by Colt, K. J.
‘I want to go with you.’
Klawdia regarded me with sweeping eyes. ‘No. Many will see you, and in seeing you, the people will also see me.’
‘Where will we go at the end of winter? Will I ever be able to return?’ I asked.
Klawdia took a moment to think as she fiddled with the mixing spoon. ‘Ayo is the town before the Mountain Pass on the east side of Senya. It is peaceful there, and a long way from the healers. Port Assania, the main trade port to the southwest of Juxon City, has a school. The nearby boats and traders would make a good escape if we ever needed it.’
The chance of a sea voyage turned the skin on my arms to bumps.
‘Will you bring back Butter?’
Klawdia sighed. ‘You must leave him behind.’
‘I understand,’ I said, feeling miserable.
After breakfast, we checked the barn’s condition. Klawdia said we were looking for tiny holes in the timber caused by wood-bugs. Despite a few rusted hinges and split frames, both the shack and barn seemed intact. The floor of the barn needed cleaning, along with a fresh floor of hay and woodchips. Klawdia said we could buy horses for our travels and use Uncle Garrad’s abandoned saddles and bridles, but the leather would need a thick oil coating made from glycerine, beeswax, and egg whites. She also found hooks in the barn we could use to hang animal carcasses.
We walked around the fringe of the property, looking for a main road that could carry a horse and cart. We found it overgrown with trees and shrubs. Klawdia cut down a tree and dragged branches thick with leaves to add to the concealment of the entrance.
‘We don’t use this road for another month,’ she said.
A large pine tree had fallen in the forest, allowing a pocket of sky to peep through. I angled my head and viewed a snowy mountain peak. I could hear the rush of water nearby and, upon reaching the crest of a hill, came across a waterfall. It flowed down a gully and met up with the creek in the distance.
Butter would love it here, I thought upon seeing rabbits scurrying into the undergrowth. Deer crashed through the forest in the distance, and purple wildflowers grew around the base of thick, mossy trees. A hundred paces away, we came to an orchard with many different fruit trees. Klawdia identified them as cherries, mulberry, pears, almonds, nectarines, peaches, and apricots. We found a square of dirt sectioned off by a knee-high fence railing. Klawdia dug into the soil and found carrots, onions, leeks, and peas.
Later that morning, we made our way back to the shack. There were footsteps outside, and Klawdia jumped to her feet and instinctively snatched her sword.
‘It’s just me,’ Jemely called. When she entered the doorway, her cheeks were flushed red, and her hair contained sticks and leaves. Her boots were muddy, and her breath came in gasps.
My stomach sank. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everything.’ She walked inside and sat on the bed, trying to catch her breath.
Klawdia pulled two dining chairs to face her and we sat on them.
‘Capacia told the mayor you’d run off. He almost frothed like a mangy dog. Healer Euka has offered a free healing to any man who finds you, and accused the mayor of purposely hiding you from her. But it’s worse. When Mr. Corgastor visited Capacia, the mayor turned up, and Corgastor told the mayor you were sellin’ this shack. He asked Capacia where the shack was. When she refused to tell him, he said she’d be fined for not cooperating with the law. He thinks you’re here.’
I stood up in a panic.
‘Wait. The mayor and Mr. Corgastor don’t exactly know where this place is. Mr. Corgastor said there’s a map of its location in some property archives of Juxon City, but he didn’t bring one with him. Fortunately for you, Garrad was a loner. I barely found the place, even with Klawdia’s map.’
‘What’s happened to Mother?’ I asked.
‘Healer Euka’s men are with her keeping guard,’ Jemely said. ‘There’s something else… Frooby is real sick. Bedridden. Varago said he won’t last and to give you the bad news.’
Tears stung my eyes. ‘I have to see him.’ I looked at Klawdia.
Her eyes were closed, and she shook her head. ‘You’ll be captured.’
‘I don’t care,’ I cried. ‘If it was your friend you’d take the chance. I know you would.’
‘Frooby would understand,’ she replied.
‘She’s right, Adenine,’ Jemely said. ‘Even Capacia wants you to go far away.’
‘I don’t want to leave her, or Frooby, or Butter.’ The tears were streaming down my cheeks now. Through the entranceway, the forest stood calm and serene while my head filled noise and disorder. I couldn’t just go and let Frooby die. And then I knew what I had to do—I had to heal him.
‘I’m going to see Frooby now. Are you two coming or not?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WE WALKED, THEN JOGGED, AND then walked again, all three of us huffing and puffing. Then Jemely asked Klawdia to go ahead a little ways.
‘Adenine,’ she said, pausing.
She would always hesitate before telling me something bad. There seemed no end to the things I didn’t know.
‘I’ve… well, you know how your uncle…’ She paused upon seeing my reaction.
It wasn’t the time to discuss it. In fact, I didn’t know if I wanted to talk to Jemely about it at all. Living in my uncle’s home was bad enough.
‘Wait, Adenine.’ She caught up to me. ‘I know it hurts to talk about it—’
‘No, you don’t. You don’t know anything about it.’
Jemely was silent for a moment. ‘I ain’t being insincere. Listen, in the shack there were bottles and vials on the windowsill. And I noticed…’
I stopped to face her. ‘Yes?’
‘Never mind.’ She shook her head and moved away.
I rolled my eyes and ran to catch up with her. ‘Jemely?’
‘I’m angrier than a bull right now. Your parents are utter fools. I had no idea.’ She flailed her hands. Klawdia turned to regard us for a moment, but maintained her distance.
‘I know why he tried to lay with you,’ she said, halting to shake my shoulders.
I frowned at her. ‘So do I. He was sick.’
‘He had the Weeping Pox.’
‘I know what that is, Jemely.’
‘Do you? The salves on his windowsill, they’re deadly and only used in extreme cases. He was going to die.’
It still didn’t justify his actions. He would have ruined my life to save his. I could barely stand things as they were.
‘The only cure is a healing from a healer,’ Jemely said. ‘Those salves and treatments are used by dishonourable soothsayers to make coin. They speed up the death.’ Jemely turned and ran away, heading towards town. Klawdia tried to stop her, but Jemely yanked her arms away, continuing on her path.
‘Halt, Jemely. You must stay with us,’ Klawdia shouted.
‘I need to go and yell at Capacia before you get there,’ she shouted back.
I couldn’t blame Mother for what had happened. She’d trusted Uncle Garrad. Why hadn’t they bought him a healing? Why didn’t he ask them for the money to become healed?
When I thought about healing Frooby, I grew afraid at what exactly that would mean. It brought back the flashbacks to my uncle, staring me in the eyes, crying and holding me down. The thought of any man touching me that way filled my throat with bile. I stopped walking and leaned over to catch my breath. I felt sick.
Klawdia moved to my side. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, feeling a little weak.
The north side of town was quiet. Klawdia helped me through the woods on the west side. From there, we went south.
The closer we got to Frooby’s house, the more urgent I felt about seeing him. My distress reached its limit, and I shook like a frightened animal. We ducked out of sight of any passers by. After some time, we came to a fork in the main road. The left path led to Klawdia’s house and Frooby’s farm.
Klawdia grabbed
my arm. ‘I need to purchase supplies and fetch belongings from my house. I’ll be back here in half an hour. Can you do this alone?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, and after one more moment of hesitation, she jogged towards her house.
After making sure the path was clear, I sprinted across the main road and onto the left divide. I looked back and saw Klawdia duck into her house. I kept to the trees until I reached the farm. The mountains seemed darker under the cover of storm clouds.
Knowing I wouldn’t be welcome, I climbed to Frooby’s window. I couldn’t see inside, so I closed my eyes and listened for footsteps or voices. My heart drummed in my chest. Would he even want to see me?
I knocked on the glass three times. When there was no answer, I tried to open it. The pane flexed under my hand, but the window wouldn’t budge. As softly as I could, I nudged my shoulder against it. There was a click, and I used both hands to slide the window up. Framing curtains billowed in the breeze. I climbed over the sill and into the room.
Frooby’s face poked out from under thick blankets. The skin around his eyes seemed the same colour as the storm clouds in the sky. His lips were not rosy, but a pale cream, and his skin was drawn tight against his cheekbones.
‘Frooby,’ I whispered, and nervously looked at his bedroom door. ‘Frooby.’ I shook him a little.
His eyelids fluttered, and then warm brown eyes regarded me. ‘Adenine,’ he said, and then cringed while trying to swallow. His eyes widened. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You have to leave.’ Feebly, he lifted his arm to push me away.
I caught his hand and held it firmly against my chest. His eyes darted to mine, and I didn’t let him go.
‘A-Adenine.’ Eventually, he pulled me down to sit at his side. And I shuffled over so I could lay alongside him. Both his hands held mine, and I stared at them.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘I can’t lose you,’ I admitted.
‘I’m not going anywhere. I need to sit up, though.’ He squirmed a little, and he dropped my hand.
He glanced past me at a cup of water that sat slightly beyond his reach. I placed it in his hands. The cup seemed heavy in his palms, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. I helped him draw the cup to his lips. When he’d finished sipping, his arm slumped, and I caught the cup and replaced it on the table.
And then he coughed. And coughed. And coughed. Blood stained the handkerchief that he held to his mouth.
‘Are you..?’ Dying, I thought, unable to say the word out loud.
‘Varago says I’m very unwell.’
‘Oh, Frooby.’ I leaned my head on his shoulder. ‘I can heal you. Let me heal you. Jemely told me today. My uncle…’ My words turned into sobs. Tears flowed down my cheeks, and I remembered Klawdia warning me not to show my weakness. My heart.
‘What about your uncle?’ he asked gently.
‘Remember how I said he’d hurt me? He wasn’t just sick, he was dying, and he only wanted to live. He wasn’t a bad person. He loved me, he loved me,’ I repeated, and more tears flowed. ‘Please. Let me heal you. I need to do it. You need to be healed. I can’t lose you. No one else can die because of me.’
‘No, Adenine. No.’
‘Is the maid here?’ I asked.
He hesitated for a moment. ‘She’s out, but she’ll be back soon. You can’t stay.’
‘I don’t care. Stay still, I know how this works.’ I sat across from him with my legs crossed. I reached out and touched his bare chest. He grabbed my wrist, but I was stronger and ran my fingers across his collarbone.
‘Adenine, you can’t. This is not right, and you know it.’
I ignored him. I traced his stomach with my other hand, moving down under the sheet to his hipbone. I reached the beginning of his thigh and realised he was completely naked.
His breathing deepened. His feet twitched, and his eyes unfocused and closed slightly. Then, they flared to life. Again, he pushed my hand away. ‘Stop,’ he said, but his eyes betrayed his failing will.
I slowly replaced my hand on his leg and stroked it back up his thigh, discovering long hairs around the crease of his leg. Then, my fingers brushed his stiffness. It twitched. He moaned. Slowly, I traced the outline of it. It began to twitch more rhythmically, and his body moved.
Darkness crept to the edge of my mind. I perspired as my throat tightened, and I felt as if I’d drown in the swirling disturbance. My thoughts turned into pictures of my uncle, holding my thighs, the water splashing in my face.
I tried to remain with Frooby, in Frooby’s room, in Frooby’s house. But I couldn’t. Those images changed into visions of my uncle’s body bleeding on the floor. The trail of blood on the ground. I saw the murderous, vicious anger blazing in Father’s eyes as he stabbed his brother.
I breathed in deeply. Frooby was watching me. It didn’t matter how I felt. All that mattered was that I save my friend. Determined not to let the fear take hold of me, I got up onto my knees and sat on his lap.
‘No.’ He groaned as I moved my pelvis back and forth, rubbing him through the sheets. ‘Please.’ He put his hand over his mouth and sobbed a little; when he took it away again, his face was twisted with both frustration and pleasure. Heat rushed to my face, and all I could feel was disgust and shame.
And I remembered how Uncle Garrad had stroked my face with careful fingers and looked into my eyes.
‘I’m going to kiss you,’ I said.
Frooby’s eyes watered. ‘Don’t.’ But the conviction was still absent from his eyes. ‘I… don’t love you this way.’
Uncle Garrad had told me long ago that every man would want me. And that included Frooby. ‘It is what I want,’ I assured him. ‘I want you alive.’
I increased the rhythm of my grinding and put my weight on his hardness, which made him push back a little. He wanted me. Another moan escaped his lips.
His hand reached up to my throat. ‘I am telling you no because I value you; no matter what my body desires, this will ruin our friendship forever.’ With every last bit of energy he had, he knocked me sideways into the wall.
I banged my head and clutched at it for a moment, and the pain soon disappeared. He got up a little, pushed my arms down against the bed, and took control.
For a moment, he hovered over me, and I observed every bit of his milky flesh, naked and throbbing. There was lust in his eyes, but he moved away, put his feet on the floor, and stood awkwardly. He bent over again, exhausted, and rested his hands on his knees as if he might faint. He grabbed the bed with one hand and slowly dressed himself in a crumpled shirt and pants.
He hobbled back to the bed and collapsed, coughing, beside me. He trembled as he pushed a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed harder. A string of red drool joined his lips to the material when he pulled it away.
‘Never do that again,’ he whispered. ‘Your gift makes you obliged to no one. Especially me.’
‘Live,’ I begged, and tears welled in my eyes.
‘A true friend will not put their needs before yours. If you healed me, you would have a scar in your heart, for doing so would betray yourself. Only real love can cure the struggles of your past.’
‘But I do love you!’ I said.
‘As a friend, yes, but that is not enough. It is not enough for me, either. Even if I lived, I could never be happy knowing I’d hurt you. It would be unbearable to me. My body is weak. It has always been weak. I accept that.’
‘I don’t! I don’t accept it.’
‘One day, you will. Move over or I’ll die on top of you. Now take that blindfold off.’ He forced a grin, and I smiled back.
I blushed, and then untied the thin material from my eyes and wrapped it around my wrist. He lay down beside me and stared at me from across the bed. I draped my arm across his waist. In the warmth and safety of each other’s arms, we stared at each other.
‘Amazing,’ he said.
‘The property is perfect,’ I replied.
‘What? Your hill shack?’ he sa
id.
I nodded, hating to admit to my fondness for my uncle’s shack.
‘Tell me about it.’
I told him about the creek, the sunrise, the waterfalls, and the woody, musty smell of the cabin. He listened intently.
A door banged downstairs. I sat up and scrambled to the end of the bed.
‘Go. Quick!’ he said and coughed.
Footsteps echoed within the house, and I went to the window to climb out, but it was too late. The door was flung open, and hands grabbed me from behind. I fought them.
‘Father, let her go!’ Frooby yelled.
‘Visiting my son, eh? You fancy him, eh? Well, why don’t you make yourself useful, then?’ He shoved me onto the bed next to Frooby.
‘Father!’
‘Quiet, boy. It’s about time you got a proper healing. After your mother’s death, we deserve a bit of luck.’
‘Stop it,’ Frooby said.
Derkal stripped me of my clothing, throwing bits of fabric aside. I went back to that place, that place where I was the helpless ten-year-old in the tub.
Then he found the dagger that had been hidden under my dress, and tossed it about in his hands. ‘What’s this for?’
Too afraid to answer, I clutched at myself and stared at him. He placed the dagger back on the bedside table. For a moment, I wanted to dive from the bed, grab the knife, and attack him.
He bent over and yanked off my boots. ‘Our fortunes are plenty now your friend of yours is a healer whore, eh, Frooby? Finally, you’ll be cured and actually be useful around here. Heck, you’re going to live! We can stop wasting coin on doctors and medicines.’
Ashamed of my nakedness, I placed an arm over my breasts and a hand over my groin.
‘Into bed now,’ Derkal ordered.
I shook my head.
‘It’s in your blood, whore. Get into the bed!’
My legs wobbled as I stepped towards Frooby, whose face was twisted by torment. His eyes flicked from his father, to me, and then to the dagger on the table. He pushed the sheets aside.
‘Keep them on,’ Derkal said, and dragged the blanket over his son. ‘You’ll get sicker.’