Crystal Odenkirk

Neither of us is going to clear the rocks.

I am young. It’s my birthday. I am sitting in front of a tent. There is no cake, no candles. My father hands me a small horse he carved from driftwood on Southshore’s beach. He has nothing to wrap it with, so he wraps his arms around me instead. I don’t understand what is happening, only that he is sad.

My mother jumps to her feet, her hands on her daggers. “Run,” she says quietly without looking down at us.

“THOK MOG THOK!” I hear behind us. My father is carrying me and I watch over his shoulder, the scary green men, and my mother and the others, fighting, and getting smaller in the distance. I do not understand what is happening.

Sinewy arms wrap around me. Needle-sharp tusks bob toward my eyes as we each struggle to be the last to hit the ground. We are falling.

(more…)

“Down!”

A hand shoots out and yanks me by the collar, hauling me to the ground behind a fallen tree.

Inches from my face, a spear sprouts from the jungle floor where I’m sprawled. I flinch away, scrambling to brace against the rotting trunk we’re hiding behind.

“I don’t think they like you,” she adds.

I spare a grin for my shipmate, a blonde little bird who could probably out-forest these trolls if she wasn’t burdened with me.

Soggy wood rains down on us as another spear thunks into the top of the decaying tree.

“Feeling’s mutual” I quip back.

“It strikes me,” she continues philosophically, “that we –”

We both flatten to the ground again, two more spears whistling past.

“–we, meaning you,” she pats my shoulder sadly, “and only thereby, me, are in a spot of trouble.”

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