Julie Dawson - Water is Thicker than Blood

But he had said he would be home around Monday, and now it was Wednesday and no sign of him. That left her to worrying whether or not he ran into trouble.

It wasn’t just Hank being late that had her tossing and turning in bed. Joseph had been bringing water by every day for her. Rue had asked Lula about it, and Lula had insisted that it was fine and that she had all the water she needed. But Lula had seemed discomfited as she said it. Like even though the water itself was clean, the way it was acquired was less so. She remembered back to when Joseph had said he had conjured up water for his mama. At the time, she had taken that as a figure of speech. But after talking with Lula she wasn’t so sure.

For the most part, whatever conjuring those mages at the Circle did they kept behind closed doors. Except for how some of them dressed funny, like how some of them had taken to wearing long robes with odd symbols sewn into them and pointy hats and other peculiar adornments, they didn’t make a show of whatever it was they did. But one couldn’t help but know something was going on in there, because just walking by the place was enough to make little bumps rise up on her arms.

She got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. Two of the jugs of water he had brought over were sitting on the counter. Devil water , she thought. She unscrewed the top of the jug and held the jug over the sink. She held it there for a minute before setting it back down and replacing the top.

Even if it was Devil water, it was still water. A body needed water to survive. If she just poured it down the drain, she’d resign herself to death by dehydration. And doing that on purpose would be the same as suicide. And everybody knew suicide was the one sin God could not forgive.

Rue went back to bed, but didn’t sleep.

“Where you been, woman?” asked Hank as Rue walked in the door. He had found his way home while she and Lula were in the Quarter looking for Rue’s dress.

“I could ask you the same question, man. ” She kept walking toward the bedroom as if she wasn’t happy he was alive. “You forget what day it was? You were supposed to be home Monday.”

“I ain’t in no mood. What’s in the bag?”

I ain’t in no mood, either, she thought. “Lula got me a dress for my birthday for as me to wear to the Court next week.”

“Where the Hell she getting money to buy you a dress?”

“Lawd! Lawd! What do you care where her money come from? You need to be worrying about that water purifier you still ain’t fixed.”

“I just got home this morning!”

“Uh huh. You got home this morning and need to rest, right. That always what you say. Then you’ll rest up and be off again and not do it.”

“What the Hell are these jugs of water then if you in such a hurry for me to fix it?”

“Lula’s boy been bringing them over for me to keep me tided over until you drug your sorry ass home.”

“You taking water from that Devil boy of hers?”

“Lawd! The boy just been bringing them here. It’s Lula’s water.”

He didn’t respond. At first, Rue was pleased as she thought she had won the argument. But he didn’t say another word to her the rest of the day. She asked him about how things went on his expedition. He just shrugged and said he was too tired to talk about it and was going to take a nap. But when she went into the bedroom to check on him later he wasn’t sleeping. He was just lying on his side, staring off at the dresser.

“I made a stew for supper,” she said as she tried to lure him out of the bedroom. “Even got some meat in it. Caught a big, fat opossum in a trap yesterday and used some of the meat in the stew. Rest is in the smoker.”

“Ain’t hungry.”

“Well, hungry or no, you should still eat something. Sleeping on an empty stomach ain’t good for you.”

“Ain’t hungry.”

“Lawd!”

Rue ate her supper alone. With Hank not eating, she had a lot of stew left. She hated throwing out food because it was so hard to come by. And she had done a particularly fine job with this batch if she did say so herself. Old Man Blue once said that people used to put leftovers in their refrigerators, which would keep them cold and prevent them from going bad too quick. You could cook up food days in advance and it still be edible when you got around to eating it. They had a refrigerator in the kitchen, but it didn’t have a door and they just used it as shelf space. Even if it had a door, they didn’t have electricity for it to run on. And even if they had electricity, Hank had removed the cord and the motor for scrap sale a long time ago.

“Damnit!” she screamed. Why did they do it? Why did they destroy the world and leave Rue with nothing but dry faucets and warm refrigerators and lightless lamps? They had everything, and they blew it up and left her with nothing.

“Rue, honey? You alright?” It was Lula. Rue walked into the front room to see Lula and Joseph standing in front of the screen door looking all concerned at her.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she lied as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Hank’s home and he’s being a pain in my backside, is all.”

“We were walking by and heard you yell. Thought something happened to you.”

“What you doing out at this hour?”

“We were over in Tremé,” said Joseph.

“Needed a remedy for my arthritis. It’s acting up again.”

“I told her I know good people at the Circle that can cure that, but—”

“Enough! I’ve been getting my remedies from Ms. Joleene for a good number of years now and she’s served me just fine.”

“Yes, mama.”

“Did you all eat yet?” asked Rue.

“No, I gotta go fix us some supper.”

“I got some stew left over if you want it. Hank ain’t eating and I already ate.”

“Hank might be hungry later,” said Lula.

“Or he might not and it will get thrown out.”

“Well, Mr. Hank is a grown man and can care for himself,” said Joseph. “If you went to the effort of cooking a meal and he don’t appreciate it, would be a shame for it to get thrown out.”

“Well, true that. Man’s more stubborn than a mule,” said Lula. Rue went into the kitchen and put the cover on the pot. She brought the pot out to Lula. “I’ll have Joseph bring the pot back tomorrow.”

“Mr. Hank fix that water purifier yet?” Rue shook her head. “Then I’ll return the pot in the morning when I bring by your water.”

It was Hank’s cousin Vale who told Rue what had happened. He had come by to check on Hank, but Hank refused to take visitors. Vale had a fresh wound that looked like someone came real close to cutting his face clean off. Someone had stitched it up in a hurry and put a dressing on it. But the wound was seeping and the bandage had dull red and black-green blotches on it. It was painful for him to talk and painful to watch him suffering while he talked.

They had found the Consulate Mr. Horton told them about. Even managed to get inside it and find file cabinets on the second and third floors that were full of papers that looked like they were real important at once time. The first floor of the Consulate was completely underwater, but they had managed to climb inside the second floor by walking across a few buckled beams from a collapsed building next door. More importantly, the files were mostly dry and readable. With all of the flooding after Doomsday, it was a rare thing to find large amounts of paper or books that were still legible.

They had packed up as much as they could carry in the plastic, waterproof containers Mr. Horton had provided them. But on the way out they ran into small band of cannibals. Brice had his shotgun and enough ammo to take down a few of them, but the fight got ugly and one of them cut Vale up bad. Worst, they managed to kill Paul.