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“I must speak to one of the healers! My mother is ill!”
The boy looked mildly disappointed, his ridiculously baggy cap sagging over one eye as he withdrew his head from the window, saying “Yes of course miss, come inside.”
He removed the bar from the door, allowing Jonalla to slip inside.
“Be comfortable, Miss,” he said, wincing as she sat down on a silk-covered couch, her sodden nightgown dripping onto the ornate furniture.
The boy disappeared down a hallway, his speech in hushed tones emanating from the door at the end of the hallway.
In moments, a man emerged, accompanying the boy.
He bowed to Jonalla, saying “I am Tharso, the healer. My servant tells me you need assistance?”
“Yes, Tharso, my mother is very ill. Your daughter Sasha has seen after her previously, but we need someone, immediately.”
“Then we will make all haste,” said Tharso, his dark eyes growing grave.
He entered a closset, reaching about for some supplies, then turned to his servant again.
“Fetch me my cloak. And my bag.”
Now facing Jonalla, he continued “My, you must be freezing, flying about drenched in that weather. At least take that blanket on the couch; or else you will catch ill as well!”
The boy came scampering back with a case bulging with the volume of its contents and an oiled leather cape, which Tharso took from him.
Jonalla wrapped the fur mantle Tharso had pointed out around herself, and motioning for him to follow her, stepped quickly out of the house, and leapt into the rain-sliced air outside.
Back at their home, Gattlin sat by his mother, watching the twitching of her limbs, listening to the grating gasps of her breathing.
Verdeyan stood in the corner, peering out from around the staircase, watching him.
His face was turned away from her, but the posture of his body, kneeling over the writhing body, was more telling than any look.
Trembling, she took a few steps in his direction, her chest rising and falling as she breathed.
For a scant handful of seconds, she stood silently, gazing over the room, her mouth twisted into a sympathetic line.
“Y-yes?” he asked, looking up to see her. His voice was quiet; dull with sadness.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Go upstairs and see after Aspen. There’s nothing for you to do here.”
She hesitated.
“Go.”
She ran softly up the stairs, her heart crawling into her throat.
An image played in her mind, the face of a dear woman, a dear man, searing in her mind’s eye, inundating her consciousness with a tremendous sense of grief.
Where were they? What was happening to them?
She entered Jonalla’s room and sank to the floor beside the sleeping form of Aspen, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets. She curled up beside the tiny boy, letting the rhythm of his breathing calm her.
Downstairs, she heard the clatter of the door opening, the echo of footsteps against the weathered floorboards, the drum of low, urgent voices.
Tharso stood over Asabet, looking at Gattlin, who rose, giving him a furtive glance before rushing to state “She’s been jerking about like this for several minutes. It’s happened before, so I just…watch…” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“How long, do you know, has this been going on?” Tharso’s voice was grave as he rummaged in his case of supplies.
“Perhaps ten minutes, but I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, there is little you could do. Now, help me see after her,” Tharso now knelt over Asabet.
With his fingers he deftly peeled back an eyelid, gazing into them as they twitched in their orbits before releasing her eye.
“Ah, she is having a fit….”
Tharso sat back on his heels, reaching down to her wrist, which he caught with one hand, and pressed his forefinger to it, feeling of her heartbeat.
“Her body is wearing itself out,” he observed, to which statement Jonalla sighed, cutting a glance at the healer.
“Alright, this is what I will do,” Tharso continued, now reaching into his bag.
“You, get me a basin of water, and you sir, sit her and make sure she keeps breathing. Coughing is good. Silence is not.”
Jonalla returned moments later with a bowl filled with rainwater, which the healer took, pouring herbs from a pouch into it.
“What is there to do?” Gattlin asked again, hesitant, quiet.
“We will wait for her fit to end, and give her this to drink. But it seems to be only one part of the matter; these fits you say she has—what causes them is more the issue.”
“She’s had them for as long as I can remember,” Jonalla stated, sighing heavily.
“Did she have an illness before they began?”
“She was in an accident as a child. Injured badly, and ever since, she’s been strange, shaking and having these fits. But they weren’t always so frequent. Your daughter Sasha gives us tea for her. I don’t know if it helps, but she has been worse lately.” Gattlin sighed, gazing down again at his mother, whose body was slowing, her breathing now quiet.
For half an hour, they waited as Asabet lay there, sleeping , finally free of the throes off her convulsions.
After some time elapsed, her gentle snores echoing, Gattlin roused her and Tharso gave her the herbal drink, and she fell back asleep.
At this point in mid-morning, Jonalla tromped back up the stairs to her room, collapsing, exhausted, onto her bed, taking Aspen in her arms.
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Thanks for reading!
Reviews are quite welcome.
~Voxina
