On The Bound

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Everyone is crawling toward something to believe in, some myth to mold their mouths around. The air tastes like pennies and rot. In this attic cathedral of blistered beams and blistered girls, belief is currency—and Sade carries the whole burning economy of it inside her ribcage. No one told her to lead. No one had to. They expected her to fold like paper into the shape of prophecy.

She is a daughter, yes. But also wildfire. All the ancient violence of a mother's womb and none of her grandmother's muteness. And beyond Lottie, beyond the messiah's half-breath body, she is the only one the Wilderness hums to. Trees tilt to hear her pass. The wind runs its hands through her hair. Being loved by Sade means being spared by It.

The questions fall like soot—gentle, but lethal in accumulation.

Sade, have you found more food? We're starving. Sade, how is Lottie doing? Has she woke up? It stinks in the attic. Is she dying? Sade, have you heard anything yet? Sade, will we be okay when the spring comes? What happens next?

She doesn't answer them anymore—not out loud. Pressing a wet rag to Lottie's slowly healing flesh instead, warm as a buried fever, as if Sade might envision the future from her heat. Obscure shapes hang from the ceiling of the tarp, like dreams halfway devoured. Sade is hearing the voices again.

She thinks it's Jackie, but it's no jasmine smell or snarky remark. It couldn't be Laura Lee, her mother, or the owl. They don't visit her anymore. Someone's carved moons into the soup bowls again, hoping to conjure more food into the dish.

Fire has moved in. Not around her—inside her. It sleeps in her marrow. It wakes in her stomach. A kind of fire that doesn't ask to be fed, only consumes. The kind that eats forests from within, slurps at ribs and laps grief from your palms. The girls blur together in earthy tones—wet bark brown, bruised plum, teal turned to rust. They're shades of suffering. The believers and the unbelievers. Sade walks the fault line between them, barefoot, bleeding.

Lottie sleeps for days at a time, and Sade demands that only Akilah watches her. Days bleed into another. She can only remember the violent acts. Mari's scream as she nearly toppled down the attic steps. Misty ducking the cracked pot. Rage is ritual now. It's liturgy. Everything is out of control.

She walks the woods alone every morning, barefoot, calloused, silent. No weapon. No companion. The trees part for her, whisper behind her. The sky is the color of a dying apricot. Dragging itself by its fingernails, the sun is coming up. Sade is trying to believe in herself.

They don't know you're burning for them, It whispers. They'll only see your sacrifice when it's convenient.

At night, when the wind whistles like it remembers something unspeakable, Sade curls beside Lottie. The rafters speak in riddles. An alphabet of splinters. She mouths the answers as they come: