Hind releases a shaky breath. “Let's just talk about this when we get home, shall we?”
Home.She would say that's the place she just left, but it's not anymore, is it? Not in two days’ time, anyway. Seeing her mother like this, Shay feels all her hopes for a new life swing on an emotional pendulum toward despair.
“I can't believe this,” she says, stepping back. “I cannot believe you're blitzed right now. I told you to stay in bed. Not to leave. I said I'd be back. You promised you'd stay lucid.”
Hind waves a bony hand in a shooing motion. “I said I'd try.”
The man—whoever he was—is gone. Shay's adrenaline ebbs, and fatigue rushes in like scavengers descending on a kill. It's been a long, confusing couple of days. Did she misunderstand the touched one's intention? Does it matter? “Is this what you calltrying?”
Hind looks away. Absently, she reaches between the folds of the desert-style robe that swathes her hair and body and produces an apple. She bites it and pulls a face. “Skin's thick,” she says around the morsel, juice dribbling from the corner of her lips. “A sign this resting season will be harsh.”
Shay exhales. Hope drains from her body with her breath. The slant of sky above the alley has grown heavy with rain clouds. They dip low, the gray of giant swollen ticks. “Coming here was a mistake.”
The touched one straightens to attention, looking almost comical, like a child playing soldier. “No, no, no. Don't say that. I can explain everything.”
“Why?” Shay asks so loudly, the touched one winces. “I wanted to help you. Why would you go right back out and use again? You couldn't even go one day. You couldn't”—Shay chokes on the words—”do it for me.”
“I meant to go to the market,” the touched one whines, and nibbles the fruit. “But all I managed to get was an apple before they closed off the square.”
Shay shakes her head, not sure how that's relevant until a gallows-shaped shadow falls over her mind. She shakes her head harder to dismiss the memory. “Another hanging?”
“Two days in a row.” Hind nods, swallowing. “Since I couldn't buy food …”
Shay finishes for her: “You bought Snow instead?”
“When you say it like that …”
“And to think I wanted to take you with me.” Shay feels like someone waking from a warm, cozy dream into the harsh cold of morning in the peak of resting season. “I needed this, though, to know more about my past, the things Ghita kept from me, so I could put it to rest before starting out on a new venture. But I think it's best we part ways now. So, if you can give me the ticket …”
“What ticket?” the touched one asks in the most innocent tone, the white blots of her eyes unable to hide the guilt flicking over them.
“The one I gave you when I promised to come back.” Shay's thoughts tumble around her head, a cruel realization forming. Nothing about the state of the touched one's provisions suggested someone with a reliable source of coin. And while Shay isn't sure exactly how hard Snow is to come by, she knows it isn't free. “What did you do?”
Hind strangles out a dry sob and starts blabbering: “I just wanted one last blitz before quitting for good. That's all. I wasn't ready. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. Please, don't be mad. Don't leave. This will be the last time. Try to understand. Snow ain't cheap.”
“You sold the ticket?” Shay's voice comes out a wisp. She shakes her head, still hoping it isn't true. “And you used the coin to buy more Snow?”
Hind's whited eyes go milky with tears. She nods.
“How could you?” The knapsack Shay packed hangs heavy between her shoulders. How foolish she was to worry about someone who gave so little thought to her in return.
At first, she thinks the wail she hears is coming from inside her head, her brain creating a reenactment of her frustrations, but it draws out and raises in volume. An animal of some sort, she thinks. Perhaps warning other animals of danger.
A little late, my friend.
“I'll escort you home,” she tells Hind, beginning to walk back toward her shelter. “And leave you the provisions I gathered before I go.”
“You brought me food?” the touched one says in soft surprise, allowing herself to be pulled along. “That was thoughtful. Got anything sweet in there?”
Shay shakes her head, rubbing her ears as the cries continue, the likes of which no living creature should ever make. Not a warning. No, these are sounds of pain. Torment, even.
“What about bread?” Hind stumbles slightly, eyeing Shay's bulging hood as though imagining what untold treasures it holds. “A sandwich sounds divine.”
Shay grits her teeth. “Do you hear that?”
The touched one smiles loosely as though pretending to understand a joke. “Hear what?”
“My question exactly.” Shay veers off the gravel path, away from the rows of dilapidated shelters. The touched one follows at rapid sprint as she skirts around discarded furniture, a small chicken pen, and the sapling fruit trees of a burgeoning community garden.
