Banished

In the kitchen, Anna had finished cleaning the wound and stopped the blood flow, but I had to look away-the sight of Prairie’s torn flesh was more than I could handle.

I knelt in front of her, grabbing her free hand and squeezing. I wanted to do something more-but I didn’t know what. I knew that if all the bad things hadn’t happened, she would never have let me see her weak or scared, the way she looked now.

But what was I supposed to do? Prairie and I had saved each other-well, mostly she had saved me-over and over again. She had proved herself to me.

“I’ll be good as new soon,” she said, trying hard to sound cheerful. Anna clucked under her breath and poked black thread through the eye of a curved needle. The smell of antiseptic was almost overpowering. “Anna took the bullet right out. It was just a little thing.”

Bullet-that word did it. I laid my face on Prairie’s knee, my shoulders shaking. Prairie patted my hair, my neck, whispering that it was going to be all right. That made me cry harder, but I was afraid that I would jostle her when Anna was taking a stitch. And besides, my nose was running all over her pants, and even though they were grimy from the past two days, I still couldn’t stand the idea of messing them up. So I got to my feet, shaky and stumbling, wiping my nose on my sleeve and swallowing my tears down hard.

“Hailey, there are tissues on counter,” Anna said, her voice calm but kind. “Please help yourself.”

I did. I blew my nose and splashed water on my face from the sink, and washed my hands and dried them on a pretty yellow dish towel. And then, even though I was afraid to look, I sat down and watched Anna close up the wound with tiny, careful stitches, the line of black x’s the only proof that Prairie had been shot just a few hours before.

Kaz had wandered in without me noticing. “Chub went right to sleep. I left your backpack in there. You can, uh, use the bathroom or go to bed or whatever when you’re ready. You can use my mom’s stuff.”

“Yes, of course,” Anna said. “Thank you, Kaz. Hailey, please make yourself home. There are towels in closet in hall, okay?”

“Thank you.” I knew I was filthy and that I probably smelled, and I was embarrassed for Anna and Kaz to see me like this. But I wasn’t ready to leave Prairie. I stood behind her chair and watched as Anna finished up.

“So, Hailey, you are sophomore in high school?” Anna asked, glancing up from her work and giving me a smile.

“Um, yeah.” Though it seemed unlikely I’d ever be setting foot in Gypsum High again.

“Kazimierz is junior at Saint Michael’s. That is Polish name, we call him Kaz. Saint Michael’s is nice high school, lot of good teachers. You do good in school?”

“Me? I-No-”

“Hailey’s smart, like her mom,” Prairie said, her voice soft. She had closed her eyes and rested her head against the chair back.

“Is she going to be all right?” I asked, worried.

“Oh yes, there is nothing to worry about. I think she is just very tired. This little wound, mostly I just make sure no germs, no bone chip. Bullet comes very close to bone here, see.”

I looked where she was pointing, at the neat stitches in Prairie’s arm.

“But all good. I have to poke around a little, that does not feel very good for Prairie. But I give her something strong to drink, make her relax, make her feel little bit sleepy.”

I watched Anna finish the stitches and carefully bandage Prairie’s arm. I wished I could just put my hands on her and heal her like I had with Milla and Chub, but the rushing urgency wasn’t there, and I knew it was true-I couldn’t help her. Anna, Banished like us, was using thread and a needle and medicine, traditional tools, and in comparison they seemed so… inadequate. And I understood how Prairie could have been tempted to try to use her gifts to heal as many people as she could, how she could have gotten dragged into Bryce’s crazy scheme if she believed that she was going to find a way to share the powers.

I had Prairie’s hand in mine, and I could feel her pulse slow and steady in her wrist. I thought she might have gone to sleep, but when Anna started to pack her supplies back into the case, Prairie sat up and blinked a few times.

“Anna, I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”

“No need to thank-we are family.”

I figured that whatever had caused their rift, it couldn’t have been that bad if Anna still considered Prairie family.

Anna turned to me and patted my knee. “Your aunt has told me all about your grandmother Alice. I am so sorry you had to live with her. In Poland, there were stories among the Blogoslawiony-”

“That’s what they call the Banished in Poland,” Prairie said.

“Yes, the people who came from old country. Anyway, after they left Ireland, sometimes a Healer woman is born who is not right. The gift is too much for them, they are not strong enough to use it right way. They turn mean, families have to lock them up. Usually very sick, die young.”

“Gram was…” I couldn’t think of what to say. She was so many things, all of them bad.

“Anyway, now you are with aunt, with our Eliza-our Prairie-much better.”

Prairie sighed and reached out to touch Anna’s hand. “I owe you so much. You were right. You told me to leave that job, and you were right. I don’t know what else to say… except that I’m sorry.”

That must be it, the reason they’d grown apart. Anna shook her head, eyes cast down. After a moment she squared her shoulders and met Prairie’s gaze. “There is no need to speak of it again.”

“But… all those years. I thought I’d lost you. And Kaz… he’s a man now.”

Kaz looked from one of them to the other. “That’s what you argued about? Prairie’s job?”

“Don’t be angry at your mother,” Prairie said. “It’s my fault. Your mother asked me what we were doing at the lab, and I lied. I felt terrible about it, but Bryce made me sign a confidentiality agreement. He said we were getting funding from the university. I didn’t find out it was coming from the government until a few days ago. And he told me what to say… told me to tell people we were working on a vaccine, for livestock.”

“I can tell when you lie,” Anna said sadly. “Kaz, too. You are not good liars.”

“But Mom, how could you send Prairie away like that?” Kaz was angry now.

“I had to,” Anna said. “She was trying to do science with Healing gift. There is no good in that. Bajeczny powers were meant for one village only, czarownik cursed those who left. Banished maybe should die out. Since the people left Ireland, the men lose the visions, there is fighting and crime. The women are weak, they forget history.”

“What about me? What about Dad? And Prairie? And Hailey?” He looked at me as he said my name. “Do you wish we hadn’t been born?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, do you want us to do something good with our lives? Something important? Or do you want me to be an accountant or a shoe salesman or something?”

“There is nothing wrong with honest trade,” Anna shot back. I could see how they escalated each other’s tempers. “Be shoe salesman-be good shoe salesman, I don’t care.”

“You didn’t marry a shoe salesman,” Kaz muttered angrily.

“Your father was warrior. You know that. He was hero in Iraq.”

“And Prairie is a leader. An innovator,” Kaz said. “She can’t help it if her boss is crazy.”

“Thank you, Kaz.” Prairie cut in. “But I made mistakes and I have to make up for them. Terrible things are happening because I was stubborn, because I refused to see what your mother tried to tell me. Now I have to fix them.”

“This is conversation for tomorrow,” Anna said. “Now is time for everyone rest. Tomorrow is Sunday, salon is closed, everyone get some sleep.”

“What about…?” I asked. As welcome and safe as I felt in Anna’s house, as relieved as I was that Prairie was going to be all right, I couldn’t stop thinking about Rattler, seeing him holding his hand to his face, blood streaming through his fingers. “What if Rattler comes after us?”

There was a brief silence. Anna and Prairie glanced at each other. I could tell they were troubled, that they weren’t saying what they were thinking.