So Quick

Her stomach didn’t hurt anymore. Maybe her head was even beginning to clear.

She blinked, tried to focus on anything nearby. Was that a fluttering of wings she was hearing, perhaps an owl was swooping down to say hello—like the ones so often seen in the barn they would meet in after school…why wasn’t she in school—but it hurt too much to focus, and the fluttering was gone anyway. She closed her eyes back tight, and hoped that might make things better.

What happened? She couldn’t remember no matter how many images skipped across her closed eyes—someone holding her hand and squeezing it hard, her name being called out as she stood in the center of a large crowd. Maybe her head wasn’t clearing after all.

“Just use your mind Steph, just think this through,” a voice said.

It was a whisper so gentle she could almost mistake it for a passing breeze. It was also familiar, a voice she really should have known instantly but she couldn’t…and then she had it. Certain memories might walk away, but she supposed how her father had sounded—how his voice was low yet kind—would always stick around. There was no way any hurt would make her forget that.

But she didn’t want to look at him. That was probably why she kept her eyes closed.

“Daddy,” she moaned. Her throat hurt too, a metallic burn that was as if something vital had sprung loose from within. “What’s going on?”

“A game, Steph, just a game,” her father said. “Don’t you remember?”

She hated it when he called her that. Ever since her first day at school she’d been Stephanie—it was something he knew well. Really, she was Stella Ellis Cotton, but after almost an hour of math—and some spelling, with a touch of science to—a girl named Polly Fringe had looked at her and had said, “Hey Stephanie,” and that had been that.

Later, when they were in that barn trying to become fast friends—and loving so much the peace of that place, those owls that had always made it sound as if the barn were a sanctuary alive with an endless heartbeat of wings, and how being there never did seem to attract any of those awful guards’ attention—Polly had told her she just looked like a Stephanie and, after a little while longer, even Stephanie had to admit that Polly had been right. That name was better.

But her father refused to use it. He thought he was being funny. How his eyes lit up whenever he whispered Steph and she pursed her lips in annoyance. How he would laugh and tell her she was his special and as such he should be able to give her a special name.

In all honesty, she didn’t, fully, hate the nickname he’d given to her nickname. If she thought real hard, she could even remember days when she’d kind of liked it.

Steph made her think of far off nights spent under covers as hot lightning fell in giant fists outside her house. Having a tin roof, and thin walls, never made such storms joyous and many a rough evening had found her wanting to be more like her beagle Tray, so safe—all curled up and comfy—under a table where there was more protection from the rain.

But she could never join Tray. She would stay a shivering mess wrapped in her covers—so sure that any sudden movement might cause those giant fists to slip in and take her away.

Her father worked the mids, going to the plant an hour after she got back from school and that barn, a fast goodbye all he’d be able to give—oh why had she stayed with those owls for so long—before he’d finally get home well after she was asleep. On any night when the sky shouted its fury he did try all the harder to make it back early, exchanging shifts—and begging any of those awful guards—just so he could return to her all the quicker. He would burst through their front door and yell, “Steph…I’m home Steph,” as she sat up in bed and melted in his embrace. He would even stroke her hair and whisper, “You’re home too. You’re safe,” but such words weren’t what calmed.

Her father was her security, and she could no longer deny. When she’d been little, each bit of him had been bliss. Even how he’d called her Steph hadn’t been all that bad.

But as she’d grown, it had started to grate. She didn’t know why, it was the remorse of age she supposed. The maturity of not needing any adult—those moments when there was a want to say, “I love you,” or, “please hug me,” yet refusal to speak, or staying in that barn even after Polly had long since taken off, was given instead.

“Do you remember the games,” her father asked.

He was right above, so close she was sure if she opened her eyes she could stare into his face—see a long-missed cow lick on the back of his head. Such a lick often sent tuffs of black high into the air, and many a morning she’d woken to him making breakfast as he—absentmindedly—had sent hand after hand up to tame what was wild.

“Daddy, my stomach,”

“I know baby,” her father said, “but you need to remember, think about the games. Just open your eyes back up, it’ll help.”

She still didn’t want to, and, anyway, it felt better to remain blind. Being brave meant looking at the world. It meant more hurt. She clenched her eyes all the tighter.

Beyond the wildness of his hair, she had always loved the contours of her fathers’ cheeks. He worked so hard, and was gone so much. She liked to keep an image of him secure so he would never fade.

Her mother had. Her father said it was normal, she’d gotten ill when Stephanie was only three, and had died a year later; wasting from the sickness that everyone knew came from the plant. It wasn’t a surprise that Stephanie couldn’t vividly recall her every line, and wrinkle, yet still she despised that traitorous part of her mind.

Stephanie wanted her mom to stay fresh, as if she were out there somewhere—running an errand and would soon return. But no matter how she dug, she couldn’t do it. She was always afraid the same would happen with her father.

She studied him all the time. He was thin, but there was a vibrancy to his hazel eyes, and a burning hunger along his narrow cheeks. She would look at him and feel even more calm. It rushed into her veins—this is him, I’ve captured it forever.

But her calm really increased whenever she would rush to mirrors to stare at her own face. It was a secret special all her own. She never named it, her father could give title after title to every special he had, this was simply her best avenue of peace—something left silent for her to feel, not speak aloud.

She would mark the turn of her nose, and a lift of her lips. She would note anything that wasn’t exactly like her father—each mirror a chance for her mom to step forward and say hello.

As Stephanie clenched her eyes all the tighter, every bit of that came back. But, soon, it shifted. Her mind may not have been ready to let her remember what had happened, but it seemed more than fine with letting her recall every other detail of how her father had gotten the sickness as well.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. There was a napkin at his lips. Something already stained a pinkish red. “This is…I’m just so sorry.”

She smiled, the first time she’d done that in weeks. Her sixteenth birthday had been two months passed, taking place during the heavy days when he swore he was only tired and it wasn’t anything to worry about.

But he was dying, and she felt old. She wasn’t even stopping by the barn anymore, the owls inside—and every secret talk she’d ever had with Polly there—suddenly feeling such a childish nonsense she actually felt embarrassed to have ever loved.

“Daddy…it’s…maybe you’ll get better,” she said. But already his absence from the plant had become an issue. He wasn’t bringing in money, and she’d had to put her name in more than once to make ends meet. “Maybe you’ll…”

He latched onto her wrist, clutching at her with fingers back to the way they’d been when he’d been healthy. “No,” he said, “this is…you have to be ready, Stella.”

“Steph,” she said, “you always…”

“Not now,” he said, “now you’re my beautiful Stella Cotton, too young to be allowed into the plant, yet not too young to put your name into the games more than once. My Stella…this…this…life is so quick. I was going to teach you how to…but it will be up to you to do it on your own. You’ll…you’ll always have a place to rest your head, but for food, and clothes, you’ll…you’ll need more coin and you’ll do it.

“Put your name in as much as you can. Just do it, but…but promise me something. Promise that if they choose you you’ll use your head. You fight. Be smart, and…and be as quick as a fox and you come home! Just get back home where everything is safe!”

She’d promised. She remembered now. She remembered everything.

The arena, the games, how her name had been chosen just as her father had warned. Once he was gone she kept putting herself in as much as she could. It was just twice, but somehow that second slip seemed far worse for her than anyone who could do it three times, or maybe four.

She opened her eyes. She had it now. The fire was supposed to have been something quick. She’d waited so long, until her fingers were frozen digits unable to bend, until her legs could barely keep her upright, and though she knew it wasn’t smart she’d told herself again, and again, it would only be for a moment.

She’d fallen asleep. She had finally become like Tray, curled up and comfy except there was no table to give her more protection from the rain. She woke when they came, begged for them to stop, but one large boy hit her with his sword, the thick metal of such a strong hilt cracking her skull as she’d screamed, and screamed.

She’d been prepared for pain beyond anything she could endure, but then another kid, a sweet kid, some baker from somewhere, had told them to end it and everyone had listened. He’d talked so convincingly that though her head had spun, Stephanie too would have done anything he’d asked. She hadn’t even minded it when the one with the sword had said okay…and then had jammed his blade deep into her stomach.

“Daddy,” Stephanie said.

She stared at her father. He was as she remembered, thin, yet strong, alive without a trace of sickness in him. “I broke my promise.”

There was someone behind him. Stephanie could just make out the image of a boy—the sweet baker one—in the last remaining glimmers of the fire that had killed her. He got close, finally knelling and cupping her head in his lap as her father reached out and began to stroke her hair.

His fingers where a welcome warmth in the cold night. She enjoyed them as she looked at the boy.

He too was running a hand through her matted locks, he and her father sometimes blurring into one as Stephanie smiled at them both. The boy held a knife. Stephanie kept waiting for it to snake out and bring pain, but the boy only lowered it. Why was he acting so different from the others?

“My Stella,” her father said. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Can you move?”

“Hurts…I…I wasn’t smart.”

Her father kept brushing her hair. She had no idea how she could feel him, but his hard skin was that remembered bliss. Her pain began to ebb more.

“It’s not…oh Stella, it’s not your fault,” her father said. “I…I shouldn’t have made you promise. I…I just wanted you to get home where you would be safe and…and I…I didn’t understand the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That life is quick, so quick, but it’s not the end. There’s more…there’s another home, a better home…your mom and I are there.”

“Mom,” Stephanie said. The boy was leaning down as well. She almost thought he too might be whispering. “I’ll get to see mom?”

“She’s waiting,” her father said, “she’s been waiting so long.”

The boy smiled. She couldn’t remember his name, but his smile was nice, and his knife wasn’t nearly as scary as the other one’s sword had been. Even when he brought the knife back up, and placed it under her chin, she couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid.

“I’m…I have to,” the boy said.

Her father had risen. His arm was outstretched as she stared up at him. “Almost there, Stella, just a second longer,”

“Call me,” Stephanie whispered. There was someone else behind her father—someone beautiful, just like she’d been in all those mirrors. “Call me Steph…please.”

“I will,” the boy said as her father did the same, their voices overlapping. “Goodbye, Steph.”

But, there was still that someone else. The beauty behind her father sighed hello.

“Hello,” Stephanie said back. The knife was already moving. “I’ve missed you so much.”