The Mud Valley

I’m not even here anymore, really. Neither are you. The place you knew is already gone.

There had been a flood, and then an earthquake, and Maria’s daughter had fallen in, and been swept away. A telegraph pole had fallen across her legs, and then more soil from the slopes of the high mountains had shaken loose and fallen into the water, and turned it into mud, and trapped her. Only her head had been left poking above the surface. There wasn’t anything to do about it, the clerk at the Municipal Office had told Maria. It would be too dangerous for the rescuers to try ot free her, even if it could be done, which he doubted. They could easily fall in, too, and they would not be light enough to settle near the surface. Every man would be doomed, and as they sank they would likely drag her daughter down with them, so, she had to see, it simply wasn’t worth the risk. Not for someone— and here the clerk caught himself, pushed up his smudge-covered spectacles, and carefully began the sentence again. Not for any one unfortunate person, he had said, and he seemed almost to believe it, and Maria almost did, too. Wanted to. But it wasn’t his daughter. In any case, he had finally explained, it was very unlikely she could be freed at all. From the photoprints they had reviewed, it appeared that the pole was resting on her spine. If it were removed, she would likely die of shock.

So Maria went back to the valley that had filled up with mud and sat beside her daughter, as close as she could, on a boulder many meters away.
“Are they coming to rescue me?” her daughter asked.
“No, I don't think so.”
“Oh.” Her daughter was silent.
“Do you want some water?” Maria asked, after the silence became unbearable.
“I guess so.”
Beside Maria was a bucket of water carried from a pump in the next town over, where the civil infrastructure had not been destroyed, and a small tin kettle, which she filled from the larger vessel until it was around half-full, then hung carefully on the end of a long branch. Slowly, hand over hand, she extended the branch out towards her daughter, and the weight caused it to wobble and sag as it stretched out across the gulf. Finally, the kettle hovered above her, and Maria slowly lowered it down until she could push her head forward and grab the spout between her lips, tilting it forwards with another small motion. She sat and watched her daughter drink, her slow, careful sips still dribbling a bit, like twin scars, down over cracked lips and dust-coated skin. Eventually she finished, and Maria drew the kettle back, and sat in silence once again. A mosquito landed on her neck and bit her. She squashed it, looked at the smear on her hand, and thought about how her daughter could not do the same.

Maria felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and there was an old woman standing beside her, looking down at her.
“Are you her mother?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure you’ve been to the city. What did they say?”
“That they won’t do anything.”
The old woman nodded and sat down beside her. “I lived in a shack up on the mountainside. The earthquake destroyed it.”
“I’m sorry. What are you going to do?”
She looked at her for a long moment. Her eyes were set deep into her lined face. She looked calm but weary. “Before I came here, I lived in a room in a little cottage by the ocean shore for a time,” she said. “A fisherman let me stay there because I knew how to repair his nets, and was willing to do it for free. This was many years ago now. I expect you weren’t even born yet. It was a good place, but there was one incident while I was there, involving a girl about the same age as your daughter. She had been walking on the beach one day, and disappeared. It caused such an uproar. A rumor spread among the townspeople that pirates had stolen her. All the mothers started forbidding their children to play on the beach. There had never been pirates along that part of the coast, but it didn’t make the fear any less real. I knew it was the sea that had taken her, of course, just the sea. It had carried her off and made her lost forever. Not for any reason, not because the girl had done something wrong, just because it was the way of things. That was all, nothing more. There’s nothing you can do about things like that. It left a mark on the town. Nothing was really the same after. A few years later the whole town was massacred by soldiers. This was long after I had left, of course. No one survived. They killed them all, even the children, and burned the bodies in a single great pyre. They torched the houses, too, after they had looted them. It’s nothing but scars in the earth now. Some things are like that.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Maria.
“I’m answering your question, dear. I’m going to leave. That’s all. What else is there to do?”
“You could stay. You could try to rebuild your home. I’m sure people would help you.”
The old woman smiled. “No, I couldn’t. It’s not my home anymore. I’m not even here anymore, really. Neither are you. The place you knew is already gone. You know that, down in your heart. I expect your daughter does, too.” Then she got up, slowly, and began shuffling away, not towards the city, but deeper still into the mountains, beyond where the telegraph poles yet reached.

It was almost dark when Maria heard her daughter speak again. “I feel something… something’s nibbling at my toe.” A helpless grin forced its way onto her face. “It tickles,” she said, starting to giggle. “It —”
And then suddenly she screamed. It was a high, shrill scream, like a shattered crystal, and as it continued it grew only higher and shriller. There was no fear on her face, no pain, not even confusion. In fact, it seemed to Maria, there was no expression at all, just her mouth hanging slackly open, and the sound escaping from it, which itself contained nothing but noise. And then, very quickly, like a flame being doused, it was night, and there was nothing left to see.