Chapter 11 Penny
Penny
When I was twelve, our milk cow dropped dead. Father was troubled by it, as she was young and perfectly healthy. Not to mention expensive to replace. I remembered the night he came in after dark, clutching a plant with a carrot-like root and a crown of clustered white flowers.
He held the thing in a gloved hand and shook it, dropping dirt on the floor as he showed it to Sayla and me.
“Never,” he’d said, as severe as I’d ever seen him, “never touch this. If you find it, tell me immediately, and keep the animals away. It’s terribly dangerous. Do you understand?”
Sayla and I nodded, though neither of us understood. I wasn’t given a name for the deadly plant until years later. A name I hadn’t heard again until a few minutes ago.
I lay in the bed where Kit put me, tucked up to my waist in white sheets. He sat beside me with a bowl of water in his lap and a muddy rag in his hands.
He’d done a decent job cleaning us both up, wiping my face and my hands and doing the best he could on himself, though he’d missed the streak of dirt across his forehead, and his fingertips were stained. Now, he sat unmoving, staring down at the discolored rag he still held.
Preoccupied as he was, I found myself equally so. I knew this place, or somewhere like it, and I’d never wanted to return.
Several moments passed before Kit and I broke our shared silence and spoke simultaneously.
“I should’ve known it was the hemlock,” he mumbled while I blurted out, “I don’t want to stay here.”
Kit continued, “And I should have told you…” Pausing, he frowned over at me. “What did you say?”
I wrung my hands together. “I want to leave. I don’t want to be here.”
He dropped the rag in the bowl and stood, carrying it to the small table positioned against the wall. “It’s a mission, Penny. It’s the best place for you, and it’s only for the night.”
I didn’t know how to explain the creeping feeling going up my back, or how these sights and smells were too familiar. Darkness and white bed sheets, the distant moaning of someone in pain. The nurses paced the hall outside the room like ghosts, too quiet, and wanting me to be quiet too.
My voice dropped to a hushed tone as I asked, “Please, can we go?”
Kit’s face twisted in a frown. “You need fluids and rest. And I…” He scrubbed at the back of his neck, and his head hung low. “This is my fault.”
He did that too much. Apologized and blamed himself for everything. But I didn’t want to talk about it when I couldn’t force my mind to focus on anything besides the scuffle of feet passing by outside, and my inability to decide which was worse: the thought of the nurses coming, or leaving.
“I knew it was poison,” I said. “I would’ve taken it anyway.”
Kit remained at the bedside, looking down at me. “Because you trust me.”
I nodded.
His brows drew together. “Still?”
I bobbed my head again and tried to keep from sounding frantic as I repeated my question. “Can we go?”
Indecision pulled at Kit’s features. He glanced toward the open doorway, then back at me, but he didn’t meet my eyes. “Nora will look after you. You’re safe here.”
“Kit…” His name was a sob, and I hated the sound of it. I drew up my knees and tried to stand from the bed, but the sheets tangled around me, pulling like ropes on my feet.
Breaths came quicker, bringing the same lightheadedness I’d felt at the graveyard. Before I realized it, my whole body was shaking. I reached out and caught Kit’s sleeve. “I want to go home.” Tears burned my eyes as I looked up at him. “Please take me home.”
Kit’s attention flicked from me to a nurse bustling past the open doorway. “Back to the farm?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Home with you.”
He looked at the mess I’d made of the blankets and my trapped legs. “Penny, you aren’t well.” There was no conviction in his voice. “You need to stay, and I’ll be back before morning.”
Tightness seized my chest again, constricting my breaths.
I worked my grip around Kit’s arm and squeezed so hard it made my fingers ache.
“Don’t go. I’m okay. I’m good. I’ll be good.
I don’t want to stay here. Please…” The string of words petered out, strangled by sobs competing for limited air.
I was choking, straining, feeling light, empty, and yet full of terror.
It was like being nine again, left to languish for weeks between infrequent family visits. The mission was miles from our farm, and with the whole family working other jobs to make ends meet, they had few opportunities to travel to see Sayla and me.
I’d begged them, too. I’d cried and pleaded until Mother slapped my face and scolded me for not being grateful for the care I’d received, which only made her cry as well.
I trembled while Kit stood by, warring with exhaustion and confusion. He bent in and reached toward me, but I grabbed that hand, too, trying to pull him in.
More pleas tumbled out, the same things repeated along with promises that I didn’t need a doctor, I just needed to get away from there. I swore I’d do anything as long as he didn’t leave me.
A coughing fit overtook further protest, wringing out what little air I’d managed to take in and making my head swim. I focused my energy on clinging on to Kit, wishing I could climb out of the bed and into his arms.
The commotion drew a few of the nurses who’d been milling by. They called back and forth to each other in the hall, shouting words I didn’t understand as they filed through the doorway and flocked around the bed.
“Sir, you need to go now,” one of them told Kit, and barred an arm across his chest to push him away.
I lost my grip as he staggered back, and the nurses crowded into the space he left behind.
“Kit!” I called out, though the sound was little more than a whine.
Three nurses surrounded me. One went to each side, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me flat against the mattress. I bit my lip to stifle a whimper at the sight of the third coming up from the foot of the bed holding a bottle and folded rag. She shook liquid onto the cloth while she closed in.
“What is that?” Kit’s voice carried from somewhere unseen. “What are you doing?”
“Your friend needs to calm down,” the nurse with the rag answered.
The women at my sides pressed harder, leveraging all their weight until I was firmly pinned. Tears ran down my face as I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see what was coming.
Kit’s voice rose again, gruff and near a shout. “Stop it! You’re scaring him.”
A nurse’s voice came from my left as she replied, “Only for a moment, then he’ll settle right in.” I pried an eye open to see her smiling down at me. “Won’t you, honey?”
The third woman leaned in, extending the rag toward my face.
A sob wrenched out of me, and I turned my head aside in a final effort to avoid what I knew to be a sedative.
I would fall asleep, and Kit would go to finish what we’d started.
Then he’d come back. He said he would, and I wanted to believe it, but logic and reasoning failed when pitted against blind panic.
What if he left me here? Weak and unwell, forced to find my way home with my body marked by the cult’s cursed brand and my heart shattered. He said he wasn’t sure he could love me, but I knew I could love him. I wasn’t sure I didn’t already.
I couldn’t protest and could barely move, almost resigned by the time Kit shoved his way between the nurses and up to the bedside. “Let go of him,” he growled at the women restraining me.
The nurse with the rag wore a look of practiced pleasantry. “Sir, your friend is fine,” she assured him. “He just needs to rest. This will help.” She tried to push him out again, but this time Kit didn’t budge.
“He’ll be fine with me,” Kit said, and tears of relief joined the ones already flooding my eyes. “Now let him up and put that away.”
The three women shared an uncertain look, then slowly released me and stepped back.
It took every ounce of my dwindled strength to sit up and throw myself at Kit. I latched onto him, burying my face in his muddy shirt. His deep voice rumbled against my ear as he continued.
“Thank you for your assistance, but it’s no longer needed. Give us a moment, and we’ll be on our way.”
Whatever protest the nurses offered was brief. I could imagine the cold look that came over Kit’s face when he was angry, and I knew that must have silenced them.
The sound of my own labored breathing eclipsed everything else as I hung on to Kit and worked the rest of my body around until my legs were off the edge of the bed and pressed into his.
His hand cupped the nape of my neck and his thumb brushed the back of my head. Neither of us moved or spoke until the trio of women left the room.
Only then did I relax enough to let Kit draw back and take me by the arms. Another rattling cough shook me, bringing the familiar shadow of worry across Kit’s face.
“I told them you’d be fine with me,” he mumbled. “Don’t make me a liar.”
My head bobbed. “I’ll be good, I swear. Just don’t…” A sob snuck up on me, and I tried to muscle it down. “Don’t…”
“I won’t leave you,” Kit said. “Not here, not anywhere. I promise.” He pulled me into another embrace. The feeling of him pressed against me was more soothing than any sedative, and my body relaxed in his arms.
He eased me to my feet, tucked my cloak around me and swung his around both of us, then held me by the shoulders as I stepped into my boots and we made our way slowly out of the infirmary.
I kept my face tucked into him and my hands knotted in his shirt, ready to be rid of that place.
We were almost to the door when a familiar voice called out Kit’s name.
He paused and turned back to Nora as she hurried out of the double doors behind us.
“We’re leaving,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I’ll look after him, but it can’t be here.”
The old woman closed the gap to us while holding out a brown glass bottle. She looked me over. “Did something happen?”
I chewed my lip, recalling my mother chastising me for being ungrateful.
“We have a task to finish,” Kit replied before I could. “I’m afraid it can’t wait.”
Nora hesitated. “I know I can’t stop you from completing your Oaths, but he”—she pointed at me—“won’t take it well.” She pressed the bottle into Kit’s free hand. “At the very least, drink this before taking the hemlock. It could help.”
Kit thumbed out the cork and peered into the bottle. I leaned over to join him in looking at the powdery black substance piled inside.
“What is it?” Kit asked.
“Charcoal,” she replied. “It should keep some of the poison from being absorbed into your system, but it must be taken within an hour of ingestion to be effective. Best if taken immediately before, though you’ll need to rinse your mouth out after, or they’ll see it on your teeth.
There’s enough for two doses. Mix it with water and drink all of it. ”
Kit recorked the bottle and tucked it into the folds of his traveling cloak. “Thank you. Truly.” He turned us both away, but Nora caught his arm and held him in place.
I stifled a cough long enough to hear her tell Kit, “I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
“I have to,” he said, then shepherded me away.
Once outside, Kit helped me onto the bench seat of the waiting cart. He climbed up, taking the horse’s reins and hugging me close once more. Sleep weighed on me, making my eyelids droop and my creaking breaths come slower.
I was barely clinging to consciousness when I managed to ask, “Are we going home?”
Kit hummed acknowledgment. “Just have to make a quick stop first.”