Chapter 18 #2
“Of course I do! You think I care too much about my birthmark? Well, he made me care! Every day, he and the others made my life miserable just because I looked different. Every chance he gets, Collin says something.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is! You just refuse to see it. You always have. Everything he’s done to me and you married him.”
“That’s right, it’s all my fault. It’s always all my fault.” Throwing the spoons and polishing cloth down, Neomi fisted her hands and pushed them against her chest. “I just can’t do anything right. Can’t be a sister, can’t be a wife, can’t be a mother.”
Neomi began rocking back and forth, shaking her head, and Imogen’s fiery anger snuffed at the sight. Cold dread trickled in to take its place, and she watched on, uneasy seeing the tears well in her sister’s eyes.
“You don’t get it,” Neomi muttered. “We aren’t girls anymore. We’re supposed to be women. Good wives. Mothers. But what if—what if I can’t—why can’t I…”
“Neomi…” Slowly, Imogen knelt, drawing eye-level with her sister.
“She asks every time. Am I with child? Why aren’t I with child?
What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I give her son a child?
” Neomi violently pushed the heels of her palms into her face, rubbing and rubbing.
“Married all this time and I can’t…it just won’t happen.
She’ll ask again tomorrow and I’ll tell her the same thing, and she’ll… ”
Imogen swore she could hear the ringing echo of her heart breaking as she knelt and watched her sister struggle.
Fates, she wanted to shrivel up into the husk she felt like, let the wind take her away.
She reached for Neomi—only for her sister to bat her hand away.
“Just go, Gen. I need to get ready.”
“Let me help.”
“You’ve done enough.”
Biting her cheek, Imogen stood slowly. She didn’t leave, not immediately, but she couldn’t bear to stay. More than just her heart broke that day, and she didn’t have the words to fix it.
Imogen never had the words.
She let Chestnut lead the way back to the cottage. Imogen could hardly see through her tears, the hot tracks slipping down to soak her scarf. She wiped at them, but there were always more to take their place.
Fates, her heart felt empty and her mind overfull. Neomi’s words ricocheted in her mind, striking like stray arrows at all of Imogen’s most vulnerable parts.
Could Neomi be right? Had she let her birthmark decide too much of her life?
And how long had Neomi been struggling to conceive? She’d never said anything before. Why hadn’t she confided in Imogen?
Does she feel she can’t? That thought struck her the deepest.
Imogen had been pulling away from Neomi ever since she married Collin, but she never imagined a complete break. That they would never feel and act as sisters to each other. Neomi was her kin, her only remaining family.
If I lose her…
That would be it.
It already feels like I’ve lost everything else.
Although she asked Balar for just a few days, sending him away had felt like its own break.
Why was everything breaking? The harder she tried to hold her life, the more the pieces began to fall apart.
Neomi should have been confident and comfortable confiding in her. Imogen should have been able to put her thoughts and feelings into words.
She didn’t want things to break. She didn’t want to be alone.
Imogen was tired of being scared.
Familiar and comfortable as her fear might be, it was exhausting. Its own kind of mask to hide behind, but its weight just kept dragging her down.
I want better.
I want—
Snick.
One of the goats near the front of the column bleated in terror, jumping feet into the air.
Snick. Snick.
The others panicked, Chestnut whinnied, and Shadow began to bark.
Snick. Snick. Snick. Snick.
Imogen watched in horror as their path turned into a trap of iron and teeth. Everywhere she looked, leaves burst into the air as traps were sprung. Her little herd tried to scatter, bleating and screaming, only to set off more traps.
But we took this path before, there was nothing, who could—
Chestnut’s scream of pain broke her stupor, and Imogen surged forward.
NO!
The goats jumped out of her way and the traps as she ran for Chestnut. She reached for the stumbling donkey, whose leg was caught in the teeth of a trap.
Snick.
Imogen screamed as teeth closed around her leg. Iron sank through her boot, lodging in the flesh of her mid-calf. Warm blood spurted to run down and soak her sock.
She staggered and fell onto her hands and knees, the pain blinding her. Shadow’s frantic barking rattled inside her skull, and she reached out to push him back, away from the path.
The sickening sound of springs loosing echoed down the path, and Imogen nearly vomited. The goats cried and scrambled, at least three of them caught by traps. Others ran into the woods blindly, frightened and frantic.
Through her pain and tears, Imogen tried to whistle. Her lips were too dry, her saliva too thick. She sputtered onto the ground again and again before a small sound passed between her lips. Imogen pushed at Shadow.
“Gather,” she told him, “gather the herd.”
They had to be brought out of the woods before wolves or worse found an easy meal.
Shadow whined and licked her face before setting off, a black blur across the red and yellow ground.
Clenching her teeth, Imogen flipped herself over to sit. With numb fingers, she groped for the mechanism to release the teeth. The moments slipped by agonizingly slow as she desperately worked the teeth free, the groans of her wounded animals worse than her own pain.
The trap finally opened with a click, the teeth bringing a gush of blood. Ripping off her scarf, she tied it tightly around her leg in a tourniquet.
Sparing only enough time to wipe her bloodied hands on her cloak, she set to work on the trap around Chestnut’s leg. With horror, she realized the release was broken. Old—or tampered with?
Chestnut’s quick, shallow breaths puffed against Imogen’s clammy cheek.
“It’s all right, you’re all right,” she crooned, as much to Chestnut as herself. “We’re going to be all right.”
Her slick, shaking fingers couldn’t grasp the mechanism tight enough, and so she was left with no other option than brute force. Digging her nails between the teeth, Imogen pulled with all her might.
Nails broke, skin ripped, but she opened it just enough for Chestnut to pull her leg out.
Imogen threw the used trap down in disgust.
It took even more work to free the goats. All the mechanisms had been broken, allowing for setting but not releasing. Her hands were shredded by the time the last of the goats was freed, but between her panic and the cold, she hardly felt it.
Using her walking stick to shove the traps she could find into a pile, she helped Chestnut to her feet.
“Home!” she cried. “Let’s go home!”
The goats shivered and lurched forward.
Imogen led the way as fast as she could hobble, sweeping her stick across their path to clear it. Chestnut and the goats followed, and from the forest, more goats began to return to them. Shadow herded more from the underbrush, darting away again to find stragglers.
She didn’t stop, kept the herd going even as her leg pulsed in agony. By the time they made it back to her meadow, all but two goats had rejoined them.
She and Shadow herded everyone into the pen.
There wasn’t time for relief.
With what daylight remained, Imogen set to work. Sparing only enough time for herself to replace her scarf with a thinner, tighter tourniquet, she boiled water, mixed a healing poultice with willow bark, and gathered everything she needed.
One by one, she treated the goats. They were skittish, even of her, and it took effort to keep each patient still long enough to cleanse their wound, administer the poultice, and bind it.
Of the wounded animals, only one goat had broken its leg. She didn’t know if it could heal well, but still she cleansed and wrapped it with a splint.
When it was Chestnut’s turn, the donkey rested her head on Imogen’s shoulder.
“Don’t go s-soft on me,” Imogen muttered, blinking back more tears.
Chestnut put up much less of a struggle than the goats, and when she was bandaged, the donkey hobbled into her own stall to lay down.
Everyone could do with fresh straw, especially with so many wounds, but Imogen recognized there wasn’t enough strength left in her for that.
She herself staggered back to the cottage, Shadow anxiously winding around her legs. After setting a fire in the fireplace, she boiled more water for willow bark tea. As she waited for it, she peeled off her outer layers and used the last of the soap and poultice on herself.
Limping to bed, Imogen piled extra pillows to keep her leg elevated and then sank back with a groan. Shadow jumped up to lay next to her, something he wasn’t supposed to do but she allowed it. He smelled musky—needs a bath—but he was warm. Just this once.
With eyes stinging from tiredness and crying, Imogen watched the fire crackle.
Even now, in the aftermath of the horror, her mind ran.
I’ll make him pay.
And, I want to talk to Balar again.
And, What does it feel like to fall in love?
And finally, I’ll sleep, but just for a moment.