A Game of Colours

Chapter 46: Fin

I find myself running farther and farther away from the safe house and into the darkening sky. People cast me suspicious glances, but I ignore them angrily. They're all thinking the same thing about me--I see it in their eyes. And I find for the first time in twenty years, I don't care. 

I haven't been homeless in a long time. But I haven't been alone even longer. Helplessness quickly creeps up at the back of my mind. The desire for security shouts at me--go back, Alice. Go back. There's nothing for you out there. I run to the only place I know, instinct taking me to the beginning of a new chapter of my life.

The town square where Isaac died, and Jarrah was lost. 

The place where I lost it all. The place where my best friend was ripped from my hands by the harsh reality of a cold blade, where my love had a noose strung around his neck as I wept for him. 

I sink my hands into my face as I sit down on a nearby curb to gather my thoughts. I scan my memories for guidance and direction.

The image is vivid in my mind. I was only a girl, scarcely the age of 7. Old enough to know my name and place in the world, but too young to know what truly came with it. I see my father in his study, more than a decade ago, engraving little symbols onto an old parchment. The quill is scratching frantically with an undeniable sense of urgency, and yet to me it is as though he is an artist, creating a masterpiece upon the faded sheet. His lips are pursed into a thin line, his eyes glazed over and full of concentration so I dare not announce myself. I used to sit in his study and watch him write. He would teach me what a few letters meant, but I preferred simply staring at him go through the motions of the writing itself. He would kindly place me in his lap and proudly announce that by the time he was done with the city's government, my brother and I would be able to go to school and learn to write just like him. My mother didn't like that--it was dangerous talk. A woman's place was in the home, she'd always tell me. And I was lucky enough to have one. He was an important man in the city, but that did not make him liked. He spoke openly about the racist plague that infected the country, and often times would not come home for days. He liked to take my brother with him too, sometimes. Said he was old enough to contribute. My mother was worried about Papa. Always something about all of us being taken away, but I assured her on those nights when he was no where to be found that he would come back.

After all, my Papa always came back.

Until that day. 

I was playing in my room when my mother burst in, alarm strewn across her normally emotionless face. A tight smile was on her face.

Oblivious still to the chaos awaiting, I'd grinned at my mother. She'd looked at my face long and hard, as if memorizing every detail, and then said, "Sweetie, we're going to play a game. Hide and seek. You like that, don't you?" she'd asked.

"Really?" I'd said happily, glad to distract myself from my father's three day absence.

"Yes. But listen carefully, my child. This is a special game. You have to stay hidden as long as you can, don't get scared. You can't make any noise, or they'll catch you."

"They?" I'd asked, confused.

"Alice, dear, promise me you won't make a sound. Not a scream, not a whisper."

"But Mama--"

"Promise!" 

I'd stuck out my pinky and crossed it with hers in the way we always did.

"1. 2. 3."

"Wait, Mama! Who's going to catch me?"

"4. 5. 6."