What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose)

by Beaumont, Delany

  Now awoken by Tetch, I get to my feet and weave from side to side for a moment, unsteady with the sudden exertion. I put the back of my hand close to Aiden’s mouth, the swollen surface of his damaged lips brushing the hairs on my skin, making them tingle. I let myself breathe when I feel the warmth of his breath. But he’s breathing so softly, with such shallow little puffs, it doesn’t seem like enough to sustain him.

  I turn to Tetch and thoughts start racing through my mind. Can I trust her? Can I rope her into helping me like I have William? She’s not paying any attention to me. She’s wringing plump little hands that look like fish flopping in a net, staring down at Aiden like she’s a grieving relative just arrived at his deathbed. I’m amazed at how completely overwhelmed she is. I had no idea Tetch had it in her to get this emotional.

  I whisper the words, “Help me.” She looks at me now, her face suddenly contorted by something like panic. I can sense her pleading with me without speaking the words out loud, Don’t ask me to do something it isn’t in me to do. But I tell her, “Lift up the blankets.”

  She looks at Aiden. Back at me. “Lift up the blankets,” I say more firmly.

  I reach over and take her by the arm and pull her closer to the bed. She resists but then lets herself be pulled along. It feels like tugging on the arm of CJ or Terry. I then place her left hand on the top end of the tattered wool blanket covering Aiden’s body. It reaches the bottom of his chin. “Lift it up gently,” I tell her. “Hold it up a little so I can take a look at him. I don’t want him to get cold.”

  Tetch moves her hand robotically, gingerly grips the top of the blanket and slowly peels it away from Aiden. I’ve removed his jacket but left his bloodied shirt on. I feel like I have no time, like I have to do something for him—help him with his wounds, his bruises, his fever—or it will be too late.

  Picking up a small dish on which a candle stub gutters, I bend low to peer under the blanket and move the candlelight slowly over Aiden’s torso. His chest flutters a little as he draws a breath. The wound in his side still looks sticky wet and raw. The blood that’s seeped across his shirt looks black as pitch under the faint light of the candle.

  Aiden still has an old white tee shirt gummed to his sticky skin. I want to rip it off him so I can bathe his wound with soap and water, see exactly how bad it is but I’m afraid to touch it.

  He also had a thick sweatshirt on under his coat which I had William help me pull off right after we got him upstairs. He was limp, unresistant at first but just as we were pulling it free from around his head, his arms up just enough so we could slip it off, his mouth fell open and he let out another awful groan. The sound ricocheted through me like the aftershocks of an explosion. Then he shrank into himself, curling up tight like a premature baby.

  I’ve thought of taking a pair of scissors or even a knife to cut the tee shirt free but he seems so fragile, like the act of peeling this thin layer of cloth ever so gently from his body might be enough to cause him pain I can’t even begin to imagine.

  “How is he?” I hear Tetch ask me again.

  I pull back from Aiden, set the candle down while Tetch carefully lets the blanket drop back over his body.

  I feel annoyed now, pissed off at how useless she is, how useless and hateful everyone is in this wretched place so I snap at her, “Will you just shut up? You think I have any idea? Stop asking me that. Can’t you be useful for once in this shitty, pathetic little thing you call your life?”

  Tetch reels back, retreating almost all the way to the door. I want to throw her from the room but I need her. I still need her help and William’s and I do not want to lose control of the situation. I want both of them under my thumb.

  But anger at Tetch is just a smokescreen for my own feelings.

  I’m furious at how helpless I am to do even one simple thing that might help this badly wounded boy. I’ve taken on total responsibility for him. I don’t know him at all, never met him before, never spoke a word to him but I feel that if he dies it will be because I’ve failed.

  It will be my fault.

  And if I believe way down in the deepest, darkest part of me that it’s my fault, how will I carry on after something like that? How will I wake up tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and feel like I can do anything to help the remnants of my little family, to help myself?

  I cannot start to feel helpless. I have to stay in control.

  “Listen. Come here.” I pounce on her, snatch hold of her arm again, pull her back with me to the side of the cot. We stand side by side, staring down at the motionless boy. “Tetch, instead of asking how he is, do something for him.”

  She looks up from Aiden to me. Despite the dim light I can see the confusion contorting her face, eyes wide as saucers and mouth hanging slack. I haven’t seen many of them up close but Tetch reminds me of how convinced I am that she and William must be the weakest of the Elders. The runts of the litter.

  “Look, I’m sorry I shouted at you. I know you’re upset. But think. What do we need most now? To help Aiden?”

  “Aiden,” she says. She’s on the verge of tears, about to start sobbing.

  “Don’t you think we need some supplies, something we can use to treat his wounds, help his fever?”

  She frowns, her mouth snaps shut. I can tell she’s thinking over what I’ve said.

  “I know that Needle…” I start to say.

  “Oh, no. Don’t go there. Don’t you go there.” She begins backing to the door.

  “Why not?” I move closer and grab her arm again. She holds out the limb I’m touching like she wishes it was no longer connected to her body. Like she wishes she could pull loose from it and run. I jerk her back to the center of the room, step around her and bang the door to the office closed with a kick. I’m now standing between her and the door.

  “Why not, Tetch? You’re in love with him, aren’t you? You need him, don’t you?”

  She looks disgusted. “I’m not in love with him.”

  I just shrug. “Whatever you say. But you’re going to help me. If you do and he gets through this, I’m going to tell him all about it. How he owes his life to you. I’ll make you look so good in his eyes, he’ll want you around him every day for the rest of his life.”

  “I don’t love him,” she says emphatically. “Stop saying that.”

  I just smile at her, not making fun of her, not trying to diminish the way she feels but letting her know I understand. “You…or William…ask Needle. If they don’t want him to die, they’ll give you something that will help. It’s that simple.”

  She chews on her lower lip, starts wringing her hands again. “Maybe William can go,” she says at last. She faces the bed again and nods her head. “Yes, I think William can go.” Then she shakes her head. “No he can’t. We can’t go to Needle.”

  I think fast, trying to come up with some way to persuade her. I have to convince her of this. I have to make her believe in what I’m saying.

  “Tetch, picture yourself waking up by his side. Sitting in that chair. The first thing he sees is you, just you.” She looks from the cot to me and back to the cot. “He knows now he’s going to be all right. He’s survived thanks to you.”

  “But they hate him. They could have killed him.”

  “But they didn’t. That’s the point. Even they know that there aren’t enough of us left to start killing us off without a second thought. Why do you think I’m still alive? They punished me—Moira wanted to kill me—but they haven’t. They can’t bring themselves to do it.”

  She looks thoughtful. “That’s true.”

  “Who knows? Maybe Aiden will become more important as time goes on. Maybe he’ll become strong enough to take them all on. He’ll become a leader and you’ll be at his side.”

  Tetch raises her right hand and I can see it tremble a little. She takes a step closer to the cot and reaches down to the body curled up tight below her as if she wants to stroke Aiden’s dark hair, maybe touch the side o
f his cheek. But then she pulls back. “So, you think they want me to save him?” she says slowly.

  “Yes.” I almost shout the word at her. “They want you to save him. He wants you to save him. You want to save him.”

  She nods. “Yes. I don’t want him to die.” At that moment the damn breaks and she begins to cry. Her chin quivers, her nose runs and tears streak down her cheeks.

  I take her hand in mine and hold it like a sister might, as if I really do care about her well-being. “We get the medicine, Tetch. He recovers. He wakes and you’re sitting by his side. He imagines the days and nights you’ve spent nursing him. You’re his angel, protector.”

  Maybe I’m laying it on a bit thick and I realize I have to be careful. I don’t want to lose her. I have to convince her.

  But at the same moment I’m thinking to myself that I need to be careful, I decide to take a chance. I decide to bring up something that I only guess is true. Looking at Tetch and thinking over what I’ve been told about Aiden, I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong.

  “Aiden’s never paid much attention to you, has he, Tetch? You keep trying to get close to him, talk to him but he never seems all that interested.”

  She glares at me. “And you would know that—how?” She doesn’t just pull her hand away from mine but throws it aside like it’s a dead mouse and starts wiping at her eyes.

  I laugh a little, unconcerned, like it’s so obvious. “Whatever. But don’t you want the chance to impress him, show him how important you can be?” Then I get more serious. “Look at him, Tetch. There’s only one of him. If he’s gone, do you think you’ll find anyone who can replace him?”

  I get down on my knees by the side of the cot, like I’m about to pray. “Look at him, Tetch.” I reach out to him like she did but I actually stroke his hair, ever so gently, ever so softly. I actually rest the back of hand against the soft skin of his cheek. Then I look up at her, watch her reaction. “Do you want me to be the one who saves him, Tetch? Do you want him to wake up and see me?”

  She laughs but the laugh splutters through a batch of fresh tears and a runny nose at the same time. “You can’t save him. That’s such a joke.” She pulls up the bottom of the bulky sweater she wears and tries to swipe her face clean. I get a glimpse of the pale moon of her stomach with the black crater of her bellybutton just above her waistline.

  I’ve made my case and now wait while the wheels spin in her head. I shouldn’t have to say anything else. And sure enough, when she’s regained some composure, she announces, “I’ll tell William he’s got to go.” And I believe she means it.

  “Do it soon,” I say softly.

  “I’ll do it when I damn well please.” I let her push past me and she marches out the door.

  Seven

  But William won’t go. Not alone.

  All through the following day he and Tetch keep showing up at the doorway of the room where I sit with Aiden. They peer in at me and the sleeping boy with sour, frightened faces.

  They are never together. One will show up maybe an hour after the other has paid me a visit. Both act like they’re afraid to take a single step into the room. I have to haul myself up from the rickety desk chair I’ve been glued to and meet them in the doorway to see what they want.

  I don’t know what they’re saying to each other when I’m not around but I’m sure it isn’t much. Probably a few rude remarks, a shouted word or two. They treat me like I’m a hostage negotiator, making me listen to one’s side of the argument—their list of demands—and then having to communicate all that to the other when he or she shows up at the door.

  During a morning visit, wearing the same mud-smeared clothes he wore the day before, the hair at the back of his head sticking up like the crown of a rooster, William says, “I’m not going to do it. You said you’d leave me alone after I helped you with…” He hunches one narrow shoulder and points it in Aiden’s direction, hands still jammed in his pockets. “Him.”

  Exhaustion is making it harder and harder to keep talking, to keep arguing, persuading. But I know I’ve won. I know that both he and Tetch will do what I say. I don’t have to grab them, shake them, trip them, hurl them against a wall to make an impression. I don’t have to threaten. I am in control.

  “I am not going to let him die.” My voice is a hard, raspy shell of a thing.

  He takes his hands out of his pockets and begins twisting them together just as Tetch did the night before. He opens his mouth several times to speak but nothing emerges. Finally he produces a sentence that starts as a whine and accelerates into a screech. “You told me you’d leave me alone!”

  And I watch him scuttle back through the outer offices, maybe to argue with Tetch, maybe to return to whatever small space in the building he’s marked as his own personal hideout and brood over what his options are.

  Wearily, I shuffle back to my chair and lower myself down on its hard little cushion. I scoot forward to the edge of the seat, wrap my arms around myself, rock back and forth, my eyelids drifting shut, my thoughts slowing down. Aiden looks the same, always the same, dark hair spilling into his eyes, skin dull and ashen like he’s not quite real—the wax figure of a boy rather than the real thing.

  Often I pull the chair up close, fumble under the blankets for one his hands and hold it loosely, gently in my own. His hands feel so cool compared to his forehead. If I brush the fan of thick, dank hair back and rest my fingertips against the smooth skin of his brow, it feels much warmer than it should.

  I remember carrying him up from the cellar the night before. William and I shifting him with as much care as we can onto a sheet, grabbing the sheet at either end by snatching up big handfuls of fabric and lifting him up on the count of three. I at Aiden’s feet and William at his head. Letting William start to back his way out of the cellar, down the hallway and up the stairs.

  This time it’s William who has to stop on the landing to catch his breath. “I don’t know why we’re doing this,” I hear him gripe in the gloom. “I don’t want to do this. We’re taking him back down.”

  “We are not taking him back down,” I say. “I’ll drag him the rest of the way up myself if I have to.”

  I hear nothing except for him breathing heavily.

  I raise my voice. “We’ve got to go on, William. Now. Do you want someone to find us in here? With him? Is that going to look good?”

  William swears, slaps his hand hard against the wall of the landing. Swears again. But at last he squats down, counts to three and again we heave the sheet up with its heavy burden. He speaks not another word, starts backing up the stairs, the heels of his boots thumping against the risers.

  We make it to the first floor but by the time we get close to the office where I’ve chosen to hide Aiden we are practically sliding him along the floor. As we puff and pant down the first floor corridor, one of Aiden’s arms flops loose from the sheet like the limb of a broken mannequin. I drop his feet with a thud so I can rush to his side and tuck the arm back in alongside his body.

  Tetch reappears maybe an hour or so after William’s last visit. She’s changed into a new outfit, black wool tights, another red sweater, small calfskin boots that reach just above her ankles. The Elders must go on frequent scavenger hunts to rummage through department stores in downtown Raintree. I’m amazed that so much stuff is left for them to find but then those fleeing the sickness weren’t overly concerned with having nice clothes to wear.

  Her face is made up, her hair clumpy and shellacked with some kind of gel. But under it all she’s still so obviously frightened, vulnerable.

  “He won’t do it,” she announces. “Not by himself.”

  “Okay. So what’s the solution? Are you going to go?” I’ve propped myself against the open door, arms folded tight, trying to keep myself from falling forward or sinking down. “You know where Needle is, don’t you? You could find him. If you care enough about…” I nod at the cot.

  She doesn’t answer. She looks like she’s about to t
urn and march out of the room again but then she says, “That’s not the point.”

  “The point? What are you talking about, the point? What’s that mean?”

  She fidgets, flustered, swats at herself like she’s being attacked by imaginary mosquitoes.

  “I don’t know. Why do you keep bothering me?”

  I say nothing, stare at her and smile my heavy-lidded, sleep-deprived smile.

  “Why don’t you both go?”

  “Both?” she says in a small voice.

  “Both. You both go but you make William do the work. You send William in to talk to Needle.”

  “No way he’s going to do that. He’ll refuse.”

  “Then you tell him you’re going to find Moira and tell her about everything he’s done. That he’s been helping me. That William and I are now a team, working together like a new…” I think fast. “Runaway group of Elders.”

  She shakes her head emphatically with her eyes squeezed shut like she’s sucking a lemon. “I can’t talk to Moira. That’s ridiculous.”

  I let out the deepest, most exasperated sigh. “Somebody’s got to do something.” My voice cracks like a scratchy record on the word “got.” I need a drink of water. Cool, clear water. I also need to leave the room so I can pee but I’m afraid to leave Aiden unattended.

  She thinks for a moment, rubbing her right cheek, smearing some of the blush she’s caked over her pale-pink skin.

  “There’s Jendra,” Tetch says slowly.

  “Jendra?”

  “He and Jendra were like…” She crosses her fingers to indicate how close they were. “Of course, we all know he’s just a little worm so I don’t think she ever felt about him like he felt about her but they looked out for each other. They’d been together a long time before they came here.”