Frankenstein couple kiss with roses

Dougal brought the skull in a biscuit tin. He was a scrap-diver with a bad knee and a habit of talking to his finds. He said he'd pulled it out from under a school gym, teeth still in, and that someone had loved it enough to keep it dry. He wanted a bride to match, one who would hold his skull by the jaw the way you'd carry a teacup you didn't trust anyone else with. I asked why he didn't buy a ready-made mate from the Hythe market. He said the ready-made ones always looked at the camera.

It took eleven weeks. I stitched her seams in black thread so they would show, as he asked, and pressed roses onto her collar from a mould of garden blooms I'd grown under the grow-lamps. The ribbon I printed last, in cream stock. When Dougal read the words he laughed until he coughed. He said MADE FOR YOU sounded like a headstone. I said it sounded like a promise, and that the difference was mostly punctuation.

On the morning they went out to the flood wall, he set her on the rail facing the water with the skull lifted, and she leaned in to press her mouth to bone that could no longer kiss back. The tide climbed the stone steps as if it were reading the inscription. Dougal said nothing. He kept one hand on the jaw, steady, until the light changed and the water took the ribbon away.