Chapter 19 #2
Seconds felt like molasses, stretched, heavy, as Paloma watched Ceridwen raise her arms and start a chant.
It was quiet, a melancholy melody, an incantation that had no rhyme or reason, and yet when Ceridwen finally laid her hands down on Deryn’s head again, they were glowing with a pale green light that enveloped the wound, and before Paloma’s eyes, the jagged ends mended.
Ceridwen waved her fingertips over the newly stitched-up edges, and a tiny opening remained.
Paloma glanced up, frowning questioningly.
“Franz will be over shortly, since I’m fairly certain Mason is breaking all the traffic rules. And there’s a room full of blood. If I leave everything healed, there will be questions neither of us can answer.”
Ceridwen reached into her pocket and pulled out a dry sprig. Before Paloma could ask questions, she placed it on her open palm and closed her eyes. A moment later, the sprig became green, with little white flowers bouncing at the top.
“Achillea Millefolium. Yarrow. Or Devil’s Nettle, if you’re into that sort of thing.” With another flick of her fingertips, the flowers were pulverized, and Ceridwen pressed the paste onto the almost healed wound.
Paloma watched as Ceridwen’s hands traveled the length of Deryn’s body, eyes narrowed and focused.
“Nothing seems broken or even touched, other than her head. I don’t feel anyone’s hands on her but yours.” Ceridwen’s smile was sly, but it was gone instantaneously as more footsteps were heard approaching.
“Ma’am!” Both Ceridwen and Paloma turned at the call. Mason stuttered and blushed. Franz, Crow’s Nest’s almost-retired doctor, bustled in, bowling over Mason.
“That’s a lot of blood, Ms. Crowhart.” He chewed on his lower lip as he looked closely at the wound, then back at Ceridwen.
“You know how head wounds are, Doctor.” Paloma kept her silence as Ceridwen simply waved the doctor’s obvious suspicion away.
“I’ll need to take her down to the clinic. She’ll need a CT…”
“Well, thank Goddess for Headmistress Nox and her fundraising efforts that provided Crow’s Nest with a permanently open clinic and equipment. How do you want to transport her?”
Ceridwen motioned to the motionless Deryn, and Franz furrowed his brow.
“I’ll call the clinic, get the ambulance up here. I don’t know about your Goddess, Ms. Crowhart, but Ms. Nox did all of us quite a service. A CT machine, an X-ray, and an ambulance. I’m almost sorry to be retiring just as we received all these riches.”
His call to the clinic was short and to the point. Paloma estimated that the ambulance would arrive in ten minutes.
“Does anyone want to tell me what happened here? Ms. Crowhart? Ms. Allende?”
Franz pointed to the pool of blood and the bronze statue that lay next to it on the floor. Paloma hadn’t even noticed it.
Ceridwen bent over it but didn’t touch or turn it. Still, Paloma could see for herself, all the way from the bed, that its base was half covered in blood, despite not being in close proximity to where most of the blood had pooled.
When she lifted her eyes, everyone was staring at her. Belatedly, she realized Franz had asked a question that Ceridwen could not answer.
“I don’t know. I arrived after eight p.m. and went almost immediately straight upstairs. I didn’t know Deryn was here—”
“Mason told me she came through the service entrance just before you,” Franz said absentmindedly as he also bent over the statue, then glanced back at Deryn.
“What are you implying, Franz?” Ceridwen’s voice was like a whip.
“I’m not implying anything. However, this is clearly a crime scene, and I’d urge you to call Sheriff Redding if you haven’t already.”
Paloma felt faint and was grateful she was sitting down. Why had it not even crossed her mind? Of course, someone had hurt Deryn. Someone was here, in her resort, in her suite, and they had hurt Deryn. But why?
“I need to call the sheriff…” She looked around for her phone, only to have Ceridwen lay a hand on her forearm.
“I’ve got this.” There was a strange sensation of warmth and coolness at the same time, comfort and invigoration. And the smell of apples. Paloma could swear it was the freshest scent she had ever encountered.
Ceridwen spoke quietly and briefly. A minute later, she dropped the phone on the bedside table.
A head poked into the bedroom, and a face that surely didn’t even shave yet stared at Franz.
When the doctor didn’t notice him, the boy spoke up.
The voice sounded so young, not yet touched by puberty, and yet it must belong to one of the nurses at the clinic.
“Dr. Franz?”
“Ah, Gerran. Just in time. Bring in the gurney, get Mason and maybe a few more men. I want the journey to be as smooth as possible.”
“I’ll ride with you.” Paloma was surprised to hear herself say and was even more surprised when Ceridwen shook her head.
“I’ll drive you, Ms. Allende. We might even arrive before the big wagon makes it down the cliffs.”
Paloma watched in a fog as Deryn was very carefully laid down and strapped to a gurney, and was carried by four men to the elevator.
By the time Ceridwen helped her close the seat belt over her chest, Paloma felt like she was in some kind of weird dream that made exactly no sense and yet insisted on going on and on. Still, despite everything, Ceridwen didn’t seem…
“I touched her, I felt her, I healed her. I will have to do a lot more healing on her, but she is…” Ceridwen trailed off, navigating a particularly treacherous stretch of the road, the ambulance a bit farther behind them. “Deryn is surprisingly okay for someone who has had her head bashed in.”
Paloma stared ahead at the snowy road, slowly growing snowier still.
“I sat down and made myself a drink, can you imagine? She had been lying in my bedroom for god knows how long, and I was just sitting there…”
Ceridwen threw her a sideways glance before refocusing on the road.
“Is this where you beat yourself up? For what, exactly? Unless you’re the one who bashed her skull in, I don’t see the issue. And no, I don’t believe for a second you could harm my sister. For one, this is very much not your style, and for two, you don’t have power, Ms. Allende.”
Paloma could’ve deflected, could’ve insisted that between her wealth and the foregone election outcome, she did hold tremendous power. But she knew Ceridwen spoke of a different power altogether. She bit the inside of her cheek and waited for an answer—or for more questions.
What came next was, however, more of an observation as Ceridwen stared unblinkingly into the dark night stretching out in front of them, broken up only by the headlights of the little Jeep and the beam of the Dragon’s Eye beckoning them from below the cliffs.
“I know for a fact that Deryn did not share who she is with you. I know my sister, and no matter what she may do or may feel, power is not something she’d share freely. For a yapper, she is surprisingly buttoned up—”
“She’s not a yapper. What she is is remarkable.
And special. Yes, I know about her power.
I might not have the right words to name what she is properly…
A witch? Yes, I knew she was a witch from the start.
So what? She is so many other things. Deryn is successful and generous, kind and funny.
I’m getting sick of you Crowharts acting like she’s some kind of problem child for you all to fix. ”
Paloma spat the last few words, not bothering to look at Ceridwen. It didn’t matter. They had been bitter in her mouth for weeks now, ever since she observed the family dynamics more closely.
“Ah” was all Ceridwen said. Then, after a few beats, the serene voice added, “How interesting, Ms. Allende. For someone who is not dating my sister, you are exceptionally knowledgeable about her. About her power, which is a generational secret that no human outside of the family has access to, not even spouses and partners. Not anyone who does not wield power themselves. And yet, here you are. Seeing. Knowing. And being noticeably partial to someone who is not your girlfriend.”
Paloma simply closed her eyes and let her head fall back on the seat. This was going to be a long night.