Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

38. Fight And Friendship

"Come now, wake up, wake up, wake up! No good pretending you're still asleep!" 

Emma groaned and burrowed deeper into the stiff quilt covering her small body, even as a rough feminine voice accosted her. For a moment, she thought it was Miss Sallow, the ornery, French-Monarchy obsessed housekeeper of the Cambridge Falls mansion. But then she remembered everything that had happened - returning for Michael, escaping from the Countess, meeting Gabriel, running through the maze, then going back to save the warrior - and jolted awake.

She found herself laying in a bed covered with the aforementioned heavy quilt, tucked in a dimly lit cabin. Not Gabriel's cabin, of course. This one had a dirt floor and a fire crackling in the hearth, turning the air smoky. She turned her head and saw a thin boy, not much older than Emma herself, kneeling at said hearth, stirring a simmering stew of meat and vegetables.

"There you are. Sit up now, you're not dead yet."

The speaker shambled into view, revealing herself to be an old woman, short and plump, with wrinkled brown skin and copious amounts of tangled gray hair tied back. Her raised hands were gnarled by arthritis, her nails were long and dirty - she clearly worked with them often. She wore an old black dress and a matching shawl, and draped around her neck were at least a dozen dangling necklaces holding charms and beads, animal teeth, feathers, even tiny jars and vials containing plants. She shuffled forward, her slippers scuffing against the dirt ground, her necklaces clanking softly together. She looked like no one Emma had ever seen before, not in New York, nor anywhere else. 

She drew back as the old woman reached for her. "Who are you?" She demanded to know. "Where am I? Where's Gabriel? Don't come near me!"

The woman chuckled. "Touchy one, aren't you."

"You'd better get away, or when Gabriel gets here, he'll kill you!"

"Gabriel, Gabriel," the woman mused. Her voice was melodical, even though it was strained with the weight of her years. "He warned me you'd be a fighter."

Emma let her guard slip, just a bit. "Gabriel brought me here."

"If he hadn't, do you think you'd be alive and talking to me? No's the answer to that, and - Ah, but of course, you do not remember. Try and think now."

It came back to her then. The arrow piercing her body. Gabriel carrying her through the maze as she whimpered in pain and clung to him, until the moment unconsciousness overtook her. Instinctively, her hand went to her stomach, but the woman stopped her with a gentle cluck of her tongue. 

"Now now," she chided, "let Granny do that."

She peeled the quilt away from Emma, then pulled up her shirt - a new shirt, the young girl realized, she had been changed into a new blouse and trousers at some point - revealing a patch of dried mud covering the skin of her stomach. With gentle expertise, the woman (Granny?) scraped it, and the mud flaked away. Emma watched with horrified curiosity, half-expecting to see a hole going clean through her. But, to her surprise, when the mud was gone, there was only a small pink scar. 

"Not bad," the old lady murmured approvingly. Emma's eyes were big and shocked.

"But how..."

"I know a thing or two," the woman said knowingly. "Yes, old Granny Peet knows a thing or two."

Emma laid back down as Granny Peet shuffled away, humming to herself. She called out, "I want-"

"Food," Granny Peet cut in. "My own stew, that's what you need. It'll make you strong."

"No, I need to talk to Gabriel. My brother and sister, they're lost."

Granny Peet shook her head, bustling around the cabin, mixing various herbs and powders and whatnot into a bowl. "Not lost," she said gently. "Found."