“Uh, well, yes, but first—”
“You also said he may not have much time?” Without waiting for a reply, I opened the door.
Bud looked even worse under the fluorescent lighting, his cheeks sunken in beneath the long folds of wrinkles that lined the sides of his nose and mouth. His thin gray hair looked even thinner now that it lay matted and limp over his head.
From a strong and fairly sharp and spry old man to this—wasted and dying—in just a few days. From an illness that neither doctors nor witches with healing abilities could name, much less cure.
And others could be dying of it too, right this very minute, in the very place where I had promised them only safety and protection and shelter.
If we didn’t find a cure, how many more might die? Bringing them here to the hospital obviously wasn’t the answer. For all their high tech equipment and education, these doctors seemed just as confused as the healers back at the village.
But as the doctor closed the door behind me, putting aside her professional curiosity in order to give Bud and me some privacy, I understood one thing at least. In this moment, the people at the village weren’t who I needed to focus on.
Just for one moment, it was Bud who deserved time and attention. And more apologies than I could ever say.
I stepped closer to the bed. The hospital staff had left the plastic covered rails up, as if afraid Bud would roll off the bed. But he looked way too weak to sit up, much less roll around.
His breathing had grown harsher, each breath a small battle all its own for life. And an accusation. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had caused this. If I had never asked him to drive our group…
I leaned in close and murmured, “Bud...I’m sorry.”
His eyelids eased open. “Hayden.”
He remembered me. “Yes sir.”
“I keep getting older, and you...” He struggled to swallow. “You keep getting younger.”
For a few seconds I was confused. Then I remembered. The last time he’d seen me in bright lighting, I’d been disguised by Steve’s face aging spell. All the other times we’d spoken to each other had been under the dim lighting of the bus interior lights or parking lot lamps. “It’s the lighting.”
“It’s sorcery.” His eyes searched mine with a cloudy desperation. As if begging me to tell the truth at last.
I nodded.
One corner of his mouth trembled upward, the ghost of a smile. “I knew it. Witches.”
I nodded. He wouldn’t be able to lead anyone back to our village, and if he died, at least he would die knowing the truth as he deserved. “They’re good people, despite what the news and government say. I was trying to get them to safety.”
“Did we make it?”
“Mostly. But a few of them are sick now. Like you. So we’re not really safe yet.”
“Your healers...they working on them?”
“Yes. They tried to help you too. But they haven’t found a cure yet.”
“They will. Pamela…she’s a good one.” He stopped for breath and a long, slow blink.
I should let him sleep. I started to move away, but his eyes opened again. Wheezing, he grabbed my wrist.
“Tell ‘em...tell ‘em don’t be afraid. Tell ‘em sorcery...ain’t the enemy. Fear’s the enemy. I wish they could feel it.” He sighed, letting go of my wrist as he smiled at the ceiling. “If they could know...the lives they could save...” His eyes closed. “Keep ‘em safe, Hayden. Until they see...”
Then the alarms went off, all the machines Bud was hooked up to refusing to let his exit from earth go unnoticed by the strangers who worked here, even as his family back in Oklahoma had no idea he was even in danger of dying.
In the chaos of the nurses and doctors rushing in, I slipped out, numb, empty but a million times heavier, and more confused than I’d ever been before.
CHAPTER 20
Friday, December 25
I didn’t turn on the radio on the way back to the village. No music would make sense of the thoughts inside my head right now.
I knew what Tarah would say, could hear her voice now, quietly telling me that Bud’s death wasn’t my fault, that sometimes it was no one’s fault at all, and trying to blame someone or something would just be my way of trying to make some sense out of it.
But it didn’t make sense. Why would Bud and the others get sick now? No matter what set of rules I tried to apply to the situation, none of them made sense. Why wouldn’t they have gotten sick when they were stuffed together in Grandma Letty’s house? Or in those cold military trucks for hours, or at the internment camp?
Age wasn’t a factor either. The ages of everyone who’d gotten sick were all over the scale from young to middle aged to old. And none of them had seemed weaker than everyone else before they got sick.
And though I felt guilty about the sedatives we’d given Bud all week, I also had to face the fact that he was the only one who’d received Grandma Letty’s potion, and yet others had gotten sick too. So the potion hadn’t caused it either.
By the time I pulled up the long road into the village’s clearing and parked, I was no closer to an explanation. But I was close to hitting some kind of internal breaking point I was afraid to reach.
I turned off the headlights and caught a glimpse of my watch. One a.m. I tried to remember what day of the week it was, then froze.
It was Christmas day.
I reached over the seat, found the sad little tree and its box base, and eased it up and over to its original resting spot in the front seat. Tarah’s presents. I’d wrapped them up together earlier. Where had I put them? I looked in the back. The single, lumpy package had slid across the backseat at some point.
A corner of the gift’s wrapping was torn open. Carefully I eased the paper edges back together, trying to use a little glue to fix the tear. But the wrapping was too tight around its contents. There wasn’t enough overlap at the tear to allow the paper to stay stuck together.
I could start all over.
But I didn’t want to. That would mean admitting that I couldn’t fix this.
I could fix this. I just needed the right tools. I dug through the tree box base, found a roll of clear masking tape. I used a piece of it, carefully lining up the edges of the torn paper before sticking the tape over it.
And it held.
I rearranged the sad little tree skirt back over the box of decoration supplies to hide it, then set the present under the tree. There, everything was ready for Christmas morning.