Minah had never liked hie and go seek. She had not liked the idea of her family running away from her and tucking themselves into hiding spots that she would have to search for. And in turn, she did not like hiding from them either. It was more than once that Maren had found her, sitting behind a tree, with a tear clutching itself against her face. ‘It is just a game, Minah,’ Her father had told her. ‘Your family would never leave you for real.’
She thinks this may be the only lie her father ever told her.
The world smelled of wet wood and sod, and it settled in every nook and cranny, seeping into the pores of the meadow. Dew clung like tiny glass marbles to the leaves and moss, sparkling with wild abandon in the bright, encompassing glow of yellowed sunlight. Minah’s nostrils flitter as she breathes in the smell of the new land as she listens for the steady breathing a stranger. “A monster,” she would have said when she was younger (might even still say now) and Maren would have said “Go to bed, Minah.” Because even her twin knew that monsters were real.
Minah blinks and her eyes feel dry beneath her aching eyelids before that earthen gaze looks steadily around her. She catches something, a shape, maybe? A monster, she tells herself. Go to bed, Minah, her sister’s voice echoes inside her head. And then teal meets brown.
She should run.
But she doesn’t.
She may yet make her grandmother proud.
“Tell me your name.” Not a command, but she sounds like Aletta just then. “Please,” and there is that single syllable, is the sound of her other grandmother, the one who named her.
@[Chemdog]