Yellowhair: An Elf Hollow Prequel

SEVENTEEN | Broken

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Broken

That looks so great! Kreelah thought, surveying the herbal stock she was just putting back up onto the shelves. A result befitting the Medicine Woman's Apprentice of Wandoor! she smiled to herself.

A voice in her head countered, Not so great, as you forgetting your duties!

"Aww." Kreelah wrinkled her brow and forced Aunt Hettie's ever reminding voice out of her mind. I hate when you do that! Just wait 'til I'm in the garden and talk to me then. She heard a noise at the entrance or was it out back?

"Hettie?" Kreelah called. "Are you around here or just in my mind?" She was used to knowing through her in-sight when her Aunt wanted to reach her or teach her something. But the hearing of Hettie's mind-voice in her head was still a little bit new.

Kreelah had arrived typically early this morning, before Aldes Fatsfoot--the true Medicine Woman of Wandoor herself, could get up and see what she'd done. She wiped along the counter of the preparations area, pushing the bandages right to the back and reached for the knob.

Peering outside, she saw nothing until she opened the thick wooden door a little bit wider and a shimmer of movement on the tree-line caught her attention. Then she looked down onto the courtyard. "Oh, no!" She dashed through the garden.

Kreelah's new job was to see to it that the shop and supplies were kept up in stock. And at odd times--although her intuition was well beyond her menial tasks--she was permitted to simply assist or to find things that people came to Aldes for, as long as those things were obvious needs and easy to transfer with any instructions. This situation was well beyond that she knew already.

Far on the hill, she could see the boy, Alphonse, but spotting him there did not provoke any of the usual villagers' fear for Kreelah, nor did the vanishing grey streak that was likely his wolf.

She would have smiled and tried to get the boy to wave, but in the first instant, she noticed the travois left on the ground in the courtyard—it's prone rider dead still, with blood pooling through clothes and out onto the earth. And it's a child!

This was a great deal out of the range of her knowledge. Even with Hettie's help, she couldn't do this.

Kreelah stopped her impulse to run back to the cottage. She knew enough of what Aldes would ask her. She took a quick look over the patient. The small girl had been dumped there, all in a bundle--trussed up with roughly made knots. Somehow, whoever came along with the boy had dragged this child from what must have been a very long distance, judging by dust. And had left her here in the sunken stone garden, all ringed with herbs--without Kreelah even hearing a sound, until the boy must have thrown something before running off.

How did he even get her in here? And where are you Hettie? Is this what you meant by "forgetting my duties"? This looks really bad! Was there an adult out there with Alphonse?

Kreelah looked desperately toward the cottage. Was Aldes up yet?

The cottage stood on its own, towards the forest--the last in a row of many small homes, that made up most of the length of Wandoor Village. They were built out of mud—smoothed by hands, dried by the sun, and then hidden in thatch. All were painted quite quaintly, in soft, cheerful and differing colours—all felt private, yet welcoming.

Kreelah hurried her assessment of the patient's life-force. The boy could not have done this alone, she thought. How else could the child have been brought here? The boy and the dog? If they had done this, it was an amazing feat.