I looked up, expecting to see Tarah.
It was Mike.
I turned up the light on the lantern and waved him in.
He entered, looking up and around him for a few seconds. “You’ve gotten a lot done in here.” His tone sounded as dead as I felt.
Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck where the muscles constantly burned now. “Yeah, I guess so.” But was it fast enough? Something inside me kept telling me to keep working, to move faster, to skip anything not immediately needed to make the place livable for Tarah. “I don’t guess you’d happen to know how to put together a wood burning stove, would you?”
Mike glanced at the cast iron contraption in front of me. “Uh, not really. Listen, I came to tell you, we had another death.”
I stared at the stove. “I was afraid that was going to happen. Anyone I know?”
“Harvey Lansing. I think he was—”
“One of the loggers I worked with.” Yeah, I remembered him and how he’d liked to kid around, no matter how tired he was. In fact, it had seemed like the more tired Harvey had gotten, the more he’d needed to tell a joke.
“And Pamela’s sick now too,” Mike added.
My insides knotted up. If the healers were getting sick now, maybe it was time to rethink that idea of tying Tarah up and dragging her out of here against her will. Grandma Letty might even approve of keeping Tarah a captive for her own good. When the whole village got sick and died, she wouldn’t have much of a story to write about anymore anyways. Then she’d understand.
With the healers going down for the count, how much faster might the virus spread?
Mike shuffled his feet a bit. I glanced up at him.
At my questioning look, he quit fidgeting and murmured, “Tarah’s sick too.”
It felt like I was paralyzed while the entire world fell out from underneath me. “Tarah’s sick?”
He nodded, staring at me. Waiting for my reaction.
My time was up.
I grabbed the lantern and thrust it at Mike. “Here, hold this up so I can see better.”
He took the lantern out of instinct, his mouth opening like he wanted to say something else.
“How long?” I asked as I grabbed the instruction booklet.
“Huh?”
“How long as she been sick?”
“Pamela or—”
“Tarah! How long?” I pawed through the stove’s sections and pieces on the floor.
“An hour, maybe two, but that’s just a guess. You know Tarah. She was probably running a fever for awhile and just didn’t say anything. One of the healers noticed she was sweating real bad and made her lie down.”
I started connecting the chimney pipe sections. “Hand me that wrench over there.”
Silence.
I held out a hand. “Mike!”
I looked up at him. He was standing there staring at me like an idiot. Growling, I reached past him for the wrench.
“Aren’t you even going to go see her?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“I’ve got to get this done first.” My wrist popped in protest as I screwed the connector cuff’s bolt into place on the chimney pipe.
“Everyone’s right. You have gone nuts.” Muttering a curse, Mike set the lantern on the floor then barreled out of the house, slamming the door so hard behind him that its window pane cracked.
I worked as quickly as I could to get the stove set up. But it still took too long before I could get a fire going in it and check to make sure it was safe. Then I had to go to one of the houses for sleeping bags, sheets, a pillow, an iron pot, and a bucket. It took several trips to get everything I needed into my house, and too long to get it all set up even though I pushed my exhausted body to run every step I took.
No time, no time, my heart beat out with each pulse.
Then I ran for the infirmary, finally allowing my feet to carry me to the one place I’d wanted to go right from the start.
“Hayden,” Tarah whispered as I knelt beside her pallet in what used to be the house’s living room area. Her hair, once so beautiful and wild, the black curls shiny and bouncy with life, now clung to her forehead and the sides of her sunburn red cheeks in sweat-soaked clumps.
Nearby, Steve sat beside his wife. We shared a brief look, his eyes haunted and bleak.
I peeled the damp covers off of Tarah.
“What are you doing?” Mike cried out as he returned from the master bedroom. He grabbed my shoulder.
But I’d forgotten how to be human or polite. Some part of me, the logical, sane side, watched as if from a distance while I growled at him and jerked my shoulder free. “Back off.”
I slipped my arms under Tarah’s wet back and bare knees. They’d stripped her down to just an oversized t-shirt and her underwear. As soon as I lifted her up, I could feel her whole body shivering.
She was too light in my arms, impossibly fragile. How could this small body house a spirit as big as Tarah’s?
“Open the door,” I told Mike, who continued to stare at me in shock. “Now, dammit!”
When he still refused to move, I was forced to use the hand under Tarah’s back to awkwardly turn the handle on the storm door enough to get it unlatched. Then I kicked it the rest of the way open.
Tarah whimpered as the cold air hit us.
“I know, honey,” I muttered, only half aware of what I was even saying as I eased us down the cement steps. “Almost there. Hang on.”
By the time we reached the tiny house, her teeth were chattering so hard I was worried she’d bite her own tongue off. I got her inside and onto the thick pallet I’d made for her a few feet away from the stove. As soon as she was down, I covered her with layer after layer of blankets and sheets.
“I’ve got to get more firewood,” I muttered, brushing the clumps of hair back from her face. “I’ll be right back.”
I ran outside, came back with all the firewood I could carry in one trip, added another log to the fire. Then I poured some water into the pot and set it on top of the stove to heat.
Someone came bursting into the house behind me while I was wringing out the first washcloth. A healer maybe. I didn’t know, didn’t care.
“Mr. Shepherd,” the stout sounding woman began.
I ignored her, washing Tarah’s face before folding the cloth and laying it over her forehead. Her lips were starting to crack. Maybe I had some chapstick somewhere in my truck? Once I got Tarah settled in, I’d go look.