Equinox

~Chapter Four~

It was in the middle of the night when I made up my mind. After shoving my nursing book in a bag, and grasping one of my mother's vial of liquid so tightly it should have broken, I slowly made my way to the window. Very slowly and carefully, I opened it, not wanting to wake my sisters. I was in luck; there was no creak in resistance.

I looked down at the vines crawling up the brick wall. I had to climb down. The other option was to jump, and would not have ended well.

Well, I hope they're strong.

With that thought surfacing in my head, I reached out and grabbed one of the vines and tugged. It didn't fall from the wall, so I yanked myself sideways through the window.

Please don't break.

My prayer was answered.

I hopped down from the vine and started to trudge my way to the village. It wasn't a long walk, but at night I was wary. I never knew who I would come across. While I walked, all my doubts on what I was doing surfaced.

Why am I doing this? Will he even be alive? Could I even help him? Why do I want to help him? He was a jerk.

I should just let him die.

"Stop it, Equinox," I said, gently slapping my face. "You're helping him because it's the right thing to do.

I was silent the rest of the way into town. By the time the flickering lights of the doctor's house reached me, all my doubts had vanished. I was just terrified at what I'd find.

A woman stood outside the door of the house--the same woman who had snapped at me in the marketplace. She was talking to a middle-aged man with graying hair, who was no doubt the doctor.

"...but you must know of something to do!" Desperation was obvious in the woman's voice.

She must be the boy's mother.

She was too caring to be anything else.

The doctor shook his head. "As it is now, even if he does survive the wound, he will become infected. We simply don't have the means to help him!" The man shook his head, not meeting the lady's eyes. "We may as well put him out of his misery."

A wail started to rise up from the woman. My heart stuttered as I sneaked around to the back of the house. No one could see me. If what I had in the vial worked, and if someone noticed me, I would be labeled a sorceress, and sorcery was not treated kindly. I grasped the back doorknob and turned it as slowly as I could, not wanting to make any noise.

Immediately, the smell of putrid flesh and medicine hit me. The doctor's house was a small, one-room house, so the boy lay in the middle of the floor. He was on was his back, on top of a small blanket--the only thing separating him from the wooden floor.

I stepped closer, heart fluttering. The boy's eyes were closed, his face ashen. He shivered beneath the heavy blanket lying on him, but his face was wet with sweat like he had just run a race. He took very shallow, quick breaths, trying to get enough air in.

Very slowly, I lifted the blanket away from his leg. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. His leg was red--not bloody red, like I had thought, but like a rash. The red spread from the stump that remained of his right leg all the way up to just below his hip. A piece of skin was stretched and messily sewn over the gaping hole in his leg. Bile rose up in my throat.

Don't be sick. Just do what you came here to do.

Slowly, I pulled my bag from around my body and dug through it, trying to find my mother's vial. My hand touched the smooth glass and I grinned, pulling it out.

A soft moan made me jump slightly. The voice of the boy was weak and cracked as he asked, "Who are you?"

So much for not being seen.

I bent down over the boy's leg and uncorked the vial. "I'm here to help you," I whispered.

Carefully, I tilted the bottle over his wound. A dark green liquid trickled out and touched the stump of a leg, leaving thin tendrils of smoke curling up from the places it touched.

The boy squirmed and shivered. Surprisingly, he didn't cry out like my sister had when the liquid was used on her. Either she was being over-dramatic, the extra pain didn't bother him, or he didn't feel it.

His breath rattled in his chest. He propped an arm on the floor like he was trying to move, but it slipped out from under him. "You're the girl from earlier," he rasped. "The one from underneath the tree."

I nodded.

"I'm sorry I called you a dog," he muttered, eyelids fluttering shut.

I put the empty vial in my bag. "It's okay."

It really wasn't okay, but whatever.

I was silent for a second longer. If he'd seen me, and I was really going to go through with helping him, him knowing my name couldn't hurt matters. I swallowed. "My name is Equinox."

I turned to leave, believing the boy was unconscious again.

"Orion."

A smile flickered over my lips as I grabbed the door handle. So my sisters weren't lying when they told me his name. "I'll be back soon, Orion."