Part 3My Bloodied Mother Rescued Me From The Depths

I took the baby girl from Mr. Dean Rivers.

She was all wrinkled, with bruises under her skin, but her cries were loud, and her little arms and legs waved around, reaching out into the air.

The stone table near the village gate already had a basin of water waiting.

I leaned her back into it. She flailed and cried, almost like she was trying to swim while I held her.

People crowded around eagerly to watch.

I let go, and she began struggling desperately. Water splashed everywhere, and she choked, her cries louder than before.

The men laughed, and the women stayed far back.

“Hold her down! Don’t let her splash me!” Virgil shouted.

Mom never let me see when they drowned a girl, but I’d watched from high up in the fruit trees on the mountainside. I was just about to press the baby’s arms and legs down like I’d seen, but then someone shoved me hard.

It was my mom.

She held me down on the ground, scratching and clawing at me, screaming, “You rotten thing! You good-for-nothing!”

I curled up on the ground, wailing and crying.

But Mom didn’t care. She beat me until she was exhausted, while the village chief and everyone else laughed.

“Look, the madwoman’s going off again!”

“Mute, hit her back! Beat the crazy out of her!”

My mom pinned me to the ground, panting heavily.

Her eyes were red, brimming with tears.

I didn’t understand why she was so angry.

They drowned girls every year here.

Just like I didn’t understand why she kept binding my chest every day.

I liked the way my chest had started to feel, the way it was slowly rising.

Because it made me feel like I looked a little bit like her.