The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

was in the women’s shelter and Martine didn’t want to live there with her and the other pitiful beat-up women and kids.
    “S’b’lla? Hey? It’s me.”
    From where she stood in the alley, she couldn’t see into the room behind the window. But this would be Sybilla’s window if Sybilla was staying here.
    Somewhere close by a dog was barking furiously, God damn thing she’d have liked to murder. If Grandma Tice came to the window instead of Sybilla and saw her, she’d send Martine away with a scolding.
    Like a cooing pigeon Martine called gently, stubbornly—“S’b’lla! It’s Martine.”
    Suddenly the window was tugged up. And there was Sybilla leaning out to Martine looking surprised and happy—like a little girl surprised and happy.
    “M’tine! Jesus! Hi.”
    “S’b’lla! Jesus.”
    This was a shock: her girl-cousin beat-up .
    Almost, Martine might not have recognized Sybilla.
    Both Sybilla’s eyes were puffy and discolored, her upper lip was puffy and scabby, one of her eyebrows was shaved and stitched like a weird horror doll, and her hair was cut jagged like a weird horror wig. It was like Sybilla had been dragged from the rear of a vehicle like they told of black people being dragged in the terrible old days in the South or some nasty place like Texas.
    Sybilla tugged the window a few inches higher so that she could lean out, to pull Martine up and inside. Gave a little gasp of pain, blood rushing into her face must’ve been hot and heavy, and just leaning down the way she was seemed to be hurting her back. Martine grabbed hold of the window ledge and swung her legs up like a monkey, crawled through the window and fell into the room giggling into Sybilla’s arms.
    “Oh M’tine! It’s you .”
    “Yah I been missin you, S’b’lla. Why’re you here?”
    “Mama made me come here.”
    The girl-cousins were the same age. Same height and same size except Martine registered shock, hugging Sybilla tight and feeling that Sybilla was skinny.
    “Fuck baby, who hurt you so bad?”
    “Jesus, M’tine! Shh.”
    Sybilla wriggled out of Martine’s arms. Had to pull down thedamn window quietly so Grandma wouldn’t hear and bust in on them.
    Pearline Tice was some ancient age but sharp-eared and sharp-eyed. People said admiringly of Pearline you can’t put anything over on that lady. She’d had seven children, twenty-one grandchildren, more great-grandchildren than anyone could count scattered through the State of New Jersey and beyond.
    “You OK, S’b’lla?”
    “Yah. Aint gonna die, I guess.”
    Sybilla climbed up onto the big bed which took up most of the room. Only a few inches so the door could be opened, and a few feet for a battered old chest of drawers and an ugly old radiator. Martine climbed up beside her breathless and dazed.
    “Worst thing is, I been lonely.”
    Sybilla wiped at her eyes. It looked as if she’d been in the swayback bed sleeping or trying to sleep: she was wearing a flannel nightgown faded with many washings and over this a coarse-knit sweater of Ednetta’s, and on her feet woolen socks. Hadn’t gotten dressed for days she told Martine. (Smelling of her underarms without knowing it, Martine thought.) Taking “painkiller pills” her Mama had left with her grandmother to give to her, no more than three a day.
    It made Martine feel sad, to think of her girl-cousin in pain.
    Martine winced seeing the swollen bruised eyes, bruised cheeks and disfigured-looking mouth close up. Her cousin’s familiar face made unfamiliar like her own face in a mirror, she couldn’t recognize.
    “Who hurt you, S’b’lla?”
    “Ednetta said, I aint supposed to say.”
    “Why not?”
    “They say they gon murder us all, that’s why.”
    “S’b’lla you can tell me .”
    “Then they gon murder you, M’tine.”
    The girls shuddered together. Martine drew a forefinger gently over Sybilla’s bruised face. She touched the swollen lip that felt burning-hot.
    “There’s stitchin in