The Hammer Unfalls

Waving her hand in front of her own face, Lhani tried to detect any hint of movement. She could barely make out the motion of her own hand. She pulled the blanket around her in the dark tent. Pockets of cold shifted around, sneaking into each crevasse between her body and the blanket. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t get warm everywhere at once.

And she had to pee.

She tried to pretend she didn’t have to. The longer she ignored it, the more urgent it became. She pressed her knees together, as if she could calm her bladder through sheer willpower alone.

It didn’t work. But she dreaded the cold. It would take her an hour just to get warm again.

Lhani sighed, mustered her resolve, and pulled the blanket away. She sat up, trying to get moving before the shock of cold hit her. She failed to outrun it. Her breath grew shallow as cold poured into her lungs.

She stepped over her sleeping parents and walked into the woods, keeping her arms extended to ward of branches. She squatted, hoping no spiders would crawl up her leg, and found relief.

Lhani rushed back into the tent, slid beneath her blanket, and sought the ghost of body warmth that remained in her bedroll.

Camping stinks, she thought.

Minutes later, the sunlight irritated her sleeping eyes. She tried, unsuccessfully, to bat it away.

“Look who’s finally awake!” her father said, smiling, next to a cheerful fire.

The delightful scent of fish hit her nose. The pan sizzled in the coals.

Lhani squealed with delight.

“Thank your mother. It took her an hour to catch them.”

“If I ever taste another mushroom I will keel over and die,” Lhani said.

She heard her mother laugh from behind the tent. Lhani got up and ran around it, slamming into her mother with a fierce hug.

“Thank you, Mama.”

“Alright, girl. Let me breathe.”

Lhani shoveled the fish into her mouth so fast she could hardly swallow enough to keep pace. The hot food warmed her throat and belly.

“Your other tunic is dry,” her mother said. “Go wash up.”

Lhani took the fresh tunic from her mother, and a mug of boiling water from her father. Also a clean linen rag, which he wrapped around the handle before handing her the mug.

Lhani went to the brook. Frost patches covered the ground. A thin skin of ice sparkled in the sunlight. She slapped it with her palm, shattering the ice. She watched the shards fall into the water and disappear.

Alternating between the hot water and the icy river, Lhani dampened the rag and washed the grime from her arms, neck and face. By the time the hot water ran out, she’d cleaned herself.

All but her hair.

Steeling herself for the inevitable, she leaned over the water. She watched the tips of her hair dip into the water in fascination. Shocked white. But the pattern haphazard. Not in a streak like her mother, but random.

Her dark brown hair followed. Before she could talk herself out of it, Lhani took a deep breath and plunged her head into the water.

Icy knives stabbed her face. The warmth left her scalp as the water seeped in. She hurriedly swished her hair around in the water and flung her head back, gasping for air.

She shucked off her tunic, found the cleanest part, and dried her hair as best she could. Shivering, she shrugged the clean tunic over herself, dunked the dirty one in the water, and wrung it out.

Lhani ran back to the campfire. She let it warm her hands, then her arms. She turned, seeking the fire’s heat as her teeth clattered in her skull. At last the cold left her. Except her back. The damp spot from her hair caused a chill to creep down her spine.

“Next time dry your hair more,” her mother said, draping a woolen cloak around her daughter’s shoulders.

Gratefully, Lhani pulled the hood over her head and scrunched it up around her face.

“Algidon’s arse, I‘m cold,” she said, shivering, and urging her back to dry.

“Lhani!” her father exclaimed.

Mama laughed. Then Papa Tom joined in. Soon, all three were laughing uproariously.

“I’m so tired of camping,” she whined. “When can we go home?”

Her mother looked at her with sympathetic, yet firm, eyes. “When you’re ready.”

Lhani groaned.

“But we have a surprise for you today.”

“A ‘surprise’ like when you thought about the moldy rat guts to show me disgust?”

“No,” her father said. “You’ll like this one.”

“Let’s get you ready,” Mama said. She sat down next to Lhani with a comb. Mama pulled Lhani’s hood back, and started brushing her hair.

“Ready for what?”

“Visitors.”

Joy surged inside of her. She didn’t even care who they were. Lhani loved her parents, but the weeks in the woods had grated on her last nerve.

From the trail she heard voices. Ones she hadn’t heard in what seemed like ages.

“Watch it now. You’ll break your leg and die out here if you aren’t careful.”

Gerard.

“I don’t care! Hurry up!”

Tomyko!

“Well, I do care. Watch your step.”

Gertie.

Then she saw a flash of color flickering among the branches, and before she knew it her brothers were before her.

Lhani ran over and crushed them both in a huge hug.

Gertie harrumphed beside her. “I just got them here in one piece. Watch those ribcages, girl!”

Lhani smiled and made some unidentifiable sound. Half groan, half elation.

“I missed you!” she said.

“Me too, Lannie!” Tomyko said. “Arrad has been grumpy.”

“No more than usual,” Arrad said with a smile.

“Papa!” Tomyko said, running over to his father.

“Hello, mother,” Arrad said, just before she enveloped him in her arms. He looked at Lhani, making a choking face and letting his tongue loll out of the corner of his mouth.

“Is Lannie ok?” she heard Tomyko ask, under his breath.

“Why not ask her?” Papa Tom said.

Tomkyo walked up to her timidly.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

The boy’s face scrunched up. His shoulders shook. He started bawling, right there on the spot.

Lhani’s heart leapt in response. She pulled her brother close and held him as his shoulders heaved. His emotion overwhelmed her, and she began to cry as well.

“Hush now,” she said between shuddering breaths. ‘This is a happy day, Tomyko.”

“But did your brain split in half?”

Lhani laughed through her tears. “In a way. It’s alright now. How are you?”

Tomyko shrugged his way out of her arms. “Watch this!”

He concentrated, and set his own sleeve on fire.

“Ow!” he said, batting at it.

“Oh, Tomyko. That’s… wonderful?” she said, trying not to laugh.

“I know!”

“Come on, you little scamp,” Gertie said, hustling him off towards the stream.

“I’ll just make sure he’s okay,” Gerard said, eyes twinkling, and followed them. “We’ve made a stockpile of salves!” he called out as he vanished into the woods.

Lhani took a deep breath and faced Arrad. “How are you?”

The air buzzed between them. She remembered his frustration at trying to summon ice. The memory of his hand plunging into icewater seemed as real to her now as it had that day. Her hand tingled with the memory.

“Stop it, girl.”

Her mother went to Arrad and ruffled his short blonde hair. He rolled his eyes.

“Just checking,” she said. Her eyes asked him an unspoken question. He nodded.

Silver light swirled between them. It twisted into a corkscrew, turning round in the air.

After a few moments, the light vanished. Her mother pulled away.

“How am I?” Arrad asked. “See for yourself.”

Lhani thought about the twig spinning in her father’s fingertips. Her nerves twanged, making her jump inside.

She looked at her mother, who tilted her head towards her son.

Lhani peered into Arrad’s cold blue eyes.

A white light blazed between them, then vanished.

A vast void opened up and swallowed her. Lhani swam in the air, seeking an anchor, but saw only mist. She looked above her. The stars pulsed in the sky, with patterns between them. Numbers.

She fell into the void. The mist swallowed her. She heard all manner of moans, sighs, and screams. Currents of color pulsed in the darkness. She felt madness hovering just out of reach. But somehow muted.

A white dot grew larger, and she found herself on solid ground.

Lhani saw a table. Rough hewn, with a dark spot smouldering within its deeply weathered grain.

She stared at pale hands. Ineffectual hands.

Her vision blurred and she found herself in a clearing much like the one she’d been in the last few weeks. Her hand burned. She glanced down and saw it plunged into the rippling water.

Then she saw herself. Her kind eyes loomed larger and larger, until they swallowed her. She felt connection and peace envelop her.

Something snapped in her mind. Not a breaking, but a forming. Resolve.

Warmth and light suffused her.

Focus.

Focus.

FOCUS! the darkness cried.

Lhani screamed.

Fear not, Arrad-Lhani told her.

He took her hand. It pulsed, white hot, and seared her. She screamed again with imagined pain.

It doesn’t hurt, Arrad-Lhani said.

Ice crackled along her arm.

Arrad-Lhani looked at me-Lhani, eyes brimming with tears. Gratitude overwhelmed us.

Thank you, my sister, Arrad-Lhani told us.

Lhani felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her away. The darkness of the void seethed around her, scintillating with pulses of light.

“Open your eyes,” her mother hissed at her ear.

With great effort, Lhani followed her mother’s command. She saw Arrad, half-smiling at her with that unreadable expression on his face. But his eyes wavered.

“Thank you, Lhani,” he said, out loud this time.

His arms enclosed her.

Lhani wept.