Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 30
30
She felt hot and sweaty, but she couldn't stop shivering. Pain flared up in her joints at the slightest movement. She was so tired, and yet she couldn't fall asleep, no matter how hard she tried. What little sleep she did get was broken by painful bouts of coughing and vomiting, never allowing her any deeper than a light doze. The world of dreams was the only place the nameless little girl had left, the only place where there was no pain, where she could run and play with her friends, where she could fly through the air like a bird or swim through the river like a fish, but even that had been taken away from her. The pain would take everything, eventually.
It was in this exhausted state between wakefulness and uneasy sleep that she noticed the whispers. She was happy at first, thinking that the sounds were coming from an unseen dream, a dream that would carry her away from her crumbling body - far, far away. But the world stayed dark, and the whispers stayed just that. Whispers.
She opened her eyes.
There were two shadows in the tent with her, whispering softy to each other. One was her mother, and the other...
The nameless little girl's heart swelled with joy upon seeing her father again. She tried to call out to him, but nothing happened. She could feel her mouth forming the proper shapes, but there was no sound. Her throat was swollen and sore from all the coughing, and every breath stung, as if she weren't pulling in air, but invisible grains of sand.
"I don't know what to do anymore, Jerardo. She just keeps getting worse and worse..."
"It's okay, Raika."
"I see her lying there, my poor little baby... she's in so much pain and I can't do anything to help her! I feel so useless..."
"We'll make it work, somehow. Don't worry."
The girl licked her dry, cracked lips and tried again, straining against the burning ache in her chest. "Fah... Father..."
The whispers stopped dead and Father quickly wiped his arm across his face before turning around, smiling that big, silly smile of his. "Hey there, turtle dove. What are you doing up so late?"
Waiting for you, she wanted to say, but didn't need to. Father always seemed to have this weird way of knowing exactly what was going on in her head, and he came to her without needing to hear a single word.
"Did ya miss me?" he said, brushing a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes. "'Cuz I sure missed you."
He said that like it was a joke, but even though he was only gone for a few hours, she really did miss her father. She missed the way he always smiled, and she missed the way he called her 'turtle dove', like their lives were still perfectly normal, like nothing had changed.
Like she wasn't dying.
She reached for him with both hands, and he chuckled.
"I guess that's a 'yes'." He lifted her up with those big, strong hands of his and the nameless little girl buried her face against his chest and hugged him tight. "I missed you, too, turtle dove," he said, holding her in that special way only he could, with one hand stroking her hair, and the other lightly rubbing against her back. "How are you feeling?"
She peeked over his shoulder and saw Mother sitting in the dark, an assortment of pelts pooled in her lap. She reached up and tapped the spot between her breasts, where her necklace used to be. It wasn't there anymore, though. No. It was hers now, nestled firmly between her and her father's bodies, a constant reminder of her promise. A reminder to always be strong.
I feel strong, she wanted to say. She wanted to say it so badly, but it hurt too much. She wanted to keep the tears inside, but it hurt too much. She wanted her father to keep smiling, but it hurt too much.
She grasped the bear claw hanging around her neck, trying to draw strength from it, trying to keep her promise, trying to be strong.
But she was just a nameless little girl, and it simply hurt too much.
A tiny mewl escaped her throat, and that was all it took. The mewl turned into a sob, and the sob turned into a wail. She clutched her father tight and she cried into his shoulder, burning with shame as well as fever, unable to stop. Pain tore through her body. Every muscle, every joint, every ligament was on fire.
"There, there, it's okay, turtle dove, don't cry," Father crooned, patting her on the back. "Do you know where I was today?"
"Y- You went tuh- to the clea- to the clearing..." she struggled to get the words out between her explosive sobs. It hurt to draw breath, and it hurt to talk, and it hurt to blow that breath out again. Everything. Everything hurt.
"That's right. And you know what I found there?"
"Sh- Shek -"
"Nah, not that creepy witch. Something much better." He unclipped a water skin from his belt, and the nameless little girl could already tell what was inside by the slow, lazy way it sloshed between his fingers. Not water, but the thick, green sludge Shekka-kai had been brewing for them over the past few days. The girl hated it because it tasted like chewed up moss pulp, but she also loved it because it made the pain go away for a little while.
"Okay now, lean back for -" Father turned his head to the side and started to cough. It didn't fade away like coughs normally did, but only grew stronger. He covered his mouth and hacked into his palm, and the nameless little girl could feel every heave of his chest against her body, bouncing her up and down.
"Father! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, turtle dove." Father wiped his mouth and turned back with a smile. "Just a frog in my throat, is all. Now come on, time for your medicine."
He held the pouch up to her lips, and that's when she saw the dark smear of blood across the back of his hand. He was suffering just as much as she was, but instead of crying like a bawlbaby, he was putting on a smile, just for her. She pushed it away.
"Don't be like that, girl. I know this stuff is nasty, but you're just going to have to grin and bear it, okay?"
"You can have it, Father," she said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt.
"Ah, so that's what you're worried about? No need to fret, turtle dove. Your mother and I already had some."
"You did?"
"Yeah. While you were sleeping. Isn't that so, Raika?"
Mother nodded and gave a big smile. "It's okay, dear. Go on."
Looking back on it later, she should have realised something was wrong. She should have noticed their smiles were causing them pain. She should have understood the significance of Shekka leaving the medicine out in the middle of the clearing instead of bringing it to them personally. Most of all, she should have seen that there was only one skin of medicine to go around. But she was just a sick, nameless little girl in so much pain that she could barely think straight. All she could see was that there was medicine for her, something to take the pain away, and her parents telling her it was all right.
"Tilt your head back, turtle dove," Father said, and that's exactly what the sick little girl did. She felt the tip of the pouch touch her lips and she eagerly sucked the thick, viscous liquid into her mouth. She could feel the lumpy texture of it - the sharp corners of the bits of leaves that hadn't been chopped up quite as finely as the others pricking her gums. It tasted bitter and green and left a weird tingly sensation in her throat, but in just a while, it would make the pain go away. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could even get to sleep. And maybe, if she was doubly lucky, she could get to dream.
She made herself stop after the first sip. That was the rule. One sip for each of them, twice a day. She swallowed, nearly choked, and forced it down, clenching her teeth against the urge to cough.
"Hey, little one. Feeling better?"
The pain was still there, of course. It would take a while yet for the medicine to work, and even when it did, she wasn't fooled. She knew the pain was still there, even if she couldn't feel it, just waiting to come back.
She tried to put on a brave smile. She tried to be strong. She tried so hard. "Much better, Father."
He smiled and shook his head. "Oh, turtle dove, you're such a terrible liar. I can see it written all over your pretty face. There's some here..." he pinched her left cheek, "and here..." he pinched her right cheek, "and a whole mess of it here..." and he booped her on the nose.
The sick little girl wanted to smile. Not a brave smile, or a fake smile, but a _real_smile. She loved her father very much, and although she was maybe getting a bit too old for his silly games, they still made her feel happy.
But the pain was still there. The medicine hadn't covered it up yet, and she could still feel it worming through her body.
She clutched the bear claw necklace in her tiny fist, and she remembered...
I have to be strong. I promised Mother I would be strong...
Don't cry... Don't cry... Don't cry... Never cry...
The tears leaked from her eyes, completely indifferent to the promise she had made, and she was powerless to stop them.
Over the years to come, she would play that moment over and over in her head, both in her waking hours and in her nightmares, and she would come to the same conclusion every time - that those were the tears that finally decided it. That was the moment she killed her parents. That was the moment she murdered them with her tears.
She tried to wipe them away before Father could see, but he beat her to it, lightly dragging his thumb beneath her eye. "It's okay, turtle dove. We got you."
And then Mother was there, wiping away her tears on the other side. "We love you so, so much."
The sick little girl opened her mouth to tell them that she loved them, too, but before any words could come out, Father had slipped the tip of the skin between her teeth. "It's okay, girl. There's plenty to go around. You can have some more."
She tried to push it away, but Father squeezed the pouch and the thick, leafy medicine oozed into her mouth.
She should have spat it back out. Some of it would have gone to waste, but at least they wouldn't have tried it again.
But she didn't. She was selfish. She felt the bitter taste of the medicine flow onto her tongue and she swallowed it eagerly, thinking only of herself, thinking only of how much she wanted the pain to go away, just for a little while...
"That's a good girl," Father said, lightly rubbing her cheek. "That's a very good girl."
She opened her mouth and gasped for air, the bitter green medicine still dripping onto her tongue. She felt terrible, horrible, sicker than ever before, ashamed...
But the pain was going away. The pain was finally going away...
Mother placed her hand on the pouch, right next to Father's. They looked into each other's eyes in a way the sick little girl had never seen before. Something seemed to pass between them, an unspoken understanding, and they both nodded.
"M- Mother?" she said, wondering why they hadn't taken the skin away yet.
"It's okay, dear. You can have some more."
"No! No! I don't need any more! You need it! You -" Mother squeezed the pouch and even more of that disgusting medicine oozed into her mouth, thick and slimy. The fetid stench filled her nostrils, and although it made her feel sick in a completely different way, she suckled on that pouch like a newborn baby might suckle on her mother's breast, all while the bear claw lay against her skinny chest, completely forgotten. She wasn't strong. She was weak, and she had broken her promise.
The pouch was finally pulled away from her sucking lips, but she barely even noticed. The whole world had gone a hazy shade of grey, and all she could see were the faces of her parents, looking down on her, smiling.
But were those real smiles? Were they?
She felt a strong hand gently lower her back into bed, felt another pull a fuzzy pelt across her body, warm and soft.
The pain was going away... The pain was finally going away...
"We love you, turtle dove."
They kissed her on the cheeks, wiping the last of her tears away.
Her evil, poisonous tears...
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