Chapter II
Chewing her lip, Mariam sets her cappuccino down on the sidewalk at the mouth of the alley and walks forward, careful to avoid the trash littering the narrow path.
She reaches the woman within ten steps, her stomach turning at the stench of blood and the strength of the magic enveloping her.
She leans down and touches her, feeling the woman’s magic quizzically investigating her own, before receding. Mariam must have passed the test.
“Hey, can you hear me?” Mariam asks softly, tucking the woman’s hair behind her…
long, pointed ear, like an elf’s in a fantasy novel.
Mariam has seen and read of many kinds of supernatural beings in her time as a witch, but this feature is unfamiliar to her.
Probably wouldn’t be unfamiliar to the Reapers, but…
The woman’s face is beautiful, stunningly so, even under the swelling and heavy bruising.
Her skin is a soft, tawny olive, and her features are sharp and almost…
rugged. Wild. A strange thought, but it seems fitting for the woman.
With her long legs and long arms, she is definitely taller than Mariam’s comfortable five-foot-eight height.
Mariam grimaces when the woman doesn’t move or respond.
This is going to be a challenge. She pulls the woman’s heavy arm around her shoulders, then grabs her around her waist and lifts, trying to straighten her back enough to get the woman off the ground, though her bare feet still reach the pavement.
She is incredibly heavy, built solidly enough that Mariam is unsure if she can even get this woman to her car.
She calls on her deeper strength, and some of her magic, and manages to lift the woman from the pavement.
Her being dead weight does not help the situation, but Mariam feels for her.
It looks like she’s been beaten to shit, so no wonder she’s dead to the world.
It’s a slow procession to her car, which is thankfully only a few feet away.
Mariam winces as the woman’s heels scrape the asphalt.
She reaches the edge of the alley, then looks around the corners carefully.
It is almost nine at night, and it seems the street has grown quiet. This is her chance. Maybe her only one.
Mariam grabs her car keys, the woman awkwardly slumping as she moves one arm to retrieve them from her pocket.
She hits the button to unlock her car doors, then quickly closes the distance to the car itself, twinges of pain going through her shoulder as she exceeds the limit of her ability to sustain the other woman’s weight.
She throws open one of the back doors and does her best to be gentle as she plops the woman down across the entire bench seat.
Mariam buckles a seatbelt over her legs, then goes to the other door and buckles the other seatbelt over her chest. Through it all, she remains unresponsive, her heavy breathing the only sign of her being alive. This is going to be a long night.
The drive home is blessedly uneventful. Mariam drives under the speed limit, takes each turn with extra caution, and brakes with her pinky toe.
Around thirty minutes later, she arrives at her cottage, its white shingles a welcome sight after the day she’s had.
She parks in her little gravel driveway and is glad of the forest walling either side of her property for privacy’s sake.
She turns the car off and gets out, opens the gate on the black iron fence that surrounds her house, and then returns to begin the arduous process of getting the woman to her front door and inside to her bed.
Mariam is not a weak woman, but this is pushing her limits.
Her muscles ache under the other woman’s weight, and she nearly drops her as they go up the steps to her porch.
Mariam silently curses the layout of her entryway and its three doors—the door to the enclosed porch, the screen door, and the actual front door behind it.
But eventually, she gets her inside, and Mariam can get her settled and begin treating her wounds.
Mariam eases the woman into her own bed, then packs as many poultices as she can fit under her arms along with her deluxe first-aid kit.
She sets the poultices on the nightstand (thankful she bought more kaolin clay earlier), then hunts down her bandage scissors.
“I’m really sorry about your clothes,” Mariam murmurs, before beginning to cut the woman’s shirt and pants off of her.
She notes that the clothing is rather strange…
made of animal hides, but animals she doesn’t recognize, stitched together with a skilled hand.
Tossing the tattered remains to the side, Mariam is at least glad the woman has on a breast band and a…
breechcloth of the same unidentified hides.
Strangeness aside, she can now confirm the woman’s body is in much worse shape than her clothes were.
She’s still oozing blood from her cuts and scrapes, and now, Mariam can even see what look like second-degree burns on her skin.
As she turns her, she finds that her back is by far the worst, covered in welts and blisters and these long, thin cuts… as if someone beat her with a whip.
Her throat tightens and her stomach turns at that thought, but she can’t let herself dwell on that for now.
No, right now Mariam needs to treat these wounds before they fester.
She gets up and runs for water, a gentle antiseptic, and the washcloths in the bathroom closet.
She dilutes the antiseptic in the water, then returns to the bedroom. Her “patient” has not moved an inch.
Settling in beside her, Mariam systematically cleans every wound, her washcloth sliding over an array of old scars to dab at what will likely become new ones.
After, the washcloths are bloody, and the water is dyed a dark pink.
The woman took it like a champ, not even a flinch.
She’s still unconscious, so Mariam didn’t expect a strong reaction, but the total lack of one suggests her nervous system is already used to this level of pain…
That thought leaves her sick at heart. Mariam shakes it off the best she can, then dresses the woman’s wounds in her poultices.
For the ones that are most severe, she uses her magic to jumpstart the healing process.
But many of them are severe. She burns through her supply of magic until her body begins to ache and her vision blurs.
She’s not a powerful witch, and this is much worse than anything she’s ever had to heal before.
It helps, at least. She is doing what she can to help.
After the poultices are applied, she bandages the wounds, but judiciously; she doesn’t want the woman to look like a mummy.
She settles her on her stomach and props up pillows at her sides to make sure she doesn’t turn over onto her back.
Wiping her brow on her still damp sleeve, Mariam gets up, grabs some clothes from her closet, and takes the bowl of bloody water and washcloths to dispose of them.
With them taken care of, Mariam steps into her bathroom to slough off her clothes and change into pajamas.
Her skin is irritated everywhere from the sitting water, but at least the dry clothes feel nice.
She can worry about showering in the morning.
With that in mind, she returns to her living room and stretches out on the plump, light brown couch, cuddling into the mess of small pillows and a hand-crocheted blanket or two, and sets several alarms on her phone.
It will be a long night of needing to check on her patient often and inspect her wounds for any sign that infection is starting… Honestly, she wishes she were trained in IVs; the woman is probably dehydrated. Mariam hums as she thinks, tapping one foot on the floor.
In the meantime, she should find something to do…
maybe write? Being a witch is really more of a hobby for Mariam; professionally, she’s an author.
She’s not anywhere near famous, but she makes a decent living for herself.
Enough to pay the bills most months, though sometimes she has to dip into her savings account for some of the money she inherited when her grandmother passed to make ends meet.
It’s time to get started on another book, anyway, though she’s been suffering some writer’s block lately.
And tonight is no better. Her mind is preoccupied with the new person in her house. She can’t help but to glance down the hall every few minutes to see if she’s moved.
Yes, tonight will be one of the longest of her life.