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like an acrobat’s ribbon. Beautiful Moon and I were horrified. This was not the way someone in our family should act. But all we could do was sit and stare, because by now growing daggers of pain were shooting from our feet up our legs. Finally, Mama finished her task. She threw Third Sister’s wrapped foot to the floor, stood, looked down at her youngest daughter with disgust, and spat out a single word: “Worthless!”
    Now I will write about the next few minutes and weeks, the length of which in a lifetime as long as mine should be insignificant but to me were an eternity.
    Mama looked at me first, because I was the eldest. “Get up!”
    The idea was beyond my comprehension. My feet were throbbing. Just a few minutes ago I had been so sure of my courage. Now I did my best to hold back my tears and failed.
    Aunt tapped Beautiful Moon’s shoulder. “Stand up and walk.”
    Third Sister still wailed on the floor.
    Mama yanked me out of the chair. The word
pain
does not begin to describe the feeling. My toes were locked under my feet so that my body weight fell entirely on the top of those appendages. I tried to balance backward on my heels. When Mama saw this, she hit me.
    “Walk!”
    I did the best I could. As I shuffled toward the window, Mama reached down and pulled Third Sister to her feet, dragged her to Elder Sister, and said, “Take her back and forth across the room ten times.” Hearing this, I understood what was in store for me, and it was nearly unfathomable. Seeing what was happening and being the lowest-ranked person in the household, my aunt roughly took her daughter’s hand and pulled her up and out of the chair. Tears coursed down my face as Mama led me back and forth across the women’s chamber. I heard myself whimpering. Third Sister kept hollering and trying to wrestle away from Elder Sister. Grandmother, whose duty as the most important woman in our household was merely to oversee these activities, took Third Sister’s other arm. Flanked by two people much stronger than she, Third Sister’s physical body had to obey, but this did not mean that her verbal complaints lessened in any way. Only Beautiful Moon buried her feelings, showing that she was a good daughter, even if she too was lowly in our household.
    After our ten round-trips, Mama, Aunt, and Grandmother left us alone. We three girls were nearly paralyzed from our physical torment, yet our trial had barely begun. We could not eat. Even with empty stomachs, we vomited out our agony. Finally, everyone in the household went to bed. What a reprieve it was to lie down. Even to have our feet on the same level as the rest of our bodies was a relief. But as the hours passed a new kind of suffering overtook us. Our feet burned as though they lay among the coals of the brazier. Strange mewling sounds escaped from our mouths. Poor Elder Sister had to share the room with us. She tried her best to comfort us with fairy stories and reminded us in the most gentle way possible that every girl of any standing throughout the great country of China went through what we were going through to become women, wives, and mothers of worth.
    None of us slept that night, but whatever we thought we felt on the first day was twice as bad on the second. All three of us tried to rip our bindings, but only Third Sister actually freed a foot. Mama beat her on her arms and legs, rewrapped the foot, and made her walk an extra ten rounds across the room as punishment. Over and over, Mama shook her roughly and demanded, “Do you want to become a little daughter-in-law? It’s not too late. That future can be yours.”
    Our whole lives we had heard this threat, but none of us had ever
seen
a little daughter-in-law. Puwei was too poor for people to take in an unwanted, stubborn, big-footed girl, but we hadn’t seen a fox spirit either and we believed fully in those. So Mama threatened and Third Sister temporarily surrendered.
    On the fourth day, we soaked our bandaged feet