by G. Deyke
~*~
I wake to Ty's voice: “Sleeping?”
I wake to darkness. I try to open my eye and find that it is already open, and I remember that this darkness is all I have seen for days now. It is no longer as frightening as it was before, but neither is it as soothing as darkness once was.
I feel a little better for having slept the day away, but I am still tired. We have slept so little in the past days, all of us. It will be some time before I can be truly awake again.
I give the steed a last grateful pat, and then I follow Ty back into the inn.
Already I know that these three days will be hard for me. I do not want to be with Mel. I am afraid to be near her. I think to the time when I can leave her forever, but I am afraid that she will know my thoughts, so I try instead to think of nothing. I try not to think of her. I try not to listen when she speaks (fortunately she does not speak much) and I try not to look in her direction and I try not to think of all the pain she has caused me.
I catch a trace of her scent as Ty leads me past her. I try to hold my breath.
I know that, before, I might have asked her now: “What must you buy tomorrow?” Now I think instead: “What must she buy that neither Ty nor I may know of?” She has not spoken to me since we left the well, and she handed me off to Ty – as though I were a thing to be given away – and I wonder if she suspects that something is afoot. I wonder if she intends to buy some means to punish me should I fail her. I wonder if she wishes us both dead, now.
I am glad that I cannot see her.
A small part of me wants to hit her, despite all of Yuit's failed lessons, but a greater part shudders away from the mere thought of her touch. I could never hit her. I would much rather flee. And in three days – three days that may last forever – I will flee, and she shall never be near me again.
After supper, when Ty and I are alone in our room, I tell him: “I will do what I must. Help me. Take me with you.”
At first he says nothing. Then he tells me: “I need a focus. I do not plan to kill the flower, only to distract her, but I shall nonetheless need something of hers.”
I think. I do not think of entering her room and taking something; I do not dare to. I don't know what else to do. I remember the many gifts she gave me over the years, which I collected and kept, and I wish that I could retrieve them now. Then I think of the blue ribbon looped about my wrist – I shudder and almost cry out, repulsed and afraid at the thought of something touching my skin that once belonged to her. Some good luck charm! I claw at it desperately, scratching open my skin in my eagerness to be rid of it. The quick knot I tied to keep it in place holds fast, but at last it breaks beside the knot, and it comes free so suddenly that my hand comes back and I clout myself in the head. The ribbon clings to my fingers, and I cast it aside with all the force I can muster.
My head stings from the blow, and my wrist stings more from my scrabbling nails. For a few moments I do nothing but breathe, trying to calm myself down so that I can – I hope – speak in an even voice. “That was once hers,” I tell Ty at last. “She gave it to me some years ago.”
I try not to remember how it tore, how she looked, where we were, what we were doing.
“Thank you,” says Ty. I think he wants to say more, but he does not, and in time he falls asleep.