by Colt, K. J.
‘Well met, Frooby. Just making sure you haven’t died.’ I felt a sudden wave of foolishness for my inappropriate humour.
‘You can’t be here. You’ll catch my sickness.’ He coughed, and it sounded as if an angry dog lived in his chest. ‘It’s why I’m home. Don’t come near me.’
I laughed. ‘It’s all right, Frooby, I’ve never caught an illness before… well, nothing that gave me trouble for more than a few hours, anyway.’
Frooby chuckled, which set off more coughing. ‘Are you sure?’
I nodded.
‘Come in, then.’
‘Stay,’ I said to Butter. As I turned to go inside, Butter whined.
‘He can come in,’ Frooby said.
‘Follow,’ I said, and Butter trotted into the house, his cold nose tapping at the backs of my legs. Inside, there was the strong smell of jasmine and lavender. ‘Smells good in here,’ I commented.
‘It was my mother’s favourite scent. She said it brought the outside inside. Since she died, not a day’s gone by when Father doesn’t put the house to smelling like this; it reminds him of her.’
One day, Frooby and I had talked about our parents’ deaths. His mother had died giving birth to him; he had been born four weeks before his predicted birthing date. That was why he was so sick all the time.
Jemely had been present for his birth and used the words ‘small as a bean’ to describe him. A few months back, Frooby had helped me across a puddle of water, and I’d felt the thinness of his wrists, and through his arm, the faint pulse of his heart. He always sounded tired, as if he needed a long sleep, a winter sleep, the kind that mountain bears took.
‘You should be at school,’ he said. Frooby always worried about others, but never for himself. I had learned to trust him more than Emala. He was the only person I worried about. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing needs to be wrong for me to visit you,’ I said, putting on my best cheerful voice.
‘Adenine, there’s no need to pretend around me. Look at me. I’m a weak, pathetic image of a man. Even when I get better, I am feeble. I can’t help my father with the farm. I have the body of a woman, except without breasts.’
That made me laugh. Frooby was one person I felt comfortable around. At times, it was as if we shared one mind and could see through each other’s eyes… figuratively speaking. My headmaster had told me about idioms. They were things people said, but they always meant something else.
‘Women can be strong and do things, you know.’
He snorted. ‘Dear Adenine, you always know how to make me feel good about myself.’
‘You’re nice.’ I shrugged. ‘Not many people are so nice.’
‘It’s hard for people to be nice. People are busy, engrossed in their own lives. Do you think you’re nice?’
‘Not as nice as you.’
He laughed and coughed for a couple of minutes. When he finished, he said, ‘So tell me, what is going through your mind?’
Inside Frooby was some older wisdom that seeped out from an ancient past, and always at the right time, too.
‘I’m to inherit my unc—my father’s property.’
‘You mean Garrad’s shack?’
I nodded.
‘Did you ever spend much time with your father?’
Too much. ‘No. I came to live with my aunt Capacia when he and Ardonian died because my mother said she needed the company.’ That was a convincing lie. ‘I didn’t really know him.’
‘So what’s wrong, then? Isn’t that a good thing?’
I shook my head, and without warning, tears betrayed my composed appearance. I remembered Klawdia’s words. Do not cry. Your heart is your weakness. I pushed my tears away and swallowed. ‘I didn’t like him.’
‘But if you didn’t really know him, how do you know if you would have liked him or not?’
‘Oh… he… well, when I was a little girl, he’d hit my mother.’
‘I’m sorry. What is your mother like?’
Caught again. Why hadn’t I thought to come up with a good enough story before talking to him? Frooby was sick, but he wasn’t dumb. ‘Mother has remarried and sent me here to live for good.’
‘I’m sorry, and now Capacia has done wrong by you?’
‘Yes. She’s forced me to keep Garrad’s place and lease it out. She wants to use it in the meantime, but I don’t know how she’s going to be any use there. Can you imagine her wheeling through a forest?’ I laughed nervously.
Frooby kept silent. ‘Father told me that Mystoria struggles to make the profit it once did, the coin might help. If I were you—’
‘But you’re not me.’
An uncomfortable silence settled on us. He didn’t understand after all. It wasn’t about money.
‘It’s sickening,’ I said finally. ‘Everything about… Father. I hate him. He hurt me.’ My hands were clenched, and Butter growled softly. ‘Heel,’ I commanded, and he stopped growling and sat by my foot.
‘Can I help in any way?’
‘No. There’s nothing I can do either.’ I found a chair and plonked myself into it.
Frooby lightly touched my arm. He was the only person other than Mother who could even lay a finger on me without me flinching. I thought over time the memory of Garrad hurting me would fade, but as I aged, and became wiser, my anger and hatred of him increased. Where I used to enjoy comfort, now it disgusted me. I wanted to be strong.
‘If you keep the shack, it doesn’t mean you have to visit. Why can’t you hire other people to go there to mend the shack and feed the animals?’
He was right. I wouldn’t have to set foot there except when we were keeping the horses out at the property. Even then, I didn’t have to go into my uncle’s house. I could stay outside. But we were getting bogged down in details, and those bothered me less than thinking that I was the owner of a property that belonged to the man who’d betrayed my trust and made me fearful of every adult I met.
‘I… um… I think it might be… um… good for you to go into his house,’ Frooby said. ‘What he did to you and your mother was bad. Maybe by facing it, you can make peace with it.’
If it had been anyone else, I would have stormed out of the room and wallowed in self-pity, but Frooby had a way with me. His idea was still terrible, though. Every time anything reminded me of Garrad, of that day in the tub, my mind seemed to spin out of control. It was bad enough living in the house where my uncle’s murder had taken place. We ate in that house. Laughed in that house. It was a constant disgrace to Father’s memory for me to be happy in the home where he had saved me. I hated the world. I hated myself.
‘I need to go,’ I said, and stood. ‘Butter. Up.’ He leaned against my leg, letting me know he was there. I wound his rope around my right hand.
‘Please don’t leave me while you’re upset, Adenine. Besides, how will you get home? I’m still wondering how you made it here in the first place.’
‘A lady helped me.’
‘And how do you propose to get home again?’
‘Butter knows the way.’ I liked that Frooby cared about me, but I hated it when people hinted that I might need help because I was blind. It made things harder, yes, but not impossible.
Feeling self-righteous, I stormed towards the door and opened it. I wanted to scream at the brightness of the sun. It found its way through my blindfold, and the red of my eyelids glowed extra bright. I wanted to see another colour other than red—blue, green, yellow, or purple.
‘Adenine,’ Frooby said in a way that beckoned me not to leave.
I ignored him anyway because I didn’t want to admit that I was upset and angry. On the way home, whenever my walking stick found a large stone, I kicked at it, hard. The pain felt good, but it didn’t relieve my frustration. So I tried running as fast as I could. I tugged on Butter’s leash, and he ran alongside me. He seemed to be enjoying it, and I was, too. I tried not to worry about what was before me. I was tired of caring about walking into trees or catch
ing my feet in holes or ditches. I was tired of planning. Tired of being good. And most of all, I was tired of caring about what people thought of me.
When I got closer to the market square, the town crier gave the mid-morning news. ‘Hear ye! Hear ye! A healer from Meligna passes through. She stops tonight. Thirty gold for a healing.’
Thirty. Last time, it had been fifty. I knew Mother had that amount stored in her treasure chest. Frooby needed a healing more than we needed the money, and if Mother kept the hill shack, our future was secure. I would buy Frooby a healing. The idea thrilled me, and in my excitement I turned around to go back to Frooby and tell him the good news.
A woman yelled, ‘Seize her!’
Hands grasped at my body. They seemed to come from every direction. They dragged me into the nearby brush.
‘Take off her blindfold,’ the woman said. I recognized that voice! Healer Euka.
‘Let me go!’ I screamed, and heard Butter growling beside me.
Then, one of the men shouted. Butter growled and snarled. There was a yelp and thud. Butter went quiet.
‘Damn dog,’ a man said.
‘Butter!’ I angled my head, trying to hear him panting or making any noise at all.
The man laughed. ‘He’s not moving.’
‘Don’t be a brute,’ Healer Euka said.
He grumbled. ‘I need a healing.’
‘Your skin is not broken. You’ll get no healing from me. Now be quiet, or I’ll send you home without pay.’
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘My apologies, Adenine, we just want a moment with you. We don’t mean you any harm. I just want to check something very important.’
If she’d had good intentions, she would not have hired men to grab me. They were Ruxdorian men, too; they had the same accent as Klawdia.
Two hands grabbed at my blindfold and yanked it off. The red colour of my eyelids became brighter.
‘No!’ I tried to cover my eyes with my hands. One of the men twisted my arm, and the pain was excruciating.
Healer Euka sighed. ‘Just as I expected.’ And then she took off my bonnet and removed the wrap from my hair. She sniffed at it. ‘Ugh, yes, that’s the smell, all right.’
I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘My arm, it hurts.’
‘Loosen your grip. Can’t you see she’s not a threat?’
My arm throbbed.
‘Child, have you ever been taught about the healers’ city?’
‘Meligna?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Yes. People only dream about living in my city. They whisper of its beauty, of its prosperity. It is a wonderful place with clean lanes and roads, plentiful clothing and food, good education, and nobody is ever sick because healing is free.’
‘So why doesn’t everyone go to live there, then?’ I asked, trying to pull free of my captors. Two were holding me, but they hadn’t said anything yet. The man who had hurt Butter stood by Euka, from what I could tell.
‘An intelligent question. You have brains to match your true nature. The answer is simply that we healers only let in certain people. In exchange for a complete healing, people come to live there and work for us. They are given food, housing, and schooling, but they cannot leave. It is a commitment. What would you give to have your eyesight back?’
‘I know you can’t heal me because I’m a girl!’
The man holding me snickered at my outburst.
‘Oh, but I can. And you will see why when I tell you that—’
A whistling noise interrupted our exchange. I heard a gasp, then a thump. After a second whistling noise, I was pulled to the ground. I felt a lifeless body beside me, and I wondered if the man was dead.
‘Who’s there?’ Healer Euka yelled. ‘Show yourself.’
I heard the thump of footsteps running across brittle branches.
‘Come back, traitor,’ Healer Euka yelled.
Another whistling noise came, sounding as if a tiny bird had flown past my ear at a fast speed. I heard another thump and assumed a second man had collapsed. I crawled to where I’d heard Butter fall, and gasped with joy when I found him breathing. When I stroked his body, he twitched and then whined with pain.
I nuzzled my face into his fur and spoke to him gently. ‘It’ll be all right.’ He moved his head to lick my fingers, and I stroked his face.
‘Be gone, healer whore,’ Klawdia said, ‘or your head will roll on the ground. I’d like to see you heal that.’
‘Klawdia, Butter’s hurt,’ I cried. ‘Help him.’
The sound of leather creaked beside me, and a hand touched mine as it brushed over Butter’s head.
‘I knew it was you, Savage. You threatened the mayor,’ Healer Euka said. ‘Queen Toxiv will be very interested to know that you’re living so close to her city.’ She laughed.
I heard the sound of a sword being drawn, then Healer Euka gulped.
‘If you come near her again, I will kill you,’ Klawdia threatened.
‘Your interference will strain the alliance between King Erageo and the Queens. A comfortable prison awaits you now.’
‘Go,’ Klawdia yelled.
Healer Euka chuckled to herself and moved away.
‘He has a cracked rib,’ Klawdia said refocusing on Butter. ‘I should force that whore to copulate with… never mind.’
‘What do we do?’
‘I can treat him at my house.’
Klawdia lifted Butter and carried him, but he whined with her every step. The sound cut through me as I followed. Goose pimples erupted on my arms, and I rubbed them. Without his rope in my hand, without his tail wagging against my leg, I felt bare, as if someone had removed one of my limbs.
When we got inside Klawdia’s house, she lay Butter on a bearskin rug, which I only discovered when my arm was scratched by long teeth protruding from the head of the animal.
‘I will be back. Keep him still.’
I put one hand on his hip and the other on his shoulder, and continued to whisper soothing things to him. I told him about rabbits and squirrels and how we would go exploring by the river as soon as he was better. He was getting so big, and I used my hands to take in every angle and curve of him.
Klawdia returned. ‘Here’s something for his pain.’ Liquid swished inside a glass bottle. ‘I have a blanket for him, too. We must wrap him up to prevent movement.’
I nodded and tried to keep him calm as Klawdia went about securing him.
‘You’ve grown,’ she said. ‘Tall, too. You’ve been looking after yourself like I instructed. Good girl.’
Butter whined.
My heart lurched at the sound of his pain. ‘What are you doing to him?’
‘Soon, his pain will be gone and he’ll feel better, I promise.’
I wished I could see him. I wished I could look into his eyes. After a while, he seemed to calm, and we moved the rug underneath a window where the afternoon sunlight warmed the flooring.
‘You are not harmed?’ Klawdia asked.
I searched for any points of pain or discomfort in my body. ‘I’m well.’
‘What did the healer say to you?’
‘Not much. Butter attacked one of the men. I think Healer Euka wants me to go to Meligna with her. She said she could heal me.’
‘I see.’
‘Did you kill those men? You’ll be hanged like my father was,’ I said, worried for Klawdia’s life.
‘Not killed. Poisoned, but it’s temporary. They’re all from Ruxdor. They’re all wearing hooded robes to hide their red hair. They are the healer’s heavies.’
‘Heavies?’
‘Paid criminals. In this case, Ruxdorian warriors who’ve ignored our traditions in favour of riches and war against Senya. We are the people of the snow, but we dream of green summers and fertile plains. And Senya is that dream.’
‘How did you know I was in trouble?’
‘Adenine,’ she said sadly. Then she stood and walked over to her oven fire. Liquid glugged,
and she scraped the bottom of a pot against hot coals. The leftover water on the outside of the pan sizzled from the heat, and Klawdia resumed her seat. ‘I have many friends in Senya and Meligna who helped me keep Healer Euka away. They informed me she was coming back here to retrieve a blind girl, so I left Ruxdor to follow her.’ Klawdia yawned.
I wondered how long she had been without sleep. ‘Shouldn’t I pay you or something? You saved my life.’
Klawdia laughed, a hearty sound from deep in her belly. ‘Nonsense. I am impressed at how you and Butter tried to fight all those men.’
‘You told me to survive. And I did.’
‘Then you’ve been a faithful pupil.’
‘So does that mean—?’ I cleared my throat. ‘Does that make you my teacher? I want to learn to fight.’
Klawdia chuckled. ‘Capacia must approve. We don’t want to get on her bad side, do we? I hear you and Capacia have inherited some new land.’
I sighed. I didn’t really want to talk about it. ‘You know what Healer Euka wants with me, don’t you? No more secrets, tell me.’
She took a deep breath. ‘There’s so much, and I’m troubled that your reaction might be bad. I do not even know where to start.’
‘From the beginning,’ I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘FIRST, I MUST ASK YOU a question. Has your female blood begun?’
I nodded.
‘You dropped these in the struggle.’ Klawdia placed my bonnet and hair wrap on my lap. ‘Did you know that the colour of your hair is changing?
‘No. Changing how?’
‘It’s becoming lighter.’
‘Mother said my scalp is flaking.’
‘She’s dyeing it black to hide its new colour.’
My thoughts went back to when I was sick. It seemed that ever since my affliction, the Death Plague, had been cured, my body was changing.
‘All girls like you have hair that changes colour, but before we talk about that, the things I know about you are part of a larger story.’ Klawdia’s clothing creaked and rustled as she shifted in her seat. ‘Remember many months ago, I told you that my father was the chieftain of Ruxdor?’
‘He rules Vilseek.’
