Mr. Greenblatt is one of the early morning sweepers, and he raises a cheerful hand as we pass by. “You’re looking well, young Amarrah. Got some roses in your cheeks, and here we all thought you’d be eaten up. What’s it like inside the keep? Did you . . .”
I’m sure he’s about to ask about the beast, and I don’t want to talk about Njål to outsiders, so I cut in before he decides how to finish his sentence. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to chat right now. Tillie is ill and I must see to her.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry to keep you.”
Da passes by without a word, shuffling toward the cottage I called home for over twenty years. The flower boxes I used to tend in the summer are barren and empty, and the herbs I grew in pots outside the kitchen have died as well. It shouldn’t trouble me that there’s nothing left of my influence on this place, but a twinge pains me nonetheless.
Da goes in through the back and I follow. The kitchen fire burns low, and from the loft I once shared with my small sisters, I hear one of them crying. If Tillie is refusing even to sip water, that’s probably Millie. I should make soup and tea first, but I’m not doing this silently and without complaint as I did before.
“Catherine!” I call.
I used to avoid calling her “Mother,” and so I didn’t call her anything at all. Now, I’m making it clear; she is my father’s wife, not my maternal figure.
“What do you need?” she asks, coming to the kitchen doorway.
“It’s more about what you need. Which is to learn how to look after Tillie.”
I don’t wait to see how she reacts to what she’ll doubtless consider impertinence. Instead I immediately fetch the ingredients and start giving instructions as to how they should be combined. To my surprise, she comes in and observes what I do and how I do it, down to the last detail. She even fetches a piece of paper to take notes as I boil the soup, then reduce to a simmer.
“Do you have the medicine from the herbalist?” I ask.
“Is that how you get her to eat and take medicine?” Catherine is quiet, subdued even, hands laced before her.
“You make a game of it. There’s a song. If you sing it, she’ll finish the whole bowl.”
It’s a silly tune I invented about animals eating one another, starting with tiny ones and getting bigger as the song goes on. As I dish up the soup and tea, I sing it to Catherine in embarrassing detail and she writes down every verse.
Just then, the crying pauses. “Amarrah?”
“I’m coming, poppet.” To Catherine, I add, “Pay attention to how it goes. You should know how to look after her too.”
Without waiting for a response, I carefully balance mug and bowl as I climb the ladder. Both girls are huddled together, but I can tell immediately which is sick. We don’t look much alike since they resemble Catherine. They’re thin-faced and grubby, tears and snot smeared down Millie’s gown, while Tillie’s cheeks burn with fever roses.
There’s so little space. When I was crammed in here with the girls, I could barely breathe. The ceiling slopes over the loft so I hunch over and drop to my knees as I inch inward. A feather tick takes up most of the floor with a few wooden toys and rag dolls scattered about the edges. My father made the wooden toys and I sewed the dolls, more than I had at their age. I shouldn’t be bitter about it; there’s no point in dwelling on facts that can’t be changed.
Millie edges toward me and tugs at my sleeve. I tousle her hair and settle next to Tillie, propping her on pillows to resume my role as a nursemaid. It’s frightening how thin and she frail she looks. How long has it been since she ate anything? I understand Da’s desperation now, even if his indifference still hurts me.
“You’ve been giving everyone a hard time?” I say gently, blowing on the spoon.
Tillie sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “It doesn’t taste the same. And nobody else sings the song.”
In response, I sing the first line and feed her the first bite. Tillie brightens immediately, and she falls back into our old routine humming as she eats. In time the whole bowl disappears, and I get the tea into her too. If only the fever could be conquered so easily—with one bowl of soup and a cup of tea.
“Will you get me a cup of water?” I whisper to Millie.
They both look as if they’ve hardly bathed since I left. I can’t fix that while Tillie is sick, but I can do cool compresses. Millie scampers off and returns with water and a clean cloth. With practiced hands I dip and wring, set the compress on Tillie’s brow until it warms from the fever, then repeat. Eventually, Millie settles onto the pallet to sleep a little more, though it will be light soon.
Da and Catherine are still brewing ale with the supplies we have left, though the tap house closed last year. We couldn’t afford the rent, and before I left, we’d been subsisting on the bottles we sold. The accounts were overdue at various shops, and they’d been muttering about taking what little of value we possessed to pay for ingredients Da had ordered.
I don’t know what the situation is now, though I did notice that the larder was nearly bare when I was in the kitchen. Finally, Tillie drifts off to sleep and I head down to wash the dishes and get
