Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties

Task Seven: The Flood /SF - Dove Evans [6]

"Dove," Hettie said gently, "Don't you want to play a game while I build the rafts?  We could play together."

Dove jerked her head to  the side.  "I don't have time for playing, Mom- Ma'am." Her cheeks  reddened. "Ma'am.  I don't have time for playing Ma'am."

She couldn't explain to  Hettie how it wasn't that she didn't have time, even though the water  that wet Dove's legs was steadily rising.  The matter was that Dove  simply didn't want to play.  That desire to play, that place in her that  always yearned and wished to play games; she couldn't find that place.   Even when she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to search inside, she  couldn't find it.

Her fingers fidgeted  with her leg braces, another thing she had wanted before but didn't any  more.  Hettie had been the one to put them back on her.

"Hettie," Dove called, "Do I have to wear these?"

"Yes Dove," Hettie called back.  "They'll help you swim, if the raft doesn't work."

Dove pouted.  "All right."  She crossed her arms across her chest.

"Dove," Hettie said, "Are you sure you're all right?"

Dove lifted her chin.  She intended to say one thing to Hettie, but the words that came out  were something else entirely.  "My mother told me that everything  happens for a reason," Dove said matter of factly.              

"Oh did she?"  Hettie finished preparing the raft.  "Dove, get in, now."

The water splashed at  Dove's waist.  She crawled into the raft and Hettie sat down beside her.   Hettie pushed the raft with her hands down the hill to where the water  was deeper.

"The thing is," Dove said, "I think she was right and wrong at the same time."

"Was she?" Hettie absently glanced around at the rising water.

Dove's hands played with  her hair.  "In some ways, everything does happen for a reason.  But  sometimes those reasons aren't always good.  I was picked for the games,  and that was the reason I grew up, and I think that happened so that I  got a chance to grow up before I die.  But growing up before I die isn't  a very good reason, because it means when I die, it'll be for a reason.  And I don't like that the bad things happen for reasons just like the  good."

Hettie switched some of  her attention to Dove from the waters around them.  "Now Dove," she  said, "why would you think you're going to die?"

"Everyone dies someday," Dove said, "and I think I'm almost there."

"Don't talk nonsense," Hettie scolded.  She took Dove's hand in her own.  "You're not dying anytime soon."

Dove stared at the  water.  It bounced their makeshift boat up and down in an uneven rhythm.    She had never seen so much water before.  The only times she'd ever  come close had been when she had had a bath. 

Her throat tightened.   Talon had always been the one to give her baths.  Lark had helped  sometimes, mainly because Grandma claimed it wouldn't be appropriate for  a boy to bathe Dove once she got older. 

Now Dove found the idea  of any time with her brother as inappropriate made her taste metal in  her mouth.  She spit into the water around her.  The droplets scattered  in the little sea. 

"Dove," Hettie said,  drawing Dove's attention back to the older woman, "I can see you're very  upset.   You're not acting like yourself."

"My brother's dead,"  Dove said.  "He died and I didn't so I killed him just like I killed my  mother and have you ever killed anyone?"

"No," Hettie said quietly, "But I don't believe that you have either."

Dove's heart began to  pound and her eyesight blurred.  "You don't understand! I broke my  mother when I was a baby, and my brother killed himself to try to give  me a little shot at life.  I killed him them both!"  Her voice broke off  into hiccupy sobs.

Hettie put her arms around Dove.  She sobbed into the older woman's shoulder while Hettie stroked her back.

"It's okay," Hettie whispered. "You'll be okay, Dove.  You're a survivor. You've almost made it.  You'll be okay."

She continued to stroke  Dove's hair until the first arrow shot through the air.  Dove's head  whipped in the direction she heard the arrow come from.

"Get under!" Hettie hissed.

Dove hardly had enough  time to process Hettie's words.  The raft tilted up and over, pitching  Dove over into the water.  A wet hand snatched a hold of Dove's wrist  under the water and yanked Dove forward.

She emerged underneath the boat.  Dove's gaze fluttered around from side to side.  What was going on?

The sound of more arrows  reached her ears.  She looked up at the flipped over boat above her.   She couldn't catch a glimpse of what was going on above.

"Good luck, Dove," Hettie gasped.  Dove's gaze focused on Hettie, and she let out a horrified gasp of her own.

No, no, no, no....

Red liquid dripped out  from Hettie's chest into the water surrounding the arrow.  There had to  be something for Dove to do.  But already Hettie's eyes were fading  away.

"No," Dove moaned.  "Please, Mom, no!"

"You're almost there, Dove," Hettie said, just before her body went limp.

Dove screamed and  sobbed.  Long after the body had floated away from under the boat, she  still couldn't figure out whether Hettie had meant Dove was almost to  life or almost to death.