A b e l
I WILL OFFER UP A BRICK
TO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD, BOY
He thinks nothing of the grief in her eyes, the too-old pull of her mouth, the shadows like bruises given from too many sleepless nights. Abel has seen it all before, and has felt it too. All he knows is this: the time of suffering is not yet done. Not for her or for any of them. (He has wondered, in the night when the moon is a hangman’s grin and he is alone, if they are living in the end of days. Should he be glad, to be a part of such a thing?)
But he might feel differently if he knew she belonged to Raum.
Ah, did it make her any less an orphan, to have a father in the Ghost? What does it make of Abel, who craves his approval, who craves any parent at all? Who hungers for touch like a seed unfurled too soon desires even the winter sun?
The boy regards her, this dusky-rose girl with the piercing eyes so full and so empty, as blue and cutting as her twin horns. Her answer surprises him - she had not looked lost. (But neither had he - it had nothing to do with not having a home). He might have sighed, once, and turned away to continue his search.
But now he only swallows and his throat is dry and rough, as though the sand were not content to be in his eyes and nose and ears alone but now must invade his trachea and his lungs. Abel wonders how long it will take him until he is buried from the inside, and if he would be the first to die in this way. Perhaps it would be a blessing, for he knows Raum must have horrors in store yet for the desert kingdom.
Which takes him back to the girl.
“If you are not from here,” he says slowly, as though each word must be drawn up from a deep well, “then you should not linger.”
It is as close as he can come to saying run away, run away, there is nothing here for you but death.
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