Page 11 of You Give Me Fever

I never leave you, even in the day. I am your shadow, hopeless for you, and I cannot leave until you die of your illness... or I die of your recovery.

She hardly felt the soft kiss on her hair or Shiver sliding out of her. By the time he had dried her off and wrapped her in her blankets, she was fully out, the low growls of distant thunder playing her off to sleep.

Chapter

Five

BEATS ME, I’VE NEVER HANDLED ANYTHING MORE COMPLICATED THAN A DUESENBERG

The next morning, like every morning, began with chickens.

So many chickens.

Clara Bailey liked hens. They made soft, soothing little sounds, like they were worried about her and were insisting she eat something, and when were they going to get some grandchildren, by the bye?

But those roosters... she could slap every one of them and not lose a wink of sleep.

Slowly, her mind began to defrost. She hurt everywhere, that full body ache that always signaled—like it or not —that she was, in fact, sick. As she pulled herself up from the bed on shaky arms, new aches presented themselves—aches that made her blush.

Having never been with a man, she had no idea what such a thing would feel like the next morning, but common sense gave her a few unsettling clues.

But... that had just been a dream. A very vivid dream brought on by this completely unacceptable illness, but still just a dream. One that Clara wouldn’t mind having again for the next few days. Months. Forever.

Still, as her mother had often said to her, “Dreams are for the pillow; there’s work to be done.”

Another pang came from between her thighs as she took her first steps away from the bed.

Among Clara’s few talents was denial—she practiced it with the determination her schoolfriends might have shown the clarinet. But even Clara had to admit now, in the light of day, that something was happening to her. Something deeply unsettling. Was it possible, out here all alone, that some man had been creeping in at night?

Looking around with a sudden icy arrow of panic slicing through her lungs, she yanked on her dress, half convinced a stranger was lurking in the corner of her room.

RAH-AH-AH-ROOOOOOOOO!

Clara flailed to the floor in an inelegant tangle at the scream right outside her window.

“Roosters,” she growled, getting to her feet again. “I hate roosters.”

Generally, walks into town were the most exciting part of her week. She would load up her little wagon with carefully packed crates of eggs and walk the peaceful and mostly empty road for a half hour until her little town swelled up from the road to greet her.

As alone as Clara felt each day, looking after the farm where her parents had died and from which she no longer felt brave enough to leave, it made her heart race each time she went into town, made eye contact with people, shared a bit of pleasant, meaningless small talk. Chitchat with old Mr. Fenton at the market as he paid for her eggs might not be the thrill of her lifetime, but it was far better than simply talking to herself.

On this day, Clara felt very different about going into town. If some intruder had been pestering her, would he be following her on the road? Would he be the first face she saw in town?

Should she tell someone? Or would they just send her away to a madhouse?

“Clara!”

She cried out, jumping high enough to nearly upset her wagon, but the man on the other end of that voice was only Mr. Fenton, stepping out to help her get her wagon inside. He was a big bear of an old man with a white beard and twinkling eyes, and he had saved Clara’s farm from going back to the bank by always paying extra for her eggs and finding her a buyer when the chicks were old enough for new homes.

“Morning, Mr. Fenton,” she said as he helped her pull the wagon over the pavement and into the market.

Clara might have had her suspicions about any other man she saw today, but not Fenton. She was fairly certain that, as the city folk might have phrased it, he was a friend of Dorothy. There was no safer man in town unless one counted the dead.

“Looking a bit on the peaky side, Clara,” he said, squinting at her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes. “Let me set you up with some Dr. Tom’s and whiskey. That’ll do the trick.”

Clara laughed, making a disgusted face. Dr. Thomas’s Electric Oil was the most popular cure-all these days, but there was a bit too much turpentine in it for her liking.

“I’ll take a rain check, Mr. Fenton. I’m just a little under the weather.”