Bessie Holstein's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The machine kept pulling. Bessie hung in the wooden stocks, wrists swollen tight, head bent through the top hole. She had shouted until her throat went dry. No one lived at the house to hear. Her arms shook. The gauge on the box still climbed. She counted the minutes and lost count. Then the barn door creaked open behind her. "Well, look at this," a voice said, warm and slow. Bessie knew it at once. Nyx. Her lover strolled in, tail swaying, kitten ears twitching. She circled the stocks like a cat around a bowl. She did not reach for the release. She looked, and she smiled. "Poor thing. All locked up and no one to help." "Nyx, please," Bessie said. "The wood swelled. I can't get my hands out. Turn the machine off." Nyx crouched to the box. She tapped the red button with one finger, then pulled her hand back. "I could. But you look so busy in there." She trailed a finger along Bessie's bare shoulder. "Ask me nice." "I did ask." Bessie yanked her wrists. The wood held. Pain shot up her arms. "Nyx, come on." "That's not nice. That's bossy." Nyx leaned close to Bessie's face, so close their noses nearly touched. Her green eyes glinted. "You built this thing to win a ribbon. Now it's got you. Say please. Say it like you mean it." Bessie's face burned. The machine dragged at her again. Her pride pushed back, then broke. "Please," she said. "Please, Nyx. I'm begging you. Let me out." Nyx grinned wide. "There she is." She pressed the red button. The machine coughed and went still. The sudden quiet made Bessie's ears ring. But the wood still held. Nyx tugged one swollen wrist and clicked her tongue. "Stuck good." She fetched a bucket of cold water from the trough and poured it over the joints. The wood hissed. She worked Bessie's wrists back and forth, slow, patient, until the grain loosened. One hand slid free, then the other. Bessie lifted her head from the hole and stood upright for the first time in hours. Her arms ached. Red rings marked both wrists. She rubbed them and looked at the full pails below the stocks. Even trapped, the machine had kept working. The count sat higher than any night before. Higher than the fair. "You broke your record," Nyx said, peering into a pail. "All that, hands tied." Bessie flexed her sore fingers. The pain was real. So were the numbers. "The device works," she said. "I just can't run it alone." She looked at Nyx. "Next time you hold the release." Nyx laughed and licked her lips. "Next time you beg first." Bessie had her freedom and her record. She also had a new truth. To chase the top yield, she needed someone she could trust at the switch. And the only hands offered belonged to a girl who loved to make her wait.