Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 29
29
The fire was always with her now, and that was exactly the way she saw it in her mind; a giant, red fire, burning her from the inside out. She could feel it in her throat, in her elbows and knees, even on her tongue. It hurt to move. It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. Coughing was torture, but the itch in her throat kept forcing it out of her, making her rip herself apart. Sometimes she could taste blood on her lips. Sometimes she could see it on the walls of the tent and splattered on the animal pelts her mother had wrapped around her body. Mostly, though, everything was black.
She opened her eyes, a tiny little girl who had done absolutely nothing worthwhile with her life yet. A tiny little girl completely unremarkable in every conceivable way. A girl so plain and without any defining characteristics that she hadn't even earned a name yet, despite being born over six years ago. And now, although she would never admit it to anyone, she was afraid that she would die before she got the chance.
The little girl looked around, momentarily confused. The patterns on the walls didn't match up with what she was used to, but then she remembered this wasn't really their tent. They had been moved. It was because she was so dangerous, they said. They couldn't let her near the other Wolves. She supposed she should feel sad about that, since she loved to run around and play with the other children, but she understood why it had to be this way. She didn't want any of her friends to feel like this, like there was a slimy fire burning inside their tummies, scorching them, boiling their insides...
Killing them.
It was too hot. She couldn't stand it anymore. She tried to push away the pelts smothering her body, but the sudden movement awoke the terrible, throbbing pain in her joints. She could feel them rubbing against her bones like jagged rocks, stinging and tearing.
She sobbed in pain and frustration, tears streaming from her eyes, wishing that the pain would just stop, please, please just stop...
Mother...? Where's Mother?
She turned her head, very slowly and very carefully so as not to make the pain in her neck any worse.
Mother was lying in the dark, a shadow inside shadows, seen through a set of eyes that could barely tell the colours apart.
"Mother?" the nameless little girl said, praying to the mighty Cora that she would be heard, but anything above a whisper was agony. "Mother...?"
The shape moved in the dark. She rose, then fell, then struggled to get up again, like a wounded gazelle trying to find its feet. Mother doubled over as a series of coughs shuddered through her body. The sound was wet and gurgly, but also tired, as if the effort of forcing it out was too much to bear.
She crawled over on her hands and knees, and as she came closer, the nameless little girl was finally able to make out the face of her mother.
There was blood on her lips.
A cool hand touched her forehead, and a soft voice broke through the fog. "Oh, you're burning up... Oh, my poor baby..." Mother whispered. "Shh, shh, it's okay. I'm here."
"Mother..." she said, struggling to get the words out. "It hurts..."
"I... I know it does. I'm sorry. Just hold on for a little while longer, okay?"
"When will Father be back?"
"Soon, dear. Very soon. He'll be back and he'll make you feel all better, okay?"
"No, he won't..." the little girl whimpered. "I'll never get better, Mother."
"Don't say that."
"But I -"
"You will_get better. We'll _make you get better, no matter the cost. You just need to be strong, okay?"
"Strong..."
"Yes, dear, just like that. Say it again for me."
Talking hurt so much, but if it was what her mother wanted, she would do it. She would be strong. "I... need to be strong."
"Yes, dear. You need to be strong. Just for a little while longer. I know you can do it, so just hang in there, okay? Be strong, my enka. Please, please be strong for me."
"Okay, Mother. I'll try."
"You'll need to do better than that. Promise me you'll be strong. Promise me you'll beat this thing. Promise me."
And so the nameless little girl made a promise. She was afraid to die. She was afraid of how much it might hurt. She was afraid of what might come after. But that's not why she said the words that would stay with her for the rest of her life. She made that promise because she was more afraid of making her mother sad than she was of dying.
"I promise, Mother. I promise I'll be strong."
"That's my enka. That's my strong little enka." Mother touched her cheek, lovingly tracing the lines of her face with the palm of her hand. "Here, I have a gift for you."
There was nothing in this world the nameless little girl wanted except to be with her family, to be able to hug them without pain. Maybe Mother understood this, and that's why she decided to give her enka a little piece of her soul.
"Mother...?"
She pulled something from around her neck, and although the nameless little girl knew there was only a single piece of jewellery her mother ever wore, it was such a precious thing that she couldn't conceive of her ever giving it away.
"My mother gave this to me when I was about your age," she said, "and now I'm giving it to you."
The nameless girl shook her head. "Mother, no... I can't take that..."
"You can and you will," Mother said, smiling warmly. She slipped her hand beneath the nameless girl's back and helped her into a sitting position. "This will help you keep your promise. Every time you feel like it's all too much, you can look at it, and remember that you are strong."
The nameless girl swallowed back her tears as Mother slipped the bear claw necklace around her neck. She let it rest in the palm of her hand, a pitch black crescent shining dimly in the dark, not knowing what to say.
"Thank you, Mother," she said. It felt so inadequate, not nearly enough to convey how much this gift truly meant to her, but it was all she could think of. "Thank you..."
"You're welcome, my little enka," Mother said and hugged her tight. "I'm so proud of you."
The nameless little girl felt so much love for her mother in that moment that she could almost forget about the pain radiating throughout her body. But the pain, she had learned, wasn't just some dead, inert thing inside of her. It was alive, always burrowing around like some nasty little creature. Even more than that, it was jealous, and it hated being ignored.
It came without warning, starting as a violent convulsion in the pit of her stomach and ending as glurt of liquid rushing up her throat. Mother must have seen something on her face, because she seized her by the head and roughly guided her towards the clay pot beside her bedroll, expertly sweeping her hair out of the way just before the vomit came gushing out of her mouth and nose, burning like fire. The nameless girl clutched her mother's necklace against her chest so it wouldn't get caught in the stream. The wet, chunky sound of it striking the bottom of the pot made her wretch even more. The convulsions tore through her slender body, making her stomach clench painfully until there was nothing left but smelly ropes of spit and bile hanging from her lips and dripping from her nostrils. It tasted like iron.
Mother rubbed her back and whispered the nonsense words known to all mothers, the words that didn't really mean anything but that could always make you feel better, no matter how much it hurt. "There, there, enka, it's okay, don't worry, it's okay..."
"I'm sorry..." the little girl whispered, staring down at the mess she had made. The pot was almost full, and the smell of it was strong enough to make her eyes water. Or maybe she was just crying. It wouldn't surprise her. She cried every day. She could hear her tears falling into the pot of vomit, one by one, a soft pitter-patter.
"It's okay, baby, you don't need to be sorry. Here..." Mother held a water pouch to her lips and the nameless girl sucked out as much as she could without having to swallow. The water mixed with the layer of vomit still stuck inside her mouth, making it feel all slimy against her tongue and cheeks, and she spat it into the pot with a nauseating splash. The rest she could drink without gagging, but the water was warm, and hurt her throat with every swallow.
"Better?"
"Better," she lied, feeling all her strength drain away.
Mother eased her back against the pelts and wiped her mouth. "There. You try and get some sleep and I'll throw this nasty thing out, okay?"
"Okay."
She bent down, gave the nameless girl a kiss on her blazing forehead, and whispered, "I love you, my enka."
"I love you, too, Mother."
"Remember your promise, okay?"
She clutched the bear claw in her tiny fist. "I'll be strong."
"That's a good girl. Every time you feel that demon start to work up inside you, you just tell yourself 'I'm strong' and you beat that demon away. You crush it under your heel and you tell it to get lost. If you keep doing that, then nothing can hurt you."
"If I'm strong... then I'll get better?"
"That's exactly right."
"And if I get better, I won't die?"
"Of course not. And I don't want you talking about nonsense like dying, okay? You're _not_going to die."
If I don't die, I won't have to leave. And if I don't leave, I won't make Mother and Father sad. If I stay strong, they won't have to cry for me.
I just need to stay strong. Above all else, I need to stay strong...
"Okay, Mother."
"That's my strong little enka."
Mother took the pot outside, but even in her semi-delirious state, it was clear to the nameless little girl that her mother could barely walk. Her gait was uneven and she kept stumbling from side to side.
Stay strong. Everything will be okay if I just stay strong.
Mother opened the entrance of their slipshod little tent and slipped outside, letting in a brief glimmer of sunset's golden glow. It washed over the pine trees and their rough skins of bark. It flowed over the forest floor with its blanket of leaves, orange and brown. For that single moment before the flap fell shut, the world was made of colour, full of light and shadow. It was beautiful, but far too bright. It stung her eyes, making them tear up. But maybe it wasn't the brightness that made her cry. Maybe it was the beauty. Maybe her heart knew things that her head did not. Maybe her heart knew that she would never go outside again, that she would never run through the forest or bag her first deer, that she would never fall and scrape her knees again, or climb the trees and get her claws all gummy with pine tar, or try to grab a fish from the river with her bare hands, give up, and just splash around in it for hours on end. Maybe, in her heart of hearts, she already knew...
She was going to die in this tent.
The nameless little girl shut her eyes and squeezed the bear claw around her neck, feeling the smooth curve of it against her fingers, and imagined herself taking her illness and crushing it beneath her foot. She imagined herself back in the village, back in their real home, standing with her mother and father, and everyone was smiling. That could still happen. All she had to do was be strong. That's what Mother had asked of her, and that's what she'd do. She'd be strong. She wouldn't cry, because there was no reason to cry. Everyone was going to be just fine, so -
That's when she heard it. Mother had gone far enough into the woods to muffle the sound, but not far enough to kill it completely. The little girl with no name could hear her coughing and hacking, and the unmistakable sound of her crying.
She lay in the dark, trying her best to ignore the pain spreading through her body, getting worse by the hour, and the pain in her heart, getting worse by the second, and she listened to the strangled sobs of her mother.
And she cried. She didn't want to do it, but she couldn't stop herself. The tears simply appeared in the corners of her eyes and flowed past her temples.
I'm strong... I'm strong... please, Mother, I'm strong... You can stop crying now, please... I'm strong...
It didn't help. The tears still came, and she didn't feel strong at all. She felt like a scared, sick little girl who didn't want to die.
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