Water's Reflection or Hero's Guilt

Chapter Nine

          “Good morning!” Maya said as soon as she saw June move. The little girl was up already—or rather, she'd been waiting for June to get up. Until then, she was confined to her own bed. Jumping from bed to bed while June slept would have surely woken her up, but now that she was awake, she did not hesitate to lunge at June. “Did you sleep well?” she asked happily, her tail wagging back and forth.

          “N-Not really,” June muttered, rubbing her eyes. She yawned; she had not slept well at all, and still felt tired. The headache she had dreamt about was real now. She ignored it though, and managed to smile at Maya. “Did you?”

          She nodded violently, her hair swaying this way and that. “Yes! I dreamt that we went on a ship, and it was a really big one, and there were all kinds of animals and we were eating the sheep!” Maya burst out in excitement. “And there were no other people, just Terrance, you and me!”

          “What about Adam?”

          Maya thought about it, trying to remember, but then shrugged. “Nope, no Adam. Just us three. And chicken and dogs and cats and a big bear and a swine that was scared of me...” The little girl continued listing more and more animals, but June barely had a mind to listen. Something more pressing was the matter and, when she thought Maya wasn't looking, she quickly put a hand on her hip, feeling if something had changed. It had.

          She hesitated for a moment, deciding what to do, but finally chose not to do anything. She did not want for Maya to worry. She noticed something else though—something that surprised her even more. A small wound had appeared on her left arm, red skin with a bit of blood. Right where her reflection had pinched her...

          “What is it?” asked Maya when she noticed June lost in thought.

          She shook her head. “Nothing. It's nothing. But you were telling me about your ship with animals? It sounds a lot like Noah's Ark”

          “Ark? Noah?” The little girl's face was riddled with questions, reminding June that Terrance was a heathen, and he had never bothered to ever tell Maya anything about the Church, Christianity or the Bible.

          “It's a story,” she explained her, “about a man who was told by God that God would flood the world. He had to make a giant ark—a very big boat—and get two of every animal on board; a male and a female, so they could procreate when the flood had stopped.”

          Maya stared at her in confusion; the questions did not disappear from her face, only grew more in numbers. “Why would God do that? That's not nice, is it? A flood is dangerous, it could kill a lot of people.”

          “Yes, but the world had become filled with sin, so he needed to cleanse it.”

          “Couldn't he make a new world and keep it clean?” Maya asked, then a fearful thought reached her mind. “So if the world is full of sin right now, God might also--”

          “It's just a story,” June quickly said. “Nothing to worry about. God won't flood the world. I promise.”

          “Are you sure?” Maya asked.

          June nodded and pulled the little girl onto her lap. Holding her tight, she said, “I'm sure.” Maya calmed down a bit, and neither of them spoke as they sat like this; warm, close and comfortable. June liked it and couldn't help but revel in the scent of the child. It was a strangely wild scent for a human, one of forests and animals. It smelled nice though, somehow familiar.