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Her mouth is white. She is cold. She starts to shiver, her shoulders wriggling a bit like an earthworm emerging from wet soil. Anna inspects the child's ribs which leave hollow shadows. The child is too small to have breasts but the flat flesh there is scarred by insect bitings. Anna relaxes her grip; when she looks down, the skin is purple-marked by her hand. The shivering disturbs her. If only the girl would stay still.
"Sorry," Anna says, coaxing her voice out. It has long since grown cold and redundant to use - Anna uses it only for the girl. Woodland animals know better the unyielding swing of her axe.
Even though she means it to comfort, the girl flinches. She thought the strength had gone on the second week. All those days ago, when Anna had first carried her like she sometimes carries special, special, tender meats, she had writhed and made noises that hurt Anna's ears. It had startled the birds who knew only Anna as their predator. Anna had thought the girl was stupid for wasting her effort. Now she knows only the weak, cold grasp of her fingers stretched around her stomach. Anna wants nothing else than her pale strength if it meant she could hold her this way.
"Bunny," Anna shushes. "Bunny girl. Little." The girl shakes so hard she knees Anna in the thigh. Her mother called her bunny. When her mother called her bunny she did not shake or let out these pathetic shrivelling noises. There was a warm feeling, deep inside.
She shakes the girl. "Warm," she mutters. "Warm?" A teardrop falls on Anna's thick sweater, searing cold straight through her. Her fists clench around her tendinous elbows and she rattles her until her mouth clacks open and closed.
"Please," the girl cries out. She spits out the end of her tongue and blood sprays on her face. "Stop mama, stop." Her face is wet. The freckle on her eyelid stretches to touch her strained brow.
"Bunny," Anna shouts. "Warm?" Her head spasms as her neck jerks, cracking. Anna’s fingers immediately relax. Her grey lashes flicker out and her eyes still and look straight ahead. When Anna smooths the crease in her shirt, laying the girl against her stomach, her mouth sags open and blood puddles into her shirt. She does not breathe.
"Oh, sunshine," she says tonelessly. She presses the limp weight of the girl to her stomach.
Anna sits in the rocking chair until the cold winter sun burns through the window. The light touches the toes and then the bloody toenails of the three girls strung up to the oak rafters, and seeps through the thin veils covering them. In golden hues their bruises are revealed. Their pale skin was made dark by breathlessness. One of them with orange plaits steadily drips blood from her eyeless face.
Anna pushes her feet back and forth, swinging the chair, stroking the girls hair. Blood blinks on the wall, the light moving to capture the arc. Her back presses into the hard bone of the chair. The dead girl's teeth dig into the top of her forearm. Lice crawls along the curled strands that wire out of her ponytail. Her fingernails find the scalp damp with sweat and scratch along the seam of her hair.
The house rattles with wind. From time to time, the ankles of the girls make dull thudding noises as they bang together. Their limbs sway like mindless creatures.
Anna's voice hollows out the whole cabin. When she begins her first breathless tune, the trees extend their shadows into the house and blacken the outlines of the girls’ ribs and the knuckles of their dirty toes. She sings, something stabbing her chest. The painting on the wall blurs as her eyes grow wet. The girl feels like so much useless weight throwing her down into the swinging chair. She rocks the chair with more force so the girl's ponytail hits her back every time she comes back down.
"Не ложися на краю,"
The room shudders with the weight in her throat. Her chest expands and tightens at the same time. The girl is turning red and purple all over.
"Придёт сереньки волчок,
и ухватит за бочок."
She sings and pets her hair. Her neck rolls back and on the next painful rocking of the rocking chair, Anna's collarbone is kissed by her still lips. Anna's eyes burn. Her mouth is cold. Her voice cracks. She sings no longer.
Daybreak yellows the girls. Their limbs begin to spot and turn brown. Their mama licks her frostbitten lip and her eyes drip.
On the next passing of the moon, there are four girls strung to the oak rafters.