Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(14)

“He was her father?” I asked.

She nodded.

The fae woman looked fragile and broken on the forest floor. But to resist such treatment, to have risen again, over and over—such a one was tougher than she looked.

“I can’t do much,” I told the fae creature. “I don’t have the supplies. I can clean the wounds and stop the bleeding and give her the chance to heal. She needs to be somewhere out of the weather. There is snow coming.”

“There is shelter.” She bobbed her head. “And we have needles and thread. What else do you need?”

“Honey,” I told her. “Willow bark. Water. How far away is the shelter?”

“Shelter is not far,” she said. “Twenty minutes’ walk. If you can bring her, I can take you. And also there might other items you mention be found, an Underhill wills it to be so.” She sounded doubtful. “What is not there I can steal.”

Promise of a shelter and supplies changed my to-do list. I finished stanching the bleeding. If the little creature could run, we could turn her twenty minutes to half that.

“Samuel.” My da sounded tired. I looked at him, and his face was drawn and gray. The mark on his hip was still an angry red. “I’ll find you after I dispose of the bodies.”

I nodded and wrapped the remnants of the forest lord’s cloak around myself, using the fabric to secure the flask of bracata and the knife and sheath. I picked up the woman. She was light in my arms, lighter than my wife had been, though she was taller.

I could remember the feel of my wife’s weight in my arms, but I could not see her face. I staggered a step as my mind went blank in panic because I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember her face or her name, just glimpses of a lifetime. My breath caught in my throat with the terrible grief of loss. It had mattered a lot less while my grandmother had me on her leash. I’d lost more than my humanity while in my grandmother’s hands—I’d lost my wife and my children and I had not recognized how terrible the loss was. I could not remember them, not their faces or their names.

“You are hurt?” asked the little fae creature tentatively.

“Yes,” I said because I would not lie. “But not in the way that you mean.”

My father said a name that slid off my ears. He waited a moment, then said, “Samuel?”

I must have looked a little wild-eyed when I turned to him. “She stole my memories. Stole my name.”

He nodded once. “There will be a reckoning.”

“Do you remember them? My wife and children?” I asked. When he nodded again, my panic eased. “As long as someone does, they aren’t lost.”

“They are not lost as long as I live,” my father agreed. “I’ll remember them for you. Go ahead, Samuel. I’ll come by and by.”

I nodded. I turned to the little fae creature. “I can run with her. Lead me as quickly as you can, and I will follow.”

The fae creature ran. She stumbled a little here and there, and I had the impression that she was very, very tired. But she was quick, so it didn’t take us long before we came upon a small hut that was less inviting than my grandmother’s and looked as though no one had lived in it for years. She reached over her head and pulled a chain to release the latch. When she opened the door, I knew it for a fae residence because it was larger on the inside than on the outside.

As soon as I stepped into it, I felt an odd, hostile personality brush up against me. Letting my lips curl in a snarl, I pulled my patient closer to me in a futile effort to protect her from something I could not detect with any of my usual senses. The odd entity paused, then slid over my wolf in an exuberant and laughing run, and I smelled, for a very brief moment, the rich scent of summer flowers.

The little fae hesitated, then murmured, “The father is dead, so the lady is mistress here. I think we shall find what we need to tend her wounds. Follow me.”

She took me to a large room and bade me lay the woman on a tick of straw that rested on ropes suspended on a carved wooden frame. She lit the fire in the room with a look and a word in a language I did not understand. Then left as I cut the bindings I’d put on the first and largest wound.

I cleaned the wound with the alcohol. By the time I was through, the little creature had returned with a bronze needle, fine thread, a jar of honey, several jars of salve, and a pitcher.

“The thread is too fine,” I told her. “It will tear her skin. I need something more like thread to stitch leather.”

She nodded and trotted away.

The pitcher was warm when I picked it up, and the brown liquid inside tasted strongly of willow bark. I set it aside and tested the salves, all but one of which I could identify the contents of. That one, I set aside with the pitcher.

The fae woman’s little friend returned with appropriate thread and a bucket of water, and I began the tedious task of cleaning, stitching, and bandaging.

The woman didn’t stir beyond a flutter of her eyelashes when I stitched up a particularly nasty tear over her hip. The worst hurt was a gash in her thigh that was too old to stitch. It would likely cause her trouble long after it healed. I covered it with a salve of fat, honey, yarrow, and comfrey that the little fae, who had shyly introduced herself as Haida, had brought back when I asked if she had such a thing.

“It was lurking on the shelves in her kitchen,” she said, as if I’d asked for an explanation for why her kitchen could supply exactly the salve I’d asked for. “This is my lady’s home now. And it approves of you.” She gave me sharp look and a warning jerk of her chin. “For now.”