Here, her mother said, pressing something into her palm.

   A phantom tack. A concentrated pinch. Something sharp breaking skin and spreading heat.

   She looked down. Her palm now tattooed with a tangle of dark glyphs, a concert of spirals, curlicues and arabesques. The glyphs pulsated, a beating that nearly set them in relief against the skin.

   She raised her eyes and asked—Mother, what have you given me?

   Mother held daughter’s gaze, as she responded—I gave you my history. It’s a small thing but I wanted to pass it onto you. Pass it into you.

   The daughter stared at the secret alphabet monopolizing her palm, and tried to imagine how much history her hand now held. A future recalled, a past foretold.

   She closed her fingers, screening history, and opened them, a revelation. Again and again—opening, closing, hiding, revealing, keeping time to wounds. The rapid fanning of joy and sorrow made her dizzy.

   Are you okay, her mother asked, brushing strands of hair away from her face.

   Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you for this gift. Are you…

   The daughter’s throat seized up. She stared down at her remade hand.

   The mother nodded and kissed her daughter’s forehead, a cool imprint of lips, a fugitive echo, before she faded, a trick of the light expired.

   The daughter dug glassy nails into her palm, testing the reality of the history she had inherited, and as the pinch, sprouting thorns, moved from her palm to her hand, she recalled vividly how the water had risen so quickly, and how the dark, intrepid and weightless, had risen with it.