there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand; dayé

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

She doesn’t know how long she spent, spluttering and spitting up saltwater on the edges of the beach. She doesn’t know anything except the pain that rattles in her chest, newly marked with the tattoos of the angry red slashes, commiserating where her own claws had torn herself apart to free the pieces lodged inside her. She doesn’t know anything except the foam at the edges of her lips, the feverish heat inside of her that doesn’t break—this stubborn, impossible disease that has somehow become worse upon waking.

As if the touch of oxygen set it ablaze inside of her, tearing through her every cell.

Eventually, eventually, she rises.

She stumbles to her feet, and she is surprised by how weak she feels. How long has she been out? She is thinner than before, her body malnourished, her face gaunt and she doesn’t know where to turn. All she knows is that she cannot stay here. She cannot let herself rest inside this diseased, corrupted land.

So she leaves.

She leaves and she follows the only scent that feels familiar.

It takes her a long time to reach Dayé’s home. Too long. The journey is filled with stumbles, Sochi falling to her knees more than once, coughing up blood that splatters across the ground in wild designs. But she doesn’t stop and she doesn’t give up. She had not died beneath the surface. She would not die now.

Gritting her teeth, trembling, she finally makes her way into Loess.

When she sees Dayé something like relief floods within her. She is suddenly gripped with another bout of coughing, the sound hoarse and rasping, the knuckles of the disease running up and down her ribs. When it subsides, her silver eyes are flat and dull and she looks wildly for the wolfish-mare.

“Dayé,” she groans through teeth. “Dayé, is this real?”

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land