Bella Burrows's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Bella Burrows counted her ninth burp of the afternoon and watched another man walk past the fence without slowing. He had looked at her belly. He had looked at her face. Then he kept walking, because nothing along the road told him what he was looking at. Two summers since the last one stayed, and she was tired of standing in the south field hoping a stranger would guess. Her belly had rounded out by noon, the way it did every day. She pressed a hand to it and felt the next burp climb. It came out loud enough to turn a cow's head. Tenth. She had wanted to be proud of that sound since she was a girl, and no one had ever taught her how. She had taught herself. The trouble was teaching anyone else in time to matter. She walked to the roadside with a hammer and the lumber she had cut the night before. First she nailed up the painted board she had finished by lamplight, big letters calling for belly lovers to stop. Beside it she set the kiosk she had bought off a peddler last spring, the one with the glass screens that lit up and held text. She loaded it with plain facts. Flat belly at sunrise. Round by noon. Roughly twenty burps a day. Hands welcome. She read it twice and fixed one word. Then she dragged out the gear box. It was a heavy thing in a brass frame, the kind of clockwork a man uses to count cattle. She had rewired the counter to advance on her say-so. She set it on a post where the road bent and clicked it forward to ten. Eleven came before she stepped back. Twelve while she tested the latch. She clicked both in. The gears turned and the numbers flipped where anyone passing could read them. A wagon slowed within the hour. Then a rider. By suppertime four men had stopped at the kiosk and read it through. Two kept walking. One laughed and asked if it was a joke, and she sent him off. The fourth was older, quiet, with dirt on his sleeves. He stood at the fence and waited. She burped. He did not flinch. She burped again. He put a hand on the rail and asked if he could come closer. She went still and closed her eyes and waited for the next one. He stayed through it. Then through the one after. She walked to the house and came back with the letter she had written months ago and never had cause to give. Thin parchment, sealed with ink that glowed faint in the dusk. She put it in his hand. "Come back tomorrow," she said. "Read it tonight." He nodded once and went. She watched the road until he was gone, and the gear box clicked to fifteen behind her.