Ersatz

By Patrick ten Brink

“Sticks and stones will make my bones and words can always break you,” sang Hex as she pressed moss onto her forearm in the moonlight. But her flesh, while soft, was green. Hex added leaf after leaf. “Skin smells good,” she murmured, “but they will know.” She climbed a drainpipe and listened to Alice’s bedtime story. With each word, a leaf turned to skin and the moss to muscle. The light clicked off. Hex snuck inside and stared at little Alice in bed and whispered in a rustling voice, “Sticks and stones will take your bones, and I’ll be pretty instead.”