Character I Met

Kipsa and I had been hiding out in the woods all afternoon, hoping to find Robin Hood or at least a glimpse of one of his many merry men, but to no avail.

"Your da lied." Kipsa said, looking up at me with his yellow green eyes. "There's no Robin Hood."

I looked back at him wondering at his naivety. "He didn'a lie, its just a story."

Kipsa broke a branch in half over his upper thigh. "Na, he lied and so did you."

I looked at him and considered belting him across his somewhat smug face, until I heard a sound. I placed a finger to Kipsa's lips and pointed my finger over his shoulder to where the sound was buzzing.

It was a low sound, like a buzzing bee, as it floated up and crescendoed down, sometimes stopping for breath and then continuing. Kipsa's eyes took on their adventurous glimmer and he slipped to the forest floor and began to slink snake like towards the sound. I was right behind him, sometimes bumping into his dirty feet, sometimes passing him.

We left the forest and came into a small clearing, where the sound became louder and more human sounding. Kipsa saw him first and cringed back slightly into me. I do not know if I would have seen him if it had not been for Kipsa's line of vision. I followed it and stared for a moment before I descrened the shape of a small boy camouflaged by the atmostphere around him.

He was no taller then my sister, who has lived two summers, but where she is chubby and round, he was slender and sleek and where she was so baby like he was so boy like. His skin was a dusty brown, his hair a few shades darker and his eyes green like spring leaves, new and rainy wet looking.

The boy did not see us at first, but continued to hum, for that was the sound that we had followed to him. He gazed up at the sky, his lips in a upward cat grin and his hands twining grass blades together in an intricate braid. He seemed to be in a trance, as if his own humming had put him there, for he didn't move or glance at us, as Kipsa began to whisper questions at me.

"What is he?" Kipsa placed his lips right over my ear, sending shivers up and down my spine.

I glared at him, but he didn't notice. "What should we do?" Shut up, I mouthed at him, but Kipsa's eyes were on the boy.

"Do you think he is one of the Leprechaun's?" Kipsa asked, his whisper raspingly loud.

I was turning to push at Kipsa when the boy stopped humming and threw his head back, laughing. "Leprechaun?" He said through his laughter, and he turned his head towards us, but not his eyes, which didn't seem to focus on either one of us. "Do I look like a leprechaun?"

Kipsa stood and stepped towards the boy, who seemed to shift his colors from brown to dark green. I followed after Kipsa, slowly, wairly.

The boy stepped towards us and this time I watched as the colors of his hair did change, slightly, as if somehow a shadow fell upon and through him. I pulled Kipsa back towards me, but he shrugged me off and stepped towards the boy again. "I don'a know. I never saw one, before." Kipsa said, his voice low.

The boy's smile did not change nor did his eyes flicker from their far off stare. "I am not."

"What are you?" Kipsa reached out a hand to touch the boy, who only came to his hips, but his hand passed right through him. "What are you?" Kipsa asked again, his voice quavering as he crept away from the boy who was laughing, his colors shifting to blues and purples.

"What am I?" The boy's voice threw itself around the clearing as if it were a rock bouncing across the smooth surface of a lake. "What am I?"

Kipsa fell back and into me and we fell in a jumble of arms and legs. "Let's go!" Kipsa said, for the first time that day making sense.

We fled, leaping over fallen trees and curving around bent branches, our bodies pumping with fear for the boy's voice followed us, sometimes right at our heels and sometimes in front of us. "What am I?" It called, no longer laughing and merry, but lonely and confused. "What am I?"

We did not stop until we were in the village, surrounded by throngs of people yelling and singing, the smell of beer, blood and piss filling our nostrils. We slowed our foot steps and wiped the sweat from our faces, not daring to make eye contact with each other.

"What the hell?" Kipsa kept muttering under his breath. "What the hell?" We stopped at the well and pulled up the bucket, tossing the water over our heads, feeling the coolness slick down out backs.

"Thirsty?" Kipsa asked, letting the bucket fall and nodding towards my cup where it hung from my belt. I nodded and unhooked it, as Kipsa pulled the bucket up, brimming with sparkling waves of water. It was then, as Kipsa took it in both hands, to pour it into my cup that we heard it again, a slight waiver like the buzz of a mosquito. "What am I?"

Kipsa started to shake, the water slipping down from the bucket into my out held cup, taking on the contours and lines of a small boy.

Blue Moon

The gods were angry with Celius. He could tell because everything had gone wrong for him in the past year. His crops, the ones that had appeared, had shriveled up within a week of their first appearance disregarding the rain and fertile soil that they had been planted in. His wife who had never swayed in her steadfastness to him, had begun to glance elsewhere, her eyes following the men that slunk past his house. When confronted she laughed and shrugged with disdain.

Celius tried to recall what he had done to wrong the gods, but could think of nothing. He had made his annual sacrifice of two goats, a hen and one sixteenth of his earnings. Although in retrospect, he had not counted the money he had made on the selling of his mule as earnings.
This thought corrected">occurred to him in the dead of night, smacking him out of his half slumber and into the silence of his room. His wife did not lay beside him and when he searched for her through out the remainder of his house, she was not to be found. Cursing himself at his own selfishness and stupidity he gathered two coins from his purse and headed out towards the temple.

"Perhaps," he said to the night sky, hoping that the gods might be listening, "if I get the money to the alter by morning, the gods will have forgiven me, and return my life to me."

His journey would take him most of the night, for the sky was dark with only a few distant stars peering through the cloudy sky at him. He had gone only a small distance when he realized that someone walked ahead of him, hidden under a long cloak and carrying a lantern that lit the road in front of them, making their shadow loom out and behind them.

Relieved that he might have some company on his journey he sped up slightly thinking that he would soon overtake them, but as his footsteps grew faster, so did the figure in front of him. After a brief moment he realized that the person might fear him and think he might mean them harm, and so he called out to them. "Hallo! Would you like some company on your journey?"

The figure stopped abruptly, and Celius did as well his eyes struggling in the dark to make out what was happening. The light that the figure carried faded slightly and then grew as the figure turned back towards him and it was then that Celius realized it was not a lantern that was lighting the way for the figure, but its eyes, that slid cold blue back and towards him. Celius dropped back a step, his hands rising to protect his eyes and he let out a low murmur of terror. Here was one of the gods in the flesh, come to take him for wronging them. Stupidly he held out the money in his trembling hand, turning his face away.

A long moment passed, Celius kept his eyes closed, not sure what to expect until he heard a slight jingle of laughter and felt breath upon his hand. He turned his face forward and opened his eyes a slit to see that the creature stood only steps from him, its eyes gazing down on the two measly coins that rested in his hands and its sharp toothed mouth open in a smile.
Instantly the eyes shredded the air and met his, blinding him for a moment before they dimmed and gazed upon him. "What is this?" the thin lips slipped the words out, filled with a hissing undertone.

Celius stared and could not find his tongue to speak. He felt hypnotized by the eyes that did not leave his and what ever other part he had that he could have claimed, was paralyzed with fear. The creature shifted its weight and repeated itself. "What is this?" This time its voice was more human sounding with less hissing. As the silence ensued and Celius still could not bring himself to speak the creature, moved its eyes in a rolling motion before fixing themselves upon Celius again, along with a long fingered bony hand.

For a moment, Celius reeled away from the dry cold touch of its hand, but it pulled Celius towards it and he found he could not move. For a moment, his eyes still locked with the creature, he thought he saw shadows of his own life flicker within its eyes.

The creature let go of Celius, leaving him feeling empty as if he had revealed to much of himself, and once again began to laugh. This time the jingle was louder and the mouth opened wider, revealing two sets of sharply pointed teeth and a somewhat serpentine tongue. Fascinated, Celius watched unable to move in the sudden dark that the creature's closed eyes caused.

"You owe me nothing!" The creature suddenly hissed, closing Celius' hand and pressing it back towards him. "You have offended no one but your wife."

"Wife?" The reference to her finally forced words from his throat.

The creature wiped its mouth and nodded. "She has cursed you."

"What?" Celius, for all his fear felt the disbelief spin up from his heart and into his head. "My wife would never do that!"

The creature smiled. "Just like she would never leave your bed in the middle of the night for another man?"

Celius stared, his eyes suddenly filling with the tears he had not allowed himself to face.
The creature cocked its head curiously like a dog, watching the tears slowly roll down Celius' face and down his chin. "Such strange creatures you humans are. To be so stunted by emotion."

Celius swiped his eyes quickly with the back of his hand, feeling anger build within his chest.

"Hush." The creature suddenly placed its hand upon Celius heart. "I did not mean to laugh."

"Why would she do this to me? It affects her too!" Each word was abrupt as it spun from
Celius and fell in the night air.

"She is woman." The creature said. "She reacts to what she sees. She knows about Coretta and Alphony. She responds as she sees fit."

Celius stared, his heart suddenly strumming in his ears at the names of his lovers, long cast off but still a memory. "What can I do?"

"Go home." The creature reached out its finger and touched Celius' cheekwhere the remainder of one tear still lay and brought it to its eyes where for a moment it glimmered prism bright before joining the light that lay there. "All is well."

Celius opened his mouth to say something, but discovered he was alone, staring up at the rising blue moon. After a long moment he shook himself.

"I must have been dreaming," he muttered and headed home, passing his fields tall with wheat and corn that bent in the small breeze that played around him. He smiled as he entered his home, dropping two coins in the jar by the stove that he discovered in his pocket and crept into the back room where the snores of his wife shifted the shadows of the room. Quietly he crept into bed, trying not to awaken his wife who suddenly stopped mid snore and turned to him, her eyes bright in the moon that shone through the window.

"Hello, my love." She smiled at him, curling herself up to him, and his arms slipped around her.

"Hello." He closed his eyes and smelt the smell of the days baking in her hair and for a moment felt a ridiculous gratifying feeling of relief. "I dreamt you had left me," he whispered into the night air.

She chuckled from below his chin. "Don't be ridiculous."

Wanting

I awaken to the low buzz of discussion right outside my room. I can hear Sarah's voice, a high pitched chirp in between the other's who have the decency to keep their voices low enough to hide the words. I open one eye and stare around the room, darkened but for the shaft of light that creeps below the hospital door. I want nothing more then to leave this place and go home.

Home, where I know where everything is, where the smell is of my cooking emitting itself from my oven and where I know the way the colors in every room will look every hour of every day.
I shift my weight uneasily and slip one of my legs over the edge of the bed.

My bones, sparrow light, lug the skin and muscle that drips with age from them like spilt milk. It always takes some getting used to, this aging. I have been old far longer then I was ever young, but it still surprises me, the way my muscles don't just flex and bend the way the once did and the way my bones ache deep within them until I can imagine the holes the loss of calcium have hollowed out there.

Sarah's chirruping becomes louder, slightly alarmed and I freeze, allowing myself to gaze at the shadows that pace in front of my hospital door, like guards.

"Hell," I mutter, after a brief moment. "What do I got to lose?" My feet find the floor, cold reverberating up my toes and into my ankles, but I continue on, sucking on my lower lip and make my way to the dresser where my purse lies, marooned in the center. A mirror hangs above it, reflecting back at me my image.

I do not remember this face, I hardly ever gaze at this grey shadow that has splashed away what I am or thought I was. I stare at the creased lines of my eyes, attempting to distinguish the cat like shape that they had once held, but can not. The eyes that gaze back at me are hidden under folds of wrinkles, the lashes I once had are lost in those trenches. The color that once was of charcoal black are now tinged with effervescent grey, a sheen of color that makes them almost alien in appearance. I shake my head, watching the few curls I have left straggle back and forth in limp hanging wisps.

My hands, fingers bent with arthritis slip into the depths of my purse and come up with my keys and two mints. I am not aware for a moment that I am humming until I place an unwrapped mint in my smiling mouth. "Ah, Hell!" I mouth at myself. "What do I got to lose?"

I pull my purse up my arm and make my way, slowly and carefully towards the door. In my journey towards the door, I become aware that there is silence and no pacing shadows. I speed myself up slightly and can feel my heart begin to pound with the exertion and excitement of my planned escape.

When I finally reach the door, I open it a crack and peer out. The nurses station is abandoned and my daughter in law is no where in sight. I hear a cackling and it takes me a few seconds to realize it is me. "Hush, Betty!" I whisper to myself. I cackle again.

I limp down the long hall, with one stop in between doorways to check my route and to glance slyly behind me. No one anywhere! When I am only a few feet from the elevators, I hear Sarah's chirp again and I almost throw myself at the down button, my finger stumbling like a drunk over the keys before I press my entire self into it and force the button down.

"Betty?" I hear Sarah, her voice loud with warning, pitch itself down the hall at me.

I do not turn, but straighten my back, hoping that she will not recognize me. No luck, I hear the tapping of her shoes gathering speed towards me.

The elevator door opens and I thrust my body forward, my heart battering in my ears and press the ground floor button before I glance out at Sarah's now rushing figure. I begin to cackle again, little gasps of air rushing out from me and even though I try to stop I can not. Spittle is dripping out of my toothless mouth, but still I can't stop myself.

Sarah is almost at the elevator when the doors shut completely. Her face is red and angry, her eyes staring blue and shocked at me. I am cackling so hard now that I begin to see dots of black in the air and begin to rake the air with my hands in my attempt to breathe. I hear a sucking noise before I realize that it is me, swallowing air, trying to force it down into me, before I feel my body fall, collapsing in on itself.

I awaken to Sarah. She is above me, staring at me, her eyes hurt and angry. I want to yell at her to leave me alone, let me go and that this is not all about her, but I can not because there is something down my throat moving my lungs, forcing the air in and out of my body. I begin to scramble, my hands flinging themselves towards my mouth, before they are stopped by restraining bands that tie me to my bed.

Frantically I stare at her, but she shakes her head and leaves the room, leaving me alone in the semi darkness, wanting nothing more then to go home. Home, where I know where everything is, where the smell is of my cooking emitting itself from my oven and where I know the way the colors in every room will look every hour of everyday.

Snapshot

My grandmother gave me her old books when she moved into the nursing home. "They were going to be yours, when I died, and I guess in a way I am, now." She told me.
I had stroked her shoulder and reminded her of all the things that she would be able to do once she was moved in, but she moved away from me, her slightly humped back exposing her vulnerabilities to me.
Most of the books were cheap romance novels, girls swooning in the arms of muscled long haired men, and I flipped those books back into the boxes they came in. Others were older, some children's books and some the classics. It was in a copy of David Copperfield that I found a picture of my mother.
She is sitting front and center, her pale reddish blond hair swept in a long shiny wave to the side. This was how she had looked for most of my youth, retaining that innocent young look until I had hit my teenage years and had caused grey hairs to form and lines to crease on her, or at least that was what she claimed.
In the picture her eyes are green and large, fringed by long darker eyelashes, but they appear wary and skittish, as if they would rather travel away from the photographer to somewhere else, anywhere else. Her smile is small and close lipped, causing one of her dimples to appear on her right cheek and even now I stare at it with envy.
Her arms are around me, her shoulders hunched as if to protect my baby form. I look like any all American blond blue eyed baby girl, dressed in pink, cheribly fat and smiling. My eyes admit my presence but return to my mother, to her pale green sundress, that contains pink flowers and puckers and tucks to make it stylish and well fitted.
I can not take my eyes off of her face, to the way the light plays on one side of her face and not on the other side, the bottom half in shadow, the upper part shadowed but for the glint of eye staring out. This working of light makes her appear scared, haunted and filled with loss, making her appear older then her twenty years. Her stance, her protective arms and raised shoulders hovering around me as if she is protecting me, rather then simply holding me.
I shudder and stare at her face again, wondering who she was and what she was thinking. I place the picture in David Copperfield again and place it, neatly and concisely on the shelf between Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.

Oppositional Behavior

Jeff swiped a hand across his forehead, a coating of sweat flicking off his hands as he shook them off. "What a great idea!" he said to the ground. "We really needed this!"
Sue turned and glanced at him, her eyes sharp and slightly fearful. She turned back and looked forward, at the path that led up ahead of them into the more sheltering woods. "Do you want to turn back?"
Jeff looked up to where the path led and plastered a smile across his lips. "No! And miss all this?" His arms flung out in a gesture that encompassed the wooded hills, the sharp high peeked cliffs and the churning waters below.
Sue looked around, listening to the water crashing and the sporadic call of birds. The leaves on the trees were fiery red, blazing yellow and pale green sprung to full color by the strangely relentless sun. Five hours ago when she had suggested to Jeff that they go for a hike the air had been crisp with fall coolness and slightly overcast. Now with the sun suspended at highest noon above them and an Indian Summer casting a heat wave at them, they were overdressed for the almost eighty seven degree weather.
"I can carry your jacket for you," she offered, her hand out to him.
Jeff shook his head while staring at her hand. "No, of course not! I can carry yours for you if you want."
Sue dropped her hand and turned away from him. She refused to pay attention to him when he was like this. When and if she ever brought this moment up to him, he would deny his sarcasm and opposition, by telling her how much he had loved that walk and everything they had seen. Her anger built towards him as she turned the corner ahead of them, entering the woods that was a mere five degrees cooler. She glanced back at his struggling form, watched him as he grabbed branches to hike himself up the incline and up to her.
He almost knocked into her, and when he did he glanced up, his eyes hooded by his eyelids. "What's wrong? Do you need a break?"
"No. Do you?" Sue looked at him with her anger plain on her face.
"What, me?" He shrugged and laughed. "Of course not! Come on!" His voice drifted back to her in phony levels of harmony.
Sue shook her head and gazed up at the trees, watching the sun play through the branches and dance down on her. A bit of peace filled her and she began to feel her temper begin to fade.
They walked in silence for awhile, Jeff often galloping a few steps to stay in front of her and she began to play with him, letting him get the better of her for awhile before suddenly walking directly behind him.
"Your so fast! Do you want to lead?" He said at one point, turning and glaring at her, his face bright red and his teeth bared.
Taken aback, she fell back a few steps and decided to leave him alone, letting him shuffling himself into his own frenzy. She remembered when they had first met and how she had been so confused by this oppositional behavior, how she had struggled with him and with herself. She had never been right when he became like this, although every word that he said was in praise of her and anything she might do. She wondered how much longer she could put up with this. So many of his friends had turned away from him because of it, leaving only a few patient stragglers to deal with his tantrums. Over the years she had learned to ignore it and often, as now, to play with him, but his anger was so quick and flaring that she began to fear him, rather then like him.
"Where are you?" She heard him shouting through the trees. "Come up here! Its so lovely! Is this what we climbed so high to see?"
She sped up over the last circle of trees and looked out on a neighborhood in the process of being built. There was nothing beautiful about it. Everything was grey in color, from the outline of cement basements, to the skeletal structures of houses in the process of being built. The forest floor that had once lain there and stretched out for miles all around was completely gone. Last year, when she had come here with her mom and sister, they had looked down on miles of fall colors swaying in the breeze, interrupted by the tall evergreens that grew between them.
"Its gone!" she whispered, her voice low and husky.
Jeff turned to her with a surprised expression. "What's gone! Its still here! Look! Were you interested in buying one of these houses?"
Sue turned her defeated eyes from the constructed graveyard and up at Jeff's smug face and for a moment imagined pushing him off the edge of the hill, watching him fall, rolling and screaming down the long slant. She smiled despite herself at that image and his smile lessened slightly.
Sue smiled bigger and felt a weight fall off her shoulders as she shrugged and turned back into the woods, away from Jeff.

Visitation

Morning came like spilt milk, suddenly and overpoweringly white into Andrew’s bedroom window. He shifted under the blankets, rubbing his head and eyes with the backs of his palms, feeling the wine from the night before still pounding in his head.
Stretching he thought of all the reasons he should procrastinate waking up, but could not find one good enough to keep him there. He stepped gingerly out of the warmth of his bed and on to the startlingly cold floor. Thrusting the blanket from him he shot awake as the cold of the room hit him, smack in the face awakening him completely.
He was on his way to the bathroom, rubbing his arms to keep warm, teeth beginning to chatter when he heard the sound of a car door slam. He stopped, dead still, wondering who it could be and then creeping on fast barefoot tip toes he slid to the side window and peeked out.
A muffled figure was emerging from a small red car that he had never seen before, its face covered by a blue and white scarf and head secured with a matching colored hat. The figure turned toward the side window its sunglasses reflected in the vicinity of where he stood and he swore under his breath and let the curtain fall back. For a moment he wasn’t sure what to do, rubbing his hands through his hair and pacing uncertainly back and forth before grabbing a shirt and jeans from the floor and ducking into the bathroom.
The front door bell rang, a small sound calling down the hall to him, and he emerged, hopping one footed into his jeans and down towards his visitor. His dark hair hung back from where he had doused it with his wet finger combing hands and his shirt was on backwards, but he was unaware of this in his haste.
At the front door, a brown rather shabby excuse for a door, he attempted to peer through the peep hole, but the doorbell rang, a little louder and with a sense of urgency in its quick tone. His hand was already responding, turning the lock and handle before he became aware of it and when he did it was too late.
“Yes?” He peered out, but the sun sprang at his eyes, causing them to water and momentarily blinding him.
“Hi.” It was a female’s voice. One he knew all to well. One that the last time he had heard it it had been raised in anger that had reached to the roof before bouncing back at him in words of accusation.
“Hi.” He opened the door completely. “Come on in.” There was a pause before she entered the house, blocking out the sun for a moment with her silhouette and then passing him.
It took him a moment to recover from his surprise at her presence, but as soon as he did he began racing about, shoving dirty clothes under the couch with his foot and carrying dirty dishes that had been heaped on his coffee table into the kitchen.
“Want some coffee?” He called over his shoulder, at her still, arm crossed figure.
“Um, sure.” Her voice wavered down the hall at him.
He emerged from the kitchen a moment later, a smile on his face. “I don’t have any coffee. Wanna go out?”
She shook her head, her hat and scarf still on, but muffling her face a little less, her sunglasses in one of her gloved hands. He froze and stared, unsure where to go and what to say.
She shifted her feet and glanced around, her dark blue eyes quick and sharp. “How are you?”
“Good. Fine. And you. What brings you here?” The words rushed from him, in gasps, trying to keep her here in the moment and with him.
She looked at him, at his shirt, the tag hanging out of the rounded back below his neck. For a moment a smile played across her face before her eyes crashed into his, becoming serious and regretful.
“I just came for the rest of my stuff.” She lowered her eyes to the floor.
“Things?” He stared at her, feeling his face go immobile with disguised nonchalance.
“My clothes. My winter clothes. I think they’re in the back of the closet.” Her eyes met his, briefly before fleeing to the couch, the filthy carpet, anywhere but at him.
“Are you sure they’re still here?” He could hear his voice crack, and he despised himself. “Yes.” She gestured towards the back bedroom, one arm still crossed across her chest, the other weaving itself back into it as soon as the gesture was completed.
“You should’ve called.” He said, passing her, his lips curled.
“I did.” For a moment anger slid into her voice, but when he glanced back at her, her eyes were large and sad, watching him.
He returned a moment later with a rather dilapidated cardboard box, the top sagging in on itself. “Here.” He held it out to her and she reached for it, but he pulled it back. “Can’t you stay? Just for awhile. Can’t we at least talk or go out for coffee?”
She shifted, glancing up at him, her arms crossed once again, her hands squeezing her arms. “I have to go.”Defeated he held the box out towards her, but she didn’t reach for it.

Map

It had been three days since my mother coughed herself into a state of voiceless unresponsiveness that ended in her death when we buried her, under a heap of stones and a makeshift cross of two sticks twined together with my yellow ribbon on the side of the trampled road we followed. It was soon after this that Papa stopped talking and Avie began to weep. He wept for so long that his lashes clung together in yellow droplets and I had to pry them open each morning with my spit and fingers.
Five days after we buried mama papa packed up and continued west, smacking Bessie's stubborn bottom with the reins and heading on until the Mountains that had been right behind us began to diminish until only the flat drifts of dessert claimed their last peek.
I watched as that mountain was consumed, remembering when we had traveled through it, when Papa's voice was a loud curse dripping with sarcasm and often humor and mama's cough had been a soft hack. It was in those mountains towards the highest peak that Avie and I had discovered snow for the first time since last winter, and we had rolled in it, thrown it and slid in it until our clothes were plastered with white sparkles of cold. Papa had shaken his head at me, lips pressed together and eyes questioning, but mama had laughed from her bed of blankets and reached for me. "Come, Martha." Her voice was then just a whisper, "Let me feel the snow." I had gone to her and laid my head on her shoulder as her fingers, tanned with cracked nails, had moved leaden heavy over me.
In those mountains, far below the highest peek we had passed fields of wispy purple flowers and elongated ovals of red flowers, that I had twined together to make necklaces for mama, myself and Avie. "No!" Papa had shaken his head at Avie when he saw him wearing them. "Not for boys." Avie had laughed his baby giggle and ran away to mama who did not respond to his body as he thrust it at her. That was one of the last times he lay beside her while her body was still warm with whatever life her trembling heart could spread.
The mountain peek vanished on the first day of the fourth week after we buried mama, and I began to wonder if I would count my life as such from now on. The desserts now filled our eyes in both our vision and the constant blowing sand that swept across the world in spinning waves. Sometimes at night I would awaken to the cold that numbed us more than the brief winter in the mountains had, and listen to the wind quick and minor toned as it sang its howling moan. It was at these times that I was grateful for Avie's small warm body, folded next to mine as it once had been folded next to mama's for I would slip my arms around him and press my ears to his chest so that I could hear its thudding and know that I was not alone.
The second day of the fifth week since we had buried mama was the first day that we saw a face that was not one of ours. He was an old man, with a short white beard that looked as if it could have cut paper, pale yellow eyes and deep curves of wrinkles flowing from his cheeks to where his hairline once may have started. He didn't say anything to us, just watched us as we passed, leaning on his long rifle with both hands clasped around it. Papa only nodded and slapped Bessie's bottom a little harder, and shifted in his seat.
A short time after that we stopped and papa took out our chests and took out clean clothes for himself. "Find something clean to put on." He said, and I leaped away from him, fear slicing through me at the sound of his voice that I had not heard for so long. He did not seem to notice but walked away, carrying his clothes and shaking his head.
On the fifth day of the fifth week since we had buried mama we entered Willington. I do not know if it was a town, but assumed so, since it had a name. Nothing else about it would have made me think that it was a town. There were about fifteen to twenty buildings splattered in a semi circle around a larger building that announced itself as a "saloon" in large crooked letters above the door. Spilling out of this building were men in high boots and ragged clothing of faded colors. There faces all wore the same expression of suspicious distrust while their mouths moved in cow like motions as they chewed and spat their tobacco in long goblets of brown. Papa, freshly shaved and red jumped from the wagon, suddenly looking young and vulnerable as he reached up for me, his eyes meeting mine briefly in a sideways guilty fashion. I touched the ground, my boots that I had not worn for so long, crunching my toes together in a vice grip, and helped Avie down.
Avie, all eyes, gripped me around the neck in his sweaty hands and did not protest when papa pulled his thumb from his mouth. We walked past the men, papa nodding and smiling, sometimes touching his hand to his hat, and up towards what passed for a saloon in this town. I held Avie, tightly, my eyes clasped on the ground watching the men's booted feet kick the earth into sandy clouds causing their silver sharp spurs to jingle.
Inside, all was a dark shade of yellowy brown, from the floor littered with broken bottles to the tables crusted with foods from past meals. The back wall of the room was the only area lit with candles and it was here that several women sat, on bar stools and in men's laps throwing their voices and words around in loud hoots of praise. They stood out next to the men's drab colors, for they wore colors of bright reds, greens and blues, gold lined and feathered, their dresses spreading out around them like peacock feathers.
We stood their for a few moments, before they saw us, and then they stopped one by one, frozen in both body and sound, staring at us with wide open eyes, like a doe in the sight of a hunter.