Renee Flicker's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The medicine had stayed down at sundown. By the small hours it did not. Ally woke with a groan and rolled toward the edge of the couch. Renee grabbed the metal bin from beside the desk and got it under her chin. Ally heaved. Thin bile, mostly. Renee held her hair back and rubbed slow circles on her spine until the retching stopped. Ally sank back on the quilt. Her breath came ragged. Renee wiped her mouth with a damp cloth and set the bin down. The smell was sour. She would empty it soon. First Ally needed to settle, and she was not settling. She was crying, hard, the way a child cries when nothing helps. "Why do I still feel this horrible?" Ally said. Her voice cracked. "The medicine. She said it would work." "It doesn't work all at once," Renee said. "It has to bring the swelling down first. That takes days, not hours." Ally cried harder. Renee knelt closer. She knew this crying. It was not only the stomach now. It was the low black weight that came with Ally's nerves, pressing down when her body had nothing left to fight with. The anxiety fed the flare. The flare fed the anxiety. Renee had watched it spiral before. "Let me feel your belly," Renee said. "I need to know how bad." Ally nodded once. Renee lifted the hem of her shirt. The skin was tight and warm, the swelling worse than at sundown. She pressed her fingers just below the ribs, gentle. Ally yelped and flinched away, knees snapping up. Renee pulled her hand back at once. "Okay. I'm done. I'm done." The yelp faded. Ally's breathing slowed. She drew two fingers to her mouth and sucked on them, eyes half shut, the way she did to calm herself when words ran out. Renee had seen it since they were young. It meant the sharpest edge had passed. Renee did not reach for the anti-inflammatory. Ally could not hold it, and the healer's warning stood clear in her mind: treat the nerves, or the nerves drive it back. She reached instead for the paper twist of thyme. She filled the kettle from the jug and set it over the coals. When the water steamed she dropped in a pinch and let it steep dark. She cooled it with a splash from the jug so it would not scald. Then she lifted Ally's head into the crook of her arm. "Small sips," Renee said. "This is for the fear, not the stomach. Just breathe between them." Ally took her fingers from her mouth. She drank. One sip, a breath, another. Her shoulders came down from her ears. The crying thinned to hiccups, then to nothing. By the time the cup was half gone she was asleep against Renee's arm, quiet at last. Renee held still and did not move her. On the desk the lord's letter waited another night. Tonight she had only won a few hours of quiet. It was enough.