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Lina
Edrich’s normal coloring began to trickle back in, slowly. The more of the disgusting-looking mushrooms he ate, the less pale he seemed. I felt as if I had been holding my breath since our encounter with those creatures, and when I finally released it, I was almost dizzy.
I had been ignoring my back spasms, forcing myself to be all right until I knew Edrich was safe. With the exhaustion from the day, and the relief that we’d live through the night crashing in, it left no more energy for me to fight the pain.
I paced near the fire and tried to focus on anything else, on everything else.
“Earlier, you said you have seen fairies?” I asked, hoping that the fear and adrenaline from earlier would dull me once more.
Ucafre nodded sagely.
“Where? When?” I needed to know everything he knew. I needed to know that we were on the right path.
“It has been some time. They keep to themselves in the North Woods,” Ucafre answered, studying my pacing form. “They do not take well to outsiders, though.”
He looked up at Edrich with his last comment, and I couldn’t decide what his motives were.Are he and I both outsiders in this equation?
“They are the only lead I have… the only possibility that I know of to find out where I came from. I have to find them—” I cut my last word off abruptly, sucking in a sharp breath.
The pain was darting up and down my spine so forcefully, for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
“Lina?” Edrich’s voice was hesitant. “Are you all right?”
I was about to open my mouth to respond to him when the spasm in my back became too much.
“Peonies!” I gasped, nearly falling to my knees.
“What has happened?” Ucafre asked, moving closer.
I opened my mouth to speak, but a cry escaped me instead. I crumpled to the ground, pain lancing up and down my back so fiercely that I saw actual stars blooming in front of me and blinding my vision.
Maggie ran over to comfort me, lifting me up with her nose.
“Lina. This is more than you led on. What is going on? What is wrong?” Edrich’s voice was riddled with concern.
“My back,” I croaked out, curling up into a ball.
Edrich muttered a string of curses, and I barely made out the questions Ucafre was asking, let alone form the answers. My back throbbed and cracked and seemed to be splitting down the middle.
Tears streamed down my face as I desperately tried to breathe through the pain. Edrich’s words were clipped when he explained the spasms that had assaulted me from infancy, much to the intrigue of Ucafre. At some point, I tuned them out entirely, succumbing to the pain and hearing only Magnolia’s gentle whines in my ear.
Being in so much pain only made me miss Mama more. When I thought of the way she would soothe me, help me work through them, comfort me—it hurt even worse than the physical pain.
The well of grief opening up inside of me threatened to swallow me whole. If she had not died… If she were still here…
Suddenly, Edrich’s voice was louder, breaking through my downward spiral as he argued with the elf. Ucafre’s voice was calmer, but no less insistent, even though I couldn’t quite make out their words. I stretched toward Maggie’s bag that held my ointment.
But it was not there. When I had changed my clothes earlier, it must have fallen out.
Before I could crawl around and look for it, warm hands were picking me up, and Edrich’s voice was in my ear.
“I am going to put this medicine on your back. I have to lift your shirt.” His voice was riddled with uncertainty, but I nodded in agreement.
If he had found my medicine, I wouldn’t be so proud as to not let him apply it.I need something, anything, to make the pain stop.
Slowly, carefully, he lifted my shirt, and his finger rubbed a pungent-smelling substance on my back. It wasn’t my ointment, but its effects were undeniable.
The pain went from searing and white hot to throbbing, and eventually to something more tolerable.
