Free Beautiful Sorrows by Mercedes M. Yardley

lost the hard edges of his accent. But he could never lose the memories of Sada’s white, milk-fed teeth and strong, coltish legs.
    He wondered if his baby’s killer thought the same thing.
    “He was very handsome,” Sada told him in his dreams that evening. She was standing in a rain so cold that he would be able to see her breath if she had been breathing. “He looked like a prince, not a butcher. Have you ever seen a prince, Daddy?”
    He had not.
    “Maybe princes aren’t real,” Sada said. Her eyes were crafty and sad at the same time. “But monsters are.” She opened her mouth wide and showed Azhar the wildflowers sitting on her tongue.
    The Handsome Butcher liked stealing little girls and boys. They were found hanging from trees and tucked into suitcases like tiny gifts. One child, at first, and then two. A dozen. Two dozen. The community became aware that children don’t line up neatly like toy soldiers when you call them; they dart like rabbits through burrows. They fly like starlings through the air. They dance like wisps of paper in a flame and then they flutter away, pieces of darling ash, and they land where whimsy takes them. If you are lucky, that means they will gently settle into their beds at night, faces washed and teeth brushed. If you are unlucky, they will land in the fingers of bad men. These fingers twist and pluck and slice. These fingers hurt.
    Azhar didn’t want to ask Sada what happened. He didn’t want to know. But she told him, her delicate, piano-note voice hitting ugly chords while she talked.
    “No more,” he begged. Tears made his lashes even darker. “I can’t hear anymore.”
    Sada sighed, looked at the sky. “I miss my dolly. And I’m always hungry.”
    Two towns over, another little girl went missing. She, too, was stolen from her bed. She also had pigtails like banners. The police had no suspects at this time, they said, but Azhar knew it was The Handsome Butcher. He and this frantic mother shared something. Loss. The grief. Perhaps their girls could be friends on the other side.
    “I won’t give up hope,” the mother said firmly into television cameras. There was something scary in her eyes, that same determination that Azhar had worn until pieces of Sada were found. “I’ll find her and then I’ll kill whoever stole her from me.”
    Azhar understood. He spent long hours sitting in the field where Sada’s beautiful face once rested. The wind, the wildflowers. How could a place of beauty survive such loss? Greenery growing over the horrors. Misery soaked up by grasses.
    He took a picture one day. Of the meadow. Of the creek and the terrible Crying Trees. They were perfect on film. Places of peace. When Azhar saw the pictures, he was haunted by Sada, but he was the only one. Others thought they were beautiful. Others who didn’t know.
    These, he silently told his daughter, these are the quiet places where your body grows.
    He tucked the pictures into his wallet. He would show the mother from two towns over. Show her that there is a semblance of life After. When her little one turns up in pieces like his did, she’ll collapse and that will be okay. But After, she’ll be able to see the beauty in the land again. If she just looks hard enough. If she just keeps the dreams at bay.
    “I love you, Daddy,” Sada whispered that night. She was forced to whisper because her throat was rotting out. Azhar turned on his side and looked at his pictures of peace.
    “We’ll make it through this,” he said. He wasn’t quite certain who he was talking to, but the words seemed exactly right.

 
    SHOW YOUR BONES

    She stopped eating at nineteen. One day she simply pushed her plate away, and got up from her lonely dinner table outside in the sun. That was that. Her father never noticed, not with her girlhood friends parading in and out of the mansion. She would listen to the squeaking of springs at night and wish that she could throw up. Sometimes, with a little help, she