InkStains January Read Online Free Page A

splayed. “I crushed his windpipe until he could breathe no
more.”
    “ Then why the knife?” she
asked.
    “ Comfort.”
    She went out the way she entered. Twenty-four
hours later, in a spice shop, I met Simone again. She had bewitched
the shopkeeper; he would never put two coherent words together
again. She carried a basket full of garlic and rosemary and salt.
She said, “This is no coincidence.”
    “ No.”
    “ You court
death.”
    “ You won’t kill me,” I told
her.
    “ How can you be so
sure?”
    I didn’t answer. I showed her my empty palms.
“Teach me.”
    “ Blades?”
    “ Secrets.”
    “ Poisons?”
    “ Spells.”
    She put the knife in my belly. She whispered,
“I’ll teach you death.”
    I kissed her. She’d come close enough. She’d
done it to herself. The touch of my lips on hers was brief, but it
was enough. She drew back. She cursed. She dropped the blade on the
floor.
    “ I’d found my justice long
ago,” I told her, though it was not an explanation. “Now, it’s just
for money.”
    She dropped to her knees. She foamed at the
mouth. My poisons, like hers, were swift. She tried to cast a
spell, but I’d taken that from her, as well.
    My wound would heal. What’s one more scar?
And it hadn’t taken me long to devise a counter for her poison of
choice once I knew it.
    Simone stopped breathing and her heart
stopped beating and she died. I went out to collect the bounty.

8 January
     
    When a thousand little gods still walked the
earth, when humanity was young and the land fresh, before the ages
of silicon or iron or bronze, there was a youth in love.
    Even then, when there was little worth
fighting for, when language was new and inept and inexact, there
were few things more worth fighting for than love.
    The youth wrestled a bull until it had to
yield. The youth diverted the course of a river. The youth dug a
hole straight through the mountains with his bare hands.
    The girl did not notice.
    Let me tell you about the girl. You may have
heard of Helen, for whom a thousand ships were launched. You may be
familiar with Cleopatra. You might have seen filmic images of
Brigitte Bardot. But you have never seen beauty such as existed in
her face. There has never been so great a beauty.
    She was smart. She knew all the stories. If
there had been books, she would have read them all. Until she saw
the shapes of unicorns and dragons in the clouds, no one saw
anything but cloud. She wore a piece of jade around her neck, which
she had found and fashioned herself; before then, no one had ever
made jewelry. She discovered salt on a breezy afternoon, discovered
pepper over a long weekend. Had there been weaving, she would have
woven. Had there been canvasses, she would have painted, and her
paintings would have been lost to the ravages of time but would
still, today, in just the memory of them, inspire artists across
the world. Had there been kings, she would’ve been the very
first.
    A girl like that is not easily impressed. So
the youth appealed to the gods. Three of the gods heard and were
generous.
    The first god gave the youth a net, with
which he could catch fish, and a knife, or something like a knife,
with which he could clean his catch. And this youth was first of
all mankind to catch a fish, prepare a fish – with some salt and
pepper – and serve fish grilled. He fed the village, if it could be
called a village at so early a time in history.
    The girl ate the fish, and liked the fish,
and thanked the youth. But nothing changed.
    The second god gave the youth a sack of
seeds, which he planted in a field, the first seeds ever to be
planted in all of time. Plants burst forth, first as stems and
vines and bushes, until overnight they blossomed in every color
imaginable, and many colors that, while we take them for granted
today, had never before existed.
    The girl ran through the fields of flowers
with all the other girls, the children, and the animals. They made
garlands and necklaces and