Plastic Girl

Day 2,375-1

Day 2,375

EVA WOKE TO THE SOUND of Cain’s axe hitting wood in a continuous, perfect beat, each strike a half note in 4/4 time. A few mourning doves cooed, and eventually some songbirds chirped the melody. It was still gray outside her window, the sun only just beginning to rise on the other side of the house. Eva sat up. Her throat burned, and her chest ached. She rubbed her neck and then her ribs. She remembered walking halfway up the stairs last night but not actually climbing back into her bed. She stood up and swayed; a knee buckled. She steadied herself on the bed before returning to her feet and getting dressed. Leaving her wetsuit, gloves, goggles, and red parka on the wooden bench by the door, she slipped on her jeans and fleece shirt, wrinkling her nose. She was going to have to wash her clothes today. She pulled on her rubber boots and slipped a knit cap and gloves out from her parka’s pocket before she left the solitude of the empty room behind. She stuffed her goggles and gloves into her brown leather knapsack. She missed her art and sentimental objects. She missed her cabin.

Eva approached Iris on the edge of the beach next to the forest. Iris finished making the last bit of a big, green bullfrog’s eye, and it leapt to life and out of her hands toward its new muddy home. Iris giggled and turned to spot Eva.

“Frogs are the best,” Iris sighed. “They always manage to startle me, and I can never catch one! Why can’t I catch one?”

Iris lunged at the frog. Eva’s eyes followed the creature as it leapt away and completed a few lazy jumps before it stopped to sink into the mud, blinking its large eyes. Iris stood by, ready to pounce at it again.

“I don’t know why you can’t catch one either, you really should be able to.” Eva chuckled.

“Oh, stop! If it’s so easy, you do it!” Iris jumped and missed the frog again. Eva deftly crept over and scooped up the frog, wiping some of the mud off its forehead with her thumb before handing it to Iris. “You have to learn to move quietly.”

“So, unfair!” Iris smiled as she lifted the frog’s face to hers.

“Did you know some frogs let their blood freeze almost solid in the winter so they can survive the cold and the lack of food? They hibernate until the conditions are more ideal,” Eva explained.

“I don’t think our kind will need to hibernate... But, wait—do you think you can do that? Hibernate until things are more ideal?” Iris hugged the muddy frog to her chest as it squirmed and let out an indignant croak.

“I wish, but I can’t. I would have done it already.”

“Have you tried?” Iris struggled to hold onto the wriggling, slippery amphibian.

Eva chuckled despite her foul mood. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” She imagined digging a hole, laying in it, and placing leaves over her body. Nope, she just knew she couldn’t do it.

Eva turned to the forest. “I’m going to search the woods again today.” She stopped herself from telling Iris about the strange light she saw the night before. She was still concerned that she was hallucinating from lack of food and water. She knew Iris would think the same, and she didn’t want her to worry. Iris gently set the frog back down in the mud. It leapt away. Iris jumped toward the frog, mimicking its movement. The frog leapt out of the mud into a bush. Iris kept an eye on the bush where the frog had landed and chose her next words carefully.

“We were having the best day. We were laughing. You were swimming. Swimming, Eva! We were so carefree—”

“I didn’t get careless, Iris. I can’t. It’s too serious. No, I did everything exactly as I always did it. Someone messed with my boat. I know it...” Eva trailed off as Iris’s face transformed into a scowl.

“Very well, I will come with you to look for your boat again, but I don’t want to talk about Cain anymore.”

“I will go by myself then,” Eva huffed, stomping toward the forest.

Iris frowned and hurried after her. “You need to stop being so pig-headed!” She halted, brow furrowing. “The pig-headed phrase still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It’s just something my mom called my dad,” Eva grumbled over her shoulder.

“Pigs just don’t seem stubborn and stupid to me. They seem sweet and intelligent.”

Eva growled, “So, now I’m stubborn and stupid?”

“Not stupid,” Iris replied good-naturedly as she jogged up next to Eva, shaking her shoulder lovingly. Eva softened and chuckled, putting her arm around Iris’s shoulder. It was impossible for her to stay mad at Iris very long.

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