✍ — a memory of their mother
Mother and daughter sat across from each other, cross legged and hiding away from the beating sun in the shade of a large rock.
“Why couldn’t I go with Papa, Mama?”
“What did Papa mean? Am I really worth three whole jugs of water?”
“But Mama, you tell me all the time that I shouldn’t have babies!”
“Cademya, that is enough.”
“Would Mama and papa really be happier if I went taken away?”
The sound of flesh coming into contact with flesh rang crisply across the endless sands. Cademya pressed her hand against the side of her face, tinted and stinging, tears welling in her wide eyes as Winter, her mother, looked furiously down on her.
“Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that again! Your father is—” the loud shout was cut off by a wet, painful cough. “Your father is desperate. He doesn’t mean it, either,” Winter managed to choke out through her coughs, hunched over as she struggled to breathe through her polluted lungs. Despite her own pain Cademya moved forwards, rubbing both hands over her mothers sun-scarred back to try to ease her burden.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she whimpered, pulling one hand back to rub at her eyes. “I’m sorry! Don’t be angry… I don’t want you to get sick again… don’t get sick again.”
“I’m okay, baby. I’ll be okay. I’m sorry — I shouldn’t have hit you, I…” she fell quiet as a distant whine of bike engines began to sound from the East. Her eyes turned towards it. “Cademya, grab your bag.”
“Grab your bag, we need to go.”
“He’ll catch up! Quickly, quickly, Cademya, come on—”
The bikes were drawing nearer and the whistling breaths from Winter grew heavier and with another glance over her shoulder she came to resolution. Turning Cademya around so she could face her, Winter placed both hands on her young daughter’s shoulders.
“Tell me your name, Baby.”
“Cademya… Mama, what’s wrong?”
“I’m Mama’s special girl — Mama, you know this! What are you saying?”
“We’re going to play hide and seek, okay? You need to go and hide and, no matter what you hear, you’re not allowed to come out, okay? Show Mama how good you are at hiding.”
“Mama, I’m scared… I don’t wanna play! Mama, I don’t wanna play right now!”
“Cademya, go!” The urgency in Winter’s shout was enough to make the five year old flinch back. Before she understood what was happening her mother’s bone dagger (“don’t touch that, Cademya, it’s dangerous!” she’d been told so many times before — she had no idea how to deal with it now) and was being shoved off towards the nearby wall of stone. “Go now, quickly! Don’t look back, just run!”
Cademya did run. She ran and ran until she came to the rock face, and she could hear the shouts and whoops behind her but was too afraid to look back. Crashing into the side of the cliff she began to squirm, pushing herself into a tight crevice. She barely fit — the rough stone opened scrapes on her cheeks and palms and jagged rocks tore through the burlap dress her mother had made years before. It was getting short on her, she distractedly realized as her calves and knees rubbed up against rock. I have to ask Mama to make her another, or make it longer. Just as she reached a point where she could no longer fit back, turning her head to look out towards opening and expecting to see her mother close behind, a muted “pop pop pop” rang out. She saw more than just one figure up on the dune, near the rock where she’d been sitting. None looked particularly like her mother — that lump on the ground was a sack, right? She began to shake, one hand pointing the dagger tip towards the opening the other clasped over her mouth as hiccoughs rose in her throat. She had to be the best hider — she couldn’t be heard.
I have to be the best hider, until Mama comes to find me.