Ghosts That We Knew [2]

1 • Winter Winds

Winters in Georgia could be harsh, with temperatures plummeting down into the single digits after sunset. The cold had a special way of tearing apart a person's resolve, leaching every bit of warmth and hope from their soul. It made the strong weak, and the weak dead. Maevys refused to be either.

She paced through the trees silently, her bow steady in her hands as she followed a small set of tracks. Sometimes when she was hunting she would close her eyes and imagine he was with her. When they would hunt, they'd often move in silence for hours, the companionship more valuable than any small talk. She'd pretend, when she was alone, that he was right behind her moving just as silently, entirely undetectable. It gave her the smallest moment of consolation. To trick her mind into believing that she could turn around, and there he'd be. Alive, touchable.

Maevys refused to believe they were dead. It was the hope that they were still out there somewhere that kept her from spiraling. But the winter, it really tested a persons faith. Andrea shook her awake most mornings, as she spent her nights watching her loved ones be torn apart behind her eyelids. Maevys's mind loved manifesting her fears into nightmares as a way to remind her of the pain that was to come. It tore her soul to shreds bit my bit until she became an empty husk of the woman she once was. No more did she crack a joke to ease the silence. No more did she find subtle beauty in the beastly world they survived in. Nothing could ease the ache in her chest.

When the rabbit finally crossed her path, Maevys drew back her bow. She exhaled slowly and lined up the shot, but movement behind the rabbit caught her eye. A walker dressed in a sun dress and sneakers, with torn out matted hair and a gaunt face, stumbled out from behind the tree. The rabbit fled, and instead of shooting dinner, Maeve's arrow sunk into the walker's skull.

"Dammit," she huffs, shuffling forward to collect it.

It was moments like these that she really missed him. He'd never allow her to fetch her own arrow when they'd hunted together. Not even at the beginning, when they were practically strangers and she drove him crazy. It was moments like these that the ache in her heart became unbearable. Maevys missed her family too, violently at times. But she knew what missing them felt like, she'd done it before. Missing him with something she'd never had to endure until now, but she was determined to find him so she never had to again.

Maevys returned to Andrea and their traveling companion with a measly dinner. The animals had been few and far between, and most of what they caught or found went to Andrea. Andrea Harrison had been sick more than she'd been well the last 8 months.

8 months.

Lori would be almost due by now if the baby went to term, and it ate Maevys alive not knowing what was happening with her sister. She'd promised Lori that she'd be there when baby Grimes was born. But Maevys knew the likelihood that she'd find them when the weather was so grim was slim to none. Still, she looked for signs of them everywhere she'd went. The hardest part was the wall of walkers that separated them. Maevys knew the group likely was southward of Hershel's farm, while she and Andrea had only been able to escape westward. Maevys had been begging Michonne to move south with her, but the woman was adamant that they stay north of the highway.