Page 3 of These Eternal Bones

My attention snaps away from the sky. The thought halting my tears in their tracks.

I wait to feel even an inch of guilt for it but find my chest free where he’s concerned.

Thinking certainly isn’t getting me anywhere good, so I work to a stand with a small amount of fanfare over my throbbing thigh.

That feeling is back, the heavy one weighing on the back of my neck.

Like if only I would turn fast enough, I could catch the offending pair of eyes.

I don’t turn, not even as I work off my boots, grimacing at the stench and blisters on my feet.

Gathering my equally unpleasant skirts in my arms, I balance on rocky terrain, stumbling toward the water.

My feet are tough; being raised in the desert, they have to be, but everything there is dry, hardened, and pokes.

My feet are not tough when they are sodden.

The skin feels paper thin, and each rock is like a dagger to my soles.

An altogether unladylike sound leaves my lips when they meet the arctic water, my ribs stiffening as I hold my breath.

I’m not sure why I do it, it doesn't help a bit as I wade farther, debating returning to the bank. I don’t.

All my underwear and clothing are lost forever back at New Eden.

I left with none. Nothing but my dress and a pair of boots I’m pretty sure aren’t mine.

The water on my cut feels soothing as much as it stings.

My nipples pulling taut under the bodice of my dress, the fabric suddenly grating as I squat, my teeth digging into my lip as the water rolls over my most sensitive area.

My cheeks are flaming pink as I relieve myself in the water.

Why this , of all the indignities I’ve been subjected to lately, feels especially terrible.

I don’t know. A flutter from something in the water brushes my center, my eyes slamming wide with a shocked panic.

My head snaps down, catching a fish circling back underneath where I’m spread wide.

Water erupts in chaos around me as I repel upward, a feral squeal ripping from my throat. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! ”

All reason and desire to keep my dress dry are lost in my escape as I flee to the bank.

“A fish touched my–” I gag, fisting my skirts, using the inner layer to scrub at my center as a repulsed chill runs down my spine.

“So gross. Ew, that’s so weird .” I pace wildly for several moments, attempting to quell the racing in my chest, a brutal shot of adrenaline my body can’t afford.

My bottom screams in protest as I plop unceremoniously back down to the rocky bank, casting a final hateful glare at the creek.

For the first time since I made the errant decision to flee into the woods last night, it occurs to me I am well and truly lost. Nothing short of dumb luck that I found water at all.

I have zero concept of direction. Only that everything is on a slope.

Following the creek down would surely, at some point, lead me back to civilization.

It’s temping, more than a little so. It’ll take a week, if not more, to fix the breach in the hull of Captain Faine’s ship.

A week or more before the Tabot and her foul-smelling crew are gone.

Something close to a sigh leaves me as I pull my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them while I prod and shift through the rocks with shaky hands.

“Three weeks tops, then I can follow the river down.” I say it out loud as if to assure myself it’s a possibility. That there’s hope, a light at the end of all this perpetually damp woodland and fog.

Three weeks.

Something shiny catches my eye–a dark, nearly black rock, its concave side inlaid with shiny crystal like notches.

My lips part as I bring it to my face, admiring the odd stone.

It prods my palm painfully as I grip it, keeping it tucked protectively inside my fist while I scoot the little ways to the water so I can dunk it in and clear it of dirt. That only serves to make it shine more.

See Molly?

There's your bright side .

You found a pretty rock.

One I never would’ve seen had I not left home in the middle of the night, had I not stowed away on the Tabot, had I not given my body to Captain Faine, had I not run into these woods and been molested by a fish.

Had I not escaped him .

That’s enough for now. I have my freedom and a pretty rock.

Keeping my rock secure in my palm, I brush my dirty hair over my shoulder, undoing the buttons on the back of my dress, loosening the bodice enough for me to nestle the stone between my breasts for safekeeping.

It’s not the most comfortable thing, but neither is anything else right now.

I adjust it in my cleavage, what humble cleavage I have, ignoring the unease in my stomach and the pain in my feet as I slip them back into my wet boots.

Reminding myself why I’ve done this, firing up that terrible, hopeless feeling from that night.

Anything is better than that.

Anything.