Theia Duology

Chapter 7

The next morning, Solskine and Theia work in tandem to load the cart with avos from the storage bin. Despite a deep sleep, Theia is heavy-limbed with foreboding, but Solskine is annoyingly bright-eyed and whistling.

"Don't you want to know what I found last night?" Theia whispers. She carries an armful of avocados to the cart.

Solskine stops whistling and working. "Shouldn't have done that."

Theia rolls her eyes. "Guess you don't care that our parents may not have died in another flood, or from the mold." She walks back to the bin and sits down on the edge. "We were taken from our mothers."

Solskine stops. He wipes sweat from his forehead and sits on the edge of the storage bin beside Theia. "Why? Who would do that?"

"Malum took kids off their parents' hands, but maybe our parents are still alive out there." A lie for Solskine's sake, maybe for Theia's too.

"Ratchet," Solskine curses. He lowers his voice to a whisper. "Why didn't my parents name me? Malum told me I was the only one she named."

"You just tellin' me now?" She jabs him with her fist in the shoulder.

He flinches. "What's that for?"

"You keepin' from me. Malum namin'. Everythin'." Theia throws an avo at him and it bounces off his square head with a satisfying thump.

"Stop."

"Gonna cry?" Theia juts her lip out.

"I can still whup you, so don't test me." He pinches her arm.

"Doubt that, picker boy." Theia stands up and looks down on him, her fists balled at her sides. "What's your name mean?"

"Sunshine." He stands and looms over her.

Theia snorts as if a bug has flown up her nose. She shoves him with both hands to his chest.

He pulls her to him.

"Chillax, Theia."

"You're a noob. You not tellin'. You Malum's pet, like some cadocat she keeps in her room?"

Solskine lets her go. Moves out of reach. "I didn't ask her to name me."

"No. Didn't tell me she had neither." Theia's clears her throat. Spits at his feet.

"Didn't want anyone to know, ya glut." Solskine kicks dirt over the spit.

Theia's stomach growls.

Solskine pushes past her. He digs a ripe avo out of the bin and hands it to Theia.

"Why you sunny?" Theia asks.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, Solskine sings, his voice that just a few months ago was cracking, is now deep and smooth. He looks down at his hands as they clench and unclench.

Theia takes his hand and squeezes. She pulls him down to sit on the side of the bin with her. It is bone-chilling and dark. She bites into the avo, thick peel and all, right down to the hard pit in the centre.

"That's ratchet," Theia says. Solskine looks as if he might cry.

"Did the papers say anything else about me, about my parents?" He eats an avo that is covered in brown splotches. He spits the pit into his hand and gives it to Theia. She throws it out the door, hitting the wagon.