Poor Girls

The Truth

 Lyra was an absolute chore at first, a useless burden that constantly needed looking after. If not for my expectation that she would provide better company in the future, I would have given up all patience. And she gave me something I thought I'd never have. Hope. An unexpected surprise. Perhaps I could make a difference like Grandmother kept insisting. Not necessarily by taking on the role of the leader, but taking part in the effort in some meaningful way. Having a person my own age around was so foreign to me, even at thirteen, that I hardly knew how to act. At first, I treated her like I would treat Grandmother, harsh and irritated. But soon it became more and more obvious that Lyra was just not one you could be aggravated with for very long. Where I was rash and vengeful, she was reserved and thoughtful. Where I was quick to judge, she was quick to accept.

She progressed more and more with every day. At first, she spent most of her days curled up in a ball on the floor, atop a spare blanket, sleeping or perhaps just thinking everything over in quiet shock. Either way, neither Grandmother nor I bothered her unless it was to give her medicine or food. Her sores had to be treated with a special ointment that slowly soothed itchiness and all but stopped the red swelling. The other internal afflictions, where she was feeling the after effects of the poison still, required a special medicinal broth.

She was all but a silent shadow. It picked at me to no end that she never talked and the fact that it would take her so long to recover. Naturally, I was anxious to talk with her and hear her tale; I had had no opportunity to talk to anyone but Grandmother for two years and little and less before that. But she was slow and too weak to hold long conversations for the most part. Grandmother advised patience,  she noted the flash of irritation across my features whenever I stayed in the room and would persuade me to leave. I actually followed her instruction for most days so that I wouldn't explode at either of them. What time I did spend in the cottage, I spent either staring or waiting restlessly on the two sicklies, not a pleasant task to begin with.

When Gran prompted her with health-concerning questions Lyra would answer weakly showing that yes, she could talk. But otherwise she could not be persuaded to hold a conversation on her own. Not until a few long weeks later, and by then I had fallen into the pattern of waking, gathering the things to be sold together, and fishing, only returning before nightfall. Usually, Lyra would remain in the same place all day but one night I returned to find her seated at the foot of Gran's chair, staring up at the old woman and listening attentively to her halting yet engaging speech. I had never seen Lyra look so...alive. Grandmother turned at my entry, looking as old and wizened as I'd ever seen her.

"Lyra is curious about limproot's effects on the body," she explained tiredly at my astonished expression. I nodded and dropped the net full of exactly two fish.

"I caught two," I said to no one in particular. Lyra graced me with a small smile and then turned back to grandmother as if waiting for more gems to fall from her mouth. For some reason this annoyed me.

"So you're talking now?" I wondered before they could continue, unable to help myself.

Grandmother turned with a slight frown of irritation on her face.

"Zahara," she warned sternly.

I shrugged in what I hoped appeared to be innocence. "What? She's barely spoken since we brought her here. I'm just a little baffled."

Lyra herself took me in with her big hazel eyes, I almost thought she would burst out crying, and then I knew I would feel really terrible but she just studied me emotionlessly.

"It's true. I haven't," she finally said, her voice quiet but firm.

Grandmother patted her gently on the shoulder, "No one can blame you, child. You have gone through quite an ugly ordeal." Now Lyra's eyes did fill with tears and she turned away her head so that they were all but hidden from us. Her hair, which Greta had indeed insisting on chopping due to the lice that infected it, just brushed her ears as it fell into her eyes. I looked away in unease, I had never seen Grandmother display such tenderness, not towards me anyway. They were muted, unheeded tears and as they fell I longed to leave the room.