Promise: The Scarred Girl (12 page)

“Come with me. You promised!” Nea calls to the twins as the boat slowly floats away from the shore.

“Nea, do not worry, we will meet again,” Hope calls as she puts her arm around the waist of her sister. The dog sits down next to the two of them and puts her head down before she begins to howl loudly.

“You know you always meet people twice in life,” Faith adds encouragingly.

“We will take good care of your partner,” they cry together. Nea does not notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. She knew she would have to leave the two of them soon, but she did not think it would be so sudden. Even the dog decided against staying with her. That hurts as much as the twins leaving.

Nea stares through her veil of tears at the red robes on the shore until the boat is so far from the shore the sisters appear as tiny red dots. She hopes that the Carris members in the forest do not realize their connection to the releasing of the boat. Only then does she remember that she is not alone.

Nea turns around and sees the young pregnant woman in her red habit. She scans the shore with scared eyes. It makes Nea angry, because of this stranger, she had to leave the twins earlier than she had expected. When the stranger feels Nea’s eyes on her, she turns to her.

“I am sorry your friends stayed behind, but we really should start to row, otherwise we might float back to shore.”

The oars are on the floor of the boat. “Do I look as if I could row?” Nea asks her angrily, pointing to her bandaged shoulder.  She knows it’s not right to yell at the girl, but she has to deal with her frustrations, and right now, throwing them onto someone else seems to help.

“Do I look as if I could row?” The stranger counters, just as snippily, and points to her big round belly.

After a few moments, an arrow splashes into the water just in front of the boat. The two girls look to the shore and see four men dressed in crimson robes shooting arrows. Their target is the boat. The next arrow hisses past the pregnant woman’s head. She shrieks loudly and throws herself into the bottom of the boat forcefully so that the boat rocks dangerously. Another arrow hits in the bow of the boat.

“Pull your habit off!” Nea calls to her. It’s like a bright red light or signal flag for the archers. For a moment, she looks at Nea as though irritated, but soon follows her instructions. Once it is removed, the girl’s bright blonde hair can be seen, which is almost as good a target as her habit.

More and more arrows fly toward the boat and it’s pure luck that none of them hit them or the boat. On the banks more Carris members appear, and to their great horror, they have a raft they are putting in the water.

Both now realize that no matter what state of health they are in, they must row so they each simultaneously grab an oar and push it into the water. Water splashes on all sides and the boat turns in circles while they frantically row back and forth. Suddenly, the girl puts her hand on Nea’s arm and looks her in the eye with her dark brown eyes.

“We have to row together, only then can we move forward.”

As Nea nods, the pregnant stranger takes her hand from Nea’s arm and paddles on. Nea adapts to her pace. Moments later, an arrow strikes the upper arm of the pregnant woman. She lets out a loud cry of pain. Nea grabs her oar before it falls into the water. Even if her shoulder hurts terribly, Nea rows constantly, progressing even while the pregnant woman weeps below her. Her face is very pale; beads of sweat stand on her forehead. Nea is afraid the shear panic will induce labor in her. But when they see they have left the Carris behind them, the girl slowly calms down and tries to breathe a little. Nea drops the oars into the boat.

Nea’s once bright red bandage on her shoulder has turned dark red. The effort of rowing the boat must have caused it to split open again. It is quiet. Only the sound of water can be heard.

“Thank you!” The pregnant woman says, with a timid smile on her bright, almost white lips.

“We need to head back,” Nea says. She knows it is unfair that she cannot stand her just because she is pregnant and needs her help and because she hastened her departure with the twins, but she is powerless against her feelings.

“Will you help me?” The pregnant stranger asks, and Nea’s not sure what she means until her gaze slides over the arrow, which is still stuck in her arm. She wears only a short white dress, she has to be freezing. Her feet are in thin slippers. She will not get far. Nea is not sure whether it would be better to leave the arrow in her arm or pull it out. Because she does not know how long they will be on the road, she pulls the arrow from her arm so that she will not get blood poisoning.

Quickly, Nea wraps a strip of cloth from the girl’s habit onto her arm in order to stop the bleeding. The fabric soaks up fast, but after some time, the bleeding stops.

Slowly, color returns to the stranger’s face. Nea hands her the water bottle so that she can calm her nerves. Then there is silence. The boat continues to float upon the lake. Nea hopes that they will soon return to the pier they originally set out from.

S
everal hours go by without the two saying a word to each other,  they just float on the water all day. Soon twilight comes and a light mist falls upon the lake. Far and wide nothing can be seen.  The pregnant girl is asleep on the floor of the boat, but quickly wakes up and begins trembling.

“It’s pretty cold...” she says. Nea sees that goose bumps have formed on her bare skin. She could not put the habit back on again as it would be pretty conspicuous as it is ripped and covered in blood. Nea’s coat only slightly protects her from the cold. Even if she cannot stand the girl, she does not want her to freeze. Therefore, Nea grabs her sleeping bag out of her backpack and hands it to the stranger. She looks at it gratefully and immediately wraps it around herself. She looks out at the fog that spreads densely around their boat, “How long are we going to stay here on the lake?”

“We need to reach a certain pier; only from there will I know the way.”

“The way to where?”

“The way to Fortania, but before I get there, I will turn toward Promise.”

“But I do not want to go to Fortania or Promise,” she protests vehemently.

“But I do,” Nea replies rather snottily. What makes it even more annoying is that instead of showing Nea even a bit of gratitude for saving her life, she acts like a bitch and makes demands.

“Are you mad? How do you think you will get there? The closer you get to Fortania, the more Carris there will be. Without a habit and as hurt as you are, you would not come within a mile of your goal!”

Crestfallen, Nea sees that she may be right. She wanted to stubbornly stick to her plan. She also realized that she no longer has her habit or someone who could cover for her. It’s all the stranger’s fault, because of her, Nea had to leave the twins. Nea squints at the girl evilly.

“And what do you suggest instead?”

“We should go to the other side of the lake and go into the mountains.”

“Why should we go to the mountains? There is nothing there.”

The mountains are peaceful, but that alone is no reason to go there. They could easily get lost.

“I have friends on the Dementia border and I want to go back to them.”

“Then go to them. I will not keep you if that is what you intend to do,” Nea replies coldly because she does not like the decisive tone of this pregnant woman at all. Who does she think she is?

“I do not know if you have noticed, but I’m pregnant! You might be fine going through the forest alone, but me, I might get mugged or go into labor!” Her cheeks glow red, not from embarrassment, but from anger. Her anger and raised voice does not rouse Nea to want to help her.

“I think maybe you should have thought of all this before you took off from the monastery.”

“You can’t be serious, right? You have no idea what they did to me there,” she now yells at Nea and there are tears of despair in her eyes. She sinks back into the boat and breathes deeply in and out.

Nea is not ready to give in, and certainly not if the girl demands her help. Had she asked Nea nicely, she might have been willing to help her. Nea looks at her. Her eyes flash angrily and her mouth is pinched shut. The stranger refuses to meet Nea’s gaze. But still, the stranger is right; she cannot stick to her original plan. It would be madness to continue traveling in the direction of Fortania.

Nea has no idea exactly where in Dementia they are, but it would certainly be best to leave the lake as the Carris must still be looking for them. After all, the girl is an escaped prisoner. Nea picks up one of the boat oars and looks at the girl expectantly. When she does not move to help, Nea says, “Could you perhaps help me please?”

“You just pulled an arrow out of my shoulder! How could I possibly row?”

“I am soaked with blood and yet I am not as stupid as you,” Nea says while trying to hold back her rage. She picks up the second oar and begins rowing the boat. Her shoulder complains constantly, but out of sheer anger ignores the pain.

The girl sits at the other end of the boat and looks at Nea timidly, but is still unwilling to help row the boat.

When the boat alights on the rocky shore, Nea pulls her backpack on her healthy shoulder and climbs out of the boat into knee-high water. She runs off without hesitation. She does not look back to see how the pregnant girl is faring. When she reaches the shore, she is surprised to find the young woman right behind her with the sleeping bag. She obviously was able to make it out of the boat on her own. She does not need to act like she is too injured to do anything; after all, Nea is injured too.

It has become dark; you could hardly see your hand in front of your eyes in the woods. Only the narrow moon can be seen in the sky high above. Sporadically the moonlight shines through the forest canopy. But this does not stop Nea from running deeper into the forest at a pace that cannot be healthy for either her injured calf or the pregnant woman.

Nea stops to rest for a moment expecting to hear the girl complain, and right on cue, the girl groans. “Now wait a minute, I am sorry that I did not help you, but do you not know how stupid it is to run through a forest at night?”

Nea ignores her and continues to run straight ahead. She is aware that she is trying to provoke the girl. But when she hears her sob out loud, it is not the reaction she had expected. In fact, she was expecting a fit of rage. Annoyed, Nea turns around to see the stranger slumped down on the ground cowering beside a tree and crying.

Nea’s head says that it serves her right, but her heart is compassionate and it drives her feet toward the girl. The girl ignores Nea, but sobs and cries. She wipes her face with her filthy hands. Only now does Nea realize how much the girl has been through in the fast several hours. She fled from the monastery into a boat and was shot and is now running behind Nea in the forest. They are strangers to each other, they don’t know each other’s name, nor do they know if they can trust each other.

Nea sits beside the crying girl next to the tree, but does nothing to comfort her. The girl’s crying cannot be calmed down. If she expects Nea to take her into her arms, she will have to wait a long time for that.

After a few minutes the girl begins to calm down. Her sobs soon become silent and become only soft sniffs. She raises her head and looks helplessly at Nea, “I’m scared.”

They are in a dark forest while the Carris is looking for them. It would not be uncommon to be scared in such a situation. Nea has not thought about being afraid, her anger was too great to allow for any other emotion.

“Don’t worry, you’re with me,” Nea replies.

“I meant for the child,” the pregnant woman replies as she puts both hands on her belly. It cannot be too long before it is to be born, however, Nea did not know what to say to that. A baby would be the last thing she wanted in this world. The pregnant woman is very young; she cannot be that much older than Nea.

“I can barely take care of myself, how can I be expected to protect a little baby?” She wails in despair and begins to cry again.

“Earlier you said you were going to meet up with some friends, surely they can help you,” Nea says.

“Friends I shall never reach without your help,” the girl replies quietly, without looking at Nea.

It was not a request, more of a reproach. Nea would prefer to leave this girl in the woods and venture off alone, but she does not need the girl to be with her too long, just long enough to deliver her to her friends and then depart. At least then she would know the girl would be taken care of. Who knows, maybe one of her friends knows the way to Promise. Without the girl, she would go much faster.

“Do you know how to get there?”

Nea feels real despair. Any attempt to establish normality is a lost cause. There is no government could take care of young mothers. Only in Promise it's different. Maybe that's a start.

“Not exactly, I mean, we’re in the middle of the forest. But I grew up here, so as soon as we come to the road I would know where we were and be able to figure out where to go.”

“Good, then let’s try to sleep now.”

“But it’s so cold, can’t someone like you make a fire?”

Nea’s eyes narrow to slits. “What do you mean ‘someone like you’? What is that supposed to mean?”

“That was not meant to be a negative, it’s just, you look like someone who has had to fend for themselves for a long time, like an Amazon or something...” she smiled at the last part. Nea does not feel like a beer killer or an Amazon. On the contrary, she feels completely exhausted. The throbbing in her shoulder is unbearable. Miro would be laughing his ass off if he heard someone call Nea an Amazon.

“It is too dangerous to make a fire now as we will only attract the Carris with it,” Nea answers in hopes that the girl will finally sleep, because she desperately needs sleep. The stranger still has Nea’s sleeping bag and does not seem to be ready to return it.

The girl crawls inside the sleeping bag. Nea stretches out on the ground and leans against a tree. Just as Nea is almost asleep, the pregnant girl says, “My name is Kasia.”