Bodies of Light

She woke up thinking about knives, ate only porridge for breakfast, because even a butter knife could be considered an offense. She keeps thinking about knives. The child continues to cry. She is weak. She is a badass. The child defeated her. She is afraid to leave the house, lest she buy tincture of opium, and if there is any left, there are knives here. And a fireplace. And stairs. And windows. High, under the pediment itself. The child is crying. She cannot take her in her arms. Through the windows. Through the stairs. And can't leave. Through knives. Through tincture of opium. That is why she is standing here in the doorway, and the child is crying. The child causes her evil thoughts. With his cry, he calls her to eternal torment. Before the birth of the child, she was full of light.

Intelligent and persistent Alethea - Ellie, as her father affectionately calls her - is involved in an eternally losing battle for the approval and favor of her own mother - a strict religious fanatic who only cares about the hunger of the poor and the salvation of prostitutes. Even when Ellie becomes one of the first female students allowed to study medicine in London, it's not enough for her mother.

Alethea needs peace so badly in a world where love and approval are destroyed by her mother that she turns her own life into pain. And the only way to quench it is to destroy one's own body.