Plastic Girl

Prologue: | Eva Meets Jacob

Prologue: Eva Meets Jacob

EVA’S BLONDE HAIR HAD grown long, knotted, twisted, and tangled into dreads. Her eleventh year on this wasting planet had been the hardest so far. She spent the first year after her parents’ death in shock and pure survival mode: eat, drink, fish, clean, sleep, rinse, repeat. This new year, the true gravity of her isolation, the deep numbness of it, dragged her down a deep hole, and threatened to bury her in it. She spent most days pulling herself back up.

Eva stared over the snow-blanketed beach and the slushy, debris-filled sludge she called her lake to her island. She hadn’t taken her boat out since November. It was May, but the winter still held her prisoner. She itched to check on her island, go fishing, anything but be stuck in this cabin alone with her thoughts. Eva stood in her father’s slippers, head resting on the cool window, weary of winter. She sighed, watching the frigid air rise up from the surface of the lake, the sun’s morning light warming it and her window. At least in the dead of winter she couldn’t see the garbage on the ground. But since the ice had started thawing a few months ago, the surface of the lake was now a sludgy pile of brown ice, polluted water, and plastic. So much plastic. Eva exhaled on to the window, her warm breath forming a small circle of condensation on the icy glass. She used her chapped pinky finger to write the word MOM. Then the word DAD. Then her name. EVA. She encircled them in a heart, conjuring images of family. A tear stung her chapped cheeks. She cursed and rubbed the words off the window, trying to erase the memories of belonging, her fingers throbbing. Everything hurt more in the winter.

Thud.

Eva jerked her head toward the sound, staring at a partial carving of a fish on the large, wooden door. She had begun the carving of the fish the week before. She had finished the head and was working on the scales of its midsection.

A second thud came from the porch behind her fish.

Dashing past the sleeping bags piled on the couch and grabbing her mother’s shotgun, Eva’s arms trembled as she mustered the strength to raise the heavy barrel toward the fish on the door. Gun c****d, finger on the trigger, she waited, praying she remembered to deadbolt the porch’s outer door.

Someone fidgeted with the lock until it finally clicked open. Wind howled into the mudroom, followed by heavy boots stomping off the snow, and then by quieter footsteps approaching the carved door. Eva steadied her aim and her breath, locking eyes with her fish. Eva had never shot a person. She didn’t want to start today. Her fingers quivered, and the weight of the gun pulled at her arms. She struggled to keep it aimed at her target.

Metal on metal sounded through the door. The person behind the door was picking the next lock. They had decided not to continue to the next house, probably hoping that if a door was locked, something of value was behind it—a meal, medicine, clean water. They should also know that it probably meant something deadly was behind it, someone guarding those valuables. Like a hardcore girl with a gun—correction—an absolutely scared-out-of-her-mind girl with a gun.

The lock clicked, and the knob turned. Someone pushed the large, wooden door open. She watched a chapped hand clutching a long, silver pistol appear, then a head of short, sandy brown hair, and finally, crystal-blue eyes filled with two things she recognized: fear and loneliness.

“Drop your gun,” Eva croaked.

The boy, about a foot taller than her, maybe two years older, didn’t raise his gun, but he didn’t drop it either. He put his other arm up.

“Drop it!”

“I don’t want to hurt you, I’m just cold, hungry,” he said.

“You should have knocked,” Eva snapped.

“That didn’t go so well at the last house,” he responded, flashing her a small smile. “Please, can I come in?”

“Drop your gun and slide it to me,” Eva said softly. The boy kept his blue eyes glued on her face.

“My dad will want to talk to you first when he gets back,” Eva lied.

“Sure.” The boy nodded, leaning down to set his gun on the ground. He slowly rose back up, his foot on his gun.

“I’ve been watching your place for a few days, making sure it was safe. I could have killed you at any point. I didn’t. I don’t want to. I just want a place to rest until winter is over, maybe a friend.”

He kicked the gun over to Eva who had tightened her grip on her gun. He knew she was alone. She walked over to his gun and put her foot on top of it, never taking her eyes off this boy. His face was soft, sweet, sincere, not like the other boys she had seen in the past. He made her feel warm even though the strong wind blew snow and bitter cold into the cabin.

“You better shut the door,” Eva said, lowering her gun a little.

He did, taking a moment to admire the fish carving. “You carve this?” he asked, glancing back at her over his shoulder.

Eva nodded.

“It’s pretty good. I wish I could make something beautiful like that.” He turned and reached his hand out. “I’m Jacob.”

Eva lowered her gun further and crept toward him. She took his hand with her free one, shaking it timidly. His hands were chapped and rough like hers. He smiled at her, and she felt the world melt around her.

“You hungry?”

“Always.”

She smiled back at him. “Me too.”

They both laughed, and Eva set her gun down next to Jacob’s. He stepped over them and followed her to the kitchen, the two creating a new warmth in the cabin.