Chapter 18
Gryphon stands in the cave’s mouth, a deer carcass slung over his shoulder, his strong arms holding it in place.
He scowls when he spots me. Eero is positioned behind him, along with Oscar of the Tailor House, Meryl of the Entertainer House, and Salvatora of the Cobblers.
The first three appear slightly ashamed, as though they’ve been caught with their hands in the honey jar.
Salvatora, however, is staring knives at me.
I know why. It’s because she thinks I killed her gran.
A few months ago, she showed up at the back door of the Apothecary cottage. Gran had been upstairs in bed, and my family members were out on duties. I was the only Apothecary available.
“It’s my grandma,” Salvatora choked out. She was one of the prettiest girls in the village, as beautiful as Marina. She hadn’t made her dislike for me a secret since I’d ratted her out to the priest for stealing an altar cup when we were kids. “She’s not well.”
“What’re her symptoms?” I asked as Salvatora and I ran through the village.
“Fever,” my former classmate called over her shoulder. “A pretty bad one. She seems disoriented. Sore throat. Plus a rash across her back.”
My stomach kicked. The ban on lifesaving intervention for the elderly had just been announced. Palliative care only. But mental disorientation and a rash could mean many things, I told myself.
Right until I looked inside Amina’s mouth.
The back of her throat was speckled with white spots.
My worst fear was confirmed. Amina had strep, and—judging by her low blood pressure and high heart rate—had become septic. Because she was slipping in and out of consciousness as I examined her, I didn’t think she noticed when I realized how dire the situation was.
But she did.
Salvatora’s gran reached for my hand, fever making her touch oven hot. Her voice was barely a sigh, strangled by the swelling in her throat.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m proud to do my duty.”
“What is it?” Salvatora asked. She’d been bouncing from foot to foot at Amina’s bedside.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked.
“She’s at a fitting.” Fear etched Salvatora’s features. “The neighbor ran to find her, and I came to find you. Can you help my gran?”
I dragged in a breath. “I believe she’s septic. She needs antibiotics.”
“So give her some,” Salvatora demanded.
“She can’t,” Amina whispered. Her left side twitched. “Remember the new law.”
Salvatora’s eyes widened. She spun me and shoved her face close to mine until we were nose to nose. “You can heal her,” she hissed. “Do it.”
The image of my father’s mangled body jumped into my mind then, my mother’s words ringing as clear as if she was saying them directly into my ear.
It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have stood out.
She’d been training me to give the right answer—the only answer—when someone asked you to break the rules. “It’s forbidden,” I said.
But as the words left my mouth, I realized I could sooner cut off my own arm than not try to save Amina. My first duty to the Valley had been as an Apothecary. I couldn’t forsake it no matter what the law said. I shook free of Salvatora and grabbed my bag, rustling through it.
“You’re looking for something to ease her into death, aren’t you?” Salvatora snarled. “You dirty little rule follower! You can save her life and you’re not going to.”
I was barely listening. There were no antibiotics in my kit!
We never had much on hand. Penicillin was time- and material-intensive for the Chemists to produce, so we reserved it for urgent cases.
Amina’s certainly qualified. I snapped my case shut and remembered: Jonas had gone to the Chemists to restock our supply.
Should I intercept him en route to the Chemist cottage, or would he be home already?
I made up my mind as I charged outside, indeed catching him crossing our stoop.
“The antibiotics!” I yelled.
Jonas’s expression shifted from surprised to happy to see me to alert, all in the matter of a second.
He was Apothecary-trained, after all. He tossed me a vial before I reached him.
I snatched it from the air and spun on my heel, racing back to the Cobbler cottage faster than I thought I could move.
But as I burst through the door, I saw I was too late.
Salvatora was flung across her grandmother’s body. I knew what an empty shell looked like, but I took the woman’s pulse just in case. She still burned with fever, but it had already begun to dissipate.
Amina Brogan was dead.
Salvatora leaped off her grandma and shoved me away. “How dare you touch her! You killed her!”
“Salvatora!” Manola, her mother, yelled as she rushed into the cottage. David the Record Keeper was on her heels. He must have been the one she was fitting for new shoes. Manola took stock of the scene. Her face tightened, then shattered as her eyes landed on Amina’s body.
“What happened here?” David asked. Simon and Marina’s father was a quiet, intense man. The way he was staring at me, it felt like he knew I’d been about to break the law.
“My gran was sick, and Rose let her die!” Salvatora cried, tears streaking her face.
Manola strode forward and slapped her daughter. Crack. Salvatora’s mouth formed a perfect O, her mother’s handprint outlined in white across her cheek.
I grabbed my kit and backed toward the door, trying to escape the betrayal and hate settling in Salvatora’s face as she watched me. There would be no point in telling her that Amina had been beyond saving, even if I’d had the antibiotics in my kit. Sal wouldn’t have heard me.
She’d lost her grandmother and decided I was to blame.
That’s when I started bringing insulin to Anansi of the Weaver House, sneaking nitroglycerin to great-grandma Beate the Potter, and smuggling willow bark tablets to silver-haired Hephaestus the Plumber, who has a history of heart attacks and whose arthritic hands speak to a lifetime of service to the Valley.
Only the people I help know what I do. I couldn’t even risk telling Jonas for fear if I was caught, he’d be considered my accomplice.
Salvatora’s still glaring. Well, I’m certainly not going to tell her.
“Rose,” Meryl says, breaking the silence. Her voice is low and a little gravelly, a good fit for the Entertainers. “What’re you doing here?”
She steps forward as if she’s going to shake my hand or embrace me. She’s a tall girl, lips nearly the same color as the rest of her face, with dark-brown hair to match her eyes. She’s easygoing and kind to everyone, even me.
“He led me here,” I say matter-of-factly, pointing at Albert. He doesn’t deny it, which I take as confirmation. “What are you doing here?”
She glances guiltily at her feet.
“I train them in physical combat,” Gryphon answers.
His voice is casual as can be, like he hasn’t just confessed to breaking a law as inviolable as withholding medicine from the elderly.
I’m surprised to feel a blaze of jealousy alongside my shock.
I thought that—outside of school or midday in the square—we were all only spending time with our Housemates, doing our own tasks.
Especially since the animal attacks and the Vex and the food rationing.
I wish it didn’t hurt so much, realizing they’ve all been hanging out without me. It’s not like I expected to be invited.
“Try to look less like you want to boil me into a tonic, please,” Gryphon says, a twitch travelling across his lips. And then, as if dismissing an annoying insect, he shakes his head and turns to Reatha. “Where do you want the deer?”
“Outside,” she says dryly, stepping forward. “My, what a busy day it’s turned out to be. Who wants tea?”
Eero, Salvatora, Meryl, and Oscar follow her inside the living quarters, shuffling past me, eyes averted. I stomp after Gryphon, who’s striding to the base of a towering oak.
“You knew the Chemists were hiding out here,” I accuse. “And yet what did you just say to me at Eden’s Gate?” I pitch my voice low and flex my arms in a mockery of his physique. “‘The rules must be followed, Rose, and it’s my job to see that they are.’”
His laugh is scornful as he drops the deer carcass.
A thin but strong flax rope is wound at his belt.
He unrolls it and uses one end to tie the deer’s back hooves together.
Once they’re secured, he throws the other end over a sturdy branch several feet off the ground and, with a grunt, hoists the creature into the air.
The dried, muddy red spatters on the earth below tell me this isn’t the first time he’s done this.
I’m so upset that I’ve hardly looked at the creature.
Our diet inside the wall is largely entotarian—vegetarian, with edible insects for added protein and nutrients.
Animal flesh is saved for ceremony days, and it’s usually cooked into a stew or meat pies so we can all have a taste—and so we can chew the tough cuts taken from farm animals who’ve died of old age.
This creature is glorious, though, at the prime of its life, its fur brown and glossy in the forest light.
“You killed it,” I say, staring at the deer’s slit throat.
I don’t think he’s going to respond. Then, “Its leg was already broken. Fell in a hole, I think.”
I hunker down for a closer look and see he’s right.
The harsh angle indicates a fracture, something I’d overlooked for the gore at its neck.
I grieve the life cut short. May you return to the same Soil from which you sprang.
“You put it out of its misery,” I murmur, my hand traveling to my own throat. “Why not bring it to the village?”
Albert rolls out of the cave, followed by the others, all of them holding steaming mugs. Gryphon doesn’t spare them a glance.
“They won’t miss what they don’t know about.” He ties a finishing knot on the rope suspending the deer. “But the Chemists need it to survive, and we need them.”