A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,69

he was after the same means of survival I was. When he was just as passionate – desperate? – about attaining it. It did not feel good to snuff his chances. Only relieving.

As anticipated, my arms ached when I reached Manor Dorn. Dashsund was on the porch, and saw me. He could not know the details of what I bore with me, but the right amount of comprehension lit in his eyes. He reacted accordingly, coming to help.

“I found her,” I announced, my voice slightly cracked from the ache of exertion in my chest. He slipped his arms under my bundle and lifted her from me. My arms resisted straightening, the muscles trained on clenching. I worked the ache out of the fused joints as I followed him up the porch, my face contorted with the pain. It seemed more intense now that she was out of my arms, as if only the clenching of my muscles had held my arms together, and now they were free to fall apart.

Dashsund surely concluded the same thing I did about the girl, but he said nothing either. He put her down on the cot off of the kitchen, and then started doing the sensible things that one ought to partake in when another's well-being was at stake. Things that, any other day, I would have jumped to help him with, if I hadn't already beat him to it. But I – I was distracted by my fingers, plagued by the cold still. The digits were numb, and I stood in the little room staring at them, where a layer of lacy snowflakes was still frosted across my fingerprints. They glistened in the light, a sweaty, sequined glaze.

It was something like dismay that was happening inside me, as the curse on my digits occurred to me as something I couldn't seem to get rid of. I was finally growing tired of ignoring it. Just go away, I thought, as if it were a rash I was loathe to acknowledge. Dashsund noticed my lapse, yet retained his expert silence. He had quite a grasp on discretion, that one. I took note of this about him with the same sense of vision he had just exercised on me.

Feeling as if the exchange made us equal, I dismissed the notion of an explanation or apology and simply turned to help with my wits returned to me. I knew it would be good enough for Dashsund.

Enda joined us as well, and I felt better with her tending to the girl. Her old hands were experienced and wise. She knew how to deal with things with a gritty realism. That was what the girl needed, surely over the gimmicky one-way effects attached to my own fingers. My enchanted fingers were useless here. Their sparking, two-cents' worth of interjections rather got in the way of performing any task smoothly.

“Where's Letta?” I asked. She was another always good to have on hand during something like this. I knew that from firsthand experience.

“Giving refreshments to Henry and Tanen. They're fixing the water pump, and pipes. Been out in the sun all day. We won't have to haul from the well anymore, when they're done.” He was calm as he spoke, and I had to admire his ability to address monotonous things in the face of a crisis. Instead of cheapening it, it seemed an effective aid to composure. Whether he needed it or not, it was a sure-fire reinforcement; he was not to be inconvenienced by nerves any time soon.

We had just gotten the girl bundled when Letta came in from her task. Comprehension took a moment establishing itself as she took in first me, returned blessedly safely but from who knew where, and then the girl who was evidently enough the more endangered factor of the scenario. In that moment I saw the initial, inevitable questions that rose to her lips upon my return, the weighing of priorities, and the conclusion that put my undoubtedly maddening disappearance on hold because of what I had brought back with me. Thank the gods they all knew how to keep priority straight. Questions could be asked later. It was a good thing to learn when half the time there were no answers anyway, when explanations just as often presented more questions.

With Enda and Letta both tending to the girl, I backed off. I was both taxed and a little bit haunted by the encounter, recalling the nature by which I discovered her, by