Chapter 4 #3
“Creature?” Maria asks. Her long gray hair is bound atop her head in a massive bun, and her face is a map of wrinkles.
Her feet are in one of the many pairs of brown brogans she wears.
I trust her as I do few others. She’s been the steady hands that have protected me, healed me, and wiped away the blood and dirt that often cover me.
In truth, I suspect she still can tell me the origin of the scars I no longer can recall.
Today, her careful hands snip away at my dress and petticoat, leaving me only in boots, tights, and stays in a matter of moments. Though she’s older even than my father, seven decades at the least, her hand is steady as she cuts away my clothing.
“I have no idea. I was attacked from behind,” I tell her. “Nothing that needs magic to fix.”
She pulls my boots off and hands them to a boy to salt. I hate that it’s needed, but if anything from my attacker lingers there, I don’t want to bring it into the manor. “We’ll treat the cuts in either case,” I say. “I did salt my head wound once.”
“Wise.”
The aches I was trying to ignore along the ride have grown impossible. Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes, leaving wet trails from my temples and vanishing into my debris-strewn hair. “Wait. I have things in my pockets.”
“What hurts most?” Maria’s sharp gaze sweeps my body, and I know that she thinks nothing of the scars that write stories there already. “The arm?”
I let myself settle into my skin, feeling the pains in truth. There are scrapes and bruises. Nothing screams as a break. This could have been so much worse. I close my eyes to let the weight and the feeling of surviving wash over me.
“My head. I am not steady on my step, and I cast up my food. Twice.” I let my gaze meet Maria’s. “The attacker struck my head with something heavy. Twice.”
Her lips press together as she considers treatment options. My injuries have almost always been by way of claw or tooth, so the primary treatments tended toward salting wounds to prevent the faeries’ toxins from entering into my body, setting bones, or stitching wounds.
“When the men at the Goose complain of that after a fall, I blame the drink.” Maria nods, but her lips tighten in disapproval.
I am dizzy but sober, but she cannot stitch or apply poultices to anything to fix it.
She’s never happy about injuries she cannot treat.
“Are you able to stand without purging?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The ground swims a bit, but . . .” I shrug, feeling the pull in my uninjured arm, and then shiver. As warm as the room is, I am still damp, injured, and nearly naked. “Not bad enough to waste magic.”
“Are you certain?” She frowns, and I know that she was considering using the hardened pebbles of magic that she keeps here for emergencies. She is kinder to my body than I am, but if I say no, she will typically adhere to my wishes.
“I’ve had worse head wounds. I need you to examine me for anything I cannot see well enough.”
“Mmph.” She frowns at me, but she does not walk to the counter for the precious few hardened bits of magic she has in stock.
I know one of her youngest apprentices has already been dispatched to the manor to fetch me something clean to wear.
Another apprentice brings over a bucket of warm, wet rags that Maria is already using to wipe away the blood and grime on my arm.
The water is heavily salted, and I must force myself not to cry out as the salty water flushes out my cut.
She grabs a dark, dyed cloth to blot the water and blood. “No green in it.”
“Good.”
“Not too deep.” She prods at the skin around it. “Stitch it up, and you’ll heal. Shame you aren’t him yet.”
Her words are callous, as being “him” means being the Hunter—and that means my father would be dead. From Maria’s perspective, however, having the Hunter’s healing abilities would change my injury from painful to mild.
Maria walks away to collect a glass bottle that has several threaded needles inside. The needles float in what looks like water, clear liquid that each needle and thread waits inside like fish in a jar. I know better.
She uncorks it and uses a hook to catch and withdraw a needle. The bitter scent assails me. Salted wine. That’s what each needle soaks into its thread. The thread is catgut, which despite the name is made of sheep’s intestines, not cats’.
Maria eyes my injury as if I am a swath of linen she is about to sew, and then she jabs the needle into my flesh.
The pull of the thread through my skin used to bother me, but I have been stitched and sewn together in so many places now that the process no longer seems odd.
She will mend me, pull my tears together so they resemble the right shape and order.
And I will think about the monster Father and I must find.
Not the woman who brought me to the village.
Not the risk my father could be facing in this moment.
Not the fact that he must be able to defeat this creature because I am not prepared for my destiny.
I will be sewn, salted, and redressed. And then I will begin to learn more about this creature.
Was it the same one that attacked me?
Why did it not kill me?
What does it want?
Or was it a man? Did he attack someone who screamed, then knock me out so I would not interfere?
All I have are questions, a handful of hardened faery blood, and a collection of vials to study.