Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest

you find and stay low.”
    “Sister!” Laura reached out like she might grab her, but the small nun was faster than she looked. Her skirts swished fast behind her and she was gone.
    Laura and I stared back and forth between ourselves, hands on ears, wishing for the terrible roar to subside and shaking as it failed to do so. “Maybe you should—” I started to say, but she knew the rest already.
    “I’ll get the cook,” she nodded, and she was off. A moment later she dashed back past me, into the galley. She emerged holding a great carving knife; she held it point down, by the handle, and her wrists were as tight as leather.
    I wanted to tell her that I thought this was unnecessary, that it was too much. I wanted to tell her she was going to frighten someone, but I was already more frightened of the warbling howl than I was of this strong-boned black girl.
    Still, as she dashed past me I thought that she did not look like a creature to be trifled with. I wished her all the luck in the world. She was gone. And abruptly—with a gurgle and a gasp—the sound stopped altogether.

IX.
    You wait as long as you can. You hold onto it, you bite it back and you sit on it, you stuff it back down. You press it back as far as it will go, and you ignore it. You pretend it isn’t there. You tell yourself it only has to hide for a little while more—a little while more. Just look up and see the sky, and you know it’s coming. You know you don’t have to shut it down for long. You only have to last a little while more.
    But God sets Himself against me.
    You should have seen the sky that night, the way it was covered and hidden and the way it was gray-not-black or speckled with stars. Grey gloves of clouds entwined themselves above me. Veins of lightning split them, parted them briefly, and vanished—leaving the ceiling of heaven bleak again. Leaving me bereft. Leaving me hungry.
    If I could have only looked and known. Even if what I saw told me nothing good—if I could have only looked and known.
    It’s madness, I know. My father knew it too.
    Everyone who meets me comes to know it. Everyone who sees me wonders, and every one of them is right to wonder. It is a dread of difference they smell. It is an old fear I inspire. It is the fear of being chased, and caught, and eaten.
    I knew the moon was full and fat, and I knew there was little to be done. I knew I could not fight her, but if I could see her I could appeal to her—I could ask her for one small reprieve, for one small night while a storm kept us trapped in the water.
    The moon might have heard me. She might have granted it. After all, I was making the voyage for her .
    I was content to be her creation, and to have her as my mistress. I was ready to be whatever she wanted of me—if she wanted me an animal, not man, I was prepared to let her have that. It was why I left England, and why I left New England, and why I wandered west and south in the new colonies.
    I understood that out west there were few people—and most of those were savages. If I could not hide myself from man, at least I would hide from civilization. But some of these savages were a knowing, noble people, or so I had been told. In lieu of avoiding them, I hoped to consult with them. I might find a shaman, or a witch doctor who practiced a magic like the one that consumed me, and drove me.
    I did not believe I could be fixed, but I thought I might gain some control, or insight. I thought there might be some leash for the hunger and the madness. I would not find it among the white men, this much was clear.
    West then.
    But the small red-haired woman would not let me go. She would not let me leave. She followed—oh, how she followed! Tracking me, Mary’s dog. Mary’s lap-hound. Trailing behind me, through France and Germany as I went back to the Black Forest there, where the wolves are fearsome as nowhere else.
    Back to India, where I was lost and useless, she tagged along a day’s travel late.