THE SECOND DAY: Chapter V

I paced myself into near exhaustion throughout the final hours of darkness and finally went inside when I heard the telltale rustling of my father getting up for work. He was a ceramic potter, mainly responsible for making dishes to supply the vicinity, and his work-space was a small studio a mile or two down the North Road.

In my bedroom, I changed into my pastel blue dress, per the rules, braided my hair, and washed my face. I stared at myself in the washroom mirror and exhaled steadily. Scoutfield, Echo, Father, Melanin; I had thought up instances they, and many other people I knew had acted questionably. I hastily shook my head as though clearing it: I was nervous and unsure. I was acting distrustful. I breathed out and went to make breakfast.

My father gave me a quick kiss on the top of my head before leaving. I wondered if he knew I hadn't slept at all. I dressed and fed my brother and then set him down on the deck to play safely where I could see him as I resumed my uneasy thoughts and obsessive pacing. Back and forth across the kitchen. Back and forth in my thoughts until I was ready to put myself out of my own misery.

My mother kept completely to her own room. I really wasn't sure if it was because she was grieving my sister's death or that she was afraid of catching the sickness. It didn't really matter to me: both reasons were rather selfish in my eyes. While she was hiding away like Mrs. Bennett in her bedchamber, Calix and I could well have gotten sick and died, and she may have lost a daughter, but she certainly still had Calix, even if she didn't care at all what happened to me.

Around midday, I put Calix down for a nap and started making lunch. I put the soup on the stove to heat, cut the bread to got with it, and then I set four seats at the table.

Mother, Calix, me, and Melanin.

I wanted to slap myself.

I removed one of them and then, ten minutes later, I removed another. Mother would not be making an appearance, and so there was just me and Calix. Lonely party.

I skimmed through the pages of a science book I'd already read multiple times for nearly an hour until lunch was finished, and then I woke Calix and we ate. I stayed silent for the entire meal and my brother seemed to understand that talking was forbidden at that time. He was a generally quiet child, which was nice. I liked listeners, not talkers.

I didn't bother my mother. I left a note on her closed door that Calix and I would be going to town for the afternoon, but I suspected it was useless as she wouldn't be out.

I dressed Calix warmly for our walk. The autumn wind had started to give way to even harsher conditions. I slipped my knife in my belt and clasped my cloak around my shoulders before taking Calix's hand and closing the door behind us. We followed the East Road towards the Town Square, quiet for most of the way.

I tried to block out the thoughts racing through my mind, switching from topic to topic. Sly. The sickness. Sly. Scoutfield. Sly. Idiots.

After that, the final three merged into one.

"Nova, is Mommy sick?"

The question caught me completely off guard and I froze before my reply came out in a hushed voice.

"In a way, I suppose, Calix."

"Was Mel sick, too?"

Mel had been the definition of sick.

"Yes, Calix."

I knew the next question was coming...

"Will Mommy leave us?" I cringed, "just like Mel did?" he finished.

I stopped abruptly and turned on him, just as upset as I was furious.

"No!" I told him harshly. "Don't you dare even think about it!"

An irrational fear inside me claimed that if he considered the possibility, even questioned it to be true, it could and would happen.

My vision was blurry and I was disoriented, feeling as though I was about to fall over. Calix was crying hard, his fingernails biting into my hand as he squeezed the life out of it and Echo was tightly holding onto my shoulder.

Echo?

When had Echo showed up?

But then Everett Scoutfield was there too, his expression serious and worried... and then I was running as far from that cursed place as possible.

I heard Scoutfield shout for me to stop and think logically, but I didn't feel like thinking logically. He shouted that I was leaving Calix behind, but I didn't slow down even just a little bit. I wove around bushes and ducked branches. I felt my energy declining as I spotted the tree with the dent my knife had left in it the night before and launched myself sky-high into its branches. I climbed until the branches were too weak to hold my weight and leaned against the trunk, breathing heavily. My eyes were dry and itchy and my head was spinning.

I heard my name shouted in fury and looked down to see Scoutfield staring up at me with an unimpressed expression on his face.

"Get yourself down here, Girl!" he ordered.

I stayed exactly where I was, contemplating my chances of survival if I was to reply sarcastically. Seemingly having waited long enough, Scoutfield jumped and pulled himself up onto the branches. I nearly laughed: there was no way he was going to get up as high as I was. He would fall and crack his head open and then... I would be responsible. The thought stilled me for nearly a minute, and then I shrugged it off. He was the eejit who decided to climb up after me, and he was the legal adult.

I watched him in mild curiosity as he climbed higher and higher. He nearly lost his grip first, and then he came too close to missing a step. He kept climbing. I had to give him credit for being resilient, at least. But then his hand slipped, and I heard him shout, and then he completely disappeared from view. There was absolutely no noise, and I stared down the tree, waiting for a movement from the body I couldn't even see, but the only noise I heard was the wind brushing a branch beside me. A branch behind me nudged my back, the wind moving it from side to side. A light breeze beside my ear went nearly unnoticed, but then came the taunting voice directly behind me that said, "I warned you, Missy..."

And then I fell out of the tree.