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She snapped the comb over her knee.

They were not tied. They were rooted. From their bare feet, thin white threads of fungus or nerve grew down into the floor. m3zatka

Marta didn’t own a bone comb. But her late grandmother had left her a trunk of stuff : dried herbs, crucifixes with broken loops, a fox skull wrapped in red thread. And yes, at the very bottom, wrapped in a scrap of black velvet: a comb carved from a single piece of what looked like human femur. The teeth were sharp. The handle was shaped like a woman with her mouth sewn shut. She snapped the comb over her knee

Because Marta hadn’t destroyed the comb. She had hidden the pieces in three places: one buried in a pot of basil on her windowsill, one thrown into the Vistula, and one—the smallest shard, the one with the woman’s sewn mouth—swallowed whole. From their bare feet, thin white threads of