“Lydia?” Her father’s eyes were widened expectantly.
“Yes?”
“I asked what you plan to do?” John planted his hands on his hips more like a parent reprimanding his child than a person speaking with the village physician.
“I plan to treat his injuries.”
“We know nothing about this man. Clearly he is from another land.” John picked up the black jacket they had removed from the stranger. He pointed to the unfamiliar insignia embroidered beneath a symbol that appeared to be wings. “I believe he is a warrior. Levi is right—he could be dangerous.”
“What do you expect me to do?” She lifted her chin when her father didn’t answer. “I’m committed to help any person needing medical attention, whether a resident of Good Springs or a traveler. I cannot—I will not—speculate the danger any patient might pose or allow anyone else to interfere with my care. Is that understood?”
John nodded. “Fine. Treat the man’s injuries. But please, be cautious when he awakens.”
Levi blew out a heavy breath in protest and turned away.
Lydia plunked down in the chair at her desk and took out a piece of blank paper to start a patient chart. She grabbed her pen and drew a line across the top of the page where she would write the man’s name once she learned it. Realizing she was gripping the pen with such force her fingertips were turning red, she laid the pen down, closed her eyes, and drew in a breath. Whoever the man was and wherever he came from, he was her patient and she would help him—with or without her family’s approval.
Hours passed and the man remained unconscious. Long after midnight, John rubbed his hands over his face. “I am overcome with fatigue and I must give the sermon at church in the morning. Levi, will you stay?”
“Yes.” Levi sat in the chair beside Lydia’s desk. He still appeared alert, though his usually clean-shaven face was shadowed with whiskers.
John walked to the door. “Until we learn more about this man, do not mention his arrival to anyone. If I am asked, I will simply say Lydia is treating an injured traveler.” He pointed at Levi. “Do not provoke the man if he awakens.”
Levi glanced up at his father but gave no reply.
John paused for a moment and looked at the man on the cot before he walked out the door.
Lydia understood her father’s caution and even her brother’s suspicion, but she was determined to treat the man like any other patient. She remained in her office with her patient through the night, and when she checked on him she found little change in his condition.
Her curiosity about him and his circumstance grew with every passing hour. She expected him to regain consciousness, and even though it was beyond her work as a physician, she already had a long mental list of questions to ask him. Who was he? Where was he from? Were there others like him coming to the Land?
Her most pressing question was about the cloth. The memory of him floating to earth with it replayed vividly in her mind. How did he do it?
Levi stayed in the medical office and glowered at the stranger most of the night. He sat with his arms folded and his head leaning against the wall behind his chair. He left the cottage only once, and that was at Lydia’s request for food shortly after sunrise.
* * *
Lieutenant Connor Bradshaw needed to gather as much information as possible before he opened his eyes. He wasn’t aboard the carrier. It was too quiet. The faded scent of burnt firewood hung in the air. An unlit fireplace was nearby. The occasional turn of a page swished faintly a few feet away. Someone nearby breathed with a light and steady rhythm. The guard was female.
This should be easy.
He covertly rubbed the cot beneath him. Wool. Maybe this was a Red Cross facility. One could hope. In war one must keep hope in a delicate balance.
He took a deep breath and winced at the gripping pain in his ribs. His dry lips drew tightly together and prickled with grains of sand. He opened his eyes, but it took a moment for his vision to focus.
As the double images cleared, morning sunlight filtered through frilly curtains on the windows. The woman in the room sat at a desk with her back to him, reading. She was either a naive enemy or an unconcerned ally.
She turned toward him silently. Her young, unpainted face matched the pure and pretty simplicity of the room. She neither spoke nor moved but only stared. He waited for her to make the first move.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“You’re American.” Connor cleared his dry throat.
“No.” She stood and stepped toward him in cautious increments.
She sounded American, but he guessed again. “Canadian?”
“No.” She reached her hand to his head but hesitated to touch him. She pulled her hand back and tilted her head to the side. “What is your name?”
He ignored her question. “Are you with the Red Cross?”
“No. My name is Lydia Colburn. I am a physician. What is your name?” She stared at him, expressionless.
“Have I been captured or rescued?”
“Who are you?”
When he did not respond, she questioned again. “What is your name?”
Connor turned his aching head and glared at the ceiling. “Lieutenant Connor Bradshaw, Unified States Naval Aviator, nine three zero six—”
The physician hovered above him. She was dressed like an American Civil War nurse. This made no sense.
He wanted answers. “Where am I?”
“You are in the village of Good Springs.” She gently pressed her thumb into his eyebrow, lifted his eyelid, and examined his eye. She repeated the process on the other eye and asked again, “Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Connor Bradshaw, Unified States Naval Aviator. Nine three zero—”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” She walked back to the desk and wrote something on a piece of grayish paper. “You have a concussion and three cracked ribs.”
“Terrific.” He groaned and his hand instinctively covered his aching ribs. The memories began to flood back—his mission, his aircraft, his co-pilot. There was a malfunction or they were shot down. The aircraft’s computer systems went haywire. Before he could react, the emergency eject was initiated somewhere over the South Atlantic Ocean. Then he woke here.
The physician moved around the room. She reached into a cabinet on the wall and pulled a glass jar from a shelf. Then she took several dry, gray leaves out of the jar and began to grind them in a stone mortar. She eyed him continually as she worked.
He needed clues to his location. The village of Good Springs she’d said. Where on earth was that?
He scanned the room again. It was a medical office of some sort, but in a world war there was no way to tell who controlled it. The room’s rustic interior brought to mind American’s pioneer era—wood walls painted white, wood furniture, wood floor—and no plastic, wires, or electronics. A door stood between two curtained windows. The cot he lay on was pressed firmly against the wall. There was a high-backed chair across from him and another at the desk. A narrow staircase divided the wall on the other side of the physician’s desk. “What is up there?” He started to motion to the stairs but his hand was weak.
“My private rooms. You are in my home.” She gave a small smile.
Was that supposed to comfort him? He kept his expression neutral and looked away. There were no decals or signs, no computers and no modern equipment in the room. The silence afforded by a lack of electronic buzz reminded him of his grandmother’s home. He pushed aside the comfort brought by sentiment and focused on the door as it opened.
A man walked in holding a tray of food. He looked young but wore trousers held up by suspenders. The man glanced at the physician as he came through the door, then he settled his gaze on Connor. He set the tray on the desk, moved past the physician, and stood firmly between her and the cot.
The only sound came from the stone mortar and pestle she used to grind the gray leaves.
Connor held still with one hand coverin
g his broken ribs. The man turned and picked up a heavy-looking wooden chair. He held it with two fingers and set it within inches of the cot.
Maybe his interrogation was about to begin. Good. Maybe he would finally get some answers.
As the man sat in the chair across from Connor, he folded an open palm over the fist of the other hand. His deep-set eyes held the threat of aggression. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. While staring at Connor, the man turned his face slightly toward the physician. “Does he have a name?”
She didn’t look up. “Lieutenant Connor. I couldn’t make sense of the rest.”
She set the mortar and pestle down and reached to the food tray, took a small kettle of steaming water, and poured it into a glass. The powdered gray leaves tumbled from the pestle as she tipped it into the glass. She stirred the concoction with a silver spoon and strained the liquid as she poured it into a teacup.
“Lieutenant?” The man’s voice was low and stern. “Are you a soldier?”
“No.” Connor’s head was beginning to throb. “I’m a naval aviator.” He dragged out the words. “I am a pilot in the Unified States Navy. I fly aircraft.”
He thought he was speaking their language, yet they both stared with brows slightly lifted. “Airplanes.” He stretched both arms out to mimic the act of flying. The movement shot pain through the cracked ribs on his left side. He made his next breaths short and shallow.
The physician took the tea she had made and walked to the cot. “Move away, Levi.” She waved him back as if shooing a fly. “I can’t work with you hovering.”
She held the teacup out to Connor.
He looked at it and back at her. “Look, lady—”
“Lydia,” the man called Levi corrected.
Connor kept his gaze on the physician. “Lydia, I appreciate the effort you went to by making a cup of tea for me, but if you’re the doctor here, can’t you give me something for the pain or at least wrap my ribs or something? I’m here for medical attention, right?”
Levi snickered.
Lydia knelt by the cot. With the two of them near each other, the family resemblance was clear.
Great. He’d been captured by civilians.
“This will remove your pain.” She offered the cup again. “And I don’t wrap broken ribs. It might make you feel better but you’ll only take shallow breaths and could end up with pneumonia.” He didn’t move and she continued offering the tea. “It’s still quite hot, but that will only help it work faster. It’s tea from the gray leaf tree.” She held the teacup closer to him as if trying to lure a frightened animal. “It will remove your pain and help your body heal much faster.”
“Leave him in pain, Lydia. If he can’t move, he can’t hurt you.” Levi barely moved his mouth as he spoke. He stood then rubbed his unshaven face and set the chair back against the wall.
Connor lifted his head and looked past Lydia. He leveled his gaze on Levi. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
Levi’s nostrils flared. He looked at Lydia. “Don’t give him the gray leaf. He’s dangerous.”
She snapped her head toward her brother. “You should go.”
“I will not leave.”
“Stand outside my door and keep guard if you wish. This man is injured, and it’s my duty to help him. You won’t keep me from it.” Her voice was as tight as the tension in the room.
Levi turned and moved one calculated degree at a time until he was finally outside. He closed the door but didn’t step away from it. His silhouette shadowed the gauzy curtain. Lydia was watching Levi. Maybe she regretted sending her protector outside.
Apparently there would be no interrogation after all—at least not conducted by the physician’s brother.
Lydia tapped her fingertips on the teacup. “Lieutenant Connor, this tea is our pain medicine and if you drink it—”
“Connor.”
“Pardon?”
“My name is Connor.” His hands sank into the cot beneath him as he pushed himself up. He grimaced and fought the pain as he sat up for the first time since he was in the cockpit of his fighter jet the day before.
He accepted the cup of medicinal tea Lydia held out to him but sipped it cautiously. It tasted bitter, yet still more palatable than the putrid drinking water on the aircraft carrier. He took another drink and swallowed hard. His dry throat was disappointed when the cup emptied. “Got any more of this?”
“Yes, but you won’t need it.” She smiled and took the empty cup. “Have you drunk tea from the gray leaf tree before?”
“No, I’ve never heard of—” He barely got the words out before heat rose from the core of his being. It radiated in pleasurable pulses as if the tea had ignited a painless fire. While the sensation passed through his body, it melted away every other feeling. The warmth removed the pain from his ribs as if they were healed. It spread down his legs to his toes and through his arms to his fingers. He brought his hands up to look at them. He expected to see light beaming from his fingertips, but there was nothing. The pain in his ribs had caught every breath before he drank the tea, so he hadn’t realized how badly his head hurt. Within seconds the healing sensation reached the crown of his head. He briefly saw stars and felt light-headed, then nothing. It was all gone—the pain was gone and the warmth. He wasn’t numb, but he felt nothing. And it felt wonderful.
Lydia handed him a glass of water. It was cold and pure and he quaffed half of it in one swallow. He hadn’t noticed her fill the glass, and he wondered where the water came from. It tasted better than anything since before the war began. “Thank you.” He moved his feet to the floor and began to stand.
Lydia put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was light and pleasant. “Please don’t try to stand yet. The tea removed your pain, but your injuries will require time to heal completely. And with a concussion you really must take things slowly.”
He drank the rest of the water and raised the empty glass to her. She began to take the glass, but he didn’t let go of it. He waited for her eyes to meet his. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he needed to show her he was serious. “Where am I?”
She let go of the glass and looked at the door. Levi waited outside, and if Lydia became frightened, she might call for her brother. Connor had to change his approach. If she were as sweet natured as she appeared, she would respond better to warmth than severity. He smiled and gave his voice the most amicable quality he could muster, considering he was a possible captive. “Lydia, where am I?”
“You’re in the village of Good Springs. I’m the physician here. This is my medical office.” Her voice grew full. “I saw you float on the air. You fell from the sky last night at dusk. I saw you. How did you do it?”
He wrapped his fingers around the empty glass while he considered answering her. She seemed honest and innocent, but the world was full of enemies with vicious tactics. Who controlled this place? Land was scarce in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean—certainly beneath the aircraft’s location when he and his weapons system officer were ejected.
Maybe this was a trick of an enemy, or maybe his head injury was causing a hallucination. The basic room held a primitive quality, as did the physician and her brother. Maybe this was a remote settlement and the people here were secluded from a world at war. With decades of advanced technology, satellite images, and constant monitoring, nothing was hidden from the global powers.
He couldn’t trust the physician, but he could test her. “Where is Good Springs? Is this an island?”
Lydia pressed her palm to her stomach. “Father was right. Last night he said he thought you were from another land… I have never left the Land... I don’t think anyone has. I know there are other lands, of course, but I have never thought much about it. I suppose that sounds juvenile to you.” She knelt in front of him and put a hand on his leg. “Did you mean to come here? Are you lost?”
He wanted to answer her, and that surprised him. If she were a pawn of the enemy, they had found a talented act
ress. She effused selfless concern. Her choice to send her brother away to help him proved her dedication to patient care. And her brother had been right—a warrior’s job was to be dangerous.
Connor rubbed his chin out of habit and felt a day’s worth of stubble. He drew a deep, painless breath and chose not to answer Lydia’s question.
“What did you call the medicine you gave me?”
“It was tea made from the gray leaf tree.” She pointed at the window. “The gray leaf trees grow throughout the Land, but they are most abundant in the forests around Good Springs. We use the leaves for medicine.”
“So it numbs pain?”
“In a sense. And it accelerates the healing process.”
“How?”
“We don’t know for certain. We have used the gray leaf medicinally for generations, and we know that it works, but we have little knowledge as to how it works.” She smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “That question is the basis of most of my research.” She glanced at a microscope on the counter, and Connor followed her line of sight. The microscope looked like it belonged in a museum. “I believe the gray leaf works by restoring cells to their proper function because—” She stopped herself and looked at him.
He wanted to hear more about her research and the gray leaf tree, but instead she asked again about his parachute and where he was from. She had gained his trust with little effort. His humanness had almost suckered him again.
He put his head in his hands and said no more.
Lydia stood over him for a moment before she returned to the tray of food on her desk. She used a silver knife to spread butter on a thick slice of bread and offered the food to him.
He ignored it and reclined on the cot. With the discomfort of his injuries removed, he simply needed to lie still and close his eyes while he processed the situation.
* * *
Connor didn’t realize he was asleep until the sound of the door opening mixed into his dream and jarred him awake. It was late afternoon and he’d slept hard—much harder than he had in months. He lifted his hand to rub his eye, far too comfortable for a man at war. It must have been a side effect of the medicinal tea.
The Land Uncharted (The Uncharted Series Book 1) Page 4