something of the healing that plants can do. I’ll see what I can find.”
Karin raised the door and slid outside, taking her pack with her. The world beyond the trailer had become a blur of blowing white. Was Matthew out in that storm, or had he found shelter, too? I wished he were here. We were supposed to be together for all the hard things. The door creaked as Karin pulled it shut behind her. I hoped Matthew had run far, far from Clayburn and the Lady’s reach. Maybe he’d gone to get Caleb and help for Ethan after all.
Kyle sat up. Caleb’s quia leaf dangled against his bare chest. I took the frog from my pocket and handed it to him. Kyle grabbed the toy and lifted his head proudly. “I left it on purpose, so you and Johnny could find me.” His face scrunched into a frown. “Where’s Johnny?”
I swallowed hard.
“Find him.” Kyle stumbled to his feet.
I grabbed his arm. “Later. First you have to get well, then we have to wait for the snow to stop. Then we’ll look for Johnny.”
Kyle clutched the frog close. “Promise?”
“Promise. But you have to let me get you cleaned up so you can heal, all right?”
Kyle didn’t fight me as I drew him back to the couch. I tore strips from my ruined sweater sleeves and wet them to clean his back as well as I could. Kyle cried and kicked the couch, but he didn’t try to get up again.
“Sorry,” I said, over and over, but I couldn’t tell whether he heard. I washed his scabbed-over palm as well, and cut Elin’s wool bandage to wrap it around his hand.
By the time I was through, I wasn’t sure whether to wish I had healing magic or to be grateful I didn’t. How did Caleb and Allie find it in them to treat pain, time and again, without falling apart utterly?
When Karin returned, her hair and shoulders dusted with snow, I had Kyle wrapped in my coat and sitting up. Tears leaked out the corners of his eyes, more quietly now. “Johnny later,” he whispered to the frog.
The leaves around Karin’s wrist had curled in on themselves, as if against the cold. She drew dead plants from her pack, all familiar: willow bark for fever, birch bark and brown moss for drawing the infection out. If gathered while green, mosses could burn skin instead of healing it, but there was little risk of that this winter. The grasping branches of willows held dangers, too, but I suspected that Karin could manage those in any season. Plants listened when Karin spoke to them, in a deeper way than the simple calling or pushing away of my own magic.
I got Kyle out of my coat and lying down again so that Karin could pack the moss into place. He clutched his frog so tightly his fingers turned white, whether because Karin’s touch hurt or because he was still scared of her, I couldn’t tell. Karin laid birch bark over the moss and used bandages from her pack to tie it all in place. I helped her pull Kyle’s bloodied sweater on backwards over the bandages.
Karin ground the willow bark between a couple of rocks she’d brought in with the plants. I rummaged through the cans, found a Pepsi one without rust, and poured water through the small opening. A sweet scent wafted out, like a memory of spring. Karin sprinkled the ground bark into the liquid. “The stones aren’t hot enough to boil water,” she said. “He’ll have to drink it cold.”
Kyle gave me a skeptical look when I handed him the can, and curled in on himself. I couldn’t blame him; few small children accepted willow bark without fuss. “You drink it,” he said.
I didn’t like willow bark any more than Kyle, even now. “How about if I go first?” I brought the can to my lips and took a swallow, then immediately regretted it. Willow bark tea was bad enough—I scrunched my face with the effort not to spit the cold bitter liquid up again.
Kyle burst out laughing. “Silly Liza!”
I held the can out to him as bitterness flowed down my throat. “Your turn.” Kyle grabbed the can and took a large gulp. He began coughing, spitting up liquid, but at least some of the medicine seemed to make it down his throat.
Karin pulled something else out of her bag: a thin silver blanket that crinkled like plastic as she wrapped it around Kyle. He stopped coughing to grab a handful of the strangely metallic fabric.
“The material is warmer than it appears, though I do not fully understand why,” Karin said. “It was crafted by your people, not mine.” She got Kyle lying on his side and drew the quia leaf from his neck. Kyle didn’t seem to notice. He kept crinkling the blanket, more sleepily now.
“I doubt Tara even knew what my brother gave her.” Karin handed the leaf to me. “He told me he lost it during the War. I suppose in a sense he did. Keep it safe, Liza.”
I’d rather Kyle wore it, but the concern in Karin’s eyes stopped me from saying so.
Karin tucked one of the warm stones beneath Kyle’s blanket. “It is … a piece of our souls, you might say, though that is a human way of phrasing it. Better to say a piece of who we are lies in Faerie, bound into the First Tree, and this is the token of it. The leaf provides some protection, but carries some risk as well, for to harm the leaf is to harm its owner.”
The silver felt warm in my hand. “Caleb’s life is tied to this?”
“Indeed. He must have cared for your mother more deeply than I understood, to entrust her with it. I never trusted any of my consorts so, not through many long years.”
Yet Karin had parted with her leaf, too. It was in the Wall that protected her town—I’d seen that in my visions. How had the woman who’d once spoken so easily of binding humans become someone who’d risk her life and soul to protect a human town?
I slipped Caleb’s chain over my head and tucked the leaf beneath my sweater. Would I part with it again, knowing that Caleb’s life was linked to it? I sat beside Kyle on the edge of the couch. Kyle let go of the blanket and grabbed my hand. “Stay,” he said.
Beyond the small hole in the ceiling, blowing snow hid the sky. “I’m not going anywhere.” I pulled on my coat and rolled onto the couch beside Kyle. He snuggled up against me, blanket crinkling.
“Look after him,” Karin said softly. “I will listen and keep watch.”
“I can help,” I said. “Just as soon as—”
Karin touched my shoulder. “You are helping. Hold to your task, and I will hold to mine.”
I wrapped my arms around Kyle, warming him, wondering how he could trust me so readily. “You know what?” I whispered to him.
“What?” Kyle’s voice was sleepy and slow.
“You’re not just brave. You’re also a fast runner, to escape from that hawk.”
Kyle giggled. “Not fast, Liza. I’m too little to run fast. But I’m a good yeller. I
Before I could ask what he meant by that, he was asleep.
Kyle slept in fits and starts. I woke when he did, so slept in short snatches, never long enough to dream. Sometimes Kyle woke screaming, sometimes crying. Once he called Johnny’s name, telling him over and over that he was sorry about the ants. Another time he muttered, “No, no, no, no, no,” until he drifted off again. I held him, told him he was safe for now, and thought about all the ways I’d make Elin suffer for this if I ever saw her again.
Eventually the light outside faded. Much later, Kyle’s fever broke and he fell into a deeper sleep. I brushed his sweaty hair from his forehead. My chest felt strange and tight. I’d known Kyle all his life, but I’d never thought much about him before. Now I felt as if I’d do anything to protect him. That scared me—I knew well enough how little I could do to keep him safe.
When I felt myself slipping into deeper sleep, I gently pulled away from Kyle and stood, my head brushing the trailer’s rusty ceiling. I didn’t want to wake him with one of my nightmares.
Karin sat cross-legged by the door, the other orange stone beside her—its light was lasting a lot longer than the ones from Seth’s little sister did. Karin had unbuttoned her jacket, and I glimpsed another knife sheathed inside.
