"That's what I was going to use for your stitches." Digging deeper, I found a small bottle of super glue. A shy grin escaped as I nodded slowly to myself. "It's okay, I have an adhesive."
"Now I know what to get the girl who has nothing for Christmas. You do celebrate Christmas, don't you?"
"Of course. And I would think you might be a little more relieved that you won't be bleeding out in the middle of the woods. At least, not today."
"Yeah, that would be a total seven wouldn't it?"
Being so close to this stranger who had a joke or smart comment for everything was unnerving. He fought to laugh at anything, regardless of the nature of the situation, rather than fighting the situation itself. I had never been this close to a Privileged for such an extended period. If they were all this unreasonable, how had their villages not returned to the dust of the earth years ago?
The gauze shifted between my fingers as I rushed to beat the dying sunset's final rays. I'd hate to waste my last wax candle. I needed it later. Being so high in the trees did have its perks, like that extra stretch of light every evening. It might not seem like a lot, but it mattered. Every second of daylight mattered.
"Lean your head back," I requested. Rising on my knees, I applied the glue and held the edges of his skin together as it dried. "This is only temporary. You need real stitches." Squinting, I noticed a series of scars running down his arm, and a few scattering his chest. They had been cloaked in blood earlier. Without thinking, I tugged him forward tenderly, my right hand cradling his head toward the fold of my arm. More scars graced his back in an artful dance. He sat quietly, allowing the inspection, neither looking put out or flippant.
"You really know how to mess yourself up. You didn't need my help."
He shrugged, immediately regretting it.
I grabbed the bandages. He would need fresh dressing again in the morning, so I tried to ration what I would need and applied the rest.
"It doesn't bother me." His voice floated into the twilight, surrounding me as I cleaned up around us.
"What, pain?"
"Yeah. It's just pain."
"Spoken by somebody who isn't faced with it on a daily basis. You have the luxury of hiding behind your walls whenever you'd like."
It was his turn to shake his head. "Pain is necessary. You can read it like a book. You can follow the world in a current, not here, not there, but in this place of existence that pulls aside all obstacles for you to see for miles. Years. Millennia." He wasn't sure if I was grasping his explanation. One he perhaps hadn't cared to explain to anyone before. There was a silent satisfaction to his efforts, though. Enough to keep going. "Don't you find a rhythm to pain? It's like learning how to read. Once you do, you always see it. Seek it out on occasion, because you want to understand…everything."
Pondering his words, I was silent for many seconds before noting, "That's what we need to understand about each other. You seek it out like knowledge. I live in its pages, making up the words with each step I take. I can't see it as you do."
"Maybe you will," he replied, eyes closed, unfazed by my pragmatic approach.
"Maybe I won't." My tone was harsh in comparison.
"Maybe you won't," he agreed too easily. I knew he was struggling not to smile.
"You really do need to have that looked at soon. It's beyond what I'm capable of repairing."
His head bowed, trying to inspect my handiwork, although he was only left staring at the bandages. "You seem to know what you're doing."
Vehemently, I shook my head. "Oh, no, I'm completely guessing. I've never had to put anyone I've stabbed back together."
His jaw dropped open, the wheels in his brain trying to decide if I was being honest or giving him a dose of his own teasing.
"So, not a field EMT," he muttered.
"A what?"
Digging through a small pile of folded clothes, I was able to find a suitable replacement shirt. It was blue, and not half as soft as his previous shirt, but it would be warm. That was more important, I noted to myself, tossing it across the room. He caught it.
"You need to clean your arm," he noted.
He was right. The cut from the marauder wasn't deep at all, but a ragged incision could easily become infected. I dampened a small portion of a rag with alcohol and wiped it carefully up my arm before patting it dry.
"Aren't you going to wrap it?"
"It doesn't need it," I lied. We needed to conserve the gauze for him, and I had no other bandages.
Replacing the box of supplies to their rightful spots, I carried the bucket into the bathroom and closed the door behind me, taking a moment to freshen up. The water in the bucket had been spoiled by blood droplets. It would have looked pink if I could have seen it over the static of night filling the room. Without hesitation, I used the rest of the water to wash away any blood that had transferred to my skin, though I had to dry-brush my teeth. I would dump the water out in the morning.
I loosened my sleek hair from the long braid, allowing it to swish over my shoulders. The deep brown strips tickled my nose as I used the horse brush to chase away any tangles. I had come across an abandoned horse barn a while back, which proved to be a great find. That's where I collected the buckets, brush, blankets, and rain boots. I had promptly cut the calves off the boots and glued the rubber together to make a water scoop for my rain barrel.
It took little more than a handful of breaths before I re-braided my hair and found myself leaning against the door, rubbing the wood grain lightly beneath my fingertips, listening. Was he moving around? Was he waiting to ambush me on the other side of the door? Had he fallen asleep?
Cracking open the door, I could hear irregular breathing on the other side of the room, right where I had left him.
"Are you there?" He tried not to sound panicky.
"I'm right here. Do you need to use the bathroom?" My voice floated on darkness.
"No."
I sensed his anxiety before gliding effortlessly through the room, closing the distance between us. I was used to the darkness. Returning to where I had been sitting beside him before, I asked, "Are you okay?"
"Mm-hmm."
There was more fear brimming in those two sounds than he had shown all day.
Sitting with my back to the wall beside him, I whispered, "It's okay, it's only the night."
Silence surrounded us until an owl hooted in the distance.
In a low tone, he shared, "I don't remember a time when a light wasn't at my fingertips. An oil lamp. A flashlight. A candle. Sitting here, I'm helpless."
"With a strange woman." I wasn't mocking him, honest. It must have been like waking up on a different planet, not understanding the rules of how to survive the day.
He struggled a bit to sit up, trying not to move his shoulder too quickly.
"The way you move through the darkness so silently, like you're part of it… I've never known someone who could do that."
Of course, I felt responsible for his feelings of displacement. It was my fault he was even here.
In a hushed tone, I tried to explain, "I only have one candle and I can't light it just yet. If we remain quiet and the room stays dark, we can hear everything below and no one will see that we're up here unless we want them to."
"We're in the middle of the woods," he pointed out.
"Exactly." I pulled my knees into my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs. "Never forget, the woods are dangerous. There is no open space to run fast. There are sinkholes and mountain lions, not to mention marauders, and sometimes the sick. To live here, to stay alive, you hide or fight. And if the sick come, you run."
Clearing his throat, he asked, "Are there a lot of them, the sick?"
"Sometimes."
"So we're hiding here?"
"No. But we are safe from them here."
I hoped he understood, on some level. I wasn't sure how much he believed me, but it was important for him to hear and remember, in case he found himself alone.
> "Nothing is stopping you from leaving while I sleep. But if you run, you will die soon after. From your own mistakes, or perhaps starvation, dehydration, violence. Or worse, the sickness."
It was odd having to explain common knowledge. Never having spent a lot of time with a Privileged, I had to assume he knew next to nothing about the free lands.
As our voices drifted on the air, disembodied, I found it was easier to speak openly without eyes of judgment or, worse, pity. Without a face to answer to, I could have listened to his voice forever, talked to him forever, and that bothered me. What I did on a daily basis was dangerous. And people weren't only complicated, they were, by nature, complications.
Stretching my legs beside him, I turned my head, trying to trace his silhouette under the window. His chin was prominent without seeming bold, and his wavy hair brushed his eyelashes. Uncertainty made him appear years younger, though it would be fatal to assume he was harmless. I already knew that wasn't true.
"I brought you here. I'm responsible for you. And I'm asking you not to harm me."
"Does that work well? Asking potentially violent people not to harm you? Asking for a friend."
I admitted, "Sometimes," ignoring his misplaced humor. "Are you potentially violent?"
"Aren't we all?' When I failed to answer, he slowly questioned, "If I were?"
"Your day would turn into a ten."
"And yours?"
After a moment of thought, I disclosed, "It would still be a two."
"I won't harm you, says the man you stabbed." He laughed a little, though it felt more like he was masking discomfort caused by my answer.
"Thank you. Now rest, or it will be a long night."
"Here?" He sounded incredulous. "On the floor?" Without a second beat, he corrected his blunder. "Damn, that sounded irritating, even to me. There isn't anything to use as a bed?"
"We're sitting on my bed. You've been bleeding on it for quite some time."
"Oh."
"Here." I shoved the colorful horse blanket to his chest. "I'll move over so you can lie down."
"That's unnecessary."
I sighed with frustration. "You need to stretch out or your muscles will lock up."
"It's October, we're sleeping under an open window, and I've lost blood. We need to huddle together, combine our body heat."
His insight was surprising. He was entirely right. My guilt had driven me to act gracious rather than practical. Secretly, I was relieved. Cold nights were the longest, and it had been a long time since I had someone to warm me.
"You're right," was all I said as I stretched the blanket over our legs.
"Should I say a thank you prayer for blood loss? Without it, we might be freezing our asses off in opposite corners of this treehouse."
I didn't answer. Remaining on his injured side, I felt I had the upper hand if he tried anything in the night. Though it was not the most comfortable position, leaning against the wall, side-by-side, I could already feel the entirety of my left half warming against his muscles. My cheek hovered at the swell of his shoulder, close enough to feel his heat on my face without adding pressure to the wounded area below his collarbone.
Sleep roared over my tired bones, threatening to claim every thought.
My hostage's voice was sluggish, as if he were feeling the effects of our combined warmth, as well, when he whispered, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I muttered, practically incoherent.
My forehead finally slid to rest gently against his shoulder. I wanted to move it, tilt it away. I wanted to be embarrassed by how much I was enjoying this luxury that so many in the villages took for granted. In another life, maybe I would. As it were, luxuries were near impossible to come by so I would allow myself this one.
"I'm sorry for yelling," he whispered. "From the antiseptic. It caught me off guard."
"It's okay. I understand yelling."
Softly, he asked, "What's your name?" before my muscles relaxed into him completely.
I fell asleep with his question unanswered. The nothingness claimed us both.
It seemed like days had hardened to centuries as I dreamed. Bare toes dug beneath hot sand, sinking into the cool, wet sand below. It crunched and squeaked as I balled it under my feet, playing with it, creating patterns. I knew this beach well in my dream. The clouds rolled overhead, thick and dark, foreshadowing rain that never fell. The water lapped at the shore with the force of an imposing Greek God. And the noises intensified, slapping and splashing until they grew into one roar, bellowing for me to notice them.
I startled, sitting upright. My eyelids felt heavy and unforgiving, dry with grit.
I turned to my hostage. He hadn't moved. As the unwelcome idea that he had perished flushed my thoughts, I frantically checked his pulse. Bu-boom, space, space, bu-boom, space, space, bu-boom, space, space. It was strong and surprisingly peaceful.
Taking a deep breath, I stood, silently leaning out the window.
A shadowy figure was tossing rocks at my house.
Chapter Three
The third basket was descending my pulley system on the porch when I heard my unwanted house guest rustling inside. A candle flickered on the countertop, skewing his shadow across the walls. Even outside, I could appreciate the larger-than-life projection. I'm sure he wished he was that imposing.
Shuffling across the floor, I could see the stiffness in his body struggling for relief. There would be none, of course. He was used to a real mattress. A pillow, even. His body would surely be screaming at him, not to mention his wound. Honestly, my own bones were creaking when I first woke. Our tussle at the guardhouse accounted for many aches and bruises.
"Are you out here?"
"Shhh…" Holding up a hand, I motioned for him to stay inside. I called down lightly to three thin figures, "One more," as I hauled up the basket on the end of the line and hooked it in place.
I met my stranger at the door, having to shoo him out of my way.
"What are you doing? Are they trying to come up?"
He was rubbing his eyes, trying to shove away the sleep he so desperately needed.
Shifting a few items around inside one of the cabinets, I stacked canned tomatoes, a thick roll of twine, a pair of socks, and a jar crammed with thread, needles, and multi-colored buttons in my arms.
"If you give them things, they'll only come back."
"That's the point," I said, fighting a smile as I walked to the door. "Sit down. I'll explain when I'm done."
It only took a few minutes to pile the items into the basket and send them smoothly down the line to the waiting hands below.
Once they loaded the goods, I called down, "More at the full moon."
A light, "Thank Her," could be heard as they rushed away, disappearing into the darkness.
"Thank Her?" my hostage questioned, standing outside the door. "They make you sound like a god."
I shook my head and said, "Come inside," after I secured the basket to its place on the railing. When he wouldn't follow, I tugged the elbow of his good arm on my way by. "It's cold. Come inside."
"I need answers."
When he refused to move, I walked to the far end of the room and stood by the candle. Wax had dripped into a mound, threatening to outgrow the leftover cylinder any moment. "I'm blowing this out. Do you want to be inside or outside when that happens?"
Practically moaning his protest, he walked inside and shut the door, not forgetting to wrap the twine around the nails. Not as tightly as I preferred, but I wasn't about to be that particular in the middle of the night.
Once he sat back down, I blew out the candle.
"Thank you for shutting the door."
"Who were they?"
He refused to let me dodge another question with sweetness. I sat down on a stool in front of him.
"People in need."
"Were they sick?"
"No, just people living in the free lands. Like me."
"Do you make it a habit of giving away
your provisions?"
I nodded, aggravated by his barrage of judgment. When I realized he couldn't see me, I said, "Of course. It's what I do. Give, trade, barter."
He inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Outside of your clan?" He accepted my silence as a yes. "Does everyone break the law every time they turn around or just you?"
"Just me, so far as I know, but I'm not at liberty to speak for someone else's deeds."
"Only your own damning offenses."
Fighting down my growing exasperation with this man's narrow world views, I spat, "This is what I do. I help clans. I help people. Sometimes I help the sick." He gasped, but I continued. "You are a collector, and I'm sure you're good at it. Mediocre, at least. It's what you do. This is what I do."
"Other than kidnapping."
The edge in his voice conjured a fury inside me that had been dormant for quite some time. I stood and kicked the stool as hard as I was able. It rocketed through the room, thumping to a halt in the corner.
"You are no one to accuse me!" My jaw tightened as I paced back and forth. "I'll take you home soon enough, where you can sit on your perch and judge a world you know absolutely nothing about! Meanwhile, we'll keep dying."
"Look, I didn't ask-"
"You didn't ask to be here, but you're here now. So open your eyes. See that our hearts have to sing louder than faceless men in cages. Because…" I stopped to breathe, to calm down. "Because we make our own hope." Walking through the darkness, I grabbed the stool. Regret fluttered through my heart as my hands ran along each leg, checking for breaks. It had withstood my wrath. Sitting it right side up, the swell of anger had receded as I confessed, "I would rather give everything I am than have everything I need. That's why my cabinets are empty. Someone needed it more. Those people down there, they needed that hope more."
Quiet for the first time, I was unsure what to do next. I refused to apologize, no matter how mildly embarrassed I was for my outburst. It was hard to gauge what he thought as I couldn't see him. It wouldn't be morning for quite some time. I'm sure the horrors of my words would grow spikes and prick his senses time and again before the sun rose.
What would he think of me then?
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