They
had never talked about what happened in the warehouse. Craven had
offered a weak So...? at the time, which Minty had silently
declined. They had walked together a long time and, eventually,
Craven Lorne had found some glue and put Minty back together.
Craven
had assumed they would go their separate ways once Minty was fixed,
but it wasn't so. When he'd suggested it, Minty had simply said, No,
Craven Lorne in her creepy, hollow voice and that had been the
end of the discussion. Craven was surprised to find that he was
glad. He realized sometime later that she had spared him the
indignity of asking her to stay with him; as time had passed, he'd
found himself distressingly fond of her company.
Craven
Lorne hadn't gone back to raiding. He had stopped using Dust
altogether. It would be nice to think that he'd learned his lesson,
turned a moral corner; he thought maybe he had. But the real
reason—or the vast majority of the real reason—was that he didn't
want to end up a stain on some other warehouse floor. And while
Minty's arm was mended, he knew her well enough now to know she'd
snap her hand off at the wrist if she thought it was necessary –
and he knew he'd never know her well enough to know what she
might consider necessary.
They
walked together now, hand in hand, his dewclaw passing gently back
and forth over the tiny raised cracks along the side of her index
finger. They were in the field. Their field. The field
where he first saw her. The field where he always saw her.
The
tree was a ways in the distance, casting a tiny circle of calm, cool
shade. Craven thought about sitting there with Voss. He wondered,
not for the first time, what would have happened if he'd said
something to Voss sooner, before Minty had stopped and smiled at him.
Would they have been together? Would Voss have avoided the injuries
that made him a monster? Even if Voss had refused him, surely Minty
would have avoided Craven's wrath, his misguided blame would have at
least landed somewhere else.
Minty
followed his gaze to the tree, and, in her worrying way, looked like
she knew what he was thinking. She had never told him about the
rape. She couldn't find it in her to destroy the very little that
was left of Voss in Craven's heart. She would, one day, when she'd
figured out how. She stepped closer to Craven, pushing the cool
porcelain of her arm against his white cotton shirt.
They
stood for a long time, staring at the tree, each lost in their own
thoughts.
“That
day,” Minty said, in her weird, echoing voice. He knew exactly
which day she meant. “That day I smiled. Craven Lorne, I smiled
at you.”
This brings us to the end of Part I of III; the next draft will see pieces from all three parts together, giving it an even less linear feel, but for now, we say goodbye to Craven and Minty. Next week we meet Sally and Daisy Chain.
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