'Dropped Stitches'

This very short story from Figurhead by Carly Holmes concerns a girl who is born with two extra fingers on each hand. The girl's mother is missing four digits and takes her daughters'. The mother, a renowned dressmaker, attaches the stolen fingers with some fine needlework.

This is a mini-fable, with much of the genuine cruelty of fairy stories before the Victorians tidied them up. As the daughter grows up she attains some control of her mother through the purloined digits, and thus gains strength and independence. Eventually, she takes her fingers back. One can see this as a story about the way some parents try to live out their own dreams through their children, but it may well be something else entirely, what do I know?

More flash-fiction reviewed very soon.