The Girl Who Would Be King(10)

“Just come,” she says, turning and heading back to the restaurant as if she’s in no hurry whatsoever. I watch her go and then crumple up the card and toss it over my shoulder.

But I’ve already memorized the address.



°

I hit the ground and go into a crouch, my hands and feet sinking slightly into the soft ground. The feeling of being alive doesn’t leave me. In fact, as the mud seeps into my shoes and through my fingers I feel deeply connected to it, not just the earth, but to everything. The world feels bigger and yet smaller because of this new connection. It feels important in some unspoken way. I stay there for a long while, just feeling it.

When I finally move again I put everything back to how it was and sneak back in the kitchen door and lock it up. Upstairs, I take off all my clothes, careful to put both my mother’s bracelet and Jenny’s necklace on the sink edge and rinse the clothes and my shoes in the sink, so that they are only wet and not dirty. I wash my busted up hands, wincing as the water runs into the tears where the bricks cut into my knuckles. I clean off my body and then both my bracelet and Jenny’s locket. Looking inside Jenny’s locket I see what was more important to her than anything: two tiny photos that are by some miracle barely damaged. They look like they could be her parents. I think of all the things I would do if only I could have a picture of my parents and Jasper.

I look up and catch a glimpse of myself in the dark mirror. I’m always shocked by how much I look like my mother – the same long arms and legs, broad shoulders, red hair, pale skin, and smattering of freckles. My eyes are dark blue like hers but my mouth is a little wider, lips thicker. I guess if I can’t have a picture it’s nice to carry her around on my face. I just wish there was some of my father in there too.

When I go back into the sleeping room I put my clothes under the bed, hoping they’ll dry a little before morning, and the last thing I do before collapsing in exhaustion is place Jenny’s locket in her sleeping hand, which is cupped perfectly, as if waiting for it. I think, despite my fatigue that I won’t be able to sleep with all the excitement of the night and worry about having to hide my damaged hands from the staff, but my body takes over and I’m asleep almost instantly.

I dream of my mother.

It’s the first night since my parents died that I don’t dream about the accident and I’ve never been happier to have a different dream. But it’s confusing. She looks different than the memory dream I always have, almost older somehow, and standing there alive instead of lost to me. I’d almost forgotten how tall and strong she always looked, slim, but never delicate. Her skin seems delicate though, like clean sheets of paper sewn together.

I’m pushing on her in the dream to hold me, to keep me, to love me, but she slips away from me; gently, like a loving mother to an impatient child, but there’s an insistence in it that worries me. It feels like there’s a purpose behind it, rather than just some casual thing my mind would imagine. She’s shaking her head at me softly, and she looks, not sad, but concerned. She puts a hand on my shoulder, as if to steady me, to link us; I don’t know why because I’m too busy drinking in her smell, like earth, and rain, and a hint of lavender. I ask her dozens of questions that all sound like ‘why.’ She cannot hear me, or she chooses not to answer. Her eyes become wild, frantically searching the blank horizons around us for something. Occasionally, she looks back at me as if to comfort me, but there is no comfort in the worry that lines her face.

Finally her distance gets to me in the dream, the blind happiness of seeing her before me is overrun with the frustration that she will not hold me, will not take me in, will not speak to me. My face starts to crumble, emotion breaking through, despite my efforts to contain it, and my eyes flush wet with salty tears. I never cry except for in my dreams and it angers me that I’m incapable of crying without her around, and that she should elicit such a reaction in me. I don’t want tears to be what I feel when she's here; I want it to be love, and maybe peace.

But there is no peace here.

She leans down to me, taking my shoulders in her hands, as if sensing my frustration, but when I look at her face it’s not an apology, it’s a demand. She is as frustrated with me as I am with her, and that makes me even angrier.

But then I see.

I see what it is that is causing her face to knit up with worry. Behind her, what once was a desolate horizon is a giant, pulsing river threatening to overflow and nearby a car engulfed in flames. At the very edge of my vision I see wolves running in a long silvery line on the horizon and a lonely cow with big soulful eyes stares at me from beneath a charred tree. The images make no sense. The wind kicks up, dust and dirt swirling around our feet, rising and stinging my arms in a frenzy. A storm builds all around us.