As the widow provides shelter and food in exchange for trade, Mina learns Edvard did not entirely win his battle with the wolf unscathed.
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The log house was orderly and clean inside, its clay floor well-swept and the hearth stacked with wood. There was no fire, and Eza explained that they cooked and ate mostly outside in the warmer months. The shutters were all open on the windows, letting in plenty of light. The main floor consisted of two rooms, with a third one divided off by a curtain. Eza said it had been the room she shared with her husband, and now Donel used it and she had taken the second room. The loft was only storage since her children were gone, and a good place to dry herbs, beans, and peanuts.
It certainly smells like herbs in here, Mina thought, liking the aroma. Especially basil and sage. The woman had her sit at the table that had two long benches near the hearth. She set a small ceramic jar before her.
Mina removed the corked top and the smell of camphor came from it.
"It's best for bites. I used it on Donel and his older sister when they got bitten up by the hogs one summer." Eza put a small, twisted black twig before Mina. "And that's for the Crone and you. Scratch some off and put it in hot water."
Mina thanked her, unsure what it was. Before she could inquire further, Donel and Yuila entered with a box turtle still wiggling slowly in the boy's hands and asked Eza to make soup.
After the turtle was butchered, cleaned and made into soup, and its shell boiled and scraped to dry, Edvard returned with four rabbits and two turkeys just before dusk. The birds were still alive, tied and dangling by their feet at his back, half-unconscious from being upside down.
Eza expressed her joy with a flourish and immediately took the birds to be tethered near but out of reach of her hogs, dragging their dazed, feathered bodies to the log pens. Edvard looked over at the pit fire at the black caldron of turtle meat, thyme, coriander, and small potatoes.
"Turtle," Mina said from his side, her eyes dropping to his arm that she now noticed wore a makeshift bandage. "Why didn't you say the wolf got you?"
He turned his arm. "When Eza said she was going to roast a pig, that's all I was thinking of."
The woman joined them at the kettle and kicked out the fire underneath. "If you take the pot inside," she said to Edvard, "I'll finish it overnight."
He hung the large kettle on the arm in the hearth of the log house as Eza instructed. Behind them Yuila and Donel had taken to drawing with sticks in the clay floor of the large room. Eza turned up the wick on the lantern at the table and set a roll of cloth down.
"Use what you need," she said to Mina.
Edvard sat at the table with Mina as the older woman stirred the pot over the fire. The burgundy material he had used to wrap stuck to the wound on his forearm as Mina gently pulled at it.
"How could you not think of something like this?" she asked, shaking her head as she unwound the material on his arm.
"I was thinking about pork and eggs."
She returned his grin and washed the shallow gash with water Eza had supplied. A second smaller cut was close, but neither needed stitching, which Mina was glad for. She opened the corked jar.
He shook his head. "No. That stuff will sting."
"Then be brave. There are children here," she said, nodding to Yuila and Donel.
"I'll take my chances with infection."
She caught his arm as he moved it. "It can't sting that bad, Edvard."
He shook his head again. "That's camphor and eucalyptus."
"Eza said it'll heal up quick."
"After burning a hole clean through me."
"You face-down the wolf, but this little bottle scares you?" she asked in a motherly tone.
He took a deep breath, and then held his arm closer. "But be quick."
She had no doubt the tincture was strong. She could easily smell that much. She dabbed a little into the two cuts. He flinched, and after a moment of savage mumbling at the reddened area, he told her to continue. She quickly wrapped the injuries.
"You can have the loft," Eza said suddenly. "It hasn't been slept in in a while, but there's plenty of room."
Edvard shook his head and pulled down his sleeve. "We won't stay. You've been very kind to—"
"You'll stay, please," the older woman said, but not in a demanding manner. "I can't pay you for helping Donel, but if—"
"We'll stay," Edvard said. "Thank you."
Two windows in the loft were open, allowing the bright moons' light in the roomy loft. Eza hung the lantern on a hook at the overhead center beam, looking around as Mina and Edvard ascended the ladder behind her. To one side were ropes of strung beans and clumps of dried peanuts hanging from the ceiling. The other side was crowded with straw mattresses. Two cats rose from their beds there and stretched, sauntering by the people as they negotiated the ladder to the floor below.
"They keep the mice out," Eza explained. She went to the mattresses and beat them out testily, then shook them. "I would want to trade more with you," she said to Edvard.
He nodded and Eza went back down the ladder. He looked to Mina. "A real mattress for the night. It's been a few days."
She nodded slowly, sighing. "Where's Yuila?"
"I'll send her up. She'll want to go outside to meditate, but I'm not going to let her." He gestured to the mattresses. "Looks like you get first choice."
After he left, Mina took a better look at the sleeping arrangements. The mattresses proved softer than she expected, and only dusted with cat hair. She turned them over, deciding on three of the best of the five, and put the other two against the west wall. She separated them a few feet, deciding to let Yuila and Edvard put theirs wherever they chose.
From below she could hear them arguing lowly and assumed it was about Yuila's meditation time. A moment later the young Crone topped the ladder, pouting.
"He's not fair,” the girl said. “Why can't I go out for just a few moments?"
"You saw what the wolf did to the sheep today," Mina told her. "The other one may still be near."
"I'd be careful." Yuila pulled a mattress closer to the one Mina stood beside. "He'll probably snore all night."
Mina smiled. "What makes you think you don't snore, Yuila?"
The girl only gave her a cross look and pulled on the cloak she had brought up. It was too long for her, but she hitched it up higher with a sash so it didn't drag, instead giving her slender form a baggy, sloppy, monk-like appearance. She slouched onto her knees on the mattress and stared up at Mina. "You talk to him and make him let me go."
Mina shook her head and settled into the mattress beside the girl. "I don't think that would help any." She pulled her blanket over herself, glad to cover her feet with an end of the mattress. It kept flipping back, but she finally got it to stay. The straw was loose enough in the mattress cover to allow them to plump them up wherever they chose and it took only moments to create a pillow where they wanted one.
Yuila lay down, still scowling, sighing heavily when Edvard came up the ladder a few minutes later. She did her best sullen expression, but he paid her no heed. He turned out the lantern and took the mattress on the other side of Mina, nudging it away slightly.
Mina heard him rustle around for a few minutes, situating the straw and taking off his boots. When he finally got quiet, Yuila stood up and dragged her mattress to the opposite wall. She noisily made herself comfortable and pulled her hood over her head.
After a few moments more Mina's eyes adjusted to the moon-bright room. She saw Yuila's miffed form against the wall, hibernating under the hood. She cleared her throat. "Yuila wanted me to tell you that she really should go out to meditate, Edvard."
He sighed. "She's not going out tonight."
"Okay." Mina stared up at the beams crossing the ceiling. Eza's husband had done a fine job building the house, she thought. How sad to lose nearly her whole family and be on her own with a young child, albeit a brave one. "Donel's certainly a tough boy."
"He sure is," Edvard agreed.
Yuila's hood snapped back. "I can't concentrate with you talking so loud."
Mina sighed as the girl pulled her hood closer again. "What did Eza want to trade?"
"Just some hunting," he said lowly as she looked to him. "Whatever I can get in the morning."
"What will you get in trade?"
"Well, she has no shoes or sandals, so I guess we can wrap your feet with the scarves I got today." He glanced down to where the mattress end had come off her feet. He sat up and pulled an edge of his mattress over her feet, then lay back down. "She said there's a cobbler in Pantia that makes boots, too."
Mina felt her feet warm slowly. "Thank you."
"Where you live, Mina," he said lower, "what's it like?"
She figured he was talking about Japan, but she answered him more honestly about what she could remember of Chicago. She couldn't recall where she had moved to last, which frightened her more than a little. Her voice trailed off in thought.
"Snow and what else?"
"Oh, uh, ice, and rain. It gets warm, too."
Yuila pulled her hood off and looked at him for a long moment.
"Stop trying to read my mind," he growled, and he actually did want her to stop.
The younger girl shrugged back into her mattress.
"Can she really read minds?" Mina asked him in a low tone after a moment.
"I don't know. She's pretty young."
Mina certainly hoped she could not. It was too uncanny thinking the younger girl could actually know her thoughts. She watched Yuila sulk across the room.
Probably not, she decided. If she could, she'd have said something by now about what Mina really thought about this new world she had entered.
And about the one she had left behind.
PG13, saga; teen, fantasy, fantasy world travel, tee, teen romance, clean romance, realm, magical realism, shadow world, school/new school, high school, fiction, serial. #ReadFree with free signup. ♫♪
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Thanks to P.G. Waters for the use of her story!