Chapter 18 #2
"The rooster attacked someone."
"I heard. And his name is—"
"We're not discussing it." I sit down. Take the pestle back. "Alrighty, where were we?"
"Consistent pressure."
"Right. Consistent pressure." I start grinding again.
My heart's still going from the sprint across the clearing and the rooster and the screaming and the—pressure.
Focus on the pressure. "The paste should turn this color.
See? Dark purple, almost black at the center.
That's the concentration you want. If it stays light, the petals were weak or you crushed too fast."
"How do you know when it's done?"
"Smell it."
She leans in. Wrinkles her nose.
"Copper and something green?"
"Wet earth. That green smell is wet earth. When you get both together—copper and wet earth—it's ready. If you only get one, keep going."
"Let me try again."
She takes it from me. Grinds. Lighter this time—she remembered. I watch her hands and my chest goes tight. The pestle hits the stone at a different angle than mine. Slightly off-rhythm. Still works.
"Why are you teaching me this?"
My hands stop sorting.
"Because people have zero medicine if I get killed."
"That's not what I asked."
I look at her. She's stopped grinding. The mortar sits between us, half-done paste going dark at the edges.
"I asked why you. Why now? You've been here for days and you haven't shown anyone the paste. The wound treatment, yes. The tonic preparation, yes. But this—" She nods at the mortar. "This is the thing that matters."
"All of it matters."
"This matters most and you know it."
The clearing is settling into evening. Fires being lit. Voices lowering. Somewhere Keer Jr. is shrieking at his new latch. The goats have gone quiet, which means Bram got them sorted.
"Nine years," I say. "I've been making this paste for nine years.
Alone. In a cottage in the woods with nobody watching and nobody learning and nobody to tell if I got the ratio wrong, which I did, twice, badly.
I figured it out because I had to. Because wolves kept showing up broken and the paste was the only thing that fixed them. "
Dara waits.
"If I die—" I pick up a petal. Torn. Discard. "If I die, that's it. Done. Nine years of work, gone. Every wolf who comes in poisoned after that just dies. Because I didn't teach anyone. Because I was the only one and I stayed the only one and I let that be enough."
"So you're scared."
"I'm practical."
"You're scared and being practical about it."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Her mouth moves. The beginning of a small smile. "No. They're not."
I hand her a fresh batch of petals. "Purple-edged. Sort them. Then crush."
She sorts. She's faster now. She's seeing the difference without comparing.
I lean back on my palms and watch her work. The pestle sounds different in someone else's hands. Heavier on the downstroke. She'll fix that.
"The ratio," I say. "For the final paste. Two parts carrier oil—that's the rendered fat in the jar on my shelf—to one part extract. But if the petals are high-potency, like these, you go three to one. Sometimes four."
"How do you know which ratio?"
"You test it." I hold up my forearm. The inside, where the skin is thin. "Dab a small amount here. If it burns within ten seconds, it's too concentrated. Dilute. If nothing happens after thirty, it's too weak. Fifteen seconds, mild sting—that's the sweet spot."
"You tested it on yourself?"
"Who else was going to volunteer?"
"Keer Jr., apparently."
I look at her. She looks at me. Her face is perfectly flat.
"Was that a joke?"
"Absolutely not."
"That was a joke."
"I don't make jokes."
"You and I are going to get along."
She goes back to crushing, and the clearing shifts.
Keer.
He's crossing the clearing toward the animal pen, not toward me. Checking the setup. His eye sweeps the temporary fencing, the goat rails Bram reinforced, the chicken cages stacked against the rock formation. He stops. Looks at the rooster.
Don't look at him. The paste. The potency window. The ratio—
He turns. Finds me across the clearing.
I'm sitting in a pile of flowers with purple hands and a mortar between my knees and Dara next to me and his eye drops to my hands and stays there one beat too long. Two beats.
"The cage needs a better latch," I call out, because silence is worse. "Bram rigged a temporary one but it won't hold if he gets worked up again."
He walks over. Three people are between us, then two, then none, and he's standing over my workspace, blocking the light. Every wolf within smelling distance knows exactly what my body is doing right now, which is betraying me completely.
My neck goes hot.
Dara is right there. Focus on the paste. Focus on Dara. Focus on anything except his hands—
What his hands did in the dark against tree bark.
How they'd feel on my—
Don't.
The paste. The paste is important! Lives depend on the paste.
"The rooster."
"Mhmm."
"You're still calling it that?"
"He answers to it now. Renaming him at this point would cause confusion, behavioral regression, and emotional distress."
"Emotional distress."
"Roosters are sensitive, Keer."
"That rooster attacked three people in the last hour."
"Sensitive and aggressive." My voice comes out higher than I want. "You of all people should understand that."
My hands go back to the mortar. Grinding. Too hard. Ease up.
His boot shifts on the dirt. Closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him and my whole body leans toward it without permission and I want to dig a hole and live in it.
"Mel."
Don't do it Mel, don't look up. Don't.
"The animals are settled?"
"Bram's handling the goats. Rhen watered them. The hens are in the cages." I'm talking to the mortar. Needs my full attention. "Everything's under control."
He doesn't answer. I can feel him not answering—the silence has weight, has warmth, has the faint cedar underneath it that I'm pretending doesn't exist.
"The paste needs processing tonight," I say. "If you need anything from me, it'll have to wait."
A pause. Long enough that I almost look up. Almost. So proud of myself.
"Don't work through the night." Low, more of a grunt than anything.
"I'll work as long as the petals hold."
"Mel."
Just my name. One syllable. Short, rough, the L catching on the back of his teeth—and my face is burning and Dara is right there, watching, and I need him to leave before I embarrass myself in front of the only person besides me who's ever had her hands in this mortar.
"Goodnight, Keer." Too bright. The voice of a woman who is fine and has always been fine and is not currently on fire from the collarbones up.
He goes. His footsteps fade toward the far side of the clearing and I don't watch him leave.
Nope.
"The paste." Dara picks up the pestle.
"The paste." My voice is too high. "Right. Yes. Where were we? The ratio."
"Three to one for high-potency petals."
"Correct. Good. Yes."
If she noticed anything, she doesn't say. Her hands go back to the mortar and mine go back to sorting and the sun is going down and I can still smell cedar and I need to stop—
I don't stop thinking about his mouth.
Gahhhhh.