Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith: A Diptych Read Online Free PDF Page B

wolfhound. I laughed again in the furrows. I dug harder for rocks and found only clods. I threw clods at the pail. Finally the fat girl was struck by clod. The clod broke apart on her teeth through the open lips as the fat girl said, Mister Magpie, Mister Magpie, and the jackdaws circled all around her. The fat girl dropped her pail and it tilted over in a furrow and loose dirt tumbled from the pail. There was no milk in the pail. There was dirt in the pail. What did the fat girl milk that she should have only dirt in her pail? The fat girl was crying and stumbling. What do you milk? I said to the fat girl. What do you milk in the night? The fat girl was crying. She milked the grave of the farmer's wife. That is what she milked. The farmer pressed her to the ground and her fat wrists creased up and down and the dirt went between her teeth. That is what the fat girl did in the night. Then who picked the rocks? I picked the rocks. That is why the farmer allowed me to sleep in the field, to sleep in the field all day with the rocks rising beneath me while I slept.

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    Get up, I say. Get up. Open your books. We will study rocks. The children do not move. I move. I pace. The children do not move. I rub my wrists together. I rub my wrists on the back of my neck. The nursery is damp. The walls are made of stone. The stone drips. Along the tops of the walls, women's faces. The faces are gray. They are gray masks of faces, gray masks in the masonry along the tops of the walls. The mouths are open like the mouth of the fireplace. We will study rocks, I say. Geology, says Spot. We study Geology. Tamworth says a word. I do not look at her. Her dress does not cover her thighs. The seams have ripped below her arms and the flesh of her breasts presses through the gaps. Tamworth says the word. She says the word. She says the word. Stop it, I say. Jasper, says Tamworth. Jasper. Jasper. Jasper, said the knife. Jasper. I scraped the bristles off the pigs. I was wet. I breathed hard. The steam burned my hands. The hot water ran over the skins of the pigs, loosening the bristles. I scraped deep. I scraped beneath the bristles and the skin came up in peels. There was no blood. The blood had drained through the necks. The blood had soaked into the straw. The blood had flowed into the road. The blood had filled the ditches in the road. First, the poleax through the skulls. Then the slits in the necks. Then the blood in the straw. Then the blood in the road. I scalded the pigs. I heaved the kettles. My hands burned. I used the knife. I used the candlestick. The knife said, jasper. The candlestick said, jasper. I breathed hard. White hairs clung to my arms, my skirt. I itched. The breath came hard through my teeth. It said, jasper. Jasper. The water was cooking the flesh beneath the skins. I was hungry. The flesh beneath the skins was almost cooked. The bristles were loosening. The skin was loosening. I could smell the hard flesh of the pig beneath the skin. The smell was thick and hot. I vomited into the straw and the dirty white mush lay on top of the blood. I lay down in the straw. It was wet. I heard screaming. The pigs were dead, but I heard screaming. The screaming was loud. I kicked the pigs. The pigs were hard. They were heavy and still. Each kick pushed my body backwards through the straw. My spine scraped through the straw. I kicked again and again. I pushed against the pigs with my heels but the pigs did not move. I slid through the straw. My skin came up in peels. The back of my head rubbed the straw, the dirt beneath the straw. Hot water was pouring on my breasts. I screamed. I could see the man who poured the water through the steam. I tried to crawl through the straw. I tried to hide between the bodies of the pigs, wedged between the pigs, my face pressed to the faces of the pigs. The nooses lashed around the snouts of the pigs burned my cheeks. I put my hands on my cheeks and my knuckles touched the teeth of the pigs through their