When the boy finally opened his eyes, Ash was there at the side of the bed, tying off the bandage at his torso. The work had been done in near darkness; there was no window in the room, and the candle had been on the other side of the bed; the wounded side had been in shadow.
The candle cast strange shadows on her face, so she looked so peculiar to him; long and deep red-brunette tresses, dark brown eyes, and skin all rough and tan from hard, backbreaking work in the fields. So unlike the rich merchants and royal processions that passed by his mountain home.
When his eyes opened, Ash felt two different emotions. She was excited and relieved that the boy was alive and well and would be alright, but at the same time, a feeling of disappointment and dread settled in her stomach, like a heavy rock at the bottom of a pond, that the coloring of his eyes hadn’t just been a trick of the light the night before.
“Good morning,” she greeted him with a weak smile. “How do you feel?”
The boy closed his eyes and groaned.
Ash chuckled. “I’m sorry. Then again, I’d be surprised if you were feeling better after that. Well, there’s a new, fresh bandage for you, and that should fee alright.”
Her patient didn’t answer, just heaved a deep sigh and didn’t open his eyes. He seemed to be concentrating on something…
She shifted uncomfortably, then began gathering up the old dirty bandages. The dried blood crackled and broke as the cloth bent. She didn’t like playing doctor. It tugged at her heart the way the patient always groaned whether he was conscious or not, the way he flinched in pain when she was trying so hard to help.
But calling a doctor would mean letting someone see the unusual wounds, and they couldn’t let anyone start rumors. The poor boy would have a stake through his heart if the Inquisitor found out.
She wouldn’t let that happen, not when she had worked hard to heal him.
“So,” she said casually, trying to clean up her workspace. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”
The boy’s eyes flashed open, and Ash couldn’t help but notice once more: one blue eye. One green eye.
Her patient looked at her for one long moment, then said, “Rauder.” His voice was a timid, husky tenor. “From the mountains.”
Ash was a little caught off guard. She didn’t expect an answer, anymore than when she talked to her horse. With that thought came a guilty pang, and she looked away to hide her flushing face. “Mountains,” she said. “Hm. We…don’t get very many of your people around here.”
She began to walk out of the room.
“Wait,” he said suddenly.
She turned, cocking her head.
He sat up in bed, his shoulders hunched at either side of his face. “Where’s ‘here’?” he asked.
That’s an odd question, Ash mused. Why wouldn’t he know where he was traveling to?
“Kiln,” she said, a bit hesitant. “We’re south of the mountains, a little west from Kalver’s Peak.”
Then she moved out of the room, gently closing the door behind her.
Ash carried the bloody bandages out to the back where her mother was washing laundry in a bin. Avoiding her mother’s gaze, she picked up an empty one by the door and filled it up with water at the well…right next to where her mother was working.
“I still can’t believe you chased Tavin out into the storm,” Ma muttered.
Ash gave a rushed, exasperated groan and threw her head up into the sky. “Mother,” she sighed, “I told you. We needed the bed for the stranger, and anyway, Tavin was terrified of him.”
Ma huffed and went back to her laundry. “You realize he’s going to run straight to Inquisitor Ward and get that poor boy exorcized, don’t you?” She said.
Ash rolled her eyes and pulled the filled bin off of the lip of the well, dragging it as far away from her mother and the well as she could without hurting herself.
“He promised me he wouldn’t,” she told Ma as the distance between them grew. “I made him swear before he left. He gave me his word.”
“His word?” Ma shouted back as Ash sat down to work. “That and a copper coin will get you an apple! He promised, huh!”
Ash sighed and began washing the dirty bandages. Her mother was right, as usual. Trusting Tavin to keep quiet was the definition of stupidity.
“What was I thinking?” she muttered to herself.
She honestly had no idea.
“What are you doing up?” Ma shrieked suddenly, making Ash jump. At first she was confused, wondering why her mother would want her to be asleep in bed so late in the morning.
Then she saw Rauder standing in the doorway, looking as though he had just been issued the death sentence. The look on his face, complete and utter terror, made her laugh out loud.
“Oh, it’s fine and alright for you to laugh,” Ma shouted, standing up and coming towards the doorway. “You probably told him to get up, didn’t you? Just to annoy me! You’re going to get him killed, child!”
She came towards Rauder, and the boy, terrified of the angry madwoman, took several hurried steps back.
Little good that did him. Ma swept by him, grabbing his arm as she did and dragging him back into the house.
Ash heard her shouting in the house. “You were just attacked by some wild animal and slammed into our doorway! You’ve been out for hours, boy, you can’t just get up and walk around as though nothing happened!”
She laughed ruefully, shook her head, and hung up the bandages to dry.
Then she realized she was missing one.
Where could’ve I lost it? she thought, counting them once again. The night before, she used five bandages, and now she only had four…
“Oh, of course,” she scolded herself. She forgot to change the bandage his head.
Well, that would be remedied right now. She finished hanging up the bandages and went back inside the house.
She almost collided with her mother as she went through the doorway.
“Boy got no sense,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Gettin’ up like that with all of his injuries, traipsing around like he’s all well ‘n hale…”
“Well, I’m sure scaring him half to death didn’t do much good for his health,” Ash commented dryly.
Ma glared at her. “Shut your mouth, girl,” she snapped, and went back out to do the laundry.
Ash laughed again, shaking her head at her mother. With Ma around the house, there was never a dull moment.
She took out a bowl and poured some bay oil in it, then soaked the new, clean bandage in it, thinking about the strange boy.
He didn’t seem to be limping.
Then again, she thought with a wry chuckle. Ma could scare Lazarus into getting up and dancing a jig for her.
With that amusing thought, she entered Rauder’s room with the soaked bandage and sat on his bedside.
“Who is she?” he asked, eyes still wide.
Ash grinned. “My mother,” she said. “Don’t worry about her. She scares the living daylights out of everyone. She shouted at me to take my first step, and I was so scared, I did.”
Rauder smiled weakly.
“I forgot to change the bandage around your head,” she said, reaching for the band of white at his crown. “Sorry about that.”
Rauder clutched at the side of his head worriedly. “My head?” he repeated. “What’s wrong with my head?”
“You slammed into our door last night, Rauder,” she said. “You have a lump that would put a goose egg to shame and a long cut on your forehead.”
“I do?” He said, confused.
“Put your hand down, Rauder, so I can fix the bandage.”
She sounded so much like her mother that he instantly obeyed without knowing it.
It was difficult for Ash to take of the bandage. The boy’s messy long hair got in the way and untying the knot turned out to be a painful process for him.
“Sorry,” she said again. “This will be quick, don’t worry. All I need to do is—“
She stopped short, holding the old bandage in bewilderment.
The wounds were gone.
Goose egg lump, ragged bloody cut…It wasn’t there. His flesh was flawless.
“Is something wrong?” Rauder asked worriedly.
She didn’t know how to answer that. Technically, nothing was wrong. But that’s just it; nothing’s wrong, and something about nothing being wrong was a very wrong something indeed.
She rubbed her head, trying to ease the headache that thought invoked.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she decided at last. “Must’ve just been a trick of the—“
But the bandage was bloody. Very bloody. The wound was there and very much real last night when the bandage was applied, and now it was gone.
“You’re a fast healer, Mr. Rauder,” she said at last. “I’ve never seen someone recover so quickly.”
“Really?” he replied, perplexed.
Ash didn’t know what else to say. “How are your ribs?”
“My ribs, too?” Rauder said. “What’s wrong with my ribs?”
“You were…I saw…there was…” she stopped. “You can’t feel it?”
“Feel what?”
Ash shook her head in bewilderment. “The claw wounds!” she cried, losing patience. “You got raked up like a pile of leaves by some animal! How can you not feel that?”
A glimmer of understanding flickered in his eyes. “Oh, the claws?” he said. “Why would I feel them? They were last night!”
Ash began untying the bandages around his torso, heart pounding. “You can’t…there’s no way you…how could you possibly…”
She sat back on her heels, staring wide-eyed at the wounds.
Where the wounds should’ve been.
The skin was flawless.
(Definately not as good as the first chapter; It needs some serious serious editting. Any suggestions or comments--any at all--would be really appreciated! Thanks for reading!
)
but nice:)