28 January 2012

Tristessa's Story, Part 6

Don't forget: There are 5 other Parts to read!  Look to the links on the left and enjoy! -m

It was the day after Ravigie noticed the magic written on the palms of my hands.  I had bidden my time the rest of that day; I wanted her to let me out of her sight for just a few seconds.

While I waited, I sat cross-legged in the dry, dry, dry dirt in front of our house.  There had still been no rain.  I licked my cracking lips and wished I hadn't.  It almost made it worse to moisten them with the tip of my tongue.  Grimacing, I pressed my mouth into a thin line and tried not to think about how dry it was.  

A dot appeared on the road about a mile away, and as the minutes passed the dot grew into a blob, then a thing with legs, and finally, a person.  A small person.  It was one of the children who had thrown things at me when I was trapped in the coop.  I sneered at him when he was close enough to see my face.  I believe he knew the danger he was in almost immediately.

He stopped when he was ten feet away and stared at me.  Then: "I...Ravigie?"

I shrugged and began to pick at my toenails.  They were lined with fine dark dirt that I flicked at the boy while he stood there.  

"I need Ravigie," he said again, sounding not-so-brave.

"Everyone needs Ravigie," I said and flicked more dirt in his direction.  

The boy drew a sharp breath.  Obviously whatever his mother had told him to do was more important than his fear of me, because an instant after his breath he was trying to walk around me, into the house.  I laughed at him and shut the door by flinging my hand towards it and thinking, "Shut!" loudly in my head.  It worked.

The door slammed loudly.  Though I heard Ravigie yell in protest from the back garden, I was too much enjoying the look on the boy's face to stop.  The whole village would hear about how the girl with the demon's eyes shut a door without even touching it.

I grinned.  "Oh, that's not all I can do," I said, standing to my feet.  The electricity was tingling in my fingertips.  A grayish-blue smoke appeared around my hands, which I closed into fists.  This was the shadow that I could see at the edges of my vision.  Although the stuff around my hands was lighter in color than the shadows chasing me.  I lifted my hands, pointing my palms at the boy's chest, thinking that he would never taunt me again. 

And then Ravigie took both of my hands in hers.  She was standing behind me, and so she had to reach very far forward to wrap her fingers around my wrists, but then again, maybe I only felt far away.  The magic was suddenly extinguished.

"What do you need, boy?"  Ravigie asked.

"W-water," he said, still staring at me. 

"I don't have any," Ravigie said.

"Neither does anyone else," the boy said.  He sighed and looked very, very sad.  "Nevermind." He didn't even give me another scared glance before turning around and walking away.

I pulled my wrists from Ravigie's grips and turned to face her, wordlessly.

She eyed me and I could have sworn I was about to get slapped across the face.  But instead she said, "His mother just had a baby.  They named her Gianna."

I thought of the babies I had known.  They were generally cute and smelly.  Then I considered the boy, what he had asked for, and his demeanor when he left.  "Gianna needs water?"

"Everyone needs water.  Without water, we would all die."

"Is Gianna going to die?"  I asked.

Ravigie shrugged her thin shoulders.  The sallow hollows of her cheeks were proof of the things she was giving up so I could eat and drink goat's milk.  "Unless something saves her," she said as she walked back to the garden.  Just before she rounded the corner, though, she glanced back at my hands where the shadows and electricity were hiding.