Annie Oakley's Arc

Chapter 14 of 25

Annie set the guitar back on its hook and looked in on Misty before bed. Misty was warm under the quilt, one hand on the paisley pony. By the time the candle burned low, she was up again, leaning over the pail. Annie held her hair back and wiped her mouth. By morning Misty's forehead was hot. Lainey pressed her wrist to it and then to her own. "Stomach bug," Lainey said. "Almost a hundred and two. It'll pass. Kids get these." Annie nodded. Her own stomach had already started its slow twist. She stood in the doorway and watched Misty's chest rise and fall too fast. "She's fine," Lainey said. "Go sit. You're gray." Annie went outside because the cottage walls felt close. The pain came in under her ribs and pushed out. She pressed a hand to her middle and felt it swell hard against her palm. She had eaten breakfast. It did not matter. Fear did its own work. She walked, because walking was better than sitting. Her feet took her down the path without asking. The chapel door was unlocked. It always was. She pushed inside and sat on the front pew and bent forward over her knees. The stone kept the room cool. She tried to pray and could only breathe. The door opened behind her. Boots on stone. Lucy Gray came up the aisle and stopped at the end of the pew. She did not sit yet. "Lainey said you walked off." "I'm alright." Lucy Gray looked at her, then at the hand pressed to her stomach. "Stand up." Annie stood. Her middle pushed against her skirt band, tight and round. Lucy Gray's mouth went flat. "That's not alright." "It's not the sickness," Annie said. "It's mine. Nervous stomach. When I get scared it swells up like this. Sometimes I throw up. The doctor knows." "Scared of what." "Misty. The fever. She was crying in her sleep." Lucy Gray sat down then. She did not touch Annie. She put her hands flat on her knees. "Fevers pass. I've watched four go through worse. She'll sweat it out by supper." "I know." "Knowing doesn't help the belly." "No." "Then breathe slower. Count the windows." Annie counted. Four on one side. Four on the other. The cross above the altar. Lucy Gray sat with her and said nothing else for a long time. The swelling did not go down fast, but it stopped climbing. Annie's hands unclenched. "Come back with me," Lucy Gray said. "You can sit at my table while Lainey sits with Misty. You're no use to that child like this." Annie went. By afternoon Misty's fever broke on Lainey's cot, and Annie was at the Grays' kitchen table with a piece of bread she could keep down. She had not f