Banished To Earth Book Two, Souls Adrift (16)

 “What? No.” There was a stillness about her demeanour, a coldness he had until now managed to see past. But there it was. Her eyes, ice spheres. Hate, self-hate, was staring up at him. “Tom?” He asked, but he’d already guessed the truth. “How. Did, did you blow his head off?”

 

    Trudy blinked and slowly turned. “I really love that house, this ranch, farm, whatever you want to call it. But loving things ain’t the same as loving people. It blinds, makes you see what's not there, listen to lies and happily believe ‘em.”

 

    “He told you he loved you.”

 

  “No, he said he needed me, a bunch of times. But once would have been enough. Plus, he knew how to be nice when it served his purpose.”

 

   “How long?”

 

   “Long?  You mean how long has he been dead, or how long we were together?”

 

   “How long have you been carrying this?”

   

   She sucked in a deep breath. She was still looking at the house. “’Bout a year. Two years ago, he asked me out. I said no. But he kept asking. I ask why he wanted to date someone like me.”

 

   Tucker shook his head. Trudy could not help but see disapproval on his face.

 

   It made her smile. “Never said he loved me, just that he wanted me in his life.”

 

“Turns out I made him feel better, superior. He kept that part tucked away, for awhile. I knew it, but pretended that I didn’t. He looked down on me, so I had to look up at him. Some men are like that.”

 

   “He hit you?”

 

   “Not once. He was good to me, but never out of love, the more he gave the more he expected.”                                                                   

 53

 

    “Yeah, I know the type. They think being the man of the house means walking all over the woman of the house.”

 

   “I was never a woman to him, just that skinny little girl under the oak tree. Not a day passed that he didn’t tell me how lucky I was to have him. The thing is, I never had him. I don’t think a night passed that he was not in bed with some slut. Anyway, ‘bout a year ago, some man called hollerin’ in the phone ‘bout his wife. After a year of him cheating on me, I figured out where he took his whores, a cheap motel ten miles from here. He was yelling at me, and I was yellin’ at him, and,” she paused, “I just blurted out the name ‘Sunset Lodge’. A few hours later, blue lights lit up my front windows. ‘We’re here to inform you…” Her voice trailed off. “I cried, but, they were tears of joy. He made me feel like dirt.”

 

   “And you hate yourself.”

 

   She jerked around, fire flashed in her eyes, then she crumpled against his chest, weeping.

 

 

Chapter 51

 

    A pine spear pierced the sun. Sunlight leaked out. Night bled in.

 

   “It touched me!”

 

   “No Eloween, he touched the bird. Not you. It was needful. The child’s mind is soft, much like a kitten or a puppy. But the older ones…”

 

  “Stone. Penetrating them will be impossible. But the little one. She heard my words, even through the bird; she heard me.”

 

    “All is well. You will take her by and by.”  

 

   “Will you do it. Can you do it?”

 

  “That is not the question you should be asking.”

 

    She fluttered down to his pod, “Become a giant, grow old and die, maybe even bear human children. A sacrifice must be made. A life for life, no, one life for many, all their lives for mine.”

 

   “And the child’s life.”

 

   “A small sacrifice, an inconsequential one at that. Freeing our people is all that matters. And I ask you again, when the time comes, can you snap her, I mean my neck.”   

54

 

   “I do not dwell on that. The images are too awful.”

 

   “Thorn, it will be the same as the bird.”

 

   “No, you will not be riding her mind. You will be her for the remainder of your life. You will be her!”

    

“We can still be together. You can find another child. I prefer a boy.”

 

  “One moment of rage, Eloween, killing giants is not our work, not our calling.”

 

   “Well then, we can stay here, hide in the oak and watch them live out their lives while ours slowly rots away. You know, this oak, cannot stay in this world forever.”

 

  “We do not know that.”

 

   “We know this world is not Lah rah”. Our tree needs our world. You must know that.”

 

  “Its leaves are still bright with color.”  

 

   “This world’s sun burns bright, too. Too bright. Look up and see it, feel it burn your eyes. It will burn the leaves. Our people die with the tree.”

 

  “Yes. I know. Our people can return it to Lah rah’.”

 

   “And nothing else.”

 

  Thorn sat back in his pod. Eloween nestled down beside him. They kissed in the bough-filtered moonlight, silently agreeing.