by Lari Don
He was much taller than Helen, because his horse legs were longer than her human legs. But with his scowling eyes closed, and his confident voice quiet, he didn’t seem much older than her. Suddenly he looked sad and in pain.
He opened his eyes again.
“What can I do, healer’s child?”
She looked at his leg. It was dripping blood all over the floor. At least she was qualified to clean the floor, but perhaps she could have a go at cleaning the leg too.
“Stand there.”
She went over to her Mum’s supplies. She often tidied them in exchange for pocket money, so she knew where most things were.
Helen gathered big antiseptic swabs, horse bandages and a bottle of pink antiseptic solution. She pulled a low stool over to the boy’s back legs.
Then she thought, what would Mum do? First she would take notes. So she pulled a new notebook from the desk and asked, “What’s your name and how did this injury occur?”
“I am Yann. And it’s none of your business how I hurt myself.”
“Yes, it is. If I’m going to fix you, I need to know what hurt you.”
“I cut myself jumping over a wall,” he muttered.
“Was the wall too high for you?”
“No wall is too high! I misjudged it a little. I was distracted.”
Helen grinned. She recognized the excuses boys at school made when they missed an easy shot at goal.
“I’m just going to wipe the dirt out of the wound, then put a covering on to keep it clean. It might sting a bit. Try to stay still.”
“I am not afraid of pain.”
“Well, aren’t you brave. But if you aren’t a little bit afraid of pain, you’ll just keep damaging yourself.”
Yann snorted, but didn’t answer her.
Helen tore open a packet of swabs, soaked one in antiseptic and started to clear away the blood. She had hoped that once the blood was cleaned up, the wound would be quite small. But it ran right from his hoof, past his fetlock, up to his hock, and then curved round in a jagged edge. His lower leg had been ripped open and a flap of skin was hanging off.
He hissed and one of his front hooves scraped the floor jerkily as she cleaned under the flap. But his back leg stayed still.
“You’re doing really well. Just a little bit more.” She recognised the sing song voice her Mum used to calm animals.
She gently cleaned blood, hairs and dirt out of the cut, and dropped the swabs on the floor.
She examined the clean wound.
“I can’t just bandage you. I think this needs stitches.”
“Go on then. I won’t move.”
“But I can’t do stitches. I need to go and get my Mum.”
“But you said she won’t believe in me.”
“She’ll believe in the wound, Yann. She’ll fix your leg before she worries about your top half.”
“Then what will she do?”
Helen shrugged. “She’ll either think she’s dreaming, or she’ll call the police. But I’m sure she would stitch you up first.”
“What’s the police?”
“They arrest people who’ve broken the law.”
“I have not broken any of your laws,” Yann insisted.
“You’ll be fine then. But no adult is going to let you gallop off. They’ll want to know what you are and where you came from.”
“That is no one’s business but my own. Can you sew?”
“Yes, and knit and weave and crochet and I can sing all fifteen verses of …”
“If you can sew, you can stitch me up. I would be very obliged if you would do so.”
“Don’t you have centaur doctors, where you come from?’ Helen asked. ‘Couldn’t you get them to fix you?”
“I can’t tell … It’s none of your business. I have asked for your help, and by all the laws of hospitality you should give me that help.”
“You’re being far too rude to expect any hospitality.”
“I shall make a bargain with you, healer’s child. If you heal me, I promise to grant you a wish.”
“Okay. I wish you would tell me what’s going on …”
“Oh no, I mean a tooth fairy type wish: a vision of your future husband, or a puppy for your birthday or something.”
Helen laughed. “I don’t want a husband, and we get far too many puppies here as it is. Let me do what I can with your leg, and then we’ll see.”
She reached up to the shelves to find the suturing equipment: a sterile needle, strong dissolving suturing thread, forceps and finally, right at the back, the metal needle holders shaped like skinny scissors.
When she had first shown an interest in making clothes for her toys, her Mum had let her practise not just with ordinary needles and thread, but also with fancy, curved suturing needles. Helen remembered that she had used the forceps to hold the edges of the material together, and the needle holder to push the needle through, so that her fingers didn’t actually touch the needle. But suturing needles hadn’t been much use for making teddy bears’ pyjamas, so she hadn’t used them for years.
Sewing up the wound in Yann’s leg was nothing like stitching felt or cotton. It was more like sewing leather or plastic. She had to force the needle through with all her strength, then tug the thread after it to hold the skin together.
Yann didn’t move, but she could hear his breathing. He took a deep breath as she picked up the edges of the skin with the forceps, held his breath as she forced the needle through, and didn’t let it out until she had finished tugging. She glanced up after she had tied off the seventh stitch. He had one hand over his eyes.
“I’m nearly done. I’m sorry it hurts.”
He didn’t answer. He just kept breathing. Helen kept sewing.
Finally, she knotted the last stitch and checked along the length of the wound. The stitches were uneven, but the wound met all the way round, which she thought was the important thing.
“That’s me done. Here, wipe the sweat off your forehead.”
She handed him a hanky and turned her back for a moment, placing the used needle carefully in the yellow bin with the orange lid.
When she turned back, there were no tears on his face. It wasn’t her business if there ever had been.
Helen said gently, “Please get someone older to look at it when you get home. The way I’ve done it, there might be a scar.”
“If so, it will be a scar honourably won. Your stitches will be all I need. Thank you. I will leave now.”
“Hold on. I have to cover it up. And you have to tell me your story of the high wall and the distraction and why you can’t tell your own doctors.”
“There is nothing to tell. Just a foolish accident.”
“And the teeth?”
“What teeth?”
She bent down and took a couple of small white objects from the heap of bloody swabs on the floor.
“These teeth. They were stuck in the wound.”
His eyes brightened.
“May I have those? It is always useful to have a tooth of the creature that bit you.”
“Not yet.” She slipped the sharp teeth into her jeans pocket, and picked up the horse bandages.
She held a sterile pad over the wound and wrapped a soft white bandage round it, winding upwards from his hoof. Then, she fastened everything neatly and securely with wide sticky tape. She stood up and looked at her handiwork. She was fairly sure it wouldn’t unravel or slip off.
“How does that feel?”
“It feels strong. I thank you. May I have those teeth?”
“May I have your story? Just for my records.” She picked up her notebook. “All vets keep records.”
Yann shied away from the small lined book, his horse’s hooves clattering backwards on the floor and his boy’s fists clenching.
“You must not write any record of my visit! Written words are very powerful. What have you written in there?”
“Keep your voice down!”
He repeated, more q
uietly but just as urgently, “What have you written, healer’s child?”
“Just your name, Yann, and your injury — cut to back right leg. Nothing else.”
“Destroy the page.”
“Why?”
“Tear it out and burn it. There could be such trouble if anyone knows.”
“If anyone knows what?”
“That I have been here. Why I have been here.”
“Okay. You want me to destroy this page, and you want me to give you these teeth. And I want your story. Which I will not write down, I promise.”
Yann shook his head. “It is not my story. It is a secret and it is not my secret. I have promised not to tell.”
“You promised to grant my wish.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a puppy, or a kitten, or a sparkly dress, or a pumpkin coach to a handsome prince’s palace?” Yann grinned, and so did Helen.
“No, I just want an answer to my question.”
“That’s all? An answer. So easy to ask for.”
He scowled again, but not at her. Perhaps he was thinking.
“I cannot break my promise. But I can ask to be freed from it. If you will destroy that page now, before my eyes, I will come back tomorrow, to tell you what I can. And tomorrow you can give me the teeth.”
So Helen ripped out the page, lit a match from her Mum’s odds and ends drawer and burnt it to ash. Then she hauled on the big sliding door to let Yann out. He didn’t move.
“Take the teeth out of your pocket, healer’s child. It is not a safe place to keep them, so near to your skin.”
She moved her hand to her pocket, then hesitated, wondering if it was a trick. Was he going to grab the teeth, and break his promise?
Yann snorted. “Wait until I have gone, if you don’t trust me. But keep them hidden at least an arm’s length from you or any other breathing creature. Not in a pocket, nor a bed, nor anywhere you keep food.”
“Are the teeth poisonous? Have you been poisoned? Your leg isn’t swollen.”
“No, but they are the teeth of a creature controlled by evil, and it is not wise to keep evil close. I will take them to a safe place tomorrow. Look for me when the sun goes down.”
He was hardly limping as he left the surgery. He trotted across the garden, jumped smoothly over the fence and cantered into the darkness of the field and the hills beyond.
Helen didn’t hear the rustling in the bushes as the creature hidden there wriggled, trying to decide whether to follow the boy or watch the girl.
She turned back into the surgery, and took the teeth out of her pocket. She put them on the work surface. Not too near her.
She cleared all the rubbish away, sprayed disinfectant and tidied the shelves so there were no gaps where she’d removed supplies. Then she dropped the teeth into an empty swab packet, folded the top over, and left the surgery.
She pulled the door gently behind her, and let herself quietly back into the house. She looked around the hall for a hiding place, and decided to slip the packet into the toe of a black welly that was too small for her and too big for her sister. Then she washed her hands thoroughly.
She said goodnight to her Dad in the study and to her Mum in the bath, and blew a kiss to her little sister in the nursery. Then she went to bed.
Just before she fell asleep, she realized that the boy had never even asked her name. And she didn’t think he’d said “please” once either. If he didn’t come back, she wouldn’t mind one bit.
Copyright
Kelpies is an imprint of Floris Books
First published in 2017 by Floris Books
© 2017 Lari Don
This eBook edition published in 2017
Lari Don asserts her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be recognised as the Author of this Work. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced without prior permission of Floris Books, Edinburgh
www.florisbooks.co.uk
The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this volume
British Library CIP Data available
ISBN 978-178250-342-2
