The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

they didn’t sew her up an extra stitch to make her tighter

Dead men have no reason to lie, so they never do.

This is me, then. Boiled down to my deficits, as if those are the only things about me anyone will ever be able to see. There is nothing here about my steady hands, or my sense of justice, or my honesty, or my kindness, or anything else. It is simply everything that is wrong.

In fact, I’m hungry enough that I’m forgetting how the mechanism of hunger works in the first place. It’s a muscle contraction, isn’t it?

Why is it that when they hide their faces, men become monsters instead of angels?

I hear distant, distant yelling.

“If you don’t tell me where she is right this instant—”

Daphne

And the Speakers refuse to listen

. I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to the only thing that has ever made sense

This is not Veil sickness. This is not my illness, my difference, the incongruencies of how my mind works. This is not my boyhood, the flaws in my thinking, the tutors’ annoyance and notes and adjustments. This is not whatever George thinks is wrong with me, what Lord Luckenbill thinks is wrong with me, what Dr. Bernthal and Headmaster and the world think is wrong with me.

This is Hell.

Besides, doctors have a long, storied history of lying to their patients.