Chapter 19: Pick Your Blade

"Isn't she brave?" Imogen said into the microphone, and the gasps turned into applause.

She wanted them to call it courage.

I stood in the spotlight with my hands at my sides and let her.

A stagehand set a velvet-lined tray on a stand beside the box, and on it lay four thin gold blades.

"Now, Mrs. Winslow, this is my favorite part," Imogen said. "Every volunteer gets to pick a blade. Go on, my dear. Pick your blade."

She said it sweetly.

I knew why she'd planned it.

If I picked one up with a shaking hand, four hundred people would see a patient too frightened to go through with it.

I picked up the nearest blade and held it to the light.

It was lighter than I'd expected, and it shone.

"Chief?" I called, over the footlights. "Would you come up, please?"

The chief, in the front row, went the color of putty.

"Mrs. Winslow, I don't think..."

"You're a public servant, and I'm a volunteer. I'd like you to check my blade."

Someone in the balcony laughed, and then everyone else did, with relief.

He came up the steps heavily, took the blade, and turned it over in his fingers.

He pressed his thumb along the edge.

It folded in the middle like a ruler made of tin.

"It's collapsible," he said, bewildered, to the house. "It's a prop."

"It's a prop," I agreed. "I wanted to see it before the lid came down. Nobody ever thought to ask before."

The chief handed it back and went down the steps without looking at Imogen.

I stepped into the box.

My leg shook, and I did it anyway.

I lay down with my head through the round hole at the end and my feet out the other, and the dark wood closed around my ribs.

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