Page 45 of What Doesn't Kill Her
Kellen rolled to look at her backpack. The contents were strewn from one end of the hedge to another. “You put your shoes and socks on, and got out of the sleeping bag, and got back in.”
Rae nodded, uninterested.
That explained the pine needles poking Kellen in the legs and the—
“Were your shoes and socks dry?”
“Yes. Lookee!” Rae showed Kellen the newest drawing. There was a stick figure, tall and dressed in red and black. Rae said that was ThunderFlash. There was a shorter stick figure, dressed in a cape of pink and yellow stars. That was LightningBug. And a hideous white head-like thing with too many eyes floated beside them. Solemnly, Rae said, “We have a talisman.”
Where did this kid get her vocabulary? Kellen felt her shoes and socks. Theyweredry, thank heavens. “What talisman?”
“The head! The Triple Goddess will guard us. Look at how she took out that man when you hit him! And that guy from the van!”
“Actually—” Kellen couldn’t believe she was indignant about this “—I’m the one who aimed the head well enough to take him down.” She took a breath and tried to think how to explain this to a seven-year-old. “Faith in something unknown is a great thing, but you have to combine faith with action. So if you saw a bad guy sneaking up on us, would you pray to the Triple Goddess, or would you scream a warning?”
Rae screamed. Kellen jumped and grabbed her, ready to put her hand over Rae’s mouth. Stopping herself, she listened as birds took flight in the trees above. With a sound so high-pitched, anyone within earshot would be looking up for a hawk or a cougar.
She relaxed. “Nice. But let’s not scream again unless there’s trouble. Now—what if the bad guy grabs you first?”
“Kick them?”
“Where?”
“Some place that hurts.”
“Right. The best places to kick or hit are the head, the sternum and the groin.”
Rae giggled. “Groin!”
Kellen pretended like she didn’t hear. “It’s easy to remember. You punch right down the middle of the body. Face—” she pointed at Rae’s nose, mouth and throat “—sternum—” she pointed at Rae’s breastbone “—and groin.”
When she pointed at Rae’s groin, Rae stopped laughing and her eyes got big. “I hit a tree one time on my bike and fell off the seat and landed on the bar. It hurt so bad.”
“So you know what I’m talking about. It hurts men, too, worse than it hurts girls.” Kellen reflected for a minute. “Although maybe that’s not true, maybe men are more whiny about it.”
“Groin...” Rae giggled again. “Groin. Groin. Groin.”
The chanting was going to get old fast. Kellen dived to the bottom of the sleeping bag, retrieved her jacket and boots and socks and got dressed. She crawled out of the bag and started rolling, organizing and stuffing.
Rae stopped chanting and cocked her head. “What’s that noise?”
She whispered, and her quietness got Kellen’s attention. She froze and listened.
Footsteps. Someone was walking toward the thicket where they hid. Heavy footsteps. A man.
No, two men.
In a panic, Kellen looked toward Rae. Would the child be quiet?
Rae put her finger to her lips. She was shushing Kellen.
Kellen nodded slowly, subduing her terror.
“I would swear I heard someone scream,” one of the men said.
“It was a bird.” The other guy lit a match and puffed on a cigarette so hard the cloud of smoke drifted across them in a wave.
“Fine. It was a bird. Then where did they go?”
