Blood Red Road

to Silverlake to try an pick up the trail.
    The hoofprints lead straight ahead. Northeast. Same direction we’re headed. Our first bit of luck.
    C’mon, I says to Em. We gotta hurry.
    I don’t give her no quarter. I walk quick, my footsteps jerky. No time to lose.
    She trots to keep up with me, her barksack thumpin aginst her back. Nero flies on ahead.
    Lugh was here. He passed this way.
    Lugh goes first, always first, an I follow on behind. I’ll catch him up. I always do. Always have.
    I’ll find you. Wherever they take you, I swear I’ll find you .
    I walk faster.

    Mid-afternoon. Second day on the road.
    I hafta stop myself from screamin. From walkin fast. Runnin on ahead.
    Emmi.
    We couldn’t be goin much slower an it’s all her fault.
    I wanna leave her by the side of the track an ferget she ever got born. I wish she’d disappear offa the face of th’earth. But I cain’t wish that. I mustn’t wish that. It’s too wicked. She’s my own flesh an blood, the same as Lugh.
    Not the same as Lugh.
    Nobody’s the same as Lugh.
    Never the same as Lugh.
    We leave a thin stand of near-dead pine trees.
    The hoofprints leave the trackway here. They head off due north.
    Wait here, I says to Emmi.
    I follow the prints till the hard baked ground turns to scrubby grass. The prints disappear. I shade my eyes. Stare out. There’s a narrow belt of scrub grassland but after that I cain’t see nuthin but wideness. Flatness. Desert. I ain’t never bin here but I know what it is.
    Sandsea.
    A mean, death-dry place of winds an shiftin sand dunes. A hard land. A land of secrets.
    Before Emmi, when Ma was still alive an everythin was happy, Pa used to tell Lugh an me stories about Wrecker times. Some of ’em was about Sandsea. He told us about whole settlements of people buried by wanderin dunes. Then, one day, the winds ’ud shift an the dune ’ud move on an all that ’ud be left was the shanties. No people. All gone. Not a trace of ’em left behind, not even bones. Only their dead souls, turned into sand spirits that wail in the night an cry fer their lost lives. Pa used to say he’d take us there an leave us if we warn’t good.
    I pile up some rocks. A cairn to mark the spot so’s I can find it agin.
    I walk back to the trackway.
    Em sits in the dust, her head bowed. She’s took her boots off.
    We gotta keep movin, I says.
    I look down. At her short, fine brown hair that grows in tufts. With her thin little neck an wisps of hair, Emmi looks more like a babby bird than a girl.
    It’s a wonder I didn’t break her neck when I slapped her. Jest thinkin about it makes me feel sick, so I try not to. I know fer a fact that Em ain’t never in her life bin slapped before I raised my hand to her. Lugh would never of done it, no matter what. Never. He’d be madder’n hell if he knew what I done.
    I crouch down beside her. What’s the matter? I says.
    Then I see her heels. They’re cut to a bloody pulp. She ain’t used to walkin so far. They must hurt like nobody’s business, but she ain’t made a peep.
    Why didn’t you tell me? I says.
    I didn’t want you to yell at me, she says.
    I look at her, her face so small an thin. I hear Lugh’s voice in my head.
    She’s only nine, Saba. You might try bein nice to her fer a change .
    You should of said somethin, I says. I wash her cuts an wrap her feet in clean strips of cloth. All right, I says, put yer arms around my neck.
    I pick her up. I carry her as much as I can fer the rest of the day, but even a scrawny nine year old gits heavy. I’m carryin our packs too so I hafta put her down from time to time. She ends up havin to walk a fair bit.
    She weeps quietly in the night.
    My heart pinches at the sound. I reach out an touch her arm but she flings my hand off an turns away.
    I hate you! she cries. I wish they’d killed you instead of Pa!
    After that, I pull my cloak over my head so’s I cain’t hear her cryin.
    We gotta keep on.
    I gotta find Lugh.

    Third day. Dawn.
    I clean Emmi’s feet agin an we set off. She takes two tiny steps an falls to the ground. She won’t be doin no walkin today. I guess I ain’t surprised. I pick her up an lay her down on a grassy patch in some shade.
    I run my hands through my hair. Glare at the sky. I wanna scream or run around or … anythin to git rid of all the tightness inside of me. I kick the ground so hard I stub my toe. I curse mightily.
    I’m sorry, Saba, Emmi whispers.
    I try to smile, make it look like I