Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
B ee liked the quiet of the winter. After a summer of travelling the mainland with the fair, she needed the seclusion of the island to recuperate. Not her powers, but her ability to deal with people. She liked humanity, for the most part, and valued her connections to them, but that didn’t stop them from being irritating when taken in large doses.
The air was remarkably still and when Bee stepped outside her cottage, she found the land coated in white. Snow visited most winters, but this was the first proper dusting of the season and Bee returned indoors to add steel tracks to the soles of her thick walking boots. It was a thin-looking blanket and she suspected there would be patches of ice lurking beneath.
She took the path down to Shell Bay, enjoying the changed view. The frost clinging to the spiky grasses, and the lines of snow piled on fence posts and walls, blanketing the ground in clean white. It varied in thickness underfoot and she listened to the different sounds her steps made, and enjoyed the variegations of white and speckled white and grey, eventually giving way to sand and crushed shells, silvered by the low sun, in a wide band that met the sea.
She walked along the beach in the direction of the church ward, the old gravestones and ruined walls looking like something from a painting in their snowy clothing. She paused a moment, taking in lungfuls of iron-cold air and thanking the island for the lack of wind. It felt as if the whole place was honouring her need for peace, and every quiet breath was restorative.
A few minutes later, a figure broke her solitude. It was Tobias, bent double, and he straightened as she approached. He had a mallet in one hand and was wearing thick gloves. As usual, he was dressed in corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket with a knitted Fair Isle pullover underneath. He raised a hand in greeting. ‘Beautiful day.’
‘Yes,’ Bee agreed. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
Now that she was closer, she could see that there were a couple of fresh posts in the ground, another lying waiting on the frozen ground. Winter was sitting to attention, watching her approach. He was a friendly dog, but kept his distance from Bee. She wasn’t offended. Animals showed remarkably good sense when it came to potential danger and she didn’t begrudge the animal his instincts.
‘This part of the wall needs supporting. I meant to do it in the summer, but I never quite… well. I’m here now.’
‘Isn’t the ground too cold for hammering into?’
‘It would have been better in the warm.’ Tobias looked at the half-completed job. ‘But I just have more zest in the winter. And it’s not too bad. The cold hasn’t really set in, yet. This is just a dusting.’
‘If you say so,’ Bee said. Now that she wasn’t moving, she could feel the chill of the day. The cool air was tinged with damp, and it was seeking every gap in her clothing.
Bee rubbed her hands together theatrically. ‘I’m going to keep moving. We can’t all thrive in the snow. Not like you.’
Walking away, Tobias once again swinging his mallet and the dull thwacking sound echoing behind her, Bee tried not to think about how Tobias was going to cope when Winter got too old to accompany his master on tasks around the island. She knew that Tobias must have had many partings in his long life, but she also knew that wouldn’t make them any easier. She could look in her glass when she got home, see what the future held for Winter, but there was no point. His end would be that of all animals. A return to the earth.
At the end of the beach, where the coast became too rocky to walk, she crossed the scrubby ground, coated in thrift and sea campion, and cut up Widdershins Wynd, heading for the bookshop.
Bee was stepping carefully, as the cobbled street hadn’t yet enjoyed much sun and was a patchwork of ice, and had just reached the bookshop door when it flew open, almost knocking her over. She stopped, expecting Luke to come rushing out. She was going to fix him with one of her best stares and was pleasantly anticipating the fear she would see flaring in his eyes. No more than he deserved for startling her.
There was nobody in sight. And no sudden wind to have burst open the door. Bee was already walking into the shop, her body knowing before her mind that something was wrong, when the lights inside the shop started flicking on and off. She ran.
Esme was the second person that Bee called and she made it across the village to the bookshop in record time, her feet skidding more than once on the compacted snow and ice, as she hurried along the main street and down the wynd.
The bell above the door jangled and the woody smell and warm air of the bookshop welcomed her, but Esme didn’t notice. She was running up the steep stairs and into Luke’s studio where a new odour, sharp and wrong, was waiting.
Tobias and Bee were next to the bed and Luke was lying on top of the mattress, fully clothed. The duvet had been neatly folded at the bottom. Luke’s foot jerked, kicking at it. He was very white. His lips bloodless. Esme was taking in impressions in staccato images. Her mind seemed to be protecting her from taking too much at once. Or it was malfunctioning. She could have sworn that she could smell burning, the acrid tang of smoke.
‘He is very lucky,’ Tobias said gravely. ‘If Bee hadn’t found him when she did…’
Esme stared down at Luke’s prone form and swallowed hard. She was not going to cry. She was not going to disintegrate or freeze up. She was going to work . She could fix this. Fix him.
Luke was mumbling in his semi-conscious state and his limbs twitched. His skin was waxy pale, but when Esme placed a hand on his forehead, it was scorching hot. She leaned close and tried to make out his words. They were indistinct and, most likely, feverish gibberish. ‘You found him?’ She didn’t glance away from Luke as she asked the question.
Bee’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. ‘He was on the floor downstairs.’
Esme wondered how they had got him upstairs, but instantly dismissed the question for another time. More importantly, she had to assess his vitals. She took out her phone and laid it on the bedside table so that she could see the clock, then wrapped her finger and thumb around his wrist and began to take his pulse. It was too fast. Racing as if trying to outrun a foe. His legs spasmed again and he moaned. She didn’t need a thermometer to know that he was running a fever. But she ought to monitor it. Her thoughts were clicking into place. ‘I need a thermometer. Small towels. Tea towels, anything. And ice. A glass of water and a spoon. Plastic, if possible. Liquid paracetamol. The stuff for kids is fine.’
Bee came back remarkably quickly with the supplies and the three of them got to work. Esme clicked into nurse mode, seeing Luke’s body as a patient to be cared for, not a male threat. She and Bee wrestled his jumper over his head, and Tobias removed his jeans before replacing the folded duvet with a thin sheet. Luke’s body convulsed with violent shivers, but his skin was still hot to touch and his temperature far too high.
Bee and Tobias soaked towels in ice water and wrung them out before laying them over Luke’s body. His mumbling became low moaning and he whipped his head from side to side in clear discomfort. Esme lay a cold wet flannel on his forehead and another on the back of his neck. Within seconds, they were warm, so she dunked them into the waiting basin of ice and water to cool them down and replaced them. ‘We need a stream of cool air.’
‘What about a fan? I can see if Seren has some at the pub.’
Esme wasn’t surprised they weren’t common to everyone’s homes. Unholy Island wasn’t exactly prone to heatwaves. ‘We can open the window.’ The skylight was large and could be tilted and locked into position. The freezing air swirled through the room, but Esme barely noticed her own discomfort. She was running calculations in her head. She had to bring down his core temperature, but it wouldn’t do to have the room too cold for too long. He needed to stabilise.
‘Why isn’t he sweating?’ Bee asked.
Esme had started training as a nurse and she acted as the island’s unofficial medic for minor injuries and illnesses. ‘It’s a really high fever. When it’s this bad, the body doesn’t function the way it should. We need to bring down his core temperature. Or we should phone for an ambulance.’ She bit her lip, thinking fast. The snow overnight was still lying on the ground and she didn’t know how quickly it would arrive. ‘No. We’ll try this first. Give it ten minutes.’
‘St Anthony’s Fire,’ Tobias said abruptly. ‘Comes from contaminated grain, I think. Or grain that had gone mouldy.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Bee said gently, laying a hand on Tobias’s arm.
‘Or maybe we should call right away. They’ll take time to get here and by then…’
‘They might not know how to help,’ Bee said.
This wasn’t normal. That’s what she meant. And Esme agreed.
‘I’ll get the fan,’ Bee said. ‘And some more towels.’
Esme didn’t know how long Bee was gone or when Tobias had quietly placed two glasses of water, one with a bendy straw, on the chest of drawers near to Luke’s bed. She just kept methodically soaking and replacing the flannels and repeating a silent plea to whatever deities might be listening. Please let him cool down. Please let him be all right.
Esme knew she had said ‘ten minutes’, but she took Luke’s temperature before she checked the time. If it hadn’t gone down, she was going to dial 999 regardless. Visions of what could happen to a body that stayed too hot for too long were flashing through her mind in a flickering reel. If his temperature hadn’t come down, it might already be too late to avoid brain damage and organ failure.
Sticking the ear thermometer in place and hearing the beep made her grateful that she wasn’t relying on an old mercury thermometer. Apart from anything else, Luke’s teeth were clenched and the knots of his muscles standing out on his neck. She didn’t know how she would have got a glass stick into his mouth without it breaking.
Her breath rushed out in a relieved sigh when she read the digital readout. Thirty-nine. Still too high, but lower than before. The cooling protocol was working. She dunked the flannels and wrung them out, smoothing the cold damp material back into place. Was it her imagination, or was he mumbling slower? She thought his breathing was getting deeper, as if he was slipping into a proper sleep rather than a feverish limbo state.
Bee arrived with a white stand fan. She set it up so that the cool air was blowing directly onto Luke’s body. He moaned in his sleep and shivered, hands grasping as if to pull a duvet over himself. Esme caught his hands and held them gently, making sure he didn’t dislodge his latest flannels and towels. The air would cool the damp fabric and keep him even cooler. It wasn’t pleasant for the patient, who felt freezing already, but it was essential.
‘His temperature has come down a bit,’ Esme said. ‘It’s working.’
Bee nodded and took another seat. They worked together for the next couple of hours, laying cold flannels onto Luke’s forehead, cradling his head to feed him sips of water, spooning children’s paracetamol between his lips. ‘I thought he would be with it enough to swallow tablets by this point. His temperature is down. He ought to be awake.’ Esme wasn’t going to voice her worst thought: that they hadn’t brought his temperature down in time and that brain damage had occurred. It wasn’t likely, she knew that, but it was possible. And that was bad enough.
Bee was watching Luke, a furrow between her eyes. ‘I don’t like it.’
Esme had been hoping for reassurance, for Bee to say ‘he’s just exhausted from the fever and needs a long nap’. Instead, her insides turned liquid with fear and her skin prickled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not just asleep, is he? It feels…’ Bee stopped. Shook her head. She picked up Luke’s hand and he jerked as if her touch burned, then subsided to unnatural stillness. A wax figure. She muttered something under her breath.
‘What?’ Esme demanded, properly panicking now. She had never seen Bee rattled before and she didn’t like it.
‘I need to talk to my sisters.’
Bee pushed the vision from her senses as she hurried down the stairs and out of the bookshop. Seeing the future was all well and good but it could give one a sense of hopelessness. Bee knew, though, that fate was malleable. Just because there was a most likely course of events, just because the universe was arranged a certain way, didn’t mean that you were powerless to change that outcome. Fate wasn’t a set pattern that would happen regardless, just that the mass of probability was sitting on one end of the scales and you needed a gigantic bloody load on the other end if you had any hopes of shifting the balance.
Luckily, Bee knew two such weights.
At the house, Diana was in the back room with her plants. She was snipping stray tendrils from an overgrown Senecio Herianus with gentle concentration. The room felt calm and normal, a strange contrast to the tension of Luke’s home above the bookshop. ‘I need your help.’
Diana put down her secateurs and rose to her feet in a fluid movement and stretched her spine, both hands on the small of her back. Bee knew that if Diana hadn’t been her sister, the sight would have turned her into a molten puddle of lust. The sexuality and fecundity that exuded from Diana was so potent that men and women lost their wits. It was one of the many reasons that Bee was the sister that went into the human world and earned the family money. It wasn’t so much the cash, of course, Diana could command any amount of riches with a single crook of her smallest finger, but the sisters had vowed a very long ago to step lightly and to keep their influence to a minimum.
This was an exception, however. For the greater good.
Diana was looking at her questioningly, but she followed and let Bee explain on the way. The Three Sisters did not always see eye to eye, but they trusted each other implicitly and Diana knew that Bee would not be asking her to leave her home and her plants if it wasn’t for an extremely good reason.
The witch was keeping vigil over the Book Keeper. He was worse. Bee could see a grey haze hanging above his prone form. Diana shuddered as soon as she entered the cold room. The window was open and the fan was blowing, but as soon as Bee stepped closer, she could feel the heat rolling from the body in the bed.
Her sister was standing at the top of the stairs, a regretful expression painted across her beautiful face. She shook her head slowly. When she spoke, her voice made Esme jerk and look around.
‘I am sorry,’ Diana said.
‘Can’t you try?’ Bee asked, knowing the words were pointless. If Diana could help, she would do so. She closed her eyes, knowing what her sister was going to say. Knowing that this outcome was always what was going to happen. The moment she had seen Luke Taylor’s future she had known it. Fate or not, Bee knew that some things were inevitable. And when a human had been cursed this badly, there was only one of them strong enough to deal with it.
Diana looked sympathetically at Bee. ‘You need to get Lucy.’