Raindrops
Quicksilvre
Sorry it's taken so long to get the next chapter up. Between school and my health and a distressing drop in quality in The O.C., everything has been crazy. But, here is the next part.
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The sun wasn't even all the way up the horizon, but it was warm and dreadfully humid around the Tongau. It was going to be a hellishly hot day, the kind where Summer used to spend huddled inside, either talking on the phone or walking the mall. There would be a fruity drink in her hand, or a cellphone.
Today, she had a hatchet and a job.
A few days after her meeting with Jai, she improved vastly, enough to move around and do some housework–washing some dishes here, making some lemonade for guests there. Without a lot of skill in anything except candy-striping and card dealing, the inn's menial work was hers.
Two weeks before, she would have pouted and bitched about broken nails. At this point, she was glad to do anything. She hated where she was–she hated being so...worthless. Now she was paid in clothes, shelter, and food, all of it earned. Better, it got her mind off of Orange County.
She wondered if anyone remembered her. She ran down a list–Dad, Marissa, Seth, the Cohens, Chino, maybe Lindsay. Maybe. Her step-mom probably couldn't care less. Holly was probably partying somewhere. Everyone else...
"Screw them," she said to herself. She was outside, walking from the inn. The Tongau had a small grove a short walk from the building, where lemons, plantains, oranges, bananas, and coconuts all grew next to each other in a crazy maze. There was enough there to grow a good amount of food, enough to trade for other supplies, but Jai had more land nearby and wanted to clear it to expand.
And there was only one way to do that.
Winding through the planted land, Summer grabbed a clean-looking orange from the ground and fed herself. She'd need it; Jai had sent her out to both knock over trees and bring back firewood.
"Yeah, right." Stepping carefully over twisted roots, she met her foes. They were a foot thick, five times her height, and were loaded with wild coconuts. "No...way. You are kidding. Ha ha, Jai." She looked at her axe, gripped it tightly in her gloved hands, picked a target, and took a swing.
It went in a half an inch. Trying to pull back, Summer found it stick fast in the wood. She grit her teeth, dug in her feet–nothing. She jumped up and put her feet on the tree, pulling back with all her might, before it popped out and struck her right in the chest.
Dull side first. "Shit!" She gingerly picked up the hatchet and threw it away from her. Lying on the ground for a second, she stared up at her opponent. A ray of morning sunshine pushed threw its leaves. It was a perfectly beautiful, if hot, day to battle nature.
Weary for a moment, Summer furrowed her brow. Sitting up and retrieving her weapon, she said to herself, "You're going to be running away anytime soon." She got ready to swing again. "Let's see you try that again."
Thock. The second hit was much better than the first, cutting out a tiny wedge from the side of the tree. The hatchet came back in Summer's hand. Thock. The next cut deepened the cut. Thock. This one made it wider, knocking off a sliver of wood the size of a remote control.
Summer stopped for a second. Two minutes and one almost gruesome injury later, there was progress. She adjusted her grip, moved a little bit to the side, and started widening the slice.
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Thock. Thock. Thock. Thock.
Most of the tree was gone. Summer was surrounded by sharp slices of wood, finishing up while trying to figure out how to bring it down. She had cut into the tree evenly, in order to leave that decision last.
Thock. Thock.
The entire weight of the palm was balanced on a spindle of wood. After one final swing, the tree left off a series of sharp cracking sounds that left Summer skittering for safety. As soon as she decided that the tree was going to stay standing, she carefully walked up to it, put her foot up on it above the cut, and pushed with all her weight.
The first few pushes did nothing, but in a minute, the tree was visibly shaking back and forth. She took the hatchet one last time, put in one last tiny cut, and pushed again. The tree swung one last time, then never came back up. It collapsed with an incredible clamor, its branches ripped away as they caught on neighboring palm, and landed hard enough to make the ground shake.
For a second Summer stood there, looking at the fallen log and the spindle of wood it was once attached to. Then, she giggled and hopped around, clapping her hands.
Summer Roberts had knocked over an entire tree. It had taken from sun-up to lunchtime, but it had only taken her to made a palm tree into firewood. She skipped to where the canopy was, took her hatchet, chopped off the very top, and tore toward the Tongau, tree-tip in one hand, axe in the other.
She ran across the beach, climbed up the stairs, and headed for Jai's office, then decided to wash up quick in the bathroom, taking everything with her. She put everything down in the tub and crossed the room to the sink, passing by the mirror en route.
Her reflection caught the corner of her eye. At first, she blanched–her tank top was soaked in sweat, her face was dusted with dirt, and her hair was in wild tangles. For a second she backed away to the sink, but she turned back. Picking the hatchet and treetop back up, she began to admire herself. Summer posed for no one, positioning herself as she saw fit, until she saw something she liked–looking straight into the glass, the axe and tree-tip crossed over her chest, blocking her face slightly.
A smirk crossed her lips. This is the new Summer, she thought to herself. The old Summer is dead and gone. Here on in, I am a fighter.
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Marissa hugged her legs close to her chest and buried her face into her knees, trying to get away from the pain–though she knew it was impossible. The fires around her would burn forever, and there was no water to put it out. She curled up, then flopped back, lying on the rocket-hot stone ground. She didn't even try to move to a more comfortable position.