I didn’t know what to talk about. Whenever Molly shifted, tiny waves rippled over the edge of the tub. I’d have to mop, later. I thought about putting some towels, but for some reason I thought that might be insulting to Molly, so I just let the water do what it needed to do.

  I told Molly all about my dad. I just… found myself talking. There was some of my mother, too, mostly some moments of how I remember her, which is admittedly an accumulation of false memories I’ve built up over the years, moments based on half-truths that have since grown outward on their own.

  I told Molly about the day I learned my mother had just died in the gas station explosion. I’d been in school. My last period of the day. Commander Bellwood had come to get me out of class. She was actually Principal Bellwood, but we all called her Commander. Not sure why. It was established before my time. She was a taut but cheery woman that I remember as being in her sixties or seventies, but was more likely in her forties. Just a trick of kid perspective.

  I’d been in English class, writing an essay about whales. Commander Bellwood had knocked on the door. She’d talked to the teacher, Ms. Penn. The two of them had looked at me, sitting at my desk, with the sorts of expressions that let you know your life is about to change.

  “How old were you?” Molly asked. She seemed irritated to be asking a question. As if I’d trapped her.

  “Six,” I said. “Almost seven.” Molly didn’t answer, or even show that she’d heard. The faucet in the tub was dripping, making a pok pok ploop sound in the water. I wanted to lean over and do a better job of turning it off, but I didn’t want to lean over Molly again. It felt like it would be a transgression this time.

  So I just talked about my dad. About him being shot in the bar. About how the blurred man had been there. About how I’d gone into the bar a few times as an adult, and how the first time I’d been there I’d ordered a gin and tonic and the bartender had refused any money when I’d tried to pay. I’d refused her offer of the free drink, though, in turn. I knew what she was trying to do, that it was an apology or an acknowledgement of regret, but getting free drinks would’ve felt like blood money in the form of a cocktail. I’d put cash on the bar and said, “He was trying to rob you.” I guess I meant it as an apology from my side. She’d taken it that way. We’ve been cordial, if not warm, ever since. I’d have probably never gone into that bar ever, in the first place, but I’d been with a lanky brunette named Tabby who’d wanted to watch a friend sing at an open mic night. He hadn’t been very good. Tabby enjoyed him. They later married.

  “Hold on,” I told Molly, as if I was interrupting her rather than myself. “Are there dinosaurs in Goncourt?”

  “Some,” Molly answered.

  “Holy shit. I could see a dinosaur. I’ll have to tell Binsa. My sister.”

  “That’s the woman who walked in on me when I was taking a bath?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Your family sure enjoys walking in on me while I’m in the bathtub.”

  “We do. It’s a family tradition. I have an extensive collection of aunts and uncles you’ll be meeting. Fifteen cousins, too. Plus Grandpa, of course.”

  “You looked terrified fighting that giant. You looked stupid.”

  “If I looked terrified when fighting a giant, then I must have looked smart. It’s terrifying to fight a giant.”

  Conversation halted as the door squeaked open. I must not have closed it the whole way. I wondered if it was Gerik or more likely Fridu that was coming inside, but it turned out to be Charles, the cat. The door only opened a few inches before he slinked inside, then he did that thing that cats do, stopping and considering the room and its ramifications. He sauntered over to the tub. Leapt up onto the edge. Pawed at the surface of the water. Made a mewl of displeasure and then climbed back down. Glanced at me and then left.

  “Close the door,” Molly said.

  “Okay,” I told her. I stood and began pushing the door shut, looking to the barbarian woman’s eyes, not sure if I was being allowed to stay. She gave a nod. I closed the door and sat back down on the toilet. Silence stretched for a couple minutes. I was patient. Some things take time.

  “I’m not sure why I enjoy fighting giants,” Molly finally said. I remained silent. There wasn’t anything to say and it was the wrong time for speaking nonsense. She wasn’t crying anymore. The room was warm. The mirror was steamed over. My skin was dappled with moisture.

  “I was fifteen years old the first time I killed a giant,” Molly said, trailing her fingers through the water, looking at the ripples. “I mean, I’d fought giant bugs before. Fuck those things, incidentally. And I’d fought some giant animals. But never, you know, a giant… giant.”

  I nodded. She wasn’t looking at me and wouldn’t notice, but I did it anyway.

  “I was a rookie at the guild. The Adventuring Guild. We’re taking you there tomorrow.” I wanted to ask what she was talking about, but… I’d had a sister, and I knew that while there are times for interruptions, this wasn’t one of them.

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  Molly said, “We were exploring a cave. Not a dungeon. Just a cave. A caravan had gone missing. Six or seven people. The horses. Wasn’t hard to track the culprit. He had big fucking feet. Big fucking footprints.” Molly slooshed her leg from the water and wiggled a foot at me. Water dripped on the floor.

  “So, we were ready for a giant. Or thought we were. Like, you can be ready for something, but not at all prepared, you know?”

  “Kind of?”

  “Well, I’d thought I was ready. But then we were in that cave with the giant. And he was like, some force of nature. It was like being faced with the personification of a storm. That man was akin to an avalanche. Three of us dead in his first attack. And do you know what I was doing?”

  “Hiding?”

  “No. Laughing. I couldn’t help myself. I had a sword and I was cutting at him, using my longsword like some lumberjack felling a tree. He was kicking at me, grabbing for me, and I was rolling and dodging, always another chop with my sword, biting into his legs, and there was this magic-user who’d come along with us. A woman named Trella, barely older than me, and the giant stepped on her. By accident. Didn’t matter to her. She was already dead by then. He’d previously crushed her skull. But the giant was backpedaling from me and then, when his foot came down on Trella’s corpse, he slipped. Fell. I jumped on him. Rode his face. Nothing sexual. I had half my leg plunged down into his mouth. He tried to bite me but I was choking him. I was just… fucking slamming my foot down into his throat. He was coughing and thrashing when I drove my sword deep down through his eye. He let out this bellow that spat me out from his mouth and then he died. I was still laughing.”

  “God damn holy shit,” I said.

  “Can you take your shirt off?” Molly asked. There was a tremble in her voice.

  “Molly?” I said. I wasn’t sure what she was asking.

  “Not… I don’t want you naked, Josh. That’s never going to happen. The… your tattoos. The fox geas. Can I see it?”

  “Oh. Yes.” I took off my shirt. I admit that I sucked in my gut.

  “Closer,” Molly said. Her hand rose from the water, beckoned. I knelt next to the tub. It was impossible not to look at her, so I closed my eyes. It still felt impossible. I felt a light touch on my chest. Her fingers on the fox.

  “My mother had this?” Molly asked. I could hear her shifting in the water.

  “I think so. Yes. She did.”

  “She must have been so scared. Are… are you scared, Josh?”

  “I’m fucking terrified.” Her fingers left my chest. Then her touch was on my arm. Her whole hand was wet. I swallowed deeply. I thought of Gerik and Fridu outside that door, and I wondered what they were thinking.

  “You did pretty good getting to the bottom of that dungeon,” Molly said. Her words were as gentle as the sounds of the water whenever she shifted. In the near silence of the bathroom, her every move caused trickles and waves, with tiny splashes against the hand I had braced on the side of the tub. Molly’s fingers traced the edges of my fox tattoos. She was sniffling. But it was moist in the bathroom. Maybe it was nothing more than that.

  “That dungeon already feels like a dream,” I told Molly, keeping my eyes closed. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want this talk to become about a naked woman in a bathtub. I didn’t come into the bathroom for that. It was nothing more than an obstacle.

  “Everything feels like a dream at some point,” Molly said. “It felt like a dream that first day I saw you, carrying those boxes up the stairs. I knew it was you. The boy my mother had always told me about. I wanted to say something, but I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Of course. The truth is, I’ve spent most of my life thinking of teaming up with you. I built you into some incredible warrior. Why else would Mom have spent so much time with you? And then I saw you and, I suppose I was worried that I’d be disappointed. That you’d be some, uh . . .” Her words trailed away.

  “Zero level dweeb?” I said.

  “Shit,” Molly answered. “Yes. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I didn’t want to be in the bathroom anymore. The air was hot and damp and felt wrong in my lungs.

  “You need to understand something, Josh,” Molly said. I didn’t say anything. I just waited. I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to look at her. I wanted to leave.

  She said, “I meant what I said. It was a good job you did, making it to the bottom of that dungeon. I wouldn’t have thought you could do it. I wouldn’t have thought any zero-level person could walk into that dungeon and then make it back out. You did it. And you know what else you did?”

  “Just about shit myself thirty times?”

  “Don’t joke. You walked inside this bathroom while I was crying and you made me feel better. That’s not a small thing.”

  “Well… I had to. Because when you cry, that’s not a small thing, either.”

  Her fingers were on my arm again. Tracing the fox tattoo. Around and around. I heard the water shifting again and then Molly’s lips were on my cheek. A simple kiss. Nothing more. I could hear her slipping back into the water. I felt the ripples of the overflowing water breaching the side of the tub, minuscule waves against my fingers, a few splashes against the knee I had on the floor.

  “Go away, now, Josh Hester,” she said. There was no anger in her voice, but we were done. I nodded, eyes closed, and stood. I opened my eyes and looked down at her. She was an incredible woman. She frightened me in many ways. Some of them bad. Some of them good.

  She raised an eyebrow at what she probably assumed was my leer, but she was only a little bit right. She laughed and gestured to the door with a flick of her fingers that splashed water on my chest. I went to the door and had my hand on the knob. I even turned it a little before I stopped and looked back over my shoulder.

  “I know why you like fighting giants,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. It’s because for once, the looming dread is tangible. I think you’ve lived a fair piece of your life with an invisible mountain of tension and fear, with a feeling that something monstrous is going to crush you. Like a mountain that moves a little closer every time you close your eyes or turn your back. And that first time you fought a giant, that first time you saw one, you thought ‘Aha, now here’s that fucker I’ve been waiting for, and I can finally ram my sword through his fucking eyes and be done with him.’ I think you feel the same way most people do, that the feeling of waiting for something terrible is much worse than actually fighting something terrible, because when you’re waiting, you’re helpless, but when you’re fighting, you’re taking control again.”

  Molly stared at me the whole time I was speaking. Her expression never changed. She barely moved. There were only one or two ripples in the water, caused by nothing more than the rise and fall of her breath, or even the beating of her heart. I could feel my own heart beating, too. I wondered if it was sending ripples in the air around me, unseen waves, swirling with emotion.

  Finally, Molly said, “Go away now, Josh Hester.”

  This time, I did.