He looked to the pail of hot water and said, “When it’s time.”
“Please?” she asked.
“I said when it’s time.”
She closed her eyes again, and he got busy cleaning up the blood on her sides, on her breasts, and the blood pooling at her belly.
The bird looked remarkably clean, its feathers glistening, large black eyes keenly observing him. The beak was long and sharp indeed. More like a dagger than anything else. Laura’s blood pumped through that bird, her heart no longer part of her chest, her heart now changed into a blackbird. From the victims of the first light event, they learned the bird was still attached to the body by something like an umbilical cord. The bird would stay attached for twelve to twenty-four hours. They didn’t know the mechanism that told it to leave. The mirrored un
