The Double Daughter

There were seven daughters each given to a different form of daughterhood. The double daughter was the only child conscribed to be the steward of her own delight. She was appraised as a prize in the eyes of men, and she was seized by constraints that tightened like slipknots as she shifted within her discomfort. When it was time to wed, she took the lake into her bed, pail by pail, minnows in death throes atop the softness of her worn comforter. The fishes' skittish iridescence was more like light's residue than light's resonance, but she began to chart her circular course by those flashes as though they were constant stars. Her stars were displaced by the sunrise, the room rinsed with clear light. Her bed was swollen with lakewater and littered with cold fish. Nothing was ruined: She had drawn in her diary a detailed map.