her unexpected offer instilled as much surprise as suspicion. “Are you jesting?”
“You fused children’s fingers to my skull and gave me an entourage of corpses. Clack. Clack. Clack. All day long, they clatter behind me with their bony heels,” she said, which explained the meticulously tied shoes on their little feet. “It’s driving me to the edge of madness. No, Enosh, I’m not jesting… I just feel like ski
“Ah, a wife peeling the skin off her husband, what can this be if not true love?” Either that, or yet another ploy. Likely the latter, but I was curious to see what she had pla