Leanna Dove's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Lyndsey was asleep. Annie was worse. Leanna made the choice fast. She half carried Annie off the rug and out the door, an arm under her ribs. She wrote a note for Lyndsey and left it on the bunk. Then she drove Annie two towns over, to the clinic, gripping the wheel as Annie moaned against the window. They pushed through the clinic door. Before Leanna could even ask for help, Annie doubled over and threw up on the waiting room floor. A few people looked up. Annie sank to her knees in it, arms locked around her middle. "I need a healer," Leanna said. "She hasn't eaten in two days. Her stomach's hard as a stone." A woman came out from the back. Reddish-blonde hair, soft eyes, plain sweater. She didn't flinch at the mess. She knelt right down beside Annie on the floor. "I'm Lindy," she said. "Let's get you up." Between them, Leanna and Lindy walked Annie to an exam table in the back. Lindy eased her flat and lifted the edge of her shirt. She pressed two fingers low on Annie's belly. Annie cried out and gagged. Lindy moved her hand and pressed again. Same cry. "Easy," Lindy said. Her voice dropped, quiet and exact. "I know it hurts. I have to feel where." Leanna held Annie's hand. "Is it what's going around? Something in the town?" Lindy kept pressing, listening with her fingers. "No." She said it flat. "This is nervous stomach. A bad flare. Maybe two small ulcers." She looked up. "She performs, doesn't she. On an empty belly." Leanna's chest loosened, then tightened again. Not a plague. A pattern. The same one she'd seen in singer after singer. "She does," Leanna said. Lindy went to a shelf and gathered small pouches of dried herbs and tea. She set them in Leanna's hands. "Thyme tea. These others steep for the swelling. They calm the gut." Then she opened a tin of balm and warmed some between her palms. "This part will hurt," Lindy told Annie. "It brings the swelling down." She rubbed the balm in slow circles across Annie's stomach. Annie hissed with each pass. Her hands gripped the table edge. Leanna held her steady. Lindy didn't rush and didn't stop. After a minute Annie's breathing slowed. Her shoulders came down off her ears. The last circle didn't make her flinch. "Better," Annie whispered. Just the one word. Lindy wiped her hands. "She needs food before she sings. Every time. No exceptions." She looked at Leanna. "Can you make sure of that?" "Yes," Leanna said. Annie was safe. Leanna held the pouches and let herself breathe. Then she remembered the bus, and the note, and Lyndsey alone in the bunk with the same swollen belly. She had helped one woman up. The other was still two towns away, asleep and waiting.