[It has only been a handful of minutes, and Joy has already had a terrible day. She has been dragged up out of the waters. She has been a squid. She has had a tantrum that has not gotten anything out of her system. She is naked and chilled and has bits of viscera in places no viscera ought to be. She is being spoken to familiarly (Miss!) by some ghastly little shade. There is something profoundly, intimately wrong with her blood, a horrific disorder and rebellion of the cells.
She bristles visibly at the girl's intimation of payment, as if that spectacle had anything to do with her, as if she imagines she has taken some revelation from Joy that the Saint might quiver at. Her butterfly flits from her nose to perch beside her ear, a bizarre ornament on a horror like the one she is.]
I haven't the slightest interest in learning anything about this wretched brackwater.
[She pulls an exaggerated frown, nose wrinkling in disdain, and emphasizes her point with a pronounced little:] Blech.
no subject
She bristles visibly at the girl's intimation of payment, as if that spectacle had anything to do with her, as if she imagines she has taken some revelation from Joy that the Saint might quiver at. Her butterfly flits from her nose to perch beside her ear, a bizarre ornament on a horror like the one she is.]
I haven't the slightest interest in learning anything about this wretched brackwater.
[She pulls an exaggerated frown, nose wrinkling in disdain, and emphasizes her point with a pronounced little:] Blech.