Chapter 44 #2
From where I sit, gasping for breath, I stare at it and wonder how it got there—and why. Buried beneath a loose floorboard all this time, waiting for me to find it right when and where I needed it.
As if Foxglove knew I would.
I shake the thoughts from my head and rush to Taylor, pulling her away from her father and into my arms, squeezing her against my chest. I ease back, hold her face in my hands, and brush the hair from her cheeks with my thumbs. “Go check on your grandma for me, okay?”
She nods through her sobs and moves out of my way. I reach for Lewis next, my hand lingering over the wound. I don’t even know where to start. What to do.
The police should be here.
Across the room, Taylor helps Mom sit up, and I hear her groan.
“Corinne?” she calls.
I place my hands on his back, and he’s warm, but barely. His back rises with shallow, quick breaths. “Please don’t die on me,” I whisper, lowering my mouth next to his ear. “Please.”
Mom scoots over beside me, grimacing with pain. “Corinne.” Her voice cuts through the chaos, commanding even as it trembles. She winces, inhaling sharply through her teeth, one hand on her hip. “Taylor, towels. We need every towel you can find.”
Taylor snaps into action, but we both know it’s pointless. The gunshot went straight through his stomach, through his back. There’s too much blood.
Towels won’t help.
Nothing will help.
Tears hit my cheeks as I kiss his forehead with shaky lips. A lump of dough sits lodged in my throat as I whisper, “I love you.”
It’s “I’m sorry and thank you and goodbye” all rolled into one.
Taylor brings the towels, and we cover the wound, but his blood soaks through, warm and sticky. His face is pale as a sheet, mouth slack. I hope he can hear me, that he knows he’s not alone.
If I hadn’t sent Benji away, maybe he could help. Maybe he could do something.
My fault.
My fault.
My fault.
As I look at my daughter, then at my mom, I know we’re all having the same thought, each shouldering some of the blame.
“Come on, baby,” I whisper, sobs tearing through me. “Stay with me. Please. The police are on their way. Just—just please keep breathing. Please.”
I can hear myself panicking. I know I’m scaring Taylor, but I can’t calm myself down. He’s too still. The wound is too bad.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
None of this was supposed to happen.
Mom’s hand touches my arm. “Corinne.”
I snap my head to look at her.
“I need you to get up.” Her eyes are steady, voice low and firm.
“What?”
She winces again, eyes squeezed shut. “Go. Go to the cupboard.”
I brush tears from my cheeks, sniffling, desperate to understand. “What are you talking about? Lewis is bleeding out. We have to do something. We have to save him—”
“Go. Now.” She’s calm. Too calm.
I rise, confusion gnawing at my chest, and cross the room. My fingers are icy as I pull open the cupboard door.
“The back wall,” Mom says, her voice tight with pain. “Press the bottom-right corner. You might have to press kind of hard.”
Is she just trying to distract me? Buy time while Lewis dies out of sight?
I press against the panel.
At first, nothing happens. Then, with a soft click, the wall shifts inward and back out, revealing a hollow space hidden behind the cupboard with five wooden shelves.
A false panel.
The scent of dust hits my nose, then herbs—lavender, rosemary, mint. There’s more, so many more, but I can’t pick them out. My heart pounds in my ears. “What…is this?”
Mom is quiet, breathing through her teeth. “Look for…something to help.”
“What does that even mean?” My hand scans the shelves. There are tiny vials and aged tins of different shapes and colors. A stone mortar and pestle. Tinctures sealed with wax or cork stoppers. Bundles of canvas bound tightly with twine. A half-burned candle.
I rummage carefully, reading over labels written in faded ink. Some of the handwriting is scratchy, rushed. Another hand wrote in looping cursive.
For pain
To stop a quickening
To aid digestion
To ease a cough
For a full night’s sleep
For a sore throat
To cure a headache
For rash
To bring down a fever
For swelling
To quiet restless thoughts
I stop when I reach a dark-brown bottle, almost black. The label is yellow and curled up on itself. As I run my finger across it, revealing its use, the room’s temperature drops twenty degrees.
To stop the bleeding
I pick it up with shaking hands.
Yarrow to stop bleeding. Grandma’s soft voice floats through my mind—so real and so close I glance over my shoulder. But she’s not there, and this isn’t her handwriting.
I don’t even know what it is. I don’t know how they’d know…
How could they have known we’d need this?
A peculiar and oddly warm sensation settles on my skin, just like before with the knife.
I stare across the room at Mom. “What is this?”
“It will work” is all she says.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This feels ridiculous. “It’s…it’s ancient. We can’t just… What is it? Is it even safe?”
“Bring it to me. We don’t have much time.”
The moment I place it into her waiting palm, Mom sets to work without explanation. She pops the cork from the bottle, and the scent hits my nose all at once—sharp, earthy, bitter. Almost smoky, like pine tar and old rain.
It’s a smell I recognize but can’t quite place. So much and nothing at all.
Mom pushes herself up onto her side, reaching toward him.
She takes the last clean towel and pours some of the liquid onto it, instantly staining the orange cloth a dark brown.
She hands it to Taylor and lifts his shirt.
“Hold this on his wound. Do not take it off.” We both stare at Mom in disbelief.
She’s practically unrecognizable right now, led by something I don’t understand.
She doesn’t pause, turning to me. “What are you waiting for? Open his mouth.”
I hesitate, but only for a moment. I nod at Taylor, who does as she was told, placing the towel on Lewis’s back. Mom leans in and, together, we turn his head just so, tilting his chin down.
Lewis lies motionless, unaware of what’s happening or what we’re doing. Unaware of most of what’s happened.
His lips are pale, chest barely rising now.
I hesitate. This is Lewis. It feels too risky. I’ll never forgive myself if this makes it worse.
“Maybe we should wait,” I say, but no one is listening.
Please, the word swims through my mind. Just one more request today.
I stare down at his face. My ex-husband. The father of my child. The man who broke my heart into tiny pieces and somehow managed to keep me whole at the same time. Who showed up for me, for our daughter, when he didn’t have to. Who held me and helped me through this terrible night.
I don’t know how to feel looking at him now. All our history is tied in knots, blocking my throat.
Mom tilts the vial to his lips, pouring the dark brown liquid into his mouth. Some spills down his chin and onto the floor, but more lands on his tongue.
She covers his mouth with her palm, forcing his lips closed. I wince, hating this.
His throat jerks. Bobs with a swallow.
Then…stillness.
Mom corks the vial and hands it back to me. I hold my breath. My heart hammers against my ribs as I clutch it close to my chest. “Do you really believe this’ll help him?”
Mom looks at me. Her eyes hold a sort of understanding that feels as old as this house. As old as the earth underneath it. “What matters is what you believe.”
The room goes silent, painfully so. And then—a sharp intake of breath.
In front of us, Lewis gasps. Coughs. Sputters.
His back arches, like something has grabbed him under his belly. Taylor jerks back, but just as quickly, she returns the towel to his wound. He spits blood, groans, and collapses again. I don’t know if this is better or worse.
If we killed or healed him.
But he’s breathing. I watch his back like a hawk.
My hands go limp on my lap. “Should something be happening?”
Before she can answer, I hear it. Sirens.
Far away but closing in fast. Flashing red-and-blue lights begin to strobe across the curtains.
Police.
EMTs, hopefully.
Help.
Mom pats my hand with a soft nod. “Put that away.”
I push up from the floor and cross the room back to the cupboard, wiping the neck of the bottle clean with the hem of my shirt.
It feels something like a ritual. I whisper my thanks, my prayer, and tuck it back on its shelf.
Then, I press the panel closed, sealing the secret away so it remains invisible.
Just ours.
The hospital smells like antiseptic and coffee that’s been heating too long.
I’m in the waiting room, hunched over in a cracked plastic chair, fingernails still caked with blood.
The adrenaline from earlier is gone now, and I feel hollow—like my skin is a container for something afraid to move. To breathe. To look anyone in the eye.
I’m petrified the doctors will tell me we gave him something poisonous. That I made this worse. As the hours have dragged on in this seat, my worries have intensified.
What was I thinking?
What was Mom thinking?
How did she even know about the panel? Where did it come from?
The waiting room is still and quiet. Behind the desk, a nurse types quickly at a computer. An old man sleeps in a chair across from me, a blanket pulled over his knees.
At the end of the room, a door opens. Every person that’s awake in the room turns their head.
A doctor walks out—her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted, an iPad in her hand. “Corinne Wilde?”
I stand, rushing toward her. My heart and head pound in unison.
“Lewis is stable.” The doctor doesn’t look up from the chart right away. “Surgery was a success. The internal bleeding has stopped. He’s unconscious. Weak, but alive.”
My heart sings. “He’s going to be okay?”
She lets out a long breath. “We really don’t know how, but yes.
Based on where the bullet hit, the damage it caused—particularly to his stomach…
the amount of blood loss—he should’ve coded.
He shouldn’t still be alive.” Her tone is matter-of-fact, but also…
concerned. Confused. “But then he just…stabilized.”
The memory flashes in my mind. Mom’s sure tone, steady hands. Her words: What matters is what you believe.
The doctor’s eyes narrow slightly, like she’s trying to make sense of it.
“Honestly? People don’t come back from this type of injury.
At least, not without serious complications.
And yet, he doesn’t appear to have any. We’ll know more once he’s awake, of course, but for now, well, he’s a very lucky man.
” She meets my gaze, eyes serious but soft. “It’s a miracle he survived.”
I swallow hard, and there’s a sudden buzzing in my ears. Cold sweat beads at my temples.
“A miracle,” I repeat.
She nods, brows rising as she tilts her head. “That’s one word for it.”