SAFE . . . reyna ramirez-arellano

67 - bad water

BRIAR NEEDED A miracle, not a bedtime story. But right then, standing in shock as black water poured in around her legs, she recalled the legend Achelous had mentioned — the story of the flood.

Not the Noah story, but the Cherokee version that Piper told her when they were being insomniacs at the same time, with dancing ghosts and a skeleton dog.

It wasn't a rare event for them to be up at the same time in the middle of the night — what with demigod nightmares, trauma, and being too adrenaline-wired from war games.

Sometimes they'd talk about their dreams. Sometimes it hurt too much in the moment. Sometimes they'd talk for hours about anything and everything.

That day was a mixture of the latter two.

Briar had woken up because she'd heard whimpering. She frowned, wondering what was making that sound.

Every time, she thought that. Every time, she'd look sideways and realize.

Briar was accustomed to this routine by now. She flung her legs out of her bed, nearly tripped over her sheets, ran over to Piper's bed, knelt at the edge of it, and reached out to shake her sister. "Piper, Piper, Piper, wake up!"

Piper gasped, sitting up in her bed, drawing her knees to her chest and breathing heavily. Briar's hand retracted, not enough to swing by her side, but enough so it wasn't touching Piper. Briar went through the routine of making sure that Piper's breaths went normal, and her heartbeat slowed down.

Once that happened, Briar pulled her hand back to her side. "Is this a talk about it night?" she whispered.

"No," Piper croaked.

"Is this a talk about anything and everything night?"

". . . Yes."

"So, how bad were those losers in deathball, huh?"

So Briar hopped into Piper's bed, and they talked. They spent hours talking about everything and nothing until Piper brought up something new.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?" she asked, staring up at the ceiling.

Briar turned to look at her. "A Cherokee legend story?"

Piper nodded. "Yeah."

She'd told Briar a few Cherokee stories, but tapping into that part of her was hard for her. Briar understood. She didn't push Piper into doing anything she didn't want to do — unless it was something so ridiculously stupid, it was funny. "If you want," Briar answered.

"So," Piper started. "This man had a dog."

"I like dogs," Briar commented.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Obviously. You'd die for an angry dog before you'd die for me."

"That's not true. Well, maybe it is."

"I'm always right. Anyway, some dude had a dog. Every day the man took his dog to the edge of the lake to get water, and the dog would bark furiously at the lake, like he was mad at it."

"Bark bark," Briar offered helpfully. Without looking, Piper hit her in the face. "Ow! You hit my fucking nose!"

"Shut up," Piper commanded, and Briar shut her mouth. "Finally the man got very annoyed with his dog for barking so much, and he scolded it. 'Bad dog! Stop barking at the water. It's only water!' To his surprise, the dog looked right at him and began to talk."

"What is this, Spy Kids?" Briar muttered.

"We should watch that again," Piper commented. "Anyway, the dog said, 'One day soon, the storms will come. The waters will rise, and everyone will drown. You can save yourself and your family by building a raft, but first you will need to sacrifice me. You must throw me into the water.'"