Don’t touch her. Cursed.
You can imagine what this did to the people of my village: they were thrown into uproar. What kind of curse? A killing curse for anyone who picked me up? A land curse that would decimate their crops? A sickness curse that would spread through the village like the wet lung and take out everyone?
No one wanted me.
I stayed in the basket, crying deep into the night, until finally, in the early morning hours, a young man in his mid-twenties stepped out onto the road. He’d lost his wife to the wet lung a year prior, and they’d never had children. They’d wanted them but she was barren. Without hesitation, he’d picked my basket up. When he didn’t die immediately, the people came closer to get a look at me.
“She’s just an innocent child,” the man had said. “I’ll take care of her, and whatever curse she carries will fall on me.”
That was how my father tied himself to me. He’d wanted me when no one else did, when everyone else was too scared to get near me.
He’d quickly learned that “don’t touch her” meantliterallydon’t touch my skin. What caused everyone else pleasure, caused me unbearable pain. A simple touch of skin-to-skin contact and I felt like I’d been hit by lightning. As you can imagine, changing the dirty loincloth of a baby whose skin you couldn’t touch was near impossible. For the first five years of my life, my father wore gloves to his elbows. As much as he’d wanted to take whatever curse ailed me, it was my burden alone to carry.
“That was my favorite day too,” I said, smiling hugely. “Although I don’t remember it.”
Sorrel and I then launched into a plethora of favorite memories growing up, ones that had us grabbing our bellies in laughter.
Eventually, I looked over at my father to see sweat beaded on his brow and his once flushed face now looked pale. “Dad, you don’t look good. Do you want to bathe and then get some rest?”
He gave me a small smile and patted my gloved hand. “Always thinking of your old man.” Standing up, he winced, grabbing at his side, and Sorrel and I shared a concerned look. My father grasped the edge of the chair and swayed on his feet.
“Dad.” I stood, my heart lurching into my throat.
Sorrel moved quickly, rushing out of her chair and over to where my father stood, ashen and waxy-looking.
Then I watched in horror as he swayed again and went down like a sack of bricks. His body hit the floor with a thud and I screamed, rushing forward to try to catch him. It was no use. He was heavy, and I reached out with my gloved hands to no avail.
“Sorrel!” I cried out in panic as she swam into view, taking his head into her lap while I straightened his feet, so he could lie fully stretched out on his back.
Sorrel began to tend to my father as I paced the dirt-packed floor of our hut.
“It’s still infected. Smells like rotten fish.” Sorrel frowned as she prodded my father’s abdomen.
“That tiny cut?” I leaned over her and peered at a small cut near his belly button. My blood ran cold. Deep, red lines ran out from the cut and clawed their way up his chest, but the cut itself was so small it was laughable. He’d scraped himself the other day on a branch by the river. I was there.
“That little thing?” I frowned, unease slipping over me like a shadow.
Sorrel looked up at me with terror in her eyes. “Fallon, I’ve seen this before. Red lines to the heart mean death in twenty-four hours.” She traced the red lines that went halfway to his heart, and I stopped breathing.
Death?
No.
“It…was a branch. A stupid little branch.” A sob formed in my throat and Sorrel covered my father’s abdomen with a strip of cloth. Then she set his head down gently and stepped over to me.
“I know how important he is to you,” she consoled me.
Oh Light. She was looking at me like I was about to lose my father. On his birthday, no less.
“He’s all I have,” I mumbled. My heart felt like it was going to climb out of my throat as I imagined losing him.
“Should we put more neem oil on it? Or should I go out and fetch some herbs? Give me a list and—”
“Fallon.” Sorrel took my gloved hand in hers. “This is beyond me. You know if I could help him, I would. But…”
“No,” I growled, steeling myself in the moment. I would not go into shock. He needed me. “I do not accept that. What do you need to save him?” I looked at Sorrel firmly.
She scoffed. “A healer fae from The Gilded City or an anti-germ tincture from an apothecary.”
