Chapter Thirty-Four
ANDA
It’s dark when I find him.
He’s lying in a sleeping bag just twenty feet off the Greenstone Ridge trail. The rank odor of regurgitated sick issues from nearby. The moon is low, rising quickly, as if to warn me that I don’t have much time. His backpack is open, its contents spilled out messily. Hector is not messy by nature. In our cabin, he left things in neat piles, always very careful not to leave traces of himself behind. It was the actions of the fearful, keeping himself restricted and contained for the sake of survival.
And then I see the blood.
Hector is lying faceup, his knife a few inches away from his open fingertips. The edge of the blade is darkened, and dried blood crusts on the skin of his exposed arm. A line seven inches long runs from midwrist up to the crook of his elbow. The blood rivulets show that the cut was deep.
No. Not again.
I drop to my knees next to him in the darkness, the rain-drenched soil seeping moisture through my jeans. His unconsciousness is so deep that his eyes are unmoving beneath closed eyelids, and he does not stir when I touch his face. The blood on his arm is dried. He stopped bleeding some time ago. His skin scalds with fever, but his hands are icy cold. I slip my hand under his shirt, against his chest. His heart patters against his rib cage, a hummingbird’s tap-tap-tap. It doesn’t beat with potency anymore.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but the island has taken its toll. Since the first day on the ferry, he’s lost a lot of weight, maybe fifteen or twenty pounds. His cheekbones are sharper angles, his arms more spare and wiry. Malnutrition is making his skin color uneven, and there are ridges at the base of his nails.
The island has been consuming him.
I’ve been consuming him, and I couldn’t see for my hunger.
I made my choice in the water hours ago. I won’t have this happen. I’m used to getting my way, even with the alterations that Father has begged me for. But this time, it’s different. In turning my back on that part of myself, I have to do things differently. Hector’s way. Father’s way.
My heart starts to hammer inside my chest, almost as fast as Hector’s, because I have to fix him. I don’t have brews and potions, like the fairy tales say I do. I only know the natural order of things. Chaos. Disintegration. Rebirth.
I glance at the metal camping things near Hector’s tent; my mind goes blank. I don’t know what they are or what to do with them. Metal and mechanical things, if they’re not meant to be sunk, are not part of my language.
I rummage inside my pack and pull out bottle after bottle from our medicine cabinet.
Aspirin, 325 mg
Amoxicillin-Clavulanate, 875 mg/125 mg
Omeprazole, 20 mg
Triamterene-Hydrochlorothiazide, 37.5 mg/25 mg
I don’t know what any of them are or what they treat. I look at Hector, whose breathing has become more shallow even as I watch him. I look at the orange pill bottles whose tops I can’t manage to pry off, and the cooking camp set I don’t know how to use.
For the first time in my life, I am terrified.
...
It takes a while to make the fire. I don’t bother with the mysterious metal instruments for cooking. Instead, I gather several short branches, pile them together, and concentrate. I pull the moisture away until the wood becomes brittle, and then light a match to the curly pieces of bone-dry bark. A little wind gives the flames something to inhale, and soon the fire is crackling. I put a bowlful of water and salty beef soup powder on the center of the fire, upon two thick branches that won’t burn through quickly. When the soup boils, I let the air flow calm so the heat is steady. The smoke rises, and I make sure that the wind tows it away from our camp.
Hector still doesn’t stir. Food alone won’t help him, not with this fever. I decide that the pill bottle labeled “amoxicillin-clavulanate” must be an antibiotic, because it sounds like penicillin—a fungus-grown medicine. It makes sense to me. So many things in nature will kill other things to survive. How clever to use that viciousness to fight other wars.
I smash the pill bottle open because the top refuses to be pried off. It says “PUSH AND TWIST” but nothing I do makes it budge. It says childproof. It is witchproof, too, apparently. It says to take one pill every twelve hours. I take one chalky tablet and crush it to a powder using a titanium spoon, then mix in a portion of the broth.
“Hector,” I whisper. He’s still quite a bit larger than me, but I manage to pull him into my lap so his head is slightly raised. “Hector, drink this.”
His eyelids flutter, then shut. I take a spoonful of the liquid with the pulverized medicine and try to pour a few drops into his slightly opened mouth. It goes in. He doesn’t swallow. I pour a little more in. This time, he gags, coughs, sputters. He grimaces at the bitterness, but he swallows some of it. I wipe his chin and try again. Some of it ends up in his stomach.
A few hours later, when the moon is high overhead, I give him the rest. This time, he actually holds a trembling hand to the cup and drinks the whole cupful down thirstily before sagging back into my arms.
When the sun rises, I take a cloth and wipe down his face. His breath is rank, and a sickness seems to ooze from his pores when he sweats, but his heart is beating ever so slightly slower. I give him another half cupful of medicated soup. He drinks most of it this time, followed by water. The clouds linger overhead, watching us, but I shoo them away. When night comes again, he will have gotten three doses of medicine. I suspect it’s working, simply because Hector isn’t dead. At least, not yet.
I eat and drink, too, because I must do something about my growling stomach and dry throat. We are down to only three granola bars and one packet of freeze-dried chicken stew, but I try not to think of what this means.
On the second morning, he wakes without me urging him to drink. His eyes are not as sunken into his orbits as they were yesterday, and his lips are peeling. The cut arm has a proud scab covering the wound now. There is a slight bloom to his cheeks that wasn’t there before, and it’s not because of fever.
“Hector,” I say.
“Where am I?” he rasps, blinking sleepily.
“Here, with me.”
His lips tighten and stretch, either a grimace or grin, I can’t tell. The result is that his bottom lip cracks and a bead of red forms. Perhaps I answered the question wrong. He winces, and my nostrils flare at the scent of blood, but I push away the longing within.
“Anda…”
“I know you said never to touch you. But you were sick.”
“I…”
“And I know that you don’t want to be with me, but I wanted to help.”
He struggles to sit up. I’m afraid to read his face and his revulsion, what he must think of me. He blinks hard, trying to reconcile himself to being upright instead of prone for so many hours.
I was terrified of losing him thirty-six hours ago. Now I find that I’m terrified of the words he’s about to say. He exhales, as if there’s too much already to be said. Weariness holds his shoulders down. After a few minutes, he finally speaks.
“Anda…”
“Yes, Hector.” I look at him expectantly.
“I really have to piss.”