13

The hinge of her jaw pops, snaps, and cracks with pain, as if simple sinew, bone, and muscle could ever compete with the invisible wire put in place centuries ago to keep her mouth shut.

It is unsafe to speak, it warns. You will be punished if you do.

The energy of silence wraps around and around, as strong as steel, clamping her molars together, forcing her tongue back behind her incisors.

Do not open, it commands. It will be painful if you do.

Her masseter muscles have forgotten how to relax, unknowingly complicit in keeping her quiet, supporting the subjugation through their own free will.

Stay small, they abide. It will be better if you do.

Throughout her ancestral history, words were swallowed whole, but inside her belly she can still hear them, refusing to be digested and forgotten. The time had come. She can no longer refuse to let them be heard.

As she opens her mouth, she feels what it might be like for a python to stretch its jaw to consume bigger prey - an uncomfortable but necessary endeavor if a creature wants to thrive rather than just survive. The small portions that fed her have always sustained her, but now she wants more. She is ready. She wants to feast.

Perhaps this is part of the shedding, she thinks.

This is part of the shedding, she knows.

It's time to open wide.

- Still, Between