“Here, Gramma.” Lark placed the large canvas drawstring bag in her grandmother’s hands. No one questioned how Inez Sutter could minister to the sick and injured without the sense of sight. She’d been doing it since before most of them were born.
What worried Lark wasn’t Gramma’s skill, but the contents of the “medicine” bag. Several years ago, the modern medications had run out. Things like the stethoscope, thermometer, and blood-pressure cuff still worked, but all that remained of old ointments was a little Vaseline coating the bottom of an ancient plastic jar. Instead of pills and creams, the bag held honey, aloe vera, garlic, willow bark, yarrow root, and a variety of herbs.
Gramma pressed a damp cloth to Tommy’s forehead. “Leif, fetch the jug of moonshine—the one on the top shelf.” He nodded and hurriedly obeyed.
“Hank, go out and sit with your wife and daughter,” she ordered. “I know you want to help, but you’re too dang big and in the way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he grumbled and slunk out.
“How can I help?” Milena asked, rolling her anxious fingers around each other. Lark stood close to her side again, radiating love and support for both her closest friends. Despite being just as worried about Tommy, she felt she needed to be the strong one, the anchor in the gale.
“I’ll let you know.” After gently wiping Tommy’s right arm with the cloth, Gramma sniffed each wound in turn—arm, side, leg. Only the right side of his body had taken damage, his left remaining unscathed.
“No bile, no broken bones,” she proclaimed. Relief swept through Lark like a breeze, loosening her tense muscles. Then she noticed the grave expression her grandmother still wore. She sniffed his arm again, fingertips gently tracing the torn skin.
“What is it?” Lark’s gut clenched anew.
“This wound in his arm,” she said, holding the lantern over it. “It’s a bite.” Her voice dropped. “He’s been bitten.”
Milena turned into Lark’s shoulder, her tears mingling with the blood of the slain on her soft, cotton shirt. She wrapped her arms around Milena and held on until the shaking stopped.
Bryn, who’d snuck in like a mouse into a pantry, gasped. “Does that mean he’ll turn into one of them—those mutants?”
“They aren’t werewolves,” Lark replied incredulously. Although myths about the creatures abounded, Lark understood the very real mutants held little in common with fictional werewolves. “They can’t turn people into mutants.”
“No,” Gramma confirmed. “But their bite often transfers mutated bacteria, causing swelling, fever, and, in severe cases, death. Even when we had proper antibiotics, they didn’t always work. The germs regularly mutate from one generation to the next.”
Milena straightened, and Lark’s arms fell away. “What do we do, then?” Milena stepped close to the opposite side of the bed, taking Tommy’s uninjured hand.
Leif jogged back in with the jug of ridiculously strong moonshine. Lark recalled one time, when she’d been about his age, sneaking the jug down from Gramma’s shelf and taking a swig, just to see how it tasted—liked to burn the lining of her throat clean off for good! After that, she lost any interest in trying it again, sticking to fruit wine or barley beer when she wanted a potent drink.
“Tommy,” Gramma said, turning his chin toward her face. “I want you to take a drink of this now, you hear?”
He swallowed and forced his eyes open. Milena helped him balance the jug as he raised it to his lips. A swig. Two coughs. A face so screwed up with displeasure you’d think he’d downed a shot of skunk oil. When Tommy was all better, Lark would tell this story to make everyone laugh.
Without a word, Gramma poured the powerful spirits over the bite wound in his arm. Sip of alcohol or not, Tommy let out a scream and tossed in the bed. “Dammit! Burns like hell!”
“Means it’s working, dear,” she answered. “Sorry. Can’t be helped. Now, an old-fashioned poultice to help draw the poison out, bandage it up, and then I’ll see to the other injuries.”
“Is he gonna be OK?” Bryn asked, brows furrowed and eyes brimming with tears.
“Too soon to tell, Magpie,” Gramma answered compassionately. “But I’ll do my best.”
Sensing how distressed the little girl had become, Lark took her hand. “Come with me, Bryn, and I’ll show you how to make willow bark tea. Tommy will need to drink some before he goes to sleep.”
“OK,” fell from her lips as her chin dropped onto her chest. Lark led her out, leaving Gramma and Milena to tend to Tommy.
“Eat something,” Gramma ordered the next morning. Lark had tossed and turned, gotten up three times during the night to check on Tommy. At first light, she’d rushed around doing everyone’s chores. Three hours later, she was chopping wood.
Lark slammed the axe into a stump and spun around, droplets of sweat stinging her eyes. “Not hungry.”
“Don’t care.” Gramma slammed fists to her hips. “You will eat something to keep up your strength. Do I need two patients to nurse? Now, get on over to the veranda and have some pork and a cornbread muffin.”
With a sigh, Lark muttered, “Fine,” and stomped away. She peeked into Leif’s room. Tommy’s mother sat with him, dousing a rag in cool water and mopping his head with it. “How is he?”
“The bleeding’s stopped, and he drank some broth a while ago, but I think a fever’s setting in.”
Lark stood silently in the doorway, trying to put it all together. Tommy had been right beside her. When had they gotten separated?When I ran after that bearded leader.She didn’t remember seeing him after that. It had been dark. Chaos. Still, Lark felt a pang of guilt for leaving him. Leif. Hadn’t Leif been with him?
