by Lish McBride
“This is Sid, Ikka, Ava, Ezra, and the little one is Olive. We got into a bit of a scrape earlier and could use some help. Everyone, this is Grandma Rose.”
Grandma Rose shooed away the last of the dryads except for Lock’s mom before she had Lock lay Olive down on what looked suspiciously like a medical table. It was padded, but also vinyl—easy to wipe down. “Pertinents, dear,” Rose said as she examined Olive’s face.
“The girl is a were-hare—she usually has fast healing abilities but met up with some sort of vodyanoy. I’d never seen ones like these. They spit acid or poison or something. It seems to be interfering.”
“Yes, it does look rather corrosive, doesn’t it?” She checked the girl’s pulse and listened to her heart with a stethoscope. “Sit her up, please.”
Lock pulled Olive up gently and carefully grasped her chin, pulling her mouth open. Grandma Rose helped Olive drink a thick liquid that we were informed was for the pain. After most of it had made it down, Olive gagging and choking out the rest, Lock laid her back down on the table. Grandma Rose had Lock hold Olive down on one side while Ikka took the other.
“I’ve got to clean the wound. The corrosive is inhibiting her natural abilities. But if I clean it and salve it, she’ll be right as rain in the morning.”
“In the morning?” I asked before I could stop myself, which earned me a hard glare from the old woman.
“You have something more important than healing this little one, missy?”
My first impulse was to say yes, because Cade was the center of my wobbly universe, and we were hemorrhaging time. But there was nothing I could do for Cade right now. The drove was looking for him, our message was delivered—if Venus showed up at my home in the meantime, the drove would let us know. I had to put my fear aside and help Olive.
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I just need to warn some friends is all.” That seemed to pacify her for the moment. She got everything ready—various liquids and ointments and gauze, then she gave everyone one last look. “Now, this is going to hurt, even with what I gave her. But I have to do it, understand?” Ikka and Sid nodded, though Ikka bit her lip as she did so. “Okay, then. Hold her steady.”
I don’t know what she used to clean the wound, but Olive screamed. Lock and Ikka fought to hold the little girl down as her body twisted and jumped underneath them. Ezra pinned her ankles, trying to keep her from moving. Sid took one of Olive’s hands, then squatted down so he could be closer to her ear and started murmuring reassurances to her. She calmed, though it was obvious she was still hurting.
I wanted to help. Everyone else was helping. But what could I do? I’d never spent much time around children. Okay, barring a few following their parents into the bookstore, I’d never spent any time with children. But I liked Olive, and she was hurt because of me. I reached for her hand, hesitated, and moved back. Angela watched me, and I was reminded of a cat keeping an eye on the mouse to see what it would do next. Grandma Rose snorted, grabbed my hand, and set in on top of Olive’s. “It helps more than you know,” she murmured, but it had the ring of a reprimand.
After the wound was cleaned, Grandma Rose applied a thick ointment to Olive’s face. Sid eyed it warily. “That looks like Neosporin, but with … things in it.”
The old woman shrugged. “Similar, I suppose. It will keep the skin pliant while she heals.” Grandma Rose started putting away her tools, some of them going into a sink for cleaning. “Rest—that’s what she needs now.” She ordered Lock to carry the girl into a small guest room. The room held several cots and was painted a soft lilac color. The sheets were clean, and the blankets were cozy-looking quilts, but I knew a hospital room when I saw one. After Olive was tucked in and Ikka promised to stay with her until she was asleep, Rose ordered us back into her operating room. Sid and Lock still needed attention, now that Olive was taken care of.
Grandma Rose cleaned, then sutured in Lock’s case and bandaged in Sid’s, talking only when she needed to order one of the boys to stop moving or when she needed me to fetch something. I don’t like being ordered about, but it felt good to be doing something. It felt good to heal for once.
When everything was done, Sid went outside to call in and report—and to tell Les that we weren’t going to be at my house until the next day. Hopefully Venus wouldn’t rush to take our bait. Lock went to bring our stuff in, since we’d be bunking with Rose for the night. When he got back, we realized that Ezra had disappeared.
Lock was pissed. “I specifically told him not to. Stupid fox—”
Angela cut him off. “You brought a fox into his habitat and told him not to be a fox? Who are you calling stupid, exactly?”
“But—”
Angela patted his cheek, smiling at his expression of chagrin. “I will tell the girls to keep an eye on him. We’ll keep him out of trouble.”
“Or get him into it,” Lock mumbled after she left. Then he carried our stuff deeper into the cottage without another word.
I stayed behind in the workroom to see if there was anything more I could help with.
Grandma Rose set me to work with some natural disinfectant, water, and a cloth. Everything had to be cleaned, but the dryads wouldn’t let her bring bleach into the cabin. The silence stretched between us as I worked, the bite of the cleaner wafting its way into my nose.
“Are they going to be okay?” I finally asked.
“Yes, if they can manage to stay out of trouble. The weres heal well, but they don’t always listen.” She opened a drawer full of bandages, needles, and assorted medical stock so she could put away the items she hadn’t used.
I handed her the bottle of cleaner and the cloth, and she handed me a mop and a bucket of water. From the smell of it, the water contained the same stuff. “‘Trouble’ meaning me?”
Grandma Rose harrumphed. “Hares will make trouble. Love to tussle, those ones. Foxes? Worse.” She dumped her rinsed tools into a plastic tub to soak before they went into a small whirring machine that she’d informed me was an autoclave. Then she turned my way, assessing me as she dried her hands on a towel. “But you need to be careful what opportunities you present to them. Always think what you ask of people, what you’re really asking them to do for you, before you tempt them with it. That goes for weres, and for others, too.”
I knew she meant Lock. If Grandma Rose had known anything about me, she’d have known that I didn’t really need a lecture on collateral damage. I was an expert. Or was I? I looked at the soaking tools, the water slightly pink from blood, at the crimson pile of used gauze already turning brown from time and oxygen. Had I really thought about what I was asking of Lock? Of the drove? No, I hadn’t. Just like I hadn’t really thought of what I was asking of Ryan merely by spending time with him. Suddenly it was too much. I managed to get the mop in the vicinity of the bucket before I rushed outside, away from Rose’s suffocating accusations.
14
IF I’M GOING TO GO THROUGH HELL, THERE SHOULD AT LEAST BE SOME BACON
I’D LIKE TO SAY I just needed a breath of fresh air and some time to collect myself. That would have been nice. I would have enjoyed being calm and collected when Lock eventually found me—a pretty picture amongst a few brave fireflies willing to shake their stuff this evening. Maybe I could have been sitting underneath some sort of weeping willow looking every inch a brave, though conflicted, heroine. Instead, Lock found me sobbing uncontrollably into the mossy floor around a rather gnarled oak tree, and I’m almost positive that my swollen eyes and runny nose did not a pretty picture make. Plus, I had dirt on my face.
Lock nudged me until I was mostly propped up against the trunk. He handed me a handkerchief, which I immediately befouled by blowing my nose. “How did you know to bring a handkerchief?” I asked with a hiccup. Even though I wasn’t crying anymore, my body wasn’t quite done with the whole sobbing/spasming thing yet.
“Grandma Rose has that effect on people,” he said, lowering himself down to join me under the tree.
&nbs
p; “She’s right,” I said. “I’m endangering all of you, and it’s not okay. This should be my battle—not yours. Not Olive’s. That girl should be at home playing with dolls and, I don’t know, making cookies or something.”
“Please, it’s Olive. She’d be home picking pockets and sharpening her knife collection.”
I laughed, suddenly and surprised, spitting a little as I did. So attractive. Since Lock’s handkerchief was absolutely disgusting, I had to use the edge of my shirt to finish cleaning off my face. I supposed I should have been embarrassed, but really, Lock had seen me at my absolute worst. What was a little dirt and mucus?
“What, exactly, did Rose say?”
I recited the short conversation for him. He considered it, watching the fireflies in front of him. They liked Lock and kept swooping closer, until I could see his face in the flashes of their light. “She’s both right and wrong, you know. Yes, it’s your fight, but please don’t try to tell me it’s not mine, too. How many nights have I joined you guys for movie night? I spend more time with Cade that I do with my mom, Aves. He’s family. I’m going to be part of this whether you want me to or not. So deal with it.”
“But—”
He shushed me with a wave of his hand. “As for the drove, c’mon—Venus put a hit out on Duncan. Even if they didn’t like you, they’d damn well fight to get Venus back for that. They can’t just let her come in and kill the guy they’re protecting. Besides what it would do to their reputation, I think they consider Duncan to be one of their own. No way they’re sitting idly by, especially since they’d lose their home if they lost Duncan. As for Ez, I’m sure if anyone but us asked him, he’d lie and say he was doing it for kicks. But we both know that’s all show. We’re a team. We’re family. It doesn’t really matter what title you put on it, the meaning is the same. You’re in trouble, we’re all in trouble. If the situation were reversed, you’d be doing the exact same thing. So, I’m sorry if it interrupts your grand guilt fest, but this isn’t just about you. It’s about all of us. Get over yourself.”
“You can be such an asshole sometimes,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. “I love you.”
“Who doesn’t?”
I smacked him, one-handed, but didn’t move from my position. Being closer to Lock meant being closer to the fireflies—an unexpected but wonderful consequence. A rather enterprising one landed in Lock’s hair, where it continued to shine like it had landed on a small outcropping of grass.
I was overcome with fits of giggles, and the startled bug flew off.
“Now what’s wrong with you?” he asked, frowning.
“Nothing,” I said, wiping away another tear, this one coming from happier origins. “It’s just that I realized I could mostly see you because of the fireflies—because you were surrounded by butt lights. For some reason I found that to be very funny.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he said drily. More fireflies floated around him, and I flew into another fit of laughter. Lock sighed and put an arm around me, drawing my giggle-twitching body closer to his. “I love you, too,” he said.
“Of course you do,” I said.
“Now who’s the asshole?”
I SLEPT a restless night on a cot. Every time Olive whimpered in her sleep or Sid snored—or Ikka cursed at Sid for snoring—I woke up. Ezra was still roaming about the forest, as far as I knew. The hares seemed to be used to sleeping so many in a room. Ikka barely woke to swear and hit Sid, and his eyes didn’t open when he smacked her with a pillow in retaliation. But I wasn’t used to it. I was used to quiet night sounds and maybe the sound of Cade getting up for a drink of water. It could get so quiet in our cabin that it was almost disruptive—like you could feel the weight of that silence pressing in on your ears.
I’ve lived in tons of places, and I’ve had to get used to lots of different kinds of night noises—the chatter of cicadas when we lived in the south, the honk of cars in a big city—but the lack of sound in Currant had been the hardest for me to grow accustomed to.
And now I missed it.
My nightmares alternated between Cade being tortured and locked in a cell and Ryan taking me on our first date. We were on top of a hill. He’d picked up food from the deli, packed it into his parents’ wicker picnic basket, and brought an old sheet. From up on the hill we could watch the sailboats go by as we stretched out on the thin sheet and talked. I’d thought the date might be awkward, but Ryan was easy to talk to, and I didn’t usually have the chance to get to know someone new. When I’d prepared for the evening, I was sure I was going to come home early, disenchanted after the first thirty minutes. But we’d stayed out late, and I’d spent most of the time smiling. I’d had fun. I didn’t often get to have fun.
In my dream Ryan leaned back on the sheet, his elbows digging into the ground beneath, and in a voice pitched husky and soft, he told me it had all been an act and how stupid I was to fall for it. I woke up, sweaty and shaking.
By dawn I decided I’d rather be tired than see those images anymore. I changed my clothes in Rose’s bathroom, the walls of which were covered in hand-painted butterflies, with mats and towels in a bright purple jewel tone. A claw-footed tub took up most of the space, and it tempted me like all get-out. I wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a good night’s sleep. I sighed and turned my back on the tub.
In the kitchen, Grandma Rose was already up. Like the not-all-together-sweet angel of mercy that she is, she handed me a steaming cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. Something must have shown on my face, because she laughed as she sat down across from me.
“No doubt you’re wondering why I’m not handing you a proper breakfast—eggs, bacon, whatnot?”
I grimaced. “I’m that transparent, huh?” And presumptuous, apparently. “I didn’t mean to insult your hospitality.”
She blew on her coffee, the steam parting and framing her wrinkled face. “I wish for the same thing every morning. But it’s the dryads, you see.”
I didn’t.
She leaned forward with a conspirator’s air. “Think about it, dear. You’re in the middle of a forest. One must think of one’s hosts.”
“So—no bacon?”
“Limited fire, and a practically vegan lifestyle.” She pushed a honey pot my way, gesturing toward the porridge. “They allow me some honey, and they look the other way for cheese. I love cheese.”
“Who doesn’t?” I dropped a liberal amount of honey into my oatmeal.
“And they pretend not to notice when I go into town and come back smelling of lobster rolls.” She sighed happily.
I couldn’t help smiling back at her. Despite her criticism last night, I liked Grandma Rose. In fact, I think I liked her more for saying those things. I value people who care enough to give you the truth, who make you examine the dark and nasty sides of yourself. It shows true heart.
I took a long swig of my coffee, the warmth going down to my toes and making me feel almost human. I tucked into my food. “Thank you,” I said between mouthfuls. “For everything.”
“It’s my job, dear.” She took the honey pot back, drizzling some into her coffee. I’d never thought to do that, so I repeated her action and found that I liked it. “I am a healer—I can be nothing else. Did you think about what I said last night?”
“I did.”
“And?”
I thought for a moment, my oatmeal spoon hovering between bowl and mouth. Finally, I jabbed the air with it. “It’s just…” I shrugged, dripping a smidgen of oatmeal onto the table. “I’m a firebug—I can’t be anything else either. The drove is the drove—it can’t be anything else. And Lock and Ezra are my team, and where one of us goes, the others follow. We can’t turn away. For very different reasons, we have to see this through.” I tapped my spoon on the side of my bowl. “Does that make sense? Or am I only justifying my actions?”
Rose leaned forward with a napkin and wiped up the blob of oatmeal. “I think as long as everyone is aware of the mess and willing to help
clean it up, then you’re being about as honest as you can be.”
I nodded. “I think that’s where we’re at.”
“Good. Now eat your food before it gets cold.”
AFTER the rest of the group stumbled in and ate a ridiculous amount of food, Rose examined everyone. Due to Grandma Rose’s expert care and their own natural healing abilities, the bandages all came off. Olive and Sid both had some shiny red scar tissue, but I was told that would be gone soon enough. Lock was left to heal his stitches on his own, and his bandages were replaced with new ones. His few sutures would dissolve in a week or so. I was given a jar of the ointment and told to keep an eye on my friend or I’d suffer some dire consequences. Coming from the mouth of the wizened old woman, her eyes blinking at me from behind glasses, I found myself believing her.
Ezra stumbled in halfway through the examination progress. He had twigs and bits of leaves in his hair, and he had no shirt on. In fact, he’d lost everything except for his pants, and he was pretty dirty. He was also looking rather smug.
Lock grabbed a washcloth and ran it under warm water, handing it to our friend. “You had that same smile when I found you passed out in that gas station parking lot, half-naked and covered in glitter.”
Ezra looked wistful for a second as he washed. “That was a pretty great night. What I remember of it, anyway.”
“I don’t want to know,” Lock said.
“Still?” Ezra asked.
“Still. I want you to take that story to your grave.” Ezra went back to washing and let the subject drop.
After a long and tearful good-bye for the boys and Olive—Ikka and I were still largely ignored by the dryads—we were finally ready to go. Most of the dryads dissolved back into the forest, but Lock’s mother, Angela, stayed. She reached out, her strong hands holding the jacket the dryads had found for him to wear. We really were going through a lot of clothing lately.