The bride clapped her hands twice—a sound like champagne corks popping—and servants emerged with copper basins sloshing with rosewater. "Time to make them presentable," she announced, plucking a sponge from the nearest basin with the relish of a housewife about to scrub her best china. The six-year-old's body swayed gently as the first cascade of water hit her small chest, rivulets tracing down the faint blue veins still visible beneath translucent skin. Someone had thoughtfully tied her hair back with one of the discarded ribbons, and now the wet strands clung to her neck like seaweed.

The nine-year-old's body jerked unnaturally when the cold water hit her thighs, her bladder releasing a final trickle that mixed with the runoff. A maid tutted and lifted the girl's limp arm to scrub the armpit with lemon-scented soap, her fingers pausing to trace the delicate webbing of bruises left by the rope. "Such tender meat," she murmured to no one in particular, before moving on to rinse the girl's feet with the same care one might wash grapes.

By the time they reached the fourteen-year-old, the water in the basins had taken on a pinkish hue. The bride herself took charge of washing her favorite sister, using a silver-handled brush to scrub between the older girl's toes with meticulous attention. "You always hated dirty feet," she chided softly, turning the body to access the small of the back where lividity had begun to set in. The water sluiced away the sweat and urine of the hanging, leaving the skin goose-pimpled and clean.

The rope creaked in protest as the groom sawed through the taut fibers suspending the six-year-old's body. Her small frame slumped forward like a marionette with severed strings, her forehead thudding against the table with a hollow sound that made a nearby server wince. The bride caught the child's hips before she could slide off the edge, her wedding dress absorbing the last droplets of water still clinging to the girl's thighs. "Careful," she chided, arranging the tiny corpse with its arms folded neatly over the chest, as if tucking a doll into bed. "We want them presentable for the carving."

A kitchen boy dragged over the stainless steel bucket with a grating screech that set teeth on edge. The head chef—imported from Paris specifically for this service—tested the edge of his boning knife against his thumb and nodded approvingly at the crimson bead that welled up. He makes the first incision below the six-year-old's ribcage, the skin parting with surprising ease, like the peel of an overripe fruit. Her intestines spilled out in a glistening coil, smelling faintly of bile and the lavender soap they'd used to wash her. The chef flicked his wrist dismissively, sending the organs plopping into the bucket with a wet slap.

The nine-year-old's autopsy proved more dramatic. When the chef's knife slit her abdomen, a geyser of semi-clotted blood erupted, splattering across the groom's starched shirtfront in an abstract pattern. "Marvelous arterial pressure," the chef remarked in thickly accented English, probing the cavity with fingers that emerged slick and ruby-dark. He extracted her organs and tossing it over his shoulder into the bucket.

By the time they reached the eleven-year-old, the bucket was nearly full, a grotesque still-life of childhood anatomy stewing in its own fluids. Her spleen made a peculiar hollow sound when it hit the pile, like a stone dropped into a well. Her other organs follow.

The fourteen-year-old's organs were still warm when the chef removed them, steam curling faintly from her thoracic cavity as he peeled her lungs away from the ribcage with audible pops of separating tissue. Someone had thoughtfully arranged her dark hair in a fan across the table's edge, the ends just brushing the grass where her anklet had fallen.

The string quartet had switched to something Baroque and intricate, the notes weaving between the wet sounds of butchery with practiced elegance—while guests compared notes on which sister had struggled most beautifully.

The bride's needle flashed in the late afternoon light as she stitched the six-year-old's belly shut with the same meticulous care she'd once used to hem childhood dresses. Each suture pulled the slack skin taut, the black thread standing out starkly against the pale flesh like a zipper on a doll's torso. A kitchen boy lifted the small body with surprising reverence, his fingers denting the pliant skin as he lowered it into the waiting cauldron. The water swallowed her whole for a moment before she bobbed back up, her wet hair fanning out like seaweed. Someone had tucked a sprig of rosemary between her fingers—whether for flavor or aesthetics, no one asked.

The bride then sew the belly of the nine-year-old this one herself, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration as she worked the curved needle through the skin flaps with practiced tugs. The thread squeaked faintly with each pull. Two kitchen boys hoisted the body by its ankles and wrists, swinging it once—twice—before releasing it into the bubbling pot where her younger sister already floated face-up. A geyser of broth erupted, splattering the front of a waiter's pristine shirt.

The eleven-year-old's treatment proved more elaborate. A kitchen apprentice crouched between her splayed legs, stuffing fistfuls of chopped apples and caramelized onions into her abdominal cavity until the skin strained taut again. The fruits' sweetness mixed unnervingly with the metallic tang of residual blood as the bride stitched the Y-incision shut with gold thread this time—"To match her hair," she explained to no one in particular. Then the body was rubbed with oil. They push then the oiled and filled body into the big wood heaten oven. Someone had arranged the girl's so, that she looks like a turkey.

But it was the fourteen-year-old's preparation that drew the crowd. The groom himself selected the skewer—a polished iron rod as thick as his thumb—running it along the inside of his thigh to warm the metal before penetration. Her body arched reflexively when the rod punched through her cervix, a last convulsion that made several guests gasp. By the time it emerged from her parted lips, the skewer glistened red-black in the firelight. They sewed her up with silver thread, the bride pausing to wipe a smudge of blood from her sister's chin with her lace handkerchief before the basting began. The cooking oil dripped golden between her breasts, pooling in the hollow of her collarbones before running down the skewer in thin rivulets. She then roasted over coals like a roasting-pig.

The scent hit the guests first—rich and herbaceous, with caramelized sugars crisping at the edges. The six-year-old's skin had browned to perfection, her small limbs glistening with rendered fat that pooled in the hollows of her collarbones like liquid gold. A server lifted the first slice from her thigh with reverent precision; the meat parted in clean, moist layers, revealing flesh the color of crushed raspberries beneath the crackling skin. The bride herself distributed the portions, her fingertips brushing each plate as she murmured, "Try the cheeks—they're always the sweetest on the little ones."

The nine-year-old's shoulders yielded to the carving knife with an audible sigh, releasing a puff of rosemary-scented steam. Her muscles, finely tuned from years of playground races and hopscotch, had cooked down into impossibly tender strands that clung to the fork like candied threads. "Notice the marbling," the groom announced, pointing to the delicate veins of fat webbing through the meat—a result, the chef explained, of her habit of sneaking butter cookies before dinner. An elderly aunt dabbed her lips with a napkin and declared it "better than veal," her dentures clicking approvingly.

When they cracked open the eleven-year-old's ribcage, the roasted marrow bubbled up like dark honey, its unctuous sheen catching the candlelight. Guests leaned in as the chef scraped the contents onto toasted brioche points, the rich paste spreading warm and velvety across the bread. Someone observed how her freckles had concentrated into flavor during the roasting process, leaving the meat speckled with concentrated pockets of umami. The bride licked a drop of grease from her thumb and sighed, "She fought so hard—it really developed the muscle fibers."

But it was the fourteen-year-old that silenced the room. The first slice from her thigh fell away with an almost indecent tenderness, the meat rosy at the center despite the crisp mahogany exterior.The fat had rendered into her flesh in delicate strata, each bite releasing a cascade of flavors: the clean brine of her adolescence, the iron-rich tang of her defiance, the faint floral aftertaste of the lavender soap they'd washed her with. A food critic in attendance would later describe it as "a perfect balance of innocence and experience on the palate."

By midnight, the platters held only bones—gnawed clean as winter branches—and the occasional scrap of crisped skin that someone had saved for later. The string quartet played on as servants collected the leftovers; even the six-year-old's delicate skull would be simmered into stock, her molars making tiny chimes against the pot as the broth bubbled.

The bride leaned against the groom, her fingers sticky with rendered fat as she licked traces of her youngest sister from between her knuckles. "We should do this again next year," she mused.

As the first birds began their morning songs - The wedding guests had all departed—some with doggy bags containing particularly choice cuts, others with recipes hastily scribbled on monogrammed stationery.