Then I realized the woman was still standing there. “Shut the door. You’re letting out all the heat.”
“You can’t just come barging in and steal a patient—”
“It’s not a hospital. Tarah’s not yours to keep. And it doesn’t sound like you healers were doing any better than I can with her anyway. Now shut the damn door please.” I stood up, my hands clenching at my sides, hoping the woman wouldn’t keep pushing me. I’d been raised never to hit a woman, and I sure didn’t want to start now.
She gasped, apparently at a loss for words as she took a nervous step backwards onto the porch.
Then I remembered they might need new herbs or something from town. But I wasn’t going to be able to go that far away from Tarah. I dug the truck keys out of my jeans pocket and tossed them to her. She barely managed to catch them against her ample chest.
“There's my truck keys if anyone needs anything from town.”
She was looking down at the keys as I slammed the door shut in front of her.
She had the nerve to start to open the door again. Without looking, I slammed it shut for the last time then locked it. Then I turned and checked the temperature of the water on the stove. After a few seconds, the sound of footsteps faded off my porch.
Good. I had work to do.
“Well, you sure told her,” Tarah murmured, her teeth still chattering.
I crouched down beside her. “Had to. I wanted you all for myself.” I forced a smile for her, even as her trembling tried its best to break my heart.
Tarah’s eyes rolled around in their sockets. For a few seconds, I panicked, thinking she was going into convulsions or something. But then her gaze locked back onto mine and she smiled. “It’s kind of dark in here. But f-from what I can see, it looks really g-good.”
She’d been checking out her new home. I let the breath of relief ease out of me. “Not done with it yet. But it should be good enough for now. Get well for me and I might even let you do the interior decorating.”
“Yeah?” She clutched the blankets up to her chin as a fresh round of shivering wracked her body. “Resorting to b-bribery now?”
I couldn’t talk for a minute as my throat choked up. I took her hand, swallowed hard, and finally managed to say, “Whatever it takes. Now rest while I go see what meds I can find, all right?”
I waited for her nod before I rushed out, the cold burning my already stinging eyes.
I had to search the infirmary’s kitchen cabinets to find the acetaminophen; the dragon ladies now running the show there refused to speak to me when I asked for some. Apparently they’d decided they couldn’t fight me over Tarah, but they sure weren’t going to help me none either.
They still had several bottles of meds, so I went ahead and took a mostly empty bottle plus a ceramic cup sitting on the drainboard. I also got some more firewood, which I left on my porch by the door for later. Finally, I found a tube of cherry flavored chapstick in the backseat of my truck.
Tarah’s eyes were closed when I returned, and she was murmuring something I couldn’t make out.
“Hey, Tarah, I’m back,” I told her, holding her hand. With my free hand I managed to twist and then pop the cap off the medicine. I shook out a few pills on the blanket by her.
She didn’t respond.
CHAPTER 23
Fighting the rising panic, I dipped the cup from the infirmary into the water, now hot, on the stove. I had to blow it a little to cool it off. Then I slid a hand under Tarah’s head, lifting her up as I pressed the cup to her lips. “Take a sip, Tarah. I need you to take some medicine now.”
She seemed to hear me this time, dutifully swallowing the pills after I slid them past her lips. Then I applied the chapstick to her lips, doing a crap job of getting it on straight. Not that Tarah seemed to care about a little smeared lip product.
It was beyond nightmarish how quickly the virus gained a hold over her. She didn’t speak again over the next few hours other than to make the occasional whimper, her head tossing and turning in her sleep like she was having bad dreams.
But they couldn’t be nearly as bad as the real life memories I was making with her right now.
I alternated between washing her face and neck, getting her to take sips of water or more pills, and holding her hand, wanting her to know at all times that I was there. When she slept more peacefully, though her fever was still high, I ran out to the truck for the spellbook, waiting till I was back by her side before rereading the chapter on healing. I also tried to remember what Mike had told me about how to heal.
Again and again, I followed both his and the spellbook’s instructions, trying to make my conscious mind relax and somehow mystically enter Tarah’s body, hunt down the sickness and eradicate it.
Over and over again, I failed.
In frustration, I sat there on the floor, hands buried in my hair, tugging at it, using the pain on my scalp to keep me from going nuts. I stood up with the urge to pace then stopped myself just in time. I couldn’t risk shaking the floor and disturbing Tarah. Her body probably needed this rest to help heal itself.
At least she was sleeping peacefully now. But her fever climbed ever higher with each passing hour.
She was like a flame, burning brighter and brighter, so beautiful and brilliant to look at even as her body tried to burn itself out as fast as it could.
And I was completely powerless to stop it.
“Please, Tarah,” I whispered, sinking to my knees beside her, her hand limp and far too hot when I picked it up again. “Tarah, you’ve got to fight! I can’t do it for you. You’ve got to do it. I know you can still hear me. Fight!”
Hot liquid scalded my eyes, my nose and cheeks as I kissed her hand, her body just a shell, her mind and soul so far out of my reach now.
Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead against her hand. I looked at her face, serene now, like that day when she’d seemed like an otherworldly queen, calm and accepting. She’d asked me to believe in the impossible that day. To have faith that the dark would end.
She wouldn’t like my panicking like this.
“You've got to get well, Tarah,” I whispered to her, watching her face for some response, any response at all. “What about that story you wanted to finish writing about this place? Who's going to finish it if you don't? Not me. You know I can't write nothing worth crap.”
No response from her, no flicker from her closed eyes.