The Send

Last night I dreamed that a girl, perhaps ten years old, with arms like bones waiting to be snapped came and held my wrist. Her eyes were like wells, were good like water. As wide as planets.

She held my wrist and there was an odd meeting of bones. She held on tightly, and it hurt, but in the dream, I didn't mind.

She looked up at me with her swallowing eyes, still trying to suck in enough life to stay open. "You are called Give?" she said, and I could see the spelling that I never used, and it scared me.

For a long time, I said nothing, just stood there with my wrist in her bone-chain hand, in the searing heat, staring at the hard blue sky. She did not press the issue, merely held me too tightly and waited for my thoughts to arrange themselves.

At last I said, "I see; I understand. I cannot be called Give simply because I do not take."

She wavered into a mirage, and perhaps she died on the hot, red dirt before she shimmered away.