16. Fallon
16
FALLON
M agnolia had given me three tasks. The first was to build up a fire in my bedroom, using the hearth in there that normally remained cold and untouched.
The second task was to carry Darcy into the bed and bundle her there with the quilt and any other bed coverings I could find.
The third was to go back out into the rain and collect rocks.
I hadn’t wasted time questioning Magnolia on this bizarre command. I thought that there was a very good chance my usefulness inside had ceased and that Magnolia now wanted my panicky presence out of the way so she could better administer to my wife.
Frankly, I did not give a flying shuldu fart. If there was any chance that collecting slippery, wet rocks from outside would help Darcy then I would do it. I’d bring back an entire ranch’s worth of them.
Magnolia had requested large rocks, at least fist-sized or bigger. With my arms laden and even a heavy rock wrapped up in the grip of my tail, I sprinted back to the house.
“Oh, perfect,” Magnolia said. She looked to be heating a small amount of water near the fire and sprinkling fragrant leaves and spices into it. “I’m making her some hot tea with stuff I brought from Terratribe II. Come put those rocks near the fire. Not all the way in the fire, but close enough that they’ll dry and heat up.”
“Then what?” I asked, my voice sounding high and strangled as I dumped down the rocks and arranged them directly in front of the fire.
“When they’re hot, we’ll put them among the blankets in the bed with Darcy to help heat her up a little more. I want her temperature up before I let her go to sleep.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, fiddling with the positioning of the rocks and earning myself a burn to the tip of my tail.
“I trained as a nurse on Terratribe II. That, and I had five younger siblings who were constantly getting into all sorts of scrapes and situations.”
I was the luckiest man on this planet, but Oaken might have been second-luckiest to have been paired with a female like Magnolia. Kind, clever, and able to keep her head in a difficult situation, whereas it felt like my own was about to fly right off. I hadn’t been able to make sense of a single word I’d tried to read when Darcy had been seated and trembling before me.
“The tea’s not quite ready, but here, take this,” Magnolia said, grabbing a large rag from where it had been hanging on the back of the chair near the fire. “Go wrap this around her hair and start squeezing some of the moisture out. I’ll let you know when the rocks are ready.”
I barely heard her last words about the rocks because the warm rag was already clutched in my fist as I ran.