Forsaken by the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally, Red must brave the magic and monsters of the Wylds to find her true place in the world.
*****
Plague...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I wanted to rail against the accusation, if only to keep the crumbling foundations of my childhood together for a little longer, but a cyclone of memories ruthlessly tore them apart. A hairy hand, reaching down to pull me out of a slippery pool of blood -- only to haul me up by the scruff of my neck. Cold eyes and shoulders, outright hostility and pitying stares -- even from the children of the Blood Moon Pack. A nose that could barely tell apart basil from oregano in the pantry, a heart that threatened to give out whenever I challenged my pitiful excuse for lycan strength. My illness had prevented me from even trying to shift, denying me the one thing that rivals and friends alike had in common in the Blood Moon Pack.
Illness or illusion? the Earth Mother chimed in my head, gently drawing my raging thoughts to their inevitable conclusion. The visions swirled, blending and settling into the murky darkness of the healing hut. I was bed-ridden again, watching that vile steam curl out of the cauldron and diffuse into the air, making my hair heavy and my skin sticky. Harry was bent over his desk again, the balding patch on the back of his head gleaming with sweat as he scratched notes into his journal with a dazzling red quill. The brilliant plume was tipped with a golden eye that seemed to track my every move as it bobbed along with the jerky movements of his hand.
A wet, hacking cough twisted Harry's frame, causing the old healer's fingers to spasm. The quill clattered onto the desk, splattering ink across the page. I realised then that I'd only ever seen Harry cough while inside the healing hut, whenever he was concocting the foul brew that I dutifully threw back every morning and night. Something in the steam did not agree with him; perhaps the same thing that had the Orchid Mantis foaming at the mouth and thrashing in agony during its final breaths.
"I have a favour to ask," I said, lifting the drawstring pouch over my head. I tossed it to Gretchen, who caught it mid-air without even lifting a finger. "I need to know what's in there."
"Alright," she said, plucking the levitating bag out of the air and pinching at the drawstring stitching. When she shook the contents onto her flattened palm, I took note of the shapes and sizes of the herbs she leafed through, all dried and pressed between fine sheets of paper.
"What's that?" I asked, zeroing in on an assortment of small, star-shaped flowers. It was an exact match for the ones Eddy had been trying to eat, much to the Wraith's consternation.
"Belladonna," Gretchen said, frowning as she flicked through the herbs again, double-checking her initial assessment. "You've also got oleander, hemlock and wolfsbane in here. And some kind of sawdust, though I'd have to run some tests to figure out what it's from."
"What are the symptoms?" I asked, even though I suspected I was already intimately familiar with them. "If you grind them all up and boil them into a tea, say."
Gretchen tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. "Nausea, vomiting, lethargy, dizzy spells, heart palpitations... but there's enough here to kill a man several times over. Where did you get all of this, Red?"
