The Land Uncharted (The Uncharted Series Book 1)

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Mandy ran and met him before he reached the road. “What happened to you?”

  He ignored her question, wanting her to go away as much as he wanted her to come closer. He stopped walking and peeled the fabric back from his hand to wrap it tighter. She touched his arm as she looked at his wounded palm. “You have to go to Lydia.”

  “It’s just the skin.”

  “No, your flesh is torn. You need stitches.”

  She was right, but he wouldn’t admit it aloud. He struggled with the shirt he was using as a bandage and moaned at the thought of going to his sister for help, even if she were the village’s only doctor. Though the pain’s grip was beginning to lessen, the intense throb of his torn hand made his pulse ring in his ears. He sucked in a breath to speak. “No. If my father sees me wounded from working on the house alone, I will never hear the end of it.”

  “Lydia is probably in her cottage. Your father may not see you go to her.” She reached for the bloodied shirt then rewrapped his hand with enough pressure to slow the trickle of blood. He wondered if the blood bothered her and watched her face. She glanced at his bare chest then up at his eyes. Her finely arched brows pulled together. “How did this happen? You weren’t raising the walls alone, were you?”

  He wasn’t sure which was worse: ripping his hand open or being questioned by the coquette who once rejected him. He snapped his wounded hand away from her and trudged down the road toward the village. When she caught up and walked beside him, he sighed audibly. “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  Her long red curls bounced as she sauntered down the gravel road beside him. “If you lose any more blood, you will need a stretcher.”

  He wanted to divert her attention away from his wounded state. He noticed the flecks of wood shavings that clung to the ends of her hair. “What brought you out of your workshop?”

  She pointed her proud chin toward the village. “I heard the groans of a pitifully wounded carpenter and decided to escort him to the doctor.” She smiled and assumed a mock cuteness that made him want to pull her hair and run away like he did when they were children. He didn’t know how to tell her he loved her then, and wouldn’t dare tell her now. Not again.

  He glanced at his throbbing hand. “Where was your brother this morning? He was supposed to help me raise the walls.”

  “Actually, I came to find you on Everett’s behalf.” Her smile faded. “Another lamb went missing last night and Everett left the house before breakfast this morning. He searched until dark when a lamb disappeared three days ago, and I assumed he would do the same today. I knew you expected him to help with your house, so I came to tell you.”

  Levi regretted his accusatory tone. He looked across the wide green pasture to his left. The Fosters’ land stretched to the west as far as the horizon. “Your father has a couple hundred sheep. Why is Everett so concerned with a lamb or two?”

  “The lambs are precious to Everett. He names them and knows every one of them as if they were his children.” She shook her head. “The disappearance of two lambs in less than a week is troubling. He and my father are both quite mystified.”

  Though he heard her full and smooth voice, he was too engrossed in his injured hand to respond. He held up his arm, and a stream of blood dripped from his elbow. He would get the stitches, but he wouldn’t suspend the work on his house.

  Mandy continued her chatter as they walked across the Colburn property to Lydia’s medical cottage. Levi hoped his father wouldn’t be outside and was relieved to make it past the main house and to the cottage without being noticed.

  Mandy didn’t bother knocking on the cottage door. She opened it and immediately sang out, “Doctor Bradshaw, you have a patient.” Levi rolled his eyes.

  Lydia wasn’t inside the entry-level medical office. Levi walked to the staircase and looked up to the door of Lydia and Connor’s bedroom. Though his sister had been married for over a year, he still couldn’t take the thought of her upstairs alone with her husband. He considered sending Mandy up to get Lydia when the door opened.

  Lydia descended the stairs. “Good Morning, Levi.” She smiled at him, but then shock replaced her gracious welcome as her eyes landed on his bloody hand. “What have you done?” She hurried him to the patient cot then unwrapped the ruined shirt from his hand and examined the damage. She turned to the cabinets on the wall near the cot. He caught her rapid movements in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t look at her. Medicine bottles clanked, followed by the sound of liquid pouring.

  Lydia returned to the cot with a shallow pan half-filled with tepid water. She washed his wound and wiped it with a rag dipped in oil from the gray leaf tree. The oil’s pungent fumes made him blink. Lydia grinned. “It’s strong, I know. This is a new method I have developed. The gray leaf penetrates the injury more rapidly.”

  “Are you going to experiment on me while I bleed to—” His question dissipated as the power of the gray leaf tree seeped into his hand and engaged his system. His nerves settled and heat flowed into his body where the blood had drained out. His breath steadied and euphoric warmth slowed his pulse. Something tingled deep in his hand as the gray leaf’s strength overpowered his pain. Then the sensation was gone and so was the pain.

  He gazed up at Mandy, who stood near the cot pulling a curl of hair through her fingers. With the gray leaf medicine coursing through his veins, his heart didn’t ache when he looked at her. Her fingertips swirled the cord of red hair around and around until the curl was as taut as a spring. Her mouth moved as she spoke to Lydia with that fluid voice. He liked the sound of it until he realized Mandy was talking about him.

  “He nearly ripped his hand off trying to raise his house by himself. He didn’t want to come to you at all, but I forced him. I’m not sure what he would have done if I hadn’t arrived when I did. He bled the entire mile walk here.”

  “I can speak for myself, Amanda.” Levi straightened his posture in an effort to retain some of his dignity. He felt childish sitting there on the patient cot with two women fussing over him, though the humiliation was a faint echo of what it would be if his father walked in. The relief brought by the gray leaf had also given him a slight sense of apathy, which he found unusual and comforting.

  Lydia prepared a suture, then she sat on the cot beside him. She pulled his hand onto her lap and began stitching to close the wound. He looked away and noticed Mandy’s face as she watched the needle. Her fingers halted their curl twirling and her nostrils flared. Though her queasiness gave him a twinge of satisfaction, he wanted her to leave. “Thank you for your valiant effort in seeing me to the doctor, Mandy. You’re free to go now.”

  Mandy turned her back to them and faced the window for a moment. “Yes, perhaps I will be going.” She had her hand over her stomach, and he almost felt pity for her.

  “Thank you for helping my brother, Mandy.” Lydia’s eyes focused on her stitching. She didn’t look up as Mandy left the cottage.

  Levi stared at his hand, surprised that watching the needle and thread pass in and out of his flesh didn’t bother him. The numbness from the gray leaf oil made his arm feel as if it were detached from his body. He doubted he would ever understand the wonders of medicine as Lydia did, but he was grateful nonetheless.

  Lydia tied a knot and cut the silk thread. “I assume Mandy spoke the truth—you did this working alone.” He gave no reply. Lydia glanced at him before she stood and stepped over to the countertop next to the patient cot. “The village needs your carpentry skills, but you won’t be able to work if you get your hands ripped off. And you are a grown man, so I shouldn’t scold you.”

  “Father will do it for you.”

  “No, I don’t think he will.” She took a small jar of gray leaf salve from the cabinet and returned to the cot. Then she covered his stitched palm with a thick layer of the ointment and began to wrap his hand in a clean gauzy bandage. “Father has granted you the freedom you desired and the land to build your own house. Perhaps he took longer to come to th
at decision than your patience afforded. Regardless, he has yet to present the hostility you seem to expect from him.”

  From where he sat on the patient cot, Levi could see out the front window of Lydia’s office. Between the thin curtains he had a clear view of the back door to the home he was born in. The imposing structure cast a shadow over her cottage, just as it had over his life. “Things may have changed some because of Connor’s arrival, but I don’t feel this great sense of acceptance from Father like you do.”

  Lydia finished bandaging his hand and he examined it. The gray leaf medicine kept it numb. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She piled the bloody rags in a ceramic bowl and lifted a corner of his once-beige shirt, which was now drenched in red. “I believe this is ruined.” She released the garment and wiped her hands, then pointed at his arm. “Move your fingers.”

  He wiggled his fingertips under the gauzy material to demonstrate their dexterity. “Much better.” He stood to leave, believing the ordeal was over.

  “You haven’t been released from my care.” She lifted an eyebrow and smiled as she stepped to her desk. “Lie back for a few minutes. I’ll tell you when you can go, but you won’t be returning to work today. Your injury will heal quickly and completely, but you must rest.”

  The medicine left him lightheaded—or perhaps it was the loss of blood—but he would never confess it. He sighed and obeyed the doctor, even though she was his sister. Stretching his legs out on the cot, he laid his bandaged hand across his bare chest. No matter how he tried to center his thoughts on his building plans—even the pleasure of being sated by the smell of freshly hewn lumber—his mind continually returned to the fantasy of one day sharing his house with Mandy.

  Someone tapped on the cottage door, filling him with the dread of being seen injured by his father. The door opened a crack, but he couldn’t see who it was from his position on the patient cot. It frustrated him because he was the one who hinged the door in that direction when he helped his father build the cottage for Lydia. Of course when he hung the door, he never imagined someday he would be the patient on the cot with the obscured view. Then he heard Bethany’s voice.

  Lydia stayed seated at her desk and motioned with the pen in her hand as she spoke to their youngest sister. “I have a patient at the moment, Bethany. What do you need?”

  Though grateful for Lydia’s discretion, Levi decided it would be better to let Bethany see him and know he was fine than let her hear about his injury later and worry about him. He propped himself up on his elbows. “I’m fine, Lydia. Let her come in.”

  “Levi?” Bethany craned her head around the door. As soon as her eyes landed on his bandaged arm she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. She rushed to the patient cot and knelt on the wood floor. “Oh, Levi! What happened to you? Are you all right?”

  “I just needed a couple stitches. I’m fine, Beth.”

  “Where is your shirt?”

  He pointed to the pile of blood-drenched rags on the countertop. Bethany looked at it then squealed and fanned herself with frantic motions. “Oh, Levi!”

  He chuckled at her dramatic gestures. “I’m fine, really. Lydia stitched me up. It turns out she can sew more than curtains.”

  Lydia chortled and continued writing at her desk.

  Bethany wrinkled her nose. “How did this happen?”

  “It was nothing, really.” Levi lay back on the cot and studied Bethany. She wore a dress she usually reserved for Sundays, and her hair was down except for a section on one side that was pinned back to reveal her ear. She put her hand on his arm, and he noticed the silver charm bracelet at her wrist. “You aren’t dressed for working at the pottery yard. Where are you off to today?”

  Bethany’s face relaxed and she smiled at him. “Mrs. Vestal is firing the kiln, so she gave me the day off. I’m going to Phoebe’s. Her mother is making pastries and we are taking some when we call on Mrs. Ashton. Then we’re going to visit the Owenses in the afternoon.” Her sincere smile reached her eyes and kept the blue sparkling while she looked at him, but her smile vanished and her brow furrowed each time she glanced at his bandaged hand. She freely exposed her emotions, probably because she never had cause to conceal them.

  “You’ll make Mrs. Ashton and the Owenses happy.” He patted the top of her hand. “You should get going.”

  “Will you be all right? I can stay if you need me.”

  He smiled at his sweet sister—not yet seventeen and worried over him. “I’m fine, Beth, really.”

  She stood and held up a finger. “Oh, and Mrs. Vestal asked if you could build another set of shelves in the shed at the pottery yard. She says she needs more storage space because I produce more pieces in a week than any of her past apprentices made in a month.”

  “He won’t be building any shelves today,” Lydia chimed from her desk.

  Levi glanced at Lydia then looked up at Bethany. “I have already spoken with Mrs. Vestal. She knows I will resume work around the village after I have finished the house.”

  “And he isn’t working on that today either,” Lydia added.

  Bethany made a face at their sister’s comment, but Lydia didn’t look up from her notes in time to see it. Levi winked at Bethany. She bent and kissed his cheek then marched to the door.

  * * *

  Though Mandy spent the morning taking Levi to get stitches, her creative energy returned as soon as she got back to her workshop, and it remained strong throughout the day. As the light outside her window faded, she set her chisel on the workbench and used both hands to wrap her auburn curls in a tight swirl behind her head. She jabbed a piece of sharpened dowel rod through the middle of the bun to hold her hair in place, but she knew the rebellious curls would defect one sweaty spring at a time. Returning her attention to her work, she gently blew away the fine wood shavings sprinkled across what was now the scroll of a violin. She lifted an unfinished instrument body from the shelf above her workbench and tapped lightly in several places, checking the tone and clarity of the gray leaf wood. Pleased with the balance of the pure rich sound, she dipped a thin brush into a well of animal glue and began the process of binding the saddle to the sun-dried body of the violin. After clamping the glued pieces together to dry overnight, she removed her apron and shook the wood dust from the sleeves of her dress.

  Entranced by hours alone in her workshop in the loft of her family’s barn, she jumped when her father appeared in the doorway. She covered her heart with her hand. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to.” Samuel Foster’s ruddy cheeks rounded as he spoke. “I’m hunting for my pliers. Have you seen them?”

  She shook her head as she draped her apron over a peg on the wall near her workbench and then motioned to the cluttered shelves by the door. “They’re probably in that mess.”

  While he rifled through the shelves of heaped tools, she stepped to the open window and fanned the cool evening air into the collar of her dress. She looked down across the expansive green pasture that stretched to the fading horizon. As the last light of the summer sun disappeared for the day, a lonely ache began to set in. Thinking of her brother’s search for the lost lambs, she turned to her father. “Did Everett find his sheep?”

  Samuel was balancing on his tiptoes as he inspected an upper shelf. He didn’t respond, so she tried again. “Father?”

  “Hm?” He stopped shuffling tools and exhaled, causing his cheeks to puff under his pure white beard. “Everett? Oh, the poor lad searched all day. He’s quite torn up over the missing lambs. Rightly so—it’s terribly peculiar. Fifty-six years on this farm and I’ve yet to lose a sheep. He has lost two in less than a week.”

  She too felt sorry for her brother—though Everett was no longer a lad. “Is he still out searching?” She walked to the messy shelf, reached straight for the pliers, and held them out to Samuel. When he lowered from his tiptoes they stood eye to eye.

  “No, I sent him inside for the night. Your
mother is getting dinner ready.” He took the pliers and patted them on the thick palm of his hand. Then he pointed at the unfinished instrument on Mandy’s workbench. “Are you still working, or will you be joining us for dinner this evening?”

  She glanced at the violin she had spent the day carving. She wanted to keep working late into the night while her energy was high, but felt she should go to Everett. She stepped away from the workbench. “I’ll be right in.”

  He nodded, and she expected him to leave. Instead, he raised his wooly eyebrows and stepped farther into the spacious workshop. “I haven’t been up here in a while. My knees aren’t fond of climbing the steps to the loft.” He rubbed the bald spot on top of his head and smiled at her. “When you were little, you would sit up here for hours watching your grandfather. He must have repaired your old violin a dozen times before the two of you decided to try to build a new one. He would be proud to know that you have made a profession out of his hobby.” He walked over to a recently completed violin and chuckled as he ran a finger over the varnished inlay. “Can you imagine what he would think if he heard one of your instruments made of the gray leaf wood?”

  She smiled and pulled the dowel rod out of her hair, sending curls down her back. “I think about that often while I work. Grandfather’s willow and maple violins were fine instruments, but there is no sound comparable to gray leaf wood.”

  “So true, so true.” He grinned as he spoke. Moving away from the row of unfinished instruments, he thumped the pliers against his thigh. He stepped to the door, then he turned back and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. But he only closed it again and nodded as he glanced around the workshop.

  She nodded too. “Please, tell Mother I will be right there.”

  “Very well,” he said as he walked out the door.

  Before Mandy left her workshop, she tossed the dowel onto her bench and took one last look out the window. The sky was a deep shade of lavender with a few wisps of shadowy black cloud. The summertime dusk stoked the song of crickets and an unsettling discontent she tried her best to ignore. The only certain—yet temporary—antidote for her recurring evening doldrums came in the form of intrigue, but the farther she advanced from the age where flirtation was considered acceptable in the village, the more her chances of a cure waned.