Red - Jack Ketchum [59]
Or an offering.
The beam falls on the woman. The dress is gone and she’s naked now and covered with dried and drying blood which gleams in the light.
The woman. And scampering at her feet, her other sister.
~ * ~
The child has never known this kind of freedom. The child is beside herself with pleasure, shuffling at the feet of her liberator, taking in the rich scent of her and all the other countless scents she has never imagined and has no ability to name. Even the air smells wonderful and new.
But then she catches other scents and these she knows. She can even roughly calculate the distance between them and a scuffle of feet betrays their location exactly. These scents belong to her captors, two of them. They have not treated her badly. But they are one with those who do.
She growls and lunges.
~ * ~
The Woman slaps the child with the flat of her blade. She yelps and whimpers and backs away behind her, pacing nervously.
The Woman is curious about something.
The little girl is holding something out to her so she steps forward to see what it is. A bottle. Inside, water. The little girl she would spit over a fire and roast for dinner is offering her water. And unlike her sister she does not seem to be afraid.
The girl withdraws the bottle and struggles to open it and when it’s open, holds it out to her again. This time she takes it and drinks deep.
She wonders what kind of girl this is. If she will understand something.
She lifts her left index finger and puts it to her mouth, sucks it and tastes the blood and when it’s clean, shifts the bottle to that hand and holds out the right index finger to the little girl. The girl takes a step forward.
“Darlin’!” says her sister. From the way in which she says it the Woman suspects that is her name. Darlin’.
The little girl says something back to her sister and takes another step forward and touches the finger with her lips. The lips are closed and pursed. This is not sucking and it is not biting. This is just a touch.
Interesting.
~ * ~
Peg doesn’t know what to think of all of this but that’s her family’s blood this woman is wearing, damned though they may be. Darleen’s just a child, just an innocent, but what she’s done repulses and confuses her. How can she possibly offer this person a kiss?
She hobbles painfully over to her sister and wraps her arms around her and then shifts her back so that Darlin‘s behind her and she‘s standing between the two of them. She’s the one who let this woman free. It’s her responsibility.
She knows what the woman can do. She doesn’t yet know what she can do.
But something. Maybe.
~ * ~
Darlin’ thought, the lady’s hurt. She’s hurt all over.
The lady needs a little kiss to make it better.
It’s as simple as that.
~ * ~
“Please,” Peg says, “Just let us go.”
~ * ~
The Woman holds out her finger again, this time to the sister.
“For the child, mother,” she says. “For the child.”
~ * ~
“Do ha leanbh, matheir,” is what Peg hears. “Do na leanbh,” The woman’s voice is rough but not threatening. She understands, if not what she says, what she’s being asked to do. She’s being asked to partake of blood.
She’ll do no such thing.
~ * ~
The Woman’s frustrated. Among her people this would be a gift, an honor. It would never be refused.
But her people are all gone.
Still, she thinks she knows what to do.
She approaches and the girl doesn’t flinch at her approach. Her stance is rigid though. She’s preparing to fight if necessary. The Woman could almost laugh at that but this isn’t a time for laughter. A thought has occurred to her which she likes very much.
She reaches out just as she did in the cellar but slowly this time so as not to startle the girl as she would a wounded animal and rests her hand on her belly.
“Bahbai,” she says.
~ * ~
And there it is again.
That inexplicable sense of safety which is also a sense of being known, of being recognized, of simple acceptance that seems to emanate from this wild woman who kills and undoubtedly will kill again. And despite that fact she’s comforted, she feels a burden lifted away