Artemis raised her head from the table. “Where are the zombies?”

“Patience,” Ares told her. “Next round.”

“You’re the one who drew the rain card,” Hades reminded Artemis.

She groaned, rolled her eyes, gave him a pointed almost seductive look and then poked her tongue out at him.

At the look, Hades blue fiery hair tinged a faint orange.

Ares narrowed his eyes at them, then glanced suspiciously at Aphrodite, who was rearranging her cards for the 100th time and paying the rest of them no mind.

“Are you going to roll then? Artemis probed Ares.

Ares rolled a three.

“That’s less than last time,” remarked Hades.

“But we’re up a level now,” Artemis reminded him. “Each card can do worse.”

Ares drew three cards from one of several decks and lay them face up on the table.

“What have we got?” Aphrodite asked curiously, looking up from the cards in her hand.

Artemis grinned. “Runners.”

Casey was up early the next morning. She stood in front of the large silver-backed mirror once more. She turned herself sideways and sucked in her stomach. Dissatisfied she sighed. She moved closer to the mirror and picked up her hairbrush. She gave it several soft strokes and then paused to stare sadly at the light-coloured strands which her brush had pulled from her head. Had there been more of them lately? Was she losing her hair? Her mind wandered fretfully to think of those balding creatures that wandered the wasteland with no purpose and nothing but an insatiable hunger driving them onward. She stared at the mirror, her gaze not quite seeing what she should.

She put the brush down and reached up to braid her hair. As her eyes met those of her reflection she paused, recalling her mothers words from yesterday. She dropped her eyes and turned to go from the room.

She was halfway to the door when she stopped. She returned once more to the mirror, a stubborn look on her face. She straightened out her frown and then she reached up and plaited one braid, only a few small strands, a tiny speck of defiance, nothing complex like yesterday, but it made her happy. It made her feel like herself.

Figuring she had time to spare before they called for her to help with breakfast, Casey slipped downstairs and into the back room.

Casey liked the back room. The men often played poker there in the evenings but during the day it was deliciously abandoned. It was where Billy sometimes left her new books, beneath two loose boards of the floor in the corner. It was also sunny, the only room apart from the kitchen that wasn’t permanently boarded up.

Not only that though, this room had the best artwork. Just the one painting, but it was Casey’s favorite. A very large painting of naked woman standing in the sea, a goddess. Unlike the violent and sharply drawn paintings that predominately decorated the hallway, the painting in here was softer, more sensual. The brushstrokes were rounder, the colours blended without defined edges. Casey liked to touch the painting, to run her fingers over the bumps and valleys in the brushstrokes. It felt smooth and varied all at once. An intriguing landscape she could see even when she closed her eyes. With practiced familiarity and a serene smile she traced the soft outline of the figure in the painting.

Casey was so consumed with the painting and the feel of it that she did not notice the grey eyes watching her through the window.

Casey shifted her weight and a floorboard creaked.

From out in the hallway a voice called, “Casey, is that you? What are you doing in there? You’re not looking at that lewd fat woman again?”

Casey stepped into the hall with her hands clasped before her, her fingers intertwining anxiously. In a quiet voice she spoke. “It’s not lewd mama, it’s art.”

“Mmm, that’s what your father says. Come help me with the breakfast child.”

Casey followed her into the kitchen where the cook was just getting out some frying pans.

It was not long after that Dodge entered the kitchen through the back door.

Casey had turned to reach for a chopping board and there was Dodge, standing only inches away.

“Good morning,” Dodge remarked with such a genuine smile, that Casey’s knees felt weak.

“Good morning,” Casey replied, with her chin dropped shyly, she looked up at the slightly taller woman through eyelashes.

Without warning Dodge suddenly reached out and gently touched the small braid in Casey’s hair. “Pretty,” she remarked, then she let it drop softly back.

Casey was filled with warmth from head to toe. She felt a blush creeping into her cheeks and she hoped Dodge would not notice.

From behind her, Casey could hear her mother tut-tutting at the compliment.

But Dodge very smoothly turned and in an overly polite and confident tone, spoke directly to Faith, “I’ve come to offer my assistance with the breakfast preparations. Is there anything you’d like me to do?”

The offer and it’s tone defused and unarmed Casey’s mother completely. She blinked a few times in surprise and then nodded. She pointed at a bucket on the kitchen table. “You can start peeling potatoes.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Casey stood beside Dodge, taking the peeled potatoes and cutting them into chunks. She wanted to talk to Dodge but everything she thought to ask just sounded silly.

Luckily for Casey, Dodge had no trouble striking up a conversation, and soon all of Casey’s fear was replaced with wonder and curiosity instead.

Dodge had asked about some of the art in the house and Casey had explained how her father had come by it through various traders who had stayed at the inn. Dodge had then asked her what her favorite piece was, but Casey, too shy to admit the truth, had mentioned the painting in the ground floor hallway, the one which depicted several strange but pretty fruits.

“The pineapples?” queried Dodge.

Casey nodded.

“You know, they’re much more yellow in real life than you’d expect.”

Casey’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen one? A real one?”

Dodge nodded. She tilted her chin up slightly as her gaze wandered skyward in memory. A smile tugged at her lips. “We even used them as weapons once when I was down south, in a last ditch fight against the undead. We had to hide up some trees and...”

Dodge continued the story, but Casey barely heard the words, she was so focused on watching the woman talk. The way her throat moved, and the corners of her mouth twitched upward as she spoke, so full of life. She imagined some of what Dodge said but a lot of it got lost too. Then Dodge asked her a question.

Casey blinked “Huh?”

Nearby, her mother scoffed. “Daydreaming again.”

Dodge didn’t seem so bothered by Casey’s lapse in attention though. Instead she asked, “What do you daydream about?”

Faith answered for her. “Daydreaming is a waste of time. Only fools and children engage in such activities.”

Casey dropped her eyes, returning back to focus on the food preparation, thinking the conversation done.

Dodge had other ideas. “Oh, I don’t think so at all. Do you know what they dream in the mountains? They dream of building a fortress so large it can surround an entire town. Completely defensible against the undead. Sounds impossible, but you know what? Before I left there I saw them start to build it. It seemed like they were actually getting somewhere. But for anything to be accomplished, it must first be dreamed. Dreams are just ideas that have yet to be refined. And even the silly ones sometimes have more merit than you think.”

Casey’s mother tut-tutted but she said no more.

Once no one else was looking, Dodge gave Casey a wink.

Casey could feel that blush all the way down to her feet. In her stomach, butterflies flapped their pretty wings. Her entire soul was a storm.

After breakfast, Dodge disappeared again, and given her horse wasn’t in the paddock, Casey figured she’d gone riding somewhere. Clean-up after breakfast took some time given all the extra guests they had from the supply wagon. Dodge didn’t return for lunch, and Casey started to worry she’d left town completely, even though the rest of the supply wagon guests were still here. She asked one of the newcomers how long they were likely to stay for and he’d replied, “A few days at most, depends how trading goes.”

She ran into Billy in the hall, on her way upstairs. “I’ve left you another book,” he whispered after a quick check to see there was no one nearby. “Just let me know when you’re done reading it and I’ll swap it for another. I bought a bunch from the traders and I haven’t read that one yet.”

Casey thanked him and then slipped into the back room to see what new treasure he had left her. The title on the cover read, ‘Jason and the Golden Fleece.’ Casey tucked it into the folds of her skirts and then retreated it upstairs. She hid it under her mattress. Although she longed to open it now, she dare not risk it. Even with the door shut, she had this tendency when reading to completely lose track of time and her mother had asked her to pick up some cotton fabric from the store this afternoon. She couldn’t afford to forget.

She glanced out at the sky. The rain had not lasted even half the night and today the sky was clear and blue once more. She moved across the floor of her room to her mirror. If she was to go out to the store she needed to make sure she was presentable.

Her gaze was drawn first to her braid, the one Dodge had called pretty. Thinking back on it, Casey smiled. But then, as she studied the rest of herself, she sighed and frowned. She leaned in closer, tilting her chin this way and that, trying to see if a different perspective would improve things at all.

“That thing will eat you alive if you stare too long.”

“What?” Casey jumped at the sound of the voice. She spun to face the doorway to her room. Dodge was back, leaning against the door frame, hat tilted down over one eye. The woman smiled, a smile that pulled at Casey, and then, without another word, she turned and left.

Casey stared at the empty space in the doorway, with the distinctive feeling that she was standing on the precipice of some cliff, and one step forward could send her careening down a slope with no knowledge of what lay at the bottom. Or she could turn away and be left safe but forever lost in longing. Without even one glance back at the mirror, she took a step forward and she followed Dodge down the stairs.

Dodge didn’t stop until they were outside and a little away from the house, near a small strand of trees and wild shrubbery, not far from the paddocks.

“What did you mean by that?” Casey asked curiously, as Dodge turned to look at her with a smile.

“Just that there are more important things than looks you know?”

“Like what?”

Dodge approached her and stopped inches from Casey. “Like...” Dodge hesitated and then she smiled. “Like being strong, and fast, and smart, and kind, and...”

Dodge was muscular, and sort of masculine in a way, what with those broad shoulders and square jaw. But there was also a softness to her. Her cheeks were round, almost chipmunk like, and when she smiled, Casey liked the way they curved gently over her cheekbones. Her lips were full and plump. For a moment Casey imagined kissing them, and then realising what she was thinking, she blushed a deep pink. What a thing to think. Inside her chest her heart beat like a rabbit and she started to question why she’d come out here at all.

Dodge frowned. “Maybe it’s not my place to say, but you don’t seem very happy here.”

Casey took a surprised step backward, feeling as if someone had just seen her naked. She shook her head angrily. Her hands balled into tiny fists. Quietly she replied, “You’re right, it isn’t.”

Dodge, sensing she had gone too far, nodded and turned toward the nearby fence that surrounded the horse paddock. She leaned her arms over it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business.”

With Dodge’s back to her, Casey got the sense she could walk away if she wanted, retreat back to safety, yet something kept her standing where she was. Instead of turning back to the saloon like a good girl, she asked, “Where did you go?”

Dodge turned back to her surprised. “Where did I go?”

Casey nodded, curiosity overruling all other emotions, calming the storm in her stomach. “This morning. You weren’t here for lunch.”

Dodge nodded, understanding the question now. “I went to scope out the nearby area. Plan ahead, figure out where those things are most likely to come from.”

“For when you lead the caravan to the next town?”

“Well, maybe, but also maybe not. They won’t be going much further before they start heading south again, and I want to head further inland eventually, back to the mountains. I thought I might stay here awhile. Seems like this town’s had a few more attacks than the other places recently. Maybe I can help, at least for a bit. I was trying to figure out where they came from. If there was any pattern to their movements. This seemed as good a place as any. You’re kind of like the centre of the storm.”

At those last words, Casey had the distinct impression that Dodge was no longer talking about the undead creatures that roamed the world. Their eyes met. Casey could see that Dodge’s eyes were grey, overcast, like the sky just before it rained.

They stood there facing each other, neither saying a word, and then something rustled in the bush nearby. Both girls turned their heads toward the sound.