* * *
Naomi lifted her head up from the table and her lips curled into a pout.
“I don’t like it.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. If you keep starting over, you’ll never stop.”
“But it doesn’t look right.”
“You won’t know until it’s done. Now, stop moving already. This is hard enough as it is.” The tip of the pastel scraped against the thin paper as she lightly dabbed the fine powder onto the girl’s rose-crested cheeks. Celyn’s eyes moved rapidly up, taking snapshots of the girl whenever she found herself in the right position. The feel of slowly bringing something to life was a queer and alien joy she never thought she could experience again. “Almost finished…” She made three more strokes of yellow and brown down the locks of hair and added four more dots of turquoise to the bowed eyes, then sat back and smiled at her work. “There,” she said, beckoning the girl toward her. “Come. Tell me what you think.”
Naomi dropped her pastilles down at once and came beside her. The little weight pressed against her leg as the girl gazed down.
“Wow… it looks just like me.” The girl looked up, eyes large and genial.
“Then, it’s perfect,” smiled Celyn. She took the fixative and sprayed it over the piece from a distance. “For you,” she said, presenting the girl with her own portrait.
The little face beamed. A second later, however, the wide smile disappeared and the little expression became suddenly sullen.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah, nothing,” the girl hesitated. “It’s just…”
“What?”
The girl’s eyes strayed up over the top of the page, focusing directly on her chest.
“…My locket.”
Celyn looked down at the gold pendant hanging from her neck and settled it on the palm of her lone hand. “You can have it back…”
“No!” Naomi exclaimed suddenly. “I-I want you to keep it. I do. I really do.”
The girl hung her head and started to shuffle one foot over the other. “It’s just…”
“What is it?”
“… The picture,” she garbled.
“Picture?”
“Mom and Dad…”
She stared back down at the pendant in the palm of her hand. Turning it over, she noticed the round seam in the back, pressed it, and the locket clicked open.
“I forgot to take it out before I gave it to Saul,” said Naomi.
“These are your… parents.” She stared at the two unknown figures in the picture and a ripple of sorrow went through her. She ran her thumb over the dirty glazing and pressed. The small sheet of glass slid out, along with the picture. “Here.”
The girl took the picture from her hand and quickly tucked it away in the pocket of her dungarees.
“So, you’re supposed to keep a picture of someone special inside … Is that how it works?”
The girl’s large, innocent eyes looked up with a shimmer.
She gave a slow, deliberate nod and cleared the loose papers from the table. Something gleamed in the light from beneath. It was the edge of a blade. She took the blade by the grip and folded over the edges of the girl’s portrait, then proceeded to carefully run the blade edge through the bends of the fold, cropping out the excess edges, and the girl observed her, silent and perplexed.
Once the picture was carefully trimmed, Celyn put the blade back down and took one last look at the image, then at the girl herself. She folded the picture five ways and closed it inside the locket. “There,” she said, finally, and let the locket drop over her chest.
Naomi grinned happily. “That means that I’m special, right?”
“How about that?” Celyn smiled and stood up. “Breakfast?”
“Is it gon’a be like Saul’s breakfast?”
“No,” she chuckled.
“OK.”
The holoscreen switched on and the low bawls of a pod singing whales basking in the blue ocean light filled the living area.
She started the cooker and the big induction cooktop smoked as she opened the fridge and took out the only raw ingredients nestled among the dried and processed food packages: four eggs, a pint of milk and a bell pepper.
The knife cracked through the crust and rose and fell with slow thuds against the chopping board. The sunlight was warm against her face, and shone over the scar tissue on the back of her hands around the hilt of the knife. She drew a deep breath into her belly and the residual bliss of the previous night simmered in the base of her abdomen on the exhale. In the middle of her delighted musing, a shimmer shone through the corner of her eye. She looked up and stopped as the blade she had left on the table had found itself in the girl’s hands.
“Naomi, don’t touch that-”
Startled by her voice, the girl flinched and the blade fell on the floor. A stream of bright red started to pour from her hand.
She dropped the knife with a gasp, grabbed a piece of cloth and immediately rushed over to the girl’s side.
Naomi held her own hand just above the wound. Her breaths were short and rapid with shock and she started to whimper. “I’m – I’m s-s-sorry.” The wound was deep and the blood was gushing out. The under-flesh was exposed and pink and tender. “I- it – it – l-looks b-bad.”
“It’s alright sweetie, just calm down. It looks worse than it is.” She kept her voice calm as she bound the cloth around the deep cut. The blood soaked through the cloth in red blotches. She looked up and when saw the tears spilling down the little red cheeks, she was shot through with dread.
She froze. Her eyes widened.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered.
Naomi fought back the whimpers to no avail. The little face reddened and warped. The tears streamed from the large, enflamed eyes.
“Stop crying,” her voice broke again. A wave of heat swept over her and she recoiled, staring back at the girl. “Stop crying,” she repeated.
The weeping and moaning rose to shrieks.
“Stop,” she repeated between unsteady breaths. “… Stop.” She picked the bloody blade up off the floor. Her hands started to shake. “The crying…”
A scowl furrowed into her brow.