It was. Oh, Goddess, it was. If she’d only thought of the honey and salt sooner, if she’d just … but if she said this out loud, he would contradict her. So she slowly leaned forward and rested her cheek on his chest. She’d take the comfort for now. One of his arms carefully came around her back and then another. She slid her arms around him until she was clinging on to him for dear life. Her body couldn’t cry anymore; all she could do was breathe deeply. Jules smelled like the soap they’d used to wash clothes their clothes in the stream, horses, and fresh morning grass. She longed to stay here, safe in the comfort of his arms. She craved more than a partner and friend. She wanted a deep love like Mother and Da. She wanted—oh, hell in a kettle, if Jules knew what she wanted with him, he’d fly away like a frightened bird and never come back. Her chest tightened and she stepped out of the embrace, hastily tidying her hair as she did so. “Thanks,” she said, looking away. “I have to walk the trapline.”
Aaron, Natalie and Jules feasted on fresh cooked squirrel and berries as they watched her mother slowly recover. Mother was awake more and more and even able to sip a bit of broth by the evening’s end. By the next morning, she could sit propped up and converse with a bit more ease.
“I’d like to bury Gerard near the apple orchard,” she said after breakfast. “It was his life’s work; he should be buried near it.”
Natalie nodded.
“I’ll dig the grave,” Aaron said.
Natalie put her arm around his shoulders. “I’ll help.”
After another round of coughing, her mother continued, “I need to contact the Isle of Solerin to ask for someone who can help run an apple farm.”
“Solerin Attuned can work on other Isles?” Aaron asked. “They don’t need their megalith?”
Jules shook his head. “Solerin Attuned only need their sunstone megalith to help the plant life grow on Solerin itself. They often lend services to farmers in need on the other Isles; they hate to see a good farm go to waste. Besides, as your father proved so well, non-magical plant skills can accomplish quite a lot.”
“I’ll send a message to Solerin as soon as possible, Mother,” Natalie offered.
Aaron cocked his head to the side. “It’s going to be weird having a stranger living here at the farm.”
Natalie nodded. “Yes. However, better that than losing the farm entirely. Isle folk look out for their own.”
Aaron nodded and stood. “C’mon, Nat. We should start digging.”
“Sure. Where do you want to—”
A frantic knock sounded at the door. Upon opening it, she found a gangly girl, red-faced and out of breath, whose sweaty pony was tied to the front porch.
“Healer Desmond. Healer Edgewood would like you to come immediately. Many town folk have headaches and are throwing up.” Natalie almost questioned the rider about the Healer’s name and then she remembered Mistfell’s Healer from when she was growing up, Healer Wallace, passed away a few years ago. The memory carved a fresh wound in her heart; her childhood seemed to be disappearing in front of her.
“Yes, sweetheart, tell him we’ll be there right away. See to your pony and you can head back to town,” Natalie replied and turned to gather her things.
Jules put his hand on her arm. “Nat, wait. Stay and see your father buried. That is where you belong. I’ll go help Healer Edgewood.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, absolutely. We’re going to start them all off as we did your mother—with medication and hydration.”
Natalie strode across the room. “Come, take my satchel. All we need here is a bit of tanyaroot for Mother’s cough. You take the rest of the root and the dullanbark. I’ll put the salt and honey in there, too. You’ll also need food. Aaron, pack some of the leftover squirrel for Jules. Some of the berries, too, if they’re still good.”
The house was a flurry of activity as they got Jules ready to travel into Mistfell town. Soon, she and Aaron had Elric’s saddlebags packed and Jules mounted up.
Natalie put her hands on her hips. “Stay alive, Juliers Rayvenwood,” she ordered.
He gazed at her with a look she couldn’t decipher but made her stomach flutter nonetheless. “Come to me when you are ready,” he said.
Natalie crossed her arms over her stomach and put his words away in her mind to savor for later.
“I will.”
Chapter 16
R
N
atalie and Aaron grabbed shovels, selected a site near the apple tree grove and began digging. Their mother kept watch from the back porch, carefully propped up in chairs and resting with her feet elevated.
It was sweaty, wretched work; stinging blisters formed on Natalie’s hands, and the muscles in her back protested loudly. Yet it was also soothing and meditative, moving the dirt from one place to another; she found the smell of the dirt preferable to the smell of sweat, sickness and death that had been stuck in her nose these past few weeks.
She and Aaron took a break only for lunch. Natalie bandaged their blistered hands with a poultice of her own making. By early afternoon, they could both stand in the hole facing each other.
Natalie was lost in thought when a shovel full of dirt from Aaron’s shovel landed right in her face. She dropped her shovel, coughing and sputtering, trying to spit out the dirt and wipe it away at the same time. She definitely swallowed some, too.
Aaron not-so-helpfully pounded on her back. “Nat? Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you. The shovel slipped.”
She flapped a hand at him, batting him away, and reached for the waterskin of water she’d set next to the hole. She sat on a nearby boulder, rinsed her mouth and spat out dirt. She stared at the ground, eyes watering, and concentrated very hard on breathing in and out.
Using a fingernail to pick the rest of the dirt from her eyes, she caught Aaron’s glance. The expression on his face made her burst out laughing. Then, like a dam breaking, she couldn’t stop laughing. Holding her sides and tears running down her face, she pointed at her brother. “Y-y-you should s-s-see your f-f-face!”
He giggled, and then he was laughing as hard as she was. “My f-face, what about y-yours? It looks like you lost a b-battle with a p-pig!”
They both lost it, gales of laughter washing over them until they were lying on the ground, faces streaked with tears, with stitches in their sides and lungs aching for air.
When the laughter subsided, Aaron turned to face her. “I feel sorta bad. Laughing so hard while we’re digging Da’s grave.”
Natalie sighed. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I learned at the Abbey that laughter is as normal a part of grieving as crying. It confused me when I learned it in class, but it makes sense now. I think Da would like us to laugh when we remember him.”
“I also feel a lot better now,” Aaron confessed.
After a bit more rest, Aaron stood, offered a hand to Natalie, helping her to her feet, and they resumed digging their father’s grave.
Early the next afternoon, Natalie sat on Benji, all ready to ride into town and join Jules. Except. Except she was tired of treating the same illness over and over and losing. She longed for a cold or a broken bone or a cut that needed to be stitched. Anything but this blasted sweating fever that killed everyone in its path. Sighing, she squeezed Benji’s sides. There was nothing for it. It was time to go. Luckily, her tears stopped before she reached the town proper.
Mistfell’s town hall, Natalie discovered, was now a treatment facility for victims of the sweating fever. The compassion in Jules’s eyes when she walked in almost made her sob again. So she bit her lip when smiling back at him, put on her kerchief and got to work. The endless cycle of keeping patients alive kept her occupied, though it was a fresh stab to her heart each time she discovered someone she knew from her childhood lying sick on a pallet.
By evening, every single muscle in her body cried out in agony every time she knelt dow
n next to a patient. Each new fever victim picked at the feeble scab her soul had put over the wound left by her trials in Whitestrand and her father’s death. If she knew the person she treated, the wound opened wider.
She hauled herself in a stupor from pallet to pallet, pouring tea into mouths and whispering words of comfort. It’s too late. They’re all going to die anyway. She collapsed next to her belongings. She knew she should take something for her own aches. She pulled her herb satchel over with her fingertips and stared into it. For sore muscles, she should take … what was it called again?
“Nat,” Jules’s voice came from somewhere nearby. “Do you have a headache?”
“No. No, I just hurt all over.”
Jules’s forehead wrinkled in worry. “I’m going to do Naming on you. I need you to hold my hand, okay?” She nodded and held his hand, putting her other hand on her head. Jules’s energy flowed comfortably through her, but her own moved like mud.
His fingers brushed her cheek. “Just muscle strain and exhaustion. I’ll go get some dullanbark tea for you. It will help with the aches.”
She opened her eyes and saw Jules smiling with relief. “All right.”
He brought her tea, which she obediently sipped with shaking hands. “I just talked with Healer Edgewood. He has enough helpers. He says we can go home for the night.”
She nodded gratefully. Jules gathered their personal belongings while she finished her tea. Her arms felt like bags of sand as she lifted her hands to Activate the tea; she frowned at her still-trembling hands.
“Here, let me help.” Jules took her hand once more to Activate the tea and her aches lessened considerably. At least she’d be able to ride Benji home without falling face first onto the road.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Jules helped her stand and put an arm around her to help her out of the town hall.
“I shouldn’t be leaving,” she muttered to Jules. “Others have been here longer than I.”
Jules squeezed her shoulders. “You’ve been through a lot. You need rest. If you don’t care for yourself, you cannot care for others.”
Natalie smiled. “Oh, Goddess, do I remember Headmistress Gayla saying that over and over in—”
They stopped in their tracks outside the town hall doors. A large mob pressed against the steps of the front hall, torches raised and faces angry.
“There they are,” someone shouted, and like a spark to a fire the whole mob began shouting at once. Natalie couldn’t understand anything at first; then she heard: “They brought the sickness with them! They’re leaving us now! It’s their fault.”
“HEY!” Jules shouted. He stepped to the edge of the town hall steps and stood tall, glaring at the mob, his cloak billowing slightly in the breeze. The shouting died down to mutters. Natalie stepped up beside her partner, standing shoulder to shoulder with him. She doubted she appeared as impressive, but hopefully solidarity counted for something with this lot.
“Healer Desmond and I did not bring the illness with us. This illness has yet to infect us,” he scowled at all of them.
“But it was Gerard Desmond who died first,” shouted one woman.
“We believe a brewer from Whitestrand brought the illness here. Did any of you see a brewer named Morley in town this week past? He stayed at The Leaking Dragon for a night.”
Natalie scanned the crowd. They all looked at each other nervously. No one seemed inclined to answer.
“Fine. Here’s what you need to know,” Jules said. “It isn’t passed from person to person. We suspect it’s transmitted somehow via food, water, or animals, but we really haven’t stopped treating patients since we arrived in Whitestrand about a week ago and we are, frankly, exhausted. We need rest, and I assure you, we’ve told Healer Edgewood all we know and he has our full trust.”
Natalie put her hands on her hips and glowered at all of them. “The first symptoms are a headache followed by vomiting. If that happens to you or your kin, come to the town hall right away. The earlier we can treat people, the better.”
“Now go home.” Jules descended the stairs, making a space through the crowd as he went.
Aaron greeted them when they arrived home. Both Natalie and Jules thanked him for taking care of the horses. Natalie inquired after her mother, who raised an eyebrow and said “My dear, I do believe I look better than you. Go get sleep. Now.”
Instinct made Natalie obey that tone of voice immediately. She froze at the bottom of the stairs. Since arriving in Mistfell, she’d been by someone’s bedside all night. Now, with no emergency at hand, Mother and Aaron would sleep in their beds. She peered up the worn, wooden stairs. Her old bedroom and a blessedly comfortable bed lay upstairs. But outside was the tent and the man she’d slept next to for more than a week; a man whose comfort she sorely needed.
Indecision ruled her mind for several minutes. She sighed and put one foot on the stairs to go to bed. Without realizing what had happened, she found herself outside in front of the tent. She made sure to approach the tent audibly so as not to meet Jules with his dagger. Biting her lip, she opened the flap.
Jules sat on his bedroll, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his head on them. Concern clouded his expression. “You should be in bed.”
Natalie shrugged, stepped into the tent and closed the flap behind her. “Earlier, you took care of me and made sure I was all right. I wanted to be sure and return the favor.” The real reason she’d come to him seemed stuck in between her heart and throat.
Jules put his face on his knees and snorted. “I’m fine.”
Natalie raised an eyebrow and waited.
“I’m not fine,” he gave in. “I’m exhausted, angry, and tired of this Five-damned sweating fever. The mob at the town hall pushed me over the edge.” He flopped onto his bedroll and stared at the tent ceiling.
“A fine bunch of humanity,” Natalie nodded. “I’d give anything to treat an ear infection right now.”
“An infected cut,” Jules sighed wistfully.
“Food poisoning,” Natalie said dreamily and lay next to him, intensely aware of the close distance between them.
“There’s no favor to return,” Jules whispered.
“What?”
Jules turned his head to face her. “When you came into the tent. You said I took care of you and you wanted to return the favor. But really, Nat”—he reached out to run his fingers along her jawline—“you helped me first. You were right, I was an insufferable ass when I got back to the Abbey. I’d thought I’d lost everything. You helped me find my way out. Look at all I’m able to do now. I never would’ve believed it if you’d told me then.”
The intensity on his face penetrated the tent’s darkness. It sent a shockwave of yearning down her body; she longed to press herself against him and arch her back. She reached for his face when he gathered her against his side so her head rested in the crook of his shoulder and chest. A short time later, Jules’s snores filled the tent, but Natalie lay awake long into the night, her body burning with need.
Chapter 17
R
S
unshine, birdsong and a gentle breeze is a wonderful way to wake up, Natalie smiled to herself. Keeping her eyes closed, she let the comforting sensations wash away the last of her exhaustion. A suspicion someone watched her nudged at her subconscious. She opened her eyes and gasped when she found a pair of startling emerald eyes inches from her face.
“Why were you smiling?” Jules whispered.
She lifted a hand and ran her fingers along the rough stubble on his chin. “Because I’m happy.” Her smile broadened as she explored more of his face with her fingers. His eyes closed and he tilted his head to the side as her hand cupped his face. Need washed over her like waves on a beach and she ached to kiss him.
Taking a breath for courage, she moved to pull his face to hers when he took her hand in his, smiled regretfully at her and said, “We’d best get going f
or the day. When you’re ready, let’s walk the traplines.” Jules stood and left the tent.
Natalie fell back on her bedroll and let out a sigh. Hell in a kettle, she’d bet this entire farm he’d wanted to kiss her just then. So why hadn’t he? Why had he pushed her away?
“Is it me or are things not as bad here as they were in Whitestrand?” Natalie said to Jules over a patient that morning.
Although they had several new patients, only two current patients had died overnight.
Jules nodded while helping a patient drink tanyaroot tea. “I agree.”
“Why do you suppose that is?” Natalie asked as they moved to the next patient. “Is it because Mistfell has a smaller population? Or because we’re treating the illness earlier? Or we’re treating the dehydration as well?”
Jules raised his eyebrows. “It could be all three, although I’d guess population is rather farther down on the list. I don’t think this illness discriminates based on the size of the town.”
“Hmm,” Natalie thought as she helped the next patient drink dullanbark tea. “But the population here isn’t stacked one on top of the other like it is in Whitestrand. The buildings and housing are more spread out. Could that have something to do with it?”
Jules considered for a moment. “Possibly.”
The doors of the town hall opened. Expecting a new patient, Jules and Natalie moved toward the front to help bring the person in. They paused at the sight of two men in green cloaks. Two Healers, a short, balding man and a taller man with skin the color of coffee, stood in the doorway.
“Healers Desmond and Rayvenwood?” the taller of the two inquired.
“Yes?” Natalie said.
The Healer strode forward. “I’m Healer Kone and I have a message for you from the Council of Healers.” He handed her an envelope.
Natalie glanced nervously at Jules as she tore open the envelope.
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