“Orlaith?”
I blink away my sightless daze. “I did as he asked.”
“I know.” Though his voice is gruff, there’s a softness to his words, his eyes, his posture. Gone the next second.
He grips my shoulders and hooks my full attention, searching my eyes. “You injured?”
I shake my head, whisper a no.
“Good,” he mumbles, nodding slowly. “How familiar are you with a needle and thread?”
I taste bile, bunching my hands into fists, feeling that phantom prickle bite the tips of my fingers. Hating it.
Missing it more.
“Very.”
His grip tightens, as though he’s trying to anchor me. “Then I have averyimportant job for you.”
Job …I’ve never been given one of those before.
“You do?”
He nods. “If you think you’re up to it, I need someone to help the medis stitch up the rest of the crew.”
Istep down a dark, narrow staircase into the suffocating confines of the makeshift infirmary, so different from the above-deck racket stomping overhead. The low roof coupled with the lack of windows thickens the hot, potent residue of spew, pain, and body odor.
The floorboards are slathered in vomit and blood, sloshed through the remaining seawater. Someone dry heaves, and I clap my hand over my mouth as a lumpy splatter wrestles with the dull chorus of groans.
Swallowing bile, my attention jumps between packed-in wooden cots partitioned by sheer drapes. Between stricken sailors with powdery eyes—some present, some flat and vacant, as if the pain has ferried their minds somewhere that doesn’t hurt so much.
One man looks straight at me and silently holds my stare. My gaze drops to his left leg that now ends in a bandaged nub, and something inside my chest pulls taut.
My fault.
“Mistress?”
I blink, stare sliding to a young man with tousled, bright blond hair and kind, tired eyes standing between two cots, shirt rolled to his elbows. He wipes his bloodied hands on a shredded piece of cloth, then whips it over his shoulder.
“Just Orlaith.”
“I’m Alon,” he says, and I stare at his hand for a bit before realizing he wants me to give him mine.
He shakes it like he’s checking it’s still attached, and I clear my throat, glancing around the room again once he lets it go. “Can I, ahh, help at all?”
Relief brightens his eyes.
“I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Are you good with a needle?”
“I’ve had some experience, yes.”
“Excellent.”
He drops to a knee before a dented metal box set on the ground, gesturing for me to do the same as he cranks the lid. I knot my hair into a low bun, then roll my sleeves, listening to the crash course on the various jars of ointment and their uses—most of which I’m already familiar with. He points out the different tools I may require, shows me where to find rolls of dressing, and even gives me a demonstration on how to sanitize a needle.
Little does he know, I’ve sanitized a needle almost every day for as long as I can remember.
He hands me a corked bottle of rum. “Let them have a swig before tipping it on. Stitch them up, swipe some ointment, bind them in gauze, then move on to the next.”
