14. Pippi
How I managed to get back to our cottage without getting lost, and without people getting an eyeful of my full moon and its orbs (my bare bottom and other assets), I had no clue.
But I did.
I cut my feet to ribbons—the gravelly island soil was not conducive to barefooted moonlit strolls. I also got startled half to death each time the thunder teed off, and my side ached something fierce by the time I arrived at our magenta cottage. But I made it.
A light flashed in my face as soon as I opened the door.
“PIPPI!” Jackson plonked his candelabra on to the entryway table and yanked me into the foyer. “I was just going to see where I could scrounge up some fucking help. I’ve been scoping the shoreline for an hour. And I couldn’t call anyone. And fuck …” He shoved the door shut and stroked my arm.
I threw myself at him, wrapping him into a rough hug. My side screamed in protest. The pain nearly knocked the wind out of me, but I gulped down my cry, shoved the discomfort down, and held on to him.
“I thought you were dead ,” he hissed.
Guilt mangled my stomach. And I, all at once, felt like scum. Worse. Like the used gum that mucked up the bottom of someone’s shoe.
Because he’d been so worried about me.
But I hadn’t really thought of him.
Well, I had. But not to the same extent. I hadn’t wrung myself wretched wondering if he was dead . Something inside my gut, my heart, had assumed he was okay, even though I’d had nothing to support that. Jackson had been ravaged by the same wave, he’d merely been closer to the rock face.
“Where did the tide take you?” Jackson pressed. “Why didn’t you answer me when I was calling for you? How did you—you’re bleeding. Fuck. I’m going to see if I can find the medical clinic.”
“Don’t!” I grabbed for his arm when he made to move past me. “Please.”
“Babe, you’ve got blood running down your leg,” Jackson pointed out.
And I did, from the big, loose-lipped gash that ringed my thigh. It throbbed — a heavy, thudding pulse that jack-rabbited along my leg.
“I’ll be okay. Honest,” I insisted at Jackson’s dubious face. “But I…”
I don’t want to advertise that we were skinny-dipping. It’s embarrassing. If no one knows, I’d rather keep it that way.
I don’t want to be asked to give a play-by-play of what happened when the ocean took me.
I met the Loch Ness Monster tonight, and he was so kind. But I’m worried he’ll get in trouble if I tell people he helped me. I don’t think he’s supposed to interact with us like that.
“I’m tired, Jackson.” I buried my face into his chest, letting my tears dribble onto his shirt.
He’d slithered back into the clothes he’d worn to dinner, but his shirt was inside out. It smelled briny, and musky, as though the rocks and sea salt air had rubbed off his cologne.
“I want a hot shower and clean clothes,” I mumbled. “And I want you to take me to bed. I don’t wanna stumble around in the dark trying to find the medical clinic. It’s going to storm … ”
On cue, a pop of thunder rattled the walls of our cottage.
“Oh yeah. That’s gonna be a big ‘un.” Jackson tapped my back when I flinched at the noise. “We’ll see how you are tomorrow and go from there. I know gnarly vacation infections are a great watercooler topic, but I think we’d rather save that for another time, yeah?”
“Yeah. Preferably never.” I exhaled, slowly, trying to release the tension in my gut. But between my nerves and Jackson’s stress, no breathing technique stood a chance at unraveling that anxious knot.
I shivered. And shivering made my bones feel as though they’d been chiseled with a nail file. So I nuzzled into Jackson, trying to drink up his body heat. “Jackson, you won’t believe—” I started, searching for the words to describe Alistair.
But at the same time, Jackson said, “I hate to be the bearer of bad reminders, but there’s no hot water in these showers.”
My nerve-knotted stomach plummeted. “Oh no.”
We had plumbing in this cottage, sure. Flushing toilets, showers, sinks, the works. But it was all old fashioned and there was no electricity, so the water got lukewarm at best.
And I really, really, really wanted a scalding hot shower. I wanted it so bad, it hurt. Wanted it so bad, I cried.
“Hey now”—Jackson prodded my back—“none of that. It’s toasty in here, and we do have a kettle, remember? And tea bags.”
I blew out a shaky, and very moist, breath. “I forgot all about the kettle. Could you throw it on while I shower? And give me the biggest cup they have.”
“I’ll make two cups.”
“Thank you. I love you.” I pressed a sloppy kiss to his neck.
He rested his chin atop my head. “I know.”
“OW!”
I yelped, clapping a hand to my side when the crazy lady shoved her palm against my ribs and made my bones crunch.
“Broken ribs too. Tsk-tsk.” The sallow-faced Healer (named Alana, also known as crazy lady) walked to the black and white counter tucked into the corner of the healing room.
“Fortunately, nothing is displaced, and the wounds are shallow, so this tonic’ll have you right as rain in a few hours.
” She flung her latex gloves off and began pulling vials and powders out of the cabinets.
“Thank fuck.” Jackson clenched my hand. He’d been beside himself that morning when I’d woken up too stiff to bend, my feet burning too much to walk, and the gash in my thigh still oozing blood—even after I’d cleaned and bandaged it.
So off to the health clinic we’d gone. Where the solitary Healer—a Sorceress with a penchant for tonic mixing—scowled and scuffed her way through the patient list, of which there’d been three: a round-faced boy, no older than six or seven, who’d developed a fever overnight; a middle-aged woman who said she had a stomach flu (judging by the tequila scent wafting off her, I’d guess that flu bug came from the bottom of a bottle); and me.
It stunk here, in this small, white-walled room. Mainly with an overpowering herbal aroma, but there was a faint sour milk scent too, likely emanating from one of the vials Alana lined up on the counter.
“How is it you came to find yourself with these injuries?” Alana asked as she dropped a pinch of neon green liquid into a glass beaker.
Jackson and I looked at each other.
“You might as well come out with it.” She swished the liquid around. “If there’s a risk of tetanus from those cuts, it’s better to let me know now than wait ‘til you’re home and have to deal with Standie doctors.”
Such disdain in her voice. Standie doctors.
Sure, they weren’t as quick to heal or as efficient at diagnosing as the Sorcerers. But they did the best they could and offered salvation and relief to the millions of Standies who couldn’t afford the exorbitant fees to be treated by a Sorcerer.
At our silence, Alana paused and turned, staring down her nose at where I sat on the exam table, my bare and mangled feet hanging over the edge. Jackson stood with his hip propped against the table beside me, looking utterly nonchalant, but his agitation pricked and prodded at me.
“Doing something you weren’t supposed to, huh?” Alana tutted and turned away with a low, “American Standies ...”
“I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to swim in the inlet,” I muttered. There. The truth. But not entirely. Swimming. Not skinny-dipping.
Alana sighed and opened the cabinet above her head, grabbing another vial.
“You’re not. It’s in the brochure you’re given when you check in, but you Standies never bother to read the fine print, do you?
That’s what gets you into trouble. Us Sorcerers are taught to mind those warnings when we’re young.
Don’t read the fine print on an enchantment and you’ll flip your bones outside your skin.
It’s happened,” she added after a glance at my horrified face.
“Especially with cosmetic enchantments. And it’s a right nightmare to reverse.
So we make sure to read fine print, whereas Standies flippantly ignore such warnings. Must be nice.”
“T-there were other people in the water, though.” I looked at Jackson, silently pleading for his help.
“And if other people decide to jump into the mouth of the sea beast, are you going to follow them? Thinking it’s safe?” Alana scoffed.
Yes. The word rose in my head.
Yes. Because it would be safe. With Alistair.
But I chewed that sentence up and swallowed it.
Jackson said nothing.
“Hmmm. Well, here.” Alana thrust the beaker of bubbling, bright green liquid under my nose. “Drink that— all of it ,” she added when I sniffed and recoiled.
It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever smelled, but it was a bit like rancid seaweed that’d washed ashore and festered in the sand and sun for days.
The taste was worse. Because the liquid was bubbly, so it couldn’t be tossed down like a shot, and it was so salty, and bitter, and… Yuck .
I took a sip. Squeezed my lips shut when the bubbles fizzed against the roof of my mouth, and swallowed the biggest mouthful I could manage.
“Good.” Alana turned away, placing her vials back into the cabinets.
I took another gulp. And then another. The drink did not get better with repeated exposure.
“You’ll want to take it easy for today,” Alana added.
“We were just going to see the alicorn stables,” Jackson said.
I glanced up at him after I downed my next sip. “We were?”
“Yeah, remember we were talking about it at dinner. I booked us for a tour.”
Had he told me that? Cold sweat prickled my temple—either a reaction of the fizzing drink making my insides feel poppy, or the realization that I had some blind patches in my memory from last night.
Like, I remembered the night. All the events of it.
But little details—like what we’d talked about at dinner—were fuzzy.
“I wouldn’t push it, even for a tour. Not with the state your feet are in,” Alana said.
“It’ll hurt when they start healing. My advice would be to take the day to sit at the bar and read your welcome brochure.
But you do whatever you feel is best. I’ll just warn you that it’ll be painful, the healing.
And that’s all I can do. But certainly ” — she paused, and pivoted, giving us another haughty down-the-nose stare—“do not make any further attempts to swim in the inlet. I know the waters are shallow there, and it’s tempting.
I know we have a tidal chart. But if you had read the fine print, you’d know that the tide is not always accurate on the isle.
There’s too much magic”—she twirled her finger above her head, indicating the air around us—“it messes with the force of nature. Drink up .” She turned that twirling finger to me.
Because I had stopped drinking the tonic. It’d made my stomach feel funny and I’d hoped a little break would settle it.
It didn’t. So I downed the rest as fast as I could and handed the beaker back to Alana, who whisked it out of my hand and stuck it into a bin for cleaning.
“There now, you’ll be all healed up in a few hours.
The front desk takes cash or check payments—no credit cards on the isle.
I hope you’re aware of that, but we get a good number of people who aren’t. ”
“I brought a checkbook.” Jackson patted his pants pocket.
We’d both put money into our shared checking account for this trip. Enough, we figured, to cover everything we wanted to do, twice over.
But the number we got hit with as we checked out of the clinic…Well , I wasn’t sure if it was the tonic that made my belly feel as though it’d sprouted jumping beans, or the realization that our little skinny-dipping venture had eaten a quarter of our vacation fund.