He moaned, his face was a grimace.
“Do you need medicine? How long has it been since your last?”
“It has been days since m’last, and a verra long time since m’last meal and drink.”
“Ohno.Let’s see.I gave you painkillers and a sandwich yesterday,” I counted on my fingers, “That’s been a full day, you must be feeling it, and you must be famished if you haven’t eaten anything else... Okay, let me think of what to do.” I glanced all around taking stock.
There had been a sword fight, this stranger had returned, somehow, there was now a man bleeding, possibly to death, running down the main road.Cheese Louise, this was likely to be a big issue, could I harbor a murderer and make him another sandwich?“I just… I can’t take you inside, Torin, it just doesn’t seem safe… I have the back house, my uncle was living there, he named it the back-shack. It’s closed up, let me go get the key...” I pointed. “Do you see it, down there? Can you make it there?”
He sat up gingerly holding his arm. “Aye, I can get there, Mistress Lexi.”
“Meet me there, I’m going to get the key, hold on.”
I rushed to the house, thinking,Did Torin just kill that man?
I was insane to give a murderer food. Likely certifiably insane. But then again that man had charged at me. He had wanted to kill me. Torin had saved my life.
I banged through the screen door entrance, stalked down the hall to the kitchen, and grabbed the key to the back-shack from the hook near the door. I grabbed the Tylenol, a bottle of water. I wasn’t sure if there would be ice in the freezer down there, I decided if he needed food I could get that later. I didn’t need to be...toonice.
He had just likely killed someone. With a sword.
Of course I had thought about killing that guy with the gun. But I didn’t actuallydoit.I wasn’t crazy,I thought to myself as I returned to unlock the door for him to rest in my back house.
10
LEXI
2004 - THE BACK-SHACK
Down in the back quarter, I saw him slowly using the rail to heave himself up the three steps to the front stoop of the one story building.
My uncle had lived there before he got married and moved for a job in Texas last year. It was fairly clean, last I checked, but completely shut down and dark. And now that I thought about it, I hadn’t checked it in about six weeks. I jogged down the grassy lawn while Torin was looking all around at the porch, and tapping on the glass of the window.
But then he turned to the sky. I followed his eyes, looking to the south, where a giant storm was rising into the air.
That man had been heading that direction.
Torin said, “Och, he is leavin’.”
“Really? How?”
“Tis the storm.”
“Oh.”
Torin exhaled, “It answers a question Max and I hae had though — are there more vessels? Now I ken there are more.”
He shook his head. “And this is terrible news.”
I unlocked the front door, walking into the dusty room; it smelled of must, and disuse. I flicked on the overhead light. He groaned and put an arm up to block his eyes.
It was a large living room with a very small kitchen to the side, a bathroom past that, sharing a wall, and then a bed in the corner, with a wall but no door separating it from the main room. I crossed to the end table, turned on a lamp, and then turned off the overhead light. He visibly relaxed.
“Go ahead and sit down, rest a bit.”
He bowed. “Thank ye, Mistress Lexi.”
He went and sat down on the couch, his big broad shoulders and splayed, bare knees, making it so that he took up most of it. He dropped his heavy sword on the floor beside the couch. With his one good hand and a pained expression, he unclasped the brooch and shoved his cloak off his shoulders. He said, “Och nae.”
