Roses

In the centre of the clearing was a sight so gruesome that it did not make sense. The body of a young girl in a black coat, long hair curled around her. Sweet, warm blood pooling sickeningly bright in the snow.

On her head was a tiny crown of roses. She was probably naked beneath the heavy peacoat; her pale, bare legs were unnaturally blue. The wind lifted a strand of her delicate hair. She was motionless.

So unreal was the sight that I wanted to discount it, to explain it away as a hallucination.

My mother had hallucinated, occasionally. She had had fits of psychosis when I was very young, believing that demons disguised themselves as angels and angels disguised themselves as bag ladies on the bus.

I attempted to breathe through the unsteadying waves of dizziness. The smooth muscle in my stomach contracted. Maybe I was losing my mind. Hopefully I was losing my mind. These things were hereditary, after all. I had learned as much in school.

But the evidence remained, the image never shifting. The blood was so red. It was still seeping so slowly. The roses had yet to wilt. The girl—I could not think of her as a corpse—was upside down, her face pressed like a crushed flower into the snow. The wooden end of a knife stood at the top of her cervical spine, buried in her brainstem.

I turned calmly and vomited into the brambles.