Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) by Harry Manners Page B

his throat, fighting cottonmouth and year-old hunger, and brought out the grubby folds of their map, which fluttered in the breeze while he checked their course against the old man’s compass.
    A shuffling eventually disturbed him. Billy’s tiny profile had been invisible until she’d lifted her head, crouched beside the awning. Don blinked in shock, seeing her afresh. Her eyes looked enormous amidst her hollowed cheeks. She scarcely resembled the plump, freckle-faced munchkin he’d been raising a year ago.
    His little girl was starving.
    He beckoned her, and she crawled over to sit in his lap. Don continued to check the map with his arms looped over her shoulders. She peered at it for a while, bemused, and then said, “Are we there yet?”
    “Not yet. Soon.”
    “I don’t like the sea anymore. We’ve been away for too long. We should go back.”
    Don put the map down. “We’ve only been gone a few hours.”
    “I’m hungry.”
    “We’re all hungry.”
    She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him, a coy smile touching her lips. “Where are we going?” she said.
    “Billy…”
    “Pleeaaase.”
    Don grumbled and then retold the story of their journey to the new land, embellishing it as usual with improvised speculative details. Billy listened in a trance and smiled at the fantastical legend of the New Land.
    Afterwards, the two of them sat in silence and listened to the old man sleeping under the awning. They watched the sun begin to dip, rolling to the waves’ rhythm.
    “You were asleep for a long time,” she said.
    “Was I?” Looking at the sun, he made a rough estimation of where it had been before he’d dozed. “It can’t have been that long.”
    “It was forever.”
    He smiled. “No, it wasn’t.”
    “It’s daytime. You always tell me not to sleep in the daytime.”
    “Grandpa and I were busy last night. We didn’t get to sleep. You, on the other hand,” he poked her ribs, drawing a giggle from her lips, “got a comfy twelve hours.”
    Billy’s smile remained, but it soon grew thin. “I did?”
    “Yes.”
    When she spoke again, her tone made him look away from the horizon. “I dreamed.”
    “You did?” Something about her expression made him press, “What about?”
    A brief pause. Then she said, “Ma.”
    Don’s throat clicked as he swallowed. They sat through the silence that followed in the same manner as they had many times before. He knew that he needed to say or do something to break the silence, to bring their thoughts away from Miranda. But nothing came to him. Her absence was still too raw, and the shock of her loss too fresh. He could only hold Billy closer to his side as his own tightened larynx failed him.
    “I dream of her most nights,” Billy said. Her voice had a hollow edge, devoid of engagement.
    “You do?”
    She nodded. “They’re memories, though, from…before. When I wake up I can remember how she smelled. Do you remember how she smelled, Daddy?”
    Don stroked her hair. “She smelled of lemons.”
    Billy frowned. “What’s that?”
    “A fruit. But I haven’t seen any for a long time.”
    “Oh… I don’t know what they smell like. Like Ma, I suppose.”
    “Yes, like Ma.”
    “I dream of her, but she has no face. It’s fuzzy, like a drawing. Will she go away if I forget her face?”
    “No, she’ll never go away.”
    “But how can she be here if she has no face?”
    Don sat back and sighed. “It’s all still there, you’re just not thinking about it right. You’ve got to think about something you did together.” He kissed her forehead. “Try thinking about the Christmas before last,” he whispered. “You remember? How she cooked that enormous turkey, the one that grandpa fed double because it never shut up?”
    She nodded, but was otherwise deathly silent.
    Don’s throat had grown narrow, but he pressed on, “We ate all those gooseberries by the fire. I’ve never been so full in my life…” He held back a laugh. “She taught you