xxx. In which Charlotte gains a new pet #3
Charlotte didn’t respond. She’d meant to boil water for tea and dig her painkillers from her medical kit, but, as usual, she’d waited too long to take care of herself.
Now she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in the chair, if she could, with the pleasant weight of the plant creature in her lap.
But her thoughts kept cycling between how recently Arthur must have been here, what might have happened to him by now, and the terrible echo of his voice in the trees.
Her head and joints ached so badly she couldn’t have fallen asleep anyway.
“All right, Lottie?”
Charlotte pressed her palms to her eyes. “It’s this weather. It’s wreaking havoc on me.”
“Had you in its grips all day, hasn’t it?” Elspeth considered her. “You was all kinds of quiet this morning. Pain, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you take anything for it?”
Charlotte didn’t answer. Because they’d been traveling, and she hadn’t wanted to stop just to find her painkillers, let alone
long enough to light a fire for tea. Because she’d been too busy fighting her brain, considering ways to administer silver
acorns to infected plant matter, so caught up in treating the sickness that her own pain had gone untreated.
Because she felt like she ought to be able to handle the pain, push through it, even though that was, frankly, a ridiculous
and unrealistic expectation.
Shaking her head, Elspeth brought Charlotte her medical kit. “You got something in here for it, I trust. You best take it
before you feel any worse.”
Charlotte dug two tablets from her kit and downed them.
Elspeth nodded, satisfied. “Good girl.”
Charlotte flushed without quite knowing why. She cleared her throat. “I have a tea in here that can help, too, and it might
warm you up. Boil some water, won’t you?”
Elspeth did so. While the water boiled, she swept up the blackened plant matter the creature had left on the floor and threw
it into the fire.
By the time the tea was ready, the tablets had softened the edges of Charlotte’s headache.
She picked at the leftover stew Elspeth had found in the icebox, aware she needed to eat but unequal to it.
Better than nothing, she told herself, and imagined Elspeth telling her good girl for each spoonful she managed to swallow.
Then she stopped imagining it, because doing so made her flush again.
Out the windows, snow swirled thick and white. But the armchairs were comfortable and the stew was delicious and the air had
warmed and the tea had lessened the ache in Charlotte’s joints, though the spot above her left eye jabbed at her periodically.
In her lap, the plant creature hummed, apparently asleep. Wrapped in the cloak and fur, with her hands around a second mug
of tea, Elspeth had stopped shivering so much.
It wasn’t home, but all things considered, it wasn’t terrible.
“Getting late.” Elspeth got up to wash the supper things. “You can take the bed. I’m gonna sit up anyhow. Think about things.”
Charlotte hesitated. Elspeth seemed all right now, but she’d been so cold all day. Even if she hadn’t been—after three days
on a gig jolting through the forest, the incident with the mummified hands, and the one with the twisted trees—Charlotte thought
they’d both be better off in a bed than in an armchair or (God forbid) on the floor.
Rising, she deposited the plant creature beside the stove. The humming broke off; the creature curled into a ball, and the
humming resumed.
“We could share,” Charlotte said.
The corner of Elspeth’s mouth turned up. Charlotte regretted offering.
“Share, could we?” Elspeth said. “I don’t know. Sounds mighty improper.”
Charlotte was mortified.
“Fine,” she snapped. A tendril unspooled from the plant creature, turned in her direction. “Sleep in an armchair and wake up with a crooked neck for all I care.”
“I didn’t say no.”
Scowling, Charlotte turned away. She stroked the tendril with one finger, hurried across the room, and quickly changed into
her nightclothes and braided her hair. She curled up in bed, as close to the wall and as far from Elspeth as possible. Chuckling,
Elspeth adjusted the fire. The plant creature clicked at her.
“None of that, now. I’m the one keeping the fire going, so you best be nice if you want to stay warm.”
The clicking subsided—almost. It didn’t stop but quieted, the way Sasha muttered when Charlotte caught her doing something
she wasn’t supposed to.
Charlotte lay awake for a long time, listening to Elspeth putter about the room doing she knew not what. She nearly turned
over to find out, but the thought of Elspeth catching her looking was enough to stop her. Irritated, she focused on breathing
until her whirling thoughts slowed and her body relaxed.
She was almost asleep when she felt Elspeth slip in beside her. Not long afterward, Elspeth started snoring. Charlotte buried
her face in her pillow. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was asleep in her bed back home, years ago, with
John slipping in beside her after a Saturday night at the pub, snoring at her back.