Page 106 of Sky Song
“Don’t say that.”
“My father, his right-hand henchman, his most trusted guard, two of my most vicious brothers were all there. Several other men. If we had all died that day, the Universe would have been a better place for it.” He dropped his hand. “But I was young and wasn’t ready to die then.”
And now?
She didn’t ask, because she was afraid he’d tell her the truth. The Lyle she met was a different person from who she was learning he had been. “Many of us have those near-misses where we wonder if we shouldn’t exist now. I’m glad you made it out alive that day.”
“Are you talking about your illness?”
Cricket could feel the weight of Lyle’s regard on her, and self-consciously, she patted her less-than-impressive hair into order.
“Oh, that makes it twice, then, if you count my illness.”
“What was the other time?”
She smiled a little. “Do you know how many times I’ve been to a park, Lyle?”
“Countless, I imagine.”
“Once. I’ve been to a park once before.”
Lyle’s energy got intense. “Tell me about that one time.”
“It was on Earth. It was early summer, and I just turned six - before the illness that messed up my lungs. My mama didn’t have to work that day. My daddy had passed away two years prior - killed during a spaceship docking accident. Without him, our life had been getting worse and worse with each year, but it hadn’t yet gotten as hard as it did later. Anyway, mama wanted to do something special, and the weather was great, and so we went to a small park that still existed on the outskirts of our City.”
“You went to the park…” Lyle repeated slowly.
“Yes, mama packed a lunch and we went. I remember skipping all the way there. And it was so pretty, the bright green leaves with the sun streaming through them, the soft ground, the birds. There was an old playground with the slide still standing. Naturally, I got up there and ended up ripping my pants.” She smiled, caught up in the day as if it were happening now. She could even smell the rotting wood of the crumbling fence. “It was supposed to be a bright childhood memory that reminds you what good life is all about. Instead, we got attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Mama fought them off with a stick. It’s a miracle we didn’t get mauled to death.”
“You survived,” Lyle said quietly.
Cricket blew out a breath, rounding to look at his impassive face and gentle eyes. “All this is to say, I don’t like going to the park.” She smiled, a little embarrassed.
“You could have said so.”
“I said a lot of things to you that you safely ignored.”
“You’re making me feel guilty. That’s manipulation.”
“I’m glad we understand one another.” She raised an haughty eyebrow at him.
A twig snapped nearby, and she jumped. Her mind still in the park with mama, Cricket heard the dogs barking over the birdsongs. She felt the prickly roughness of the forest floor on which she fell, the touch of the coarse tan pelt against her bare arms she’d put up in pitiful defense. As if it were happening now, she smelled the unwashed dog as the snarling bitch’s hot breath hit her face. The pain of the phantom bite pierced her shoulder, and mama’s desperate shouts rang again in her ears.
“Close your eyes.” He was at her back, crowding her.
She shut them tight, trying to block her own consciousness from playing tricks on her.
Lyle lifted her in his arms. He was so strong. He held her easily, and his gait never halted as he started walking. The light spots popped over her closed eyelids, the shadows passing over them like they would from moving under the trees, switching on and off.
“Don’t open your eyes,” he whispered.
She shook her head as she clung to his neck. “I’m scared. It’s silly, but I am.”
“I won’t put you down,” he promised. “Your feet will not touch the ground until we’re out of the park.”
She curled into a ball against his chest, just like Hipper had done when she rescued him from the Zen garden.
“What if there are animals?” her fear spoke.
