Arena Two tst-2

by Morgan Rice

  “ The paradox of archery,” he says. “You have to be tense and relaxed at the same time. You’re pulling on a string attached to a piece of wood, and that tension is what’s going to make the arrow fly. At the same time, your muscles need to be lithe to direct it. If you tense up, you’ll miss your mark. Let your shoulders and hands and wrists and neck all relax. Don’t put your focus on the bow, but on the target. Try it. See that tree, the crooked one?”

  A gust comes in and the fog lifts for a moment, and in the distance I spot a large, crooked tree, standing by itself, about thirty yards away.

  Ben takes a step back, letting go of me, and I find myself missing the feel of his touch. I pull back the string and take aim. I close one eye, and try to focus on the notch at the end of the wood, trying to align the arrow.

  “ Lower the bow a little bit,” he says.

  I do so.

  “ Now take a deep breath, then slowly let it go.”

  I breathe deep and as I breathe out, I let go. The string snaps forward, and the arrow goes flying.

  But I am disappointed to see that it doesn’t hit the tree. It misses by several feet.

  “ I told you this was a waste of time,” I say, annoyed.

  “ You’re wrong,” he answers. “That was good. The problem was, you didn’t plant your feet. You let the bow carry you. Your strength is in your feet, and in your hips. You have to be rooted. Plant yourself. Try again,” he says, handing me another arrow.

  I look over at him, worried.

  “ What if I miss?” I say.

  He smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ll find the arrows. They can’t go far.”

  I take another arrow and set it on the string.

  “ Don’t pull it back all at once,” he says, gently. “That’s it,” he adds, as I begin to pull it back.

  The string is more taut this time-maybe because I’m nervous, maybe because I feel more at stake. As I hold it back, I feel the bow quivering, and it’s hard to stop.

  “ It’s hard to steady it,” I say. “My aim is all over the place.”

  “ That’s because you’re not breathing,” he says. “Relax your shoulders, lower them, and pull it in closer to your chest.”

  He comes up behind me and reaches over and puts his hands on mine. I feel his chest against my back, and slowly, I stop quivering a little bit less.

  “ Good,” he says, stepping back. “Okay, take a deep breath, and release.”

  I do so, and let it go.

  It is exhilarating to watch the arrow go flying through the air, into the thick blizzard, and to watch it hit the tree. It doesn’t hit it in the center, as I was hoping, but it hits, along its edge. Still, I hit it.

  “ Great!” Ben yells, genuinely excited.

  I don’t know if he’s just being kind, or if he’s genuine; but either way, I’m grateful for his enthusiasm.

  “ It wasn’t that great,” I say. “If that was a deer-especially a moving deer-I never would’ve hit.”

  “ Give yourself a break,” he says. “That was your first shot. Try again.”

  He reaches out and hands me another arrow. This time, I place it on the bow, more confident, and pull it back. This time, I pull it back more easily, more steadily, remembering everything he taught me. I plant my feet and lower the bow. I aim for the center of the tree, and pull back breathe deep as I let go.

  Before it even leaves, somehow I know it is a good shot. It’s weird, but before it even hits, I know it will.

  And it does. I hear the sound of arrow striking wood even from here-but a fog rolls in, and I can’t tell where I hit.

  “ Come on,” Ben says, trotting off excitedly towards the tree. I follow him, equally curious to see the result.

  We reach the tree and I can’t believe it. It is a perfect strike. Dead center.

  “ Bingo!” he yells out, clapping his hands. “See? You’re a natural! I couldn’t have done that my first time out!”

  For the first time in a while, I feel a sense of self-worth, of being good at something. It feels real, genuine. Maybe I do have a shot at archery-at least enough to catch dinner once in a while. That shot might have been a fluke, but either way, I feel I can get this over time. It is a skill I know that I can use. Especially out here.

  “ Thank you,” I say, meaning it, as I hand him back the bow.

  He takes it, as he pulls the arrows out of the tree and puts them back in his quiver.

  “ You want to hold onto it?” he asks. “You want to fire on the deer, if we ever find it?”

  “ No way. If we do find it, we get one crack at it. I don’t want lose dinner for everyone.”

  We turn and continue on, heading farther into the island.

  We walk in silence for several more minutes, but now it’s a different silence. Something in the air has shifted, and we are closer to each other than before. It’s like the silence has shifted from a comfortable one, to an intimate one. I’m starting to see things in Ben that I like, things that I hadn’t seen before. And I feel like it’s time to give him a second chance.

  We keep walking, cutting through the woods, when suddenly, to my surprise, the island ends. We’ve reached the small sandy beach, now covered in snow. We stand there and look out the Hudson, now just a huge white wall. It’s like staring into a wall of fog. Like staring into nothingness.

  And there, to my shock, standing on the beach, leaning down and drinking the water of the Hudson, is the deer. It is not even twenty feet ahead of us, not even aware of our presence. It is wide out in the open, almost too easy of a shot. A part of me doesn’t want to kill it.

  But Ben already has the bow in hand, an arrow in place, and before I can even say anything, he pulls it back.

  At the slight noise, the deer lifts its head and turns, and I feel it looking right at me.

  “ No!” I scream out to Ben, despite myself.

  But it is too late. The deer starts at my cry, but the arrow is already flying. It flies at lightning speed and hits the deer in the neck. The deer takes a few steps forward, stumbles, then collapses, the pure white snow immediately turning red.

  Ben turns and looks at me, surprised.

  “ What was that about?” he asks.

  He stares at me, his large, light-blue eyes filled with wonder. They are lit up by the snow, mesmerizing.

  I have no idea how to respond. I am embarrassed. I look away in shame, not wanting to meet those eyes.

  “ I don’t know,” I say. “It was stupid. Sorry.”

  I expect Ben to tell me that I’m stupid, that I almost lost us dinner, that I should have kept my mouth shut. And he would be right.

  But instead, he reaches out with one hand, and takes my hand in his. I look up at him, and he stares down at me with his large soulful eyes, and says:

  “ I understand.”

  The mood is somber as we sit around the fire, staring into the flames after our meal. Night has fallen, and unbelievably, it’s still snowing. There now must be three feet piled up out there, and I think we are all wondering if we will ever leave this place.

  Of course, we shouldn’t be complaining: for the first time in a long time, we have real shelter, fire, warmth, no fear from attack, and real food. Even Logan has finally relaxed his guard, realizing that no one could possibly reach this island in these conditions. He’s finally stopped sitting guard, and sits with the rest of us, staring into the flames.

  Yet still, we are all morose. Because beside us, lying there, groaning, is Rose. It is obvious she has reached the point of no return, that she could die at any moment. All the color has left her skin, the black of the infection has spread across her shoulder and chest, and she lies there, pouring with sweat and writhing in pain. Bree’s eyes are red from crying. Penelope sits on Rose’s chest, whining intermittently, refusing to go anywhere else. I feel as if I am on a death vigil.

  Normally, I would gorge myself on the fresh meat, but tonight I eat half-heartedly, as do the others. Bree didn’t even touch hers. Even Pene
lope, when I handed her a piece, refused to take it. Of course, Rose wouldn’t take a bite.

  It breaks my heart to see her suffer like this. I don’t know what else to. I gave her the remainder of the sleeping pills, three at once, hoping to knock her out, to alleviate her pain. But now she’s in so much pain, it’s not doing her any good. She cries and moans and squirms in agony. I sit there, stroking her hair, staring into the flames, wondering when this will all end. I feel as if we’re all stuck in some interminable suffering that has no end in sight.

  “ Read me a story,” Bree says.

  I turn and see her looking up at me with red eyes.

  “ Please,” she pleads.

  I put one arm around her and hold her tight; she rests her head on my shoulder, crying softly.

  I close my eyes and try to remember the words of The Giving Tree. They usually come to me, right away-but tonight, I’m having a hard time. My mind is jumbled.

  “ I…” I begin, then trail off. I can’t believe it, but I’m drawing a blank. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember.”

  “ Then tell me a story,” she says. “Anything. Please. Something from before the war.”

  I think back, trying hard to remember something, anything. But I’m so tired, and so frazzled, I draw a blank. Then, suddenly, I remember.

  “ I remember one night, when you were young,” I begin. “You were maybe four. I was eleven. We were with mom and dad. It was a summer night, the most perfect, beautiful night, so still, not a breeze, and the sky filled with stars. Mom and dad took us to an outdoor carnival, I don’t remember where. It was some kind of farm country, because I remember walking through all these cornfields. It felt like we walked all night long, this magical walk through open farms, up and down gentle hills. I remember looking up and being awed at all the stars. There were so many of them and they were so bright. The universe felt alive. And I didn’t feel alone.

  “ And then, after all this walking in the middle of nowhere, there, in the middle of these country fields, there was this small town carnival. It lit up the night. There were games, and popcorn, and cotton candy, and candy apples, and all kinds of fun things. I member you loved the candy apples. There was this one stand, where the apples floated, and you’d dunk your head in the water and try to bite one. You must have tried a hundred times.”

  I look down and see Bree smiling.

  “ Did mom and dad get mad?”

  “ You know dad,” I say. “He gets impatient. But you were so insistent, they waited. They weren’t mad. By the end, dad was even cheering for you. Telling you how to do it, giving you direction. You know how he is.”

  “ Like we’re in the Army,” she says.

  “ Exactly.”

  I sigh and think, trying to remember more.

  “ I remember they got us all tickets for the Ferris wheel, and the four of us sat together, in the front. You loved it. You didn’t want to get off. More than anything, you loved the stars. You were really wishing it would stop while we were at the top, so you could be closer to the sky when you looked. You kept making mom and dad do the ride over and over again until finally, you got what you wanted. You were so happy. You’re so good with the sky: you pointed out the Milky Way and the Big Dipper and everything. Things I didn’t even know. I’d never seen you so happy.”

  Bree has a real smile on her face now, as she rests her head on my shoulder. I can feel her body starting to relax.

  “ Tell me more,” she says, but now her voice is a gentle whisper, falling asleep.

  “ Later, we went into a hall of mirrors. And then into a freak show. There was a bearded lady, and a 600 pound man, and a man who was two feet tall. He scared you.

  “ dad’s favorite game was the guns. He made us stop at the BB guns, and he fired again and again. When he missed a target, he got mad, and blamed the manager for the faulty gun. He insisted that he never missed a shot, that there was something wrong with the gun, and he wanted his money back. You know dad.”

  Thinking of it now, I smile at the thought of it. How little something like that would matter now, in this day and age.

  I look down, expecting to see Bree smile back, but find her fast asleep.

  Rose grunts and squirms again, lying by the fire, and this time, it seems to really upset Logan. He gets up, walks to the mouth of the cave and looks out the snow, ostensibly watching our boat. But I know he’s not watching; there’s nothing to see out there. He just can’t take her pain and suffering. It’s upsetting him, maybe more than anyone.

  Ben sits opposite me, staring into the flames, too. He seems to be coming out of it more and more. I’m sure he must feel a sense of self-worth for feeding us both these nights.

  I sit there in silence, staring at the fire for what feels like hours, Bree asleep in my arms. I don’t know how much time has passed, when Ben speaks:

  “ What happened in New York was horrible.”

  I look up at him, surprised. He looks right at me, his large soulful eyes staring, and I can see that he wants to speak, that he wants me to know. That he is ready. He wants to tell me everything.

  N I N E

  “ I caught the train my brother was on,” Ben says, “and it took me deep in the tunnels. It stopped at a huge mining station, deep underground. Hundreds of boys chained together, working like slaves. I looked everywhere for him. Everywhere. But I couldn’t find him.”

  He sighs.

  “ I snuck up to one of the boys and asked him. I hid in the shadows as he asked around. I described him perfectly. Finally, word got back to me. They said he was dead. They were positive. They saw one of the slaverunners get mad at him for not moving fast enough, and they said they beat him with a chain. They saw him die.”

  There is a long silence, and then a muffled cry, and I see Ben wiping away his tears. I hardly know what to say. I can’t comprehend the guilt he must feel.

  “ I never should have left him alone,” Ben says. “Back in the mountains. I left him alone, just for an hour. I didn’t think they’d come. I hadn’t seen them in years.”

  “ I know,” I say. “I never thought they would, either. But it’s not your fault. They are to blame, not you.”

  “ The worst part of all of this is not seeing it for myself,” Ben says. “Not seeing him dead. Not knowing for sure. I can’t explain it, but I don’t believe he’s dead. A part of me still thinks those boys might have mixed him up with somebody else. I know him. He wouldn’t die. Not like that. He’s strong. Smart. Smarter than me, stronger than me. And tougher than me. I think he escaped. I really do. I think he worked his way back up the river. I think he’s going to come back to our house, and wait for me there. Back in the mountains.”

  I look at Ben and see a frenzied look in his eyes, and realize that he has taught himself to believe this fantasy. I don’t want to ruin his fantasy. I don’t want to tell him that that is nearly impossible. Because in this day and age, we all need our dreams, as much as we need food or water.

  “ Do you think?” he asks, looking right at me. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  I don’t have the heart to say no.

  So instead, I look back at him, and say, “Anything is possible.”

  Because a part of me knows that it’s not helpful to live in fantasy-but another part of me has learned that, sometimes, fantasy is all you have.

  I open my eyes, disoriented. I don’t understand what’s happening. The floor of the cave is lined with thousands of brightly colored flowers, purple and whites and pinks. I look down and see I am lying on a bed of flowers, see sunlight pouring into the cave. Outside, it is warm, balmy, a beautiful spring day, with gentle breezes coming off the river. Beyond the entrance to the cave I see lush trees, flowers everywhere, birds chirping. The sun is so bright and strong, it is like a light shining in from heaven. As I look all around me, I notice there is a soft white glow in the air; a great sense of peace has come over me.

  I sit up and see, standing before me, Rose, light radiating behin
d her. To my shock, she looks perfectly healthy and happy now, a big smile on her face.

  She steps forward and wraps her arms around me in a huge hug. She kisses my cheek and whispers: “I love you, Brooke.”

  I pull her back and look at her and kiss her on the forehead, so happy to see her healthy again.

  “ I love you, too,” I say.

  I can feel the warmth and love radiating off of her. She slowly pulls away. I tried to hold onto her, but she releases my hands, and I feel her slipping away.

  “ Rose?”

  Before my eyes she starts to float away. She drifts up into the air, smiling down at me.

  “ Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m happy now.”

  She becomes more and more translucent, until she blends into the light. She floats up out of the cave, outside, into the sky, higher and higher, all the while, her face looking down at me, smiling. I can feel the intense love from her, and I feel just as much love for her. I want to hold her, I don’t want her to go. But I feel her leaving.

  I wake, looking all around in the cave. I wonder if I’m dreaming this time, and it takes me a minute to realize that this time, I’m truly awake.

  Sunlight floods the cave, and it is much warmer than yesterday. The snow is piled high but already melting, and light bounces off of it. I remember being up all night with Rose; she was shaking, trembling, burning up from fever all night long. But I didn’t let her go. I rocked her and whispered in her ear that everything would be okay.

  Now I look over, and see that Rose is still in my arms. I slowly lean back, look at her-and my heart freezes to see that her eyes are open. Frozen open. I watch for several seconds, before I realize that she is dead.

  I look around and see everyone sleeping, and realize I’m the first one to wake.

  I hold Rose tight, rocking her, my eyes flooding with tears. Penelope, in her lap, whines and whines, and begins to bark. She licks Rose’s hand, and barks again and again.