The Bonds That Break Us by Erin Mainord EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Erin Mainord
- Language: English
- Genre: Dark Fantasy Horror
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
The water bleeds scarlet.
Juice seeps into the current as if the bowels of the river
hemorrhaged, drifting down the bank and over the loose rocks.
Hooking a slender finger between my lips like a caught fish, I sweep a digit
across my gums and spit a few more lingonberry seeds into the river.
It won’t be the last time I spit red from my mouth.
I scrub at the stubborn mud slathering my cheeks and forehead,
watching the clumpy brown soil wash into the shallow river. Somewhere
deep in the thorn-infested bramble, a throaty whistle of a songbird floats
out. Its chirps weave through the labyrinth of plump dewberries and
squeeze through the arching shoots to pierce my ears with its mocking trill.
When the last of the dirt and grime is washed away, leaving my skin
burning from the scratchy linen cloth, the bird flutters its tiny wings to
perch on one of the many tangled canes. It peers at me with dark eyes,
hopping on spindly legs and showing off its collection of brown and gray
feathers.
Such a foolish animal, content to live its life nibbling on the seeds of
grains and weeds, chirruping merrily, unaware of the danger watching
through the lattice of branches above its head. In the overgrown guts of the
forest, the hawk needs to survive as much as the sparrow. Swooping off its
roost, the raptor dives through the dense canopy and buries curved talons in
the squishy sides of its meal, taking off before any other predators can try to
steal its afternoon snack.
I don’t pity the dead thing. Bouncing from shrub to shrub, growing fat
on tender grasses and swollen berries without a thought of self-preservation,
ignorant to the perils lurking just out of sight. Something so eager to risk its
life in exchange for minuscule pleasures chose its fate.
Deserves it too.
If it had been aware of the menace stalking from above and taken cover,
the hawk’s sensitive feet couldn’t have pierced the prickly hedge. Instead,
foolishness led to its feeble bones being crushed, and its stomach spilling
out from feathered sides.
At least the hawk gets to eat, I think, turning back to my reflection
rippling in the river, my image as clear as tumbled quartz. My long hair is
littered with debris from tending to the gardens, my nose and chin beaming
with red agitation from scrubbing off the mud. I slip into the river’s cold
viscera, gooseflesh blooming along my skin.
Two months ago, I was that sparrow. Snatched up in the jowls of a beast
that prowled in shadows.
But despite my namesake bird, I have never been one to take kindly to a
cage.
Unfortunate for him, really. He should have never let me go. Because
now I have traded my gilded cage for a set of lethal, pointed teeth and an
appetite to match.
I am prey no longer.
No.
I am the Wren.
“Your legs would be wise to find some knickers before devotion tonight.”
Running my hands through my sopping tresses and wringing the ends in
a death grip, I turn and meet the gray eyes of my bear-sized best-friend.
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