Chapter 19
Nineteen
“Is everything alright?” Ayla asked.
We walked through town on our way to a house call she had received. A child had recently gotten sick, and according to Ayla, it was an illness that came on quickly and without mercy. The mother had broken down Ayla’s door this morning, begging for assistance, half crazed and fearful.
“The mother had seen into the eyes of death when she spoke of the little one,” Ayla stated shortly when I had arrived at the cottage that morning.
I was afraid of what we would find. “Didn’t sleep well, that’s all,” I lied.
I rubbed my arms, the thin cloak doing little to stave out the chill bite of winter.
The dark trousers and thick blouse I wore were the warmer choice than the dress Ebony had insisted on.
Although they did very little to keep the cold out.
In comparison, Ayla dressed in a simple cloak, appearing to be warmer than I was.
Ashen strands framed her oval face, ethereal and elegant among the townsfolk we passed.
She shifted the brown leather bag, glass clinking together.
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Remind me later to send you back with lavender and chamomile.”
I nodded.
Since the snowfall, many people have shuttered themselves away into warm homes waiting for the winter to pass them by.
The slush on the unpaved roads piled up with dirty snow prints guided us along the stretch of road through the center of town, while paths splintered off in different directions into alleys and to front doors.
“This is the sixth house visited this month. More specifically, the sixth case of a person exhibiting similar symptoms.”
“Is there an epidemic going on?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” Ayla hinted. “It’s imperative that we find the cause of the illness quickly.”
We climbed the steps to a rickety door, the hinges barely hanging on by the bolts.
The street the house resided on was on a barely lit road, and the smell of decay hung heavy in the dingy air.
Drunken voices came from farther down the road, men stumbling in the dark from a nearby tavern as they joked to one another about their work or women.
Ayla knocked lightly on the door and waited to the sound of stomping and voices answered. The door swung open, and a frail woman appeared, dirt smeared across her face while her hair was wrapped up in a cloth covering her head.
The mother’s mouth trembled in greeting as she said, “Come in, she’s inside resting. Please come in.”
“When was the last time that she had anything to drink or eat?” Ayla asked.
“Two days ago, and she won’t take anything.”
“What treatments have you tried?”
“I gave her a tonic Bestia prescribed and even the blast herbal tea they sell at that pharmacy down Charlie Street. Nothing has worked to break her fever, and she hasn’t been awake for more than two minutes.” The mother glanced toward the child, who had barely stirred upon the entrance of guests.
“Why did you not come to me sooner?”
“I was afraid.” The woman sobbed into her hands, hiccupping with each breath. “I don’t have much to pay for a doctor. I barely have enough to cover the rent and even less for food. Please, I’m begging you. I cannot lose Dehlia.”
I stepped through the threshold and understood why Ayla had been worried.
The living space was small. A bed was off in the corner of the room with a mattress laying on the ground nearby.
The bed had the child curled up underneath mountains of blankets, her face flush from the fever and her breathing shallow.
The area was sparse, neat but cramped with a table and chairs in the middle, dresser on the back wall, and the kitchen consisted of one counter and cabinet.
It made me wonder how a single person could live here let alone a mother and a child.
Ayla emptied her bag, placing a white cloth onto the table and then placed the jars down.
In total, there were about eighteen bottles of varying herbs and a single clear bottle to place whatever she made into.
Ayla took out her mortar and pestle, as well as a bottle of syrup, its dark-chocolate-brown liquid sloshing in the bottle.
“Valeria, I need you to grind up the dandelions and elderberries to start. We will try giving her a fever reduction that’ll aid in the cough that the poor girl has.”
I nodded. “Right.” I took my cloak off and worked on the bottles.
Under the dim lighting, I picked up the berries, their skin appearing more black than purple of an elderberry.
I examined them more closely, the color never reflecting the purple.
I shook my head. It could not have been a mistake that Ayla packed nightingale berries rather than elderberries. Or it was the trick of the light.
I threw the berries into the mortar. The unsettling feeling pounded against my skull in time to the pestle grinding the stone.
Ayla examined the girl, speaking softly.
The little girl answered meekly, her voice barely a whisper.
She whipped out a stethoscope to listen to her heartbeat, shifting it across the thin fabric of the girl’s chemise.
“Alright, I need you to lay you back so I can listen to your lungs. Can you do that for me, sweetie?”
The girl nodded weakly.
Ayla took another quiet moment, listening to the girl as I quietly ground the dandelion flower into the black mush. I added liquid to the mixture to where it became a drink rather than syrup.
Ayla withdrew her stethoscope. “Lungs appear to be healthy. Tell me, sweetie, what hurts?”
“My body . . . I feel so tired . . . and the dreams. The awful . . . dreams.”
The girl’s eyelids were drooping as if she were passing on into the realms of dreams rather than into capable hands.
The mother wrung her hands profusely. “She has been talking nonsense for days about these dreams. She often awakes in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. As if she was being killed rather than sleeping. It’s awful.”
Ayla turned back to the girl. “Can you tell me what your dreams are about?”
The girl paused, wheezing with each raspy breath. “There are these shadows . . . . Hungry shadows and they want to eat me. They grab at me as if I am a snack. I am not a snack.”
I stopped grinding.
“Eat you?” Ayla pressed.
The girl nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s like the mist around the castle.
They don’t have faces, but I can tell that they have eyes and a mouth, and they are hungry.
They want to eat me, and I tell them no.
I tell them no, and I scream, and the next thing I know, mother is shaking me awake, telling me to stop screaming. ”
I was suddenly submerged into icy waters, my hand coming to a stop.
Ayla stood, guiding to the workstation, and she grabbed a bottle of chamomile. “Do you have any hot water?”
The woman sprang into action, going across the tiny space to fill the kettle and then back to the other side where a fireplace sat near the beds. She placed it over the fire as Ayla sprinkled the leaves into a small cup, mixing it with honey.
“This should help with the sleeping problem, but she does have a profound weakness that is hard to explain.”
The mother scowled. “It must be the vile thing that lives up there. That would have to explain it. Every physician I have talked to said that they have never seen anything like this and don’t even know where to begin.
” The woman crossed her arms, her gaze on the sleeping child, curled up and fighting sleep as tiny eyes watched the conversation closely.
Worry played across the mother’s lips, straining, and tightening as her throat bobbed. “Tell me, is he responsible?”
Ayla just packed the bottles back into her pack.
Her normal, serene features strung into a contemplative worry.
“I will come by in a fortnight. I have materials back at the cottage that may be of used to ease her symptoms. I am afraid her diagnosis is one I cannot treat, but I can ease.” Ayla’s eyes darted to me, full of understanding and the message clear.
Silas was to blame.
Ayla said nothing on our way back to the cottage. The quiet ate at me, knowing that, in some way, regardless of the facts, I was responsible for the little girl’s slow decline and imminent death.
The moment we entered the quaint cottage, Ayla whipped around in a fury. “Why isn’t he dead yet?” Ayla demanded. The firelight bounced off the cottage, dancing across her twisted frown. “I gave you the way out of your entrapment, and he is still not dead.”
“How do we know he is the one responsible for these deaths?” I inquired. “Silas said that he—”
“And you honestly believed that monster?” Ayla slammed the table, and herbs flew around the small space.
She tapped the table, face darkening, lips twisting into a frown.
“The man needs to die. If you can’t complete the job, then someone else must in your stead.
I can’t let him continue to flaunt himself.
Things are already dire enough as it is. ”
“Why can’t you do it yourself if you are so sure he is responsible?” I shoved my chilled fingers into my pocket, watching as Ayla paced the length of the cottage.
Ayla wore a nondescript expression, tapping a long thin finger against her chin. “I can’t get past the mist. No one can, remember. You somehow can, which makes it your duty to slay him.”
“I can’t.”
“And why not? I don’t know if you know, but every day that he continues to live, someone will die. That girl will be dead in a fortnight, and you decided to give the monster humanity.”
“I can’t. He said he is not—”
“That man is dangerous. He will kill you and suck you dry—you know this. He is the enemy.”
“And what if he is not?” I argued, striding forward to meet her dead on. “Since I got here, I have been told what is right and what is wrong. No different from my life back home. I’ll ask again, how do you know he is responsible for these deaths?”
“Get out.” Ayla finished.
“What?”