Chapter Forty

Nina pulled on the rope, making sure it could hold her while climbing. We could hear Agnes farther away.

“Hurry up!” she yelled. “Before I change my mind.” Nina held on to me before deciding to do something else.

“I’m going to have to hide your head for a bit,” she said, examining my hair. “She has incredible aim, and I’m not sure when she’s going to fire at us. If we could give her one less target, we might be able to do something to get away.

“You,” I said, worried. “Still danger.”

She won’t shoot at me right away,” she said, as she began to twist my head around. My body extended her arms, trying to get Nina to stop. I felt Nina grab my hair and move it around, close to her belt. After a few seconds, she let go and my head started to dangle from right to left. She started to climb as I bounced up and down. I watched my body hold her hand close to her chest. I smiled as I tried to comfort it.

“Trust,” I said. “Okay.” Though it didn’t stop its movements, I could tell that a few nerves were calmed. Nina reached the top and stood up, dusting off her pants. She stared at Agnes, who was kneeled next to a crumpled piece of metal, lodged into the ground. I couldn’t get a good look at her face, but Nina’s breathing told me that things weren’t too tense. My body followed afterwards, dusting its skirt. It stood close to Nina on her right side and used its hidden left hand to turn my head forwards. I was able to peek through one of the openings in between the two and saw Agnes’s face tense up.

“That thing,” she said, pointing at my body. “How is it still standing if it doesn’t have a head?”

“That’s not important right now–” Nina began to say.

“It is important!” Agnes responded. “I need to know if it’s still dangerous.”

“If I told you it wasn’t, would you believe me?”

“Of course not! You two are working together to–” Agnes stopped and listened to her own words. Her hand, still pointed at me, shifted to Nina and my body multiple times. Her eyes widened as the words reached her head. “You two are working together?!”

“This long?” I whispered. I could feel Nina’s nod in agreement.

“I thought I wanted to shoot you but now I need to know everything!” Agnes said lowering her crossbow but not her voice. Though her face remained serious, I was starting to worry less and less about it. “Now, explain!”

“Why should we just tell you everything? What are you going to give us in return?” Nina asked.

“Reward? That’s easy. It’s me not shooting you!”

“I don’t think that’s worth everything we can tell you.”

“Well, I’m the one with the crossbow so I get to decide what it’s worth!”

“But if I was the one holding the crossbow, wouldn’t you want me to give you more than what I’m offering?” Agnes thought about Nina’s words. Her eyes were darting around, trying to find her own response to them.

“You’ve been talking a lot to me. And you still haven’t ran away. I don’t think that’s normal. But I’m the one with the crossbow! Aren’t you scared?” I saw my body reflect Nina’s motions, trying to hold in a laugh. Agnes was sharp enough to see what they were trying to do, and pointed the crossbow back to us, while stomping her feet down with her anger. “I can hit you anytime I want with this! So, don’t give me a reason to!”

“Loud,” I said so that only Nina and my body could hear me. “Forgot. Children.”

“You’re scary! There’s no doubt about it,” Nina said. “I was just thinking about how you’re standing in front of us.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. But seeing a pretty girl like you, holding and knowing how to use a big weapon like that is…different. I think I’d call it cute.”

From the small window in between my body and Nina, I could see Agnes’s face light up. I saw a familiar shade of red spreading across her face, as the words and emotions left her, replaced by a taunting stillness.

“Cute?” Agnes said, stammering through every letter. “Pretty?” Her eyes were bouncing around her sockets, spending longer time trying to look backwards than any other place. “Who says things like that?! Even though I like those words, and I want to keep hearing those words, I don’t want to hear them from you!” I felt Nina’s body relax. Although I couldn’t see her face, I knew she had a triumphant smile on.

“Then I’ll stop. It’s too bad. There were other things I wanted to say to you too.” Agnes tried to look away but couldn’t resist the urge to focus on Nina.

“Well, you can keep them to yourself then,” she said, as she looked down at her crossbow. Her eyebrows raised, followed by the hand that held it. “But I’m the one in control here, and I want to know what those things were!” Her face was red once again.

“Child,” I said with a smile.

“You’re pointing your crossbow again, wanting to hurt us. I don’t think my words are worth what you’re asking.” Agnes lowered her bow, trying to slow down her movements, before she caught a glimpse of my body and realized what she was doing.

“Okay, no more!” she exclaimed. “You haven’t told me anything about that thing yet. You only told me things I wanted to hear, and you thought it would help you get away. But I’m not going to do that, not until you explain everything that’s happening right now!” Her face returned to the fierce expression she had before.

“Fine. I understand,” Nina said. “I thought it would be nice to talk to someone like you, who looks so interesting. But we can do what you want.” Agnes kept her rigid stance, but I could see a few loose ends. “And the best way for us to do that is to know that we aren’t in any danger. It’s difficult to talk if we know that you could hurt us at any moment.” Agnes thought about it for a moment before relaxing her stance somewhat and trying to look away.

“I agree, talking when someone is pointing a crossbow at you is very distracting.” She kneeled back down and motioned us to do the same. Nina and my body sat down together, making sure to keep my head out of view. I watched Agnes’s shifting emotions, looking for the right way to make us talk. We sat in silence and waited for the questions to start.