Free White Crocodile by K.T. Medina Page B

out of his crate, she backed away, drawing the curtain she used to fence off their sleeping area from the rest of the room quietly behind her. Holding her breath, she peered around the edge of the fabric. Nothing there, she thought for a moment, and then she realised there was something on the doorframe after all. A hand, bloated and pale.
    She shot backwards, felt in the gloom for the loose planks in the back wall. She had been meaning to repair them for weeks, but had neither the tools nor the skills, and no one would help her. They turned away when she tried to explain that on monsoon nights, Chhaya would wake, pale and shivering, his chest thick with mucus. Forcing the planks apart, she slithered through the gap, reached back for her baby and ran fast and silent into the trees.
    Burying her face into Chhaya’s heaving tummy, she jammed her eyes shut. Who would miss her and Chhaya? No one. Both her parents were dead. When their bodies were carried out of the minefield, the villagers would nod and turn away. The White Crocodile had decided.
    Anger surged suddenly. Chhaya would die, before his life had even begun. A sudden memory from a few days ago rose. She had been walking back from the jungle with a bundle of firewood, Chhaya in a sling on her back, when she had encountered Arun’s new wife on the path, cradling the swell of her stomach. Jacqueline’s first inclination had been to duck into the jungle, melt into the faceless trees until she had passed. But something stopped her. Perhaps it was the noise Chhaya made as her head dipped. It was probably just because her spine had arched and made him uncomfortable. But for that fleeting moment, she felt he was admonishing her. Suddenly ashamed, she kept her ground, looked Arun’s wife in the eye and smiled, held her gaze until she had lowered hers, stepping to one side of the path to let Jacqueline past. She had swung Chhaya into the crook of her arm as she walked away, holding him like a prize.
    The memory emboldened her. She did have one choice left. Turning, she gently lowered him into the bole of the hollow tree. There were leaves and moss inside – it was soft in there. She covered him with more leaves.
    ‘ Oun sra-lun bong na ,’ she whispered. I love you.
    She hesitated, but only for a moment.
    Unable to meet his gaze, she heaved herself to her feet, turned and stumbled away – not looking back, not once – the physical pain meaningless now. She began to shout and wave her arms, drowning out the high-pitched, keening cry she could hear fading behind her.
    Numbness had spread up her leg and her T-shirt was torn and soaked with mud. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. Pressing her hands to her ears to stop the rush of noise, she stared desperately ahead. All she could hear was her surging blood and the fluttering of mine tape. Mine tape! If she could reach the edge of the minefield, she could run. Run fast, without Chhaya to slow her down. Reach one of the other villages, hide until morning.
    The tape was so close. Barely the length of her hut away. She would make it. Morning would come. The clearers would find Chhaya.
    Jacqueline’s foot sank deep into a puddle; she crashed on to her stomach and swallowed water tasting of mud and leaf mulch. She tried to push herself up, but her wrist was snagged. She groped with her other hand under the water, expecting to find a vine. Instead her numb fingers felt something hard and sinuous.
    Metal. A metal wire.
    Terror mounted, as she scoured the darkness around her. And there, just a couple of arm lengths away. Manath . A pineapple. She had tasted one once – Arun had given her one when he was trying to get her to lie with him – and it was sharp and sweet, unlike anything she had eaten before. But this one was dirty green, not the rich yellow she remembered, and instantly she knew what it was. If she could avoid panic, she would be able to free her wrist. Not all the mines were still live, she knew that.