She is sure that there is more to life than making friends and going to school, sitting with her legs crossed and letting her mother further curl her curly hair every morning. She won’t eat meat or dairy and she won’t eat beans, so her skin slowly turns yellow. Her freckles fade from red to brown and the hair on her body that used to be dark is gilded by constant sun as she rampages through the neighborhood. She has long limbs for jumping fences and climbing trees, with long toes that help her keep balance on slimy rocks in the creek by her house.
She is a wild thing with the temper of a hornet, smoking her mother’s cigarettes and kissing boys and girls that she has captured in her tiny warrior’s games. She spits on bugs and gets stung quite a bit because of it, but doesn’t flinch when it happens.
Her father doesn’t come home one night, or the night after that, or the night after that. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t even ask her mother what’s happened. She doesn’t speak at all, but runs into the woods as fast as she can and climbs the tallest tree she can find. She scrapes up her arms and legs climbing so carelessly, but it doesn’t matter, she wants to be as close to the sky as possible. When she gets too close, the moon reaches out a thin white arm and pushes her off of the limb she’s perched upon, and the girl plummets to the ground.
Her hands are broken, every single bone. She is near death, but only briefly. A dove swoops down like a shooting star with a single berry held in it’s beak. It lands next to the girl’s head and chirrups sweetly, “You have fallen hard, but I can free you from this pain. Out here, I’m the only one who can save you… no one else will find you for hours or days or weeks, and by then your hands will be unsalvageable. No one else will know what has happened as long as you just eat this berry and leave.”
Without a word, the girl opens her lips and wrestles the berry down her throat with her tongue. It tastes like the nectar of an agave cactus, and the juice runs down both sides of her mouth, dripping off of her chin. The following sensations overwhelm her all at once, like fainting, kissing, running, and coming. Her head spins and she falls asleep, but wakes up quickly and leaves the woods.
She arises the next morning with a terrible migraine and the taste of ash on her tongue. She sucks on her lips and teeth, trying to get that taste back. She feels empty, emotionless. Her eyes seem as hollow as her skull. She runs back to the woods, slower this time. A crow’s cawing greets her. She climbs up the tallest tree she can find—and jumps.