I was impregnable once,” Merrill thought to contribute. She remembered how troublesome it made getting around, having a ripe belly. Couldn’t roll properly, couldn’t hop properly, couldn’t romp or flop properly. There were the cravings for roasted cabbage—she loathed cabbage, with its leaves and growing in rows. And labor! Merrill passed out during childbirth. She’d endured burns, lacerations, rips, serrated teeth, nails, hooks and a trove of unmentionable harm-inf lictors. Labor trounced them all and wriggled gleefully in the spray of blood and gore. “Being impregnable is no good. No good at all. Like growing a bitter melon in your belly.

Where Madness Roosts