Healers (2 page)

Daussie turned around to look for her mother. With some unease she found Kazy, the girl she’d freed from the horse stall, right behind her again. “Hey Kazy,” she said, stretching her neck to look over the girl for Eva. Kazy had been dogging her steps at every turn since her escape. Daussie had been feeling… uncomfortable about it.

“Can I help with anything?” Kazy asked.

“No, I’m just looking for my mom. I’m assuming we’ll need to make lunch, at least for us and maybe for you girls. Possibly even for the whole caravan.”

“You cook for the whole caravan?!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of our business. Most people in the caravan are merchants of some kind or the other, but we used to own a tavern so our thing is making food for people.” Daussie glanced around, “I wonder if everyone’s already eaten their lunch?”

Daussie saw her mother over by the Hyllises’ wagon and started that way. When she arrived, Eva said, “I’ve asked around and not many people have eaten their lunch yet. I think we should make a pretty big meal, enough to feed the girls and at least some of the caravan people.” Eva had been looking through their supplies, now she started giving orders. Daum started the fire while Tarc gathered wood and hauled water. Daussie started chopping vegetables.

A hand reached in next to Daussie’s and grabbed a potato. Daussie looked up to see Kazy standing beside her. The girl had the other knife and she started cutting up the potato. “Um…” Daussie said, uncertain what to say. The way Kazy’d been following her around like a puppy dog made Daussie uncomfortable, but this… pitching in without being asked? Several times she’d thought to ask Kazy about her situation, but worried she’d learn it was
horrific
. She feared the girl had lost her entire family to the raider’s depredations, but Daussie didn’t know what she could do to help an orphan. Daussie’s dad had said the Hyllises couldn’t help everyone, but… Daussie found her mind shying away from
any
consideration
of
how bad Kazy’s circumstances might be.

Somehow, having the girl help make lunch felt like it would result in the Hyllises
owing
Kazy something. Daussie worried her parents might be unhappy to find out they owed a debt to a destitute girl.

Daussie thought back to how her father had told her they couldn’t feed everyone in need without starving too.

The Hyllises couldn’t protect everyone in danger without getting hurt themselves.

They, like everyone else, had to care for the Hyllises and let others care for their own families.

Yet, Daussie couldn’t bring herself to send Kazy away. After a moment, she said, “Thanks for pitching in.”

Kazy shrugged and gave her a tentative smile, “I’m hoping it’ll earn me some lunch.”

Eva frowned when she turned around to find Kazy helping, but she didn’t tell the girl to go away either. Helping her own mother and grandmother on the farm, Kazy had a lot of experience with cooking. Eager to help, she made herself
very
useful.

Daum saw Kazy helping to serve food, first to the other girls, then to the caravaners as they came through to get their lunch. He caught Eva to one side, “Is that one of the girls the raiders were holding?”

Eva nodded, eyeing the girl and wondering again about her situation.

Daum said, “
Why’s
she helping us?! Does she think we’re going to take care of her from here on out?”

Eva shrugged, “
I
don’t know. She just started pitching in, and I haven’t been able to ask Daussie about it. I have noticed she’s been following Daussie around like a lost puppy dog ever since I started talking to the girls back there in the forest…” Eva chewed a lip worriedly, “What if she doesn’t have any family left?”

“
We
can’t take care of her!” Daum said with dismay. “We still don’t know if we can take care of ourselves!” He looked over at the girl again, “Some of her more distant relatives’ll need to step up.”

Eva turned her penetrating gray eyes on Daum, looking at him consideringly. “Remember… when you were upset because none of these people would help
Daussie
? And you told me you felt guilty because you had told Daussie we
couldn’t
help
everyone?
Now, here’s a girl who may have
absolutely no one
to help her. Are you going to turn her away?”

Daum closed his eyes, and after a moment he hung his head. “No,” he whispered, “we can’t turn her away.” He opened his eyes and looked at Kazy again. “Maybe she has family here and she’s just helping out because she’s a good kid,” he said hopefully.

Eva turned and looked at the girl also. “Maybe… but I don’t think so,” she said slowly.

Daum sighed, “Well, try to find out, would you?”

Eva nodded slowly.

Once the girls had gone through the serving line to get lunch, Kazy started keeping her eyes down. She found men frightening and didn’t want to know when she was serving one. However, as they held out their bowls, she saw their hands and could tell whether they were men or women by the size and shape of their fingers.

She reminded herself that she was going to have to get back to dealing with men. The way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to deal with them without some of her hate and fear surfacing… so she’d need to learn to hide her feelings.

As she ladled some of the thick vegetable soup into the bowl before her she recognized the hand holding it belonged to a young man. She made herself glance up. A frightened shiver ran over her body. Dark blonde hair, brilliant blue eyes, he looked a lot like Kazy’s heroine, Daussie. Kazy’s memory shot back to the moment the door to the horse stall slowly swung open. Shaggy hair and slender build, this young man
could
have been the man who pushed it open. Could this young man have mystically transformed himself into Daussie when he saw the fear and hate in Kazy’s eyes?

Kazy blinked and looked up to her right,
No, Daussie’s still right here beside me!
She looked back at the man who was smiling tentatively at her.
He must be Daussie’s brother!
Kazy realized she had stopped in the midst of pouring soup into the young man’s bowl. “Sorry,” she said, dumping the rest of the ladle into his bowl.

The young man moved on, taking some bread from Daussie and heading off to sit on the ground a short distance away. With a start, Kazy realized someone was wiggling a bowl in front of her. “Oops,” she said filling her ladle with soup again. As that customer moved on, she nudged Daussie, “Is that your brother?” she whispered, pointing with her chin.

Daussie’s eyes followed the direction of Kazy’s gaze. She nodded, “Uh-huh, his name’s Tarc.”

Kazy filled another bowl with soup, then asked, “Why didn’t he come with you when you rescued us last night?”

Daussie’s eyes went back to her brother. After a long pause she said, “Um, he did.” She paused uncertainly, then continued, “He… wasn’t close by… you just didn’t see him.”

Kazy filled another bowl, thinking of the guy who’d been hanging around in the distance last night. She let her eyes drift back to Daussie’s handsome brother.
If
he
was there, why was his sister doing all the dirty work?

Then,
After those raiders showed me what men are like, I hate them
all
. Why am I thinking about her brother’s looks? Just because he looks like Daussie?

Everyone had gone through the Hyllises’ food line, so Eva got her own bowl of soup and hunk of bread. Uncomfortably eyeing the rescued girl, she said, “That’s it. You girls should serve yourselves.” She busied herself pouring some of the calming tea she had brewed for the traumatized girls. By the time Daussie and the girl had seated themselves, Eva was able to go over and sit beside them on the pretext of giving each of them a cup of tea. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” she said to the young girl.

“Kazy,” the girl said.

“What’s your last name?”

The girl’s face crumpled, and as tears ran down her cheeks she said in a tiny voice, “I don’t know, do you still have a last name when
everyone
in your family’s been killed?”

Eva’s own heart broke. She leaned to put an arm around Kazy’s shaking shoulders. Daussie leaned in from the other side and she and Eva hugged Kazy between them. “Sure you do,” Eva said in a low tremulous voice, “
no one
can take your name away from you.”

After a few wracking sobs, Kazy said, “Hyllis.”

Eva stared into Daussie’s wide eyes. Some kind of feud had scattered Daum’s family a generation or so back. As far as Eva had known, Daum was the only one of the Hyllises that had moved into the area of Walterston, but people had moved away from their original home in Colesville at different times. When they left, they seldom knew where they were going. When they arrived in a new location they didn’t send messages home to say where they’d gone, after all, they were trying to leave those people behind. As the different family groups picked up and moved at different times, Kazy’s family could easily have relocated here without Daum knowing. After a little more hesitation, Eva said, “Where was your family from?”

Without looking up, Kazy jerked a thumb further down the road away from Walterston. “Four farms down the road that way,” she whispered rubbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist.

“Um,” Eva said, “have some more of your tea. It’s supposed to help calm your nerves. Did your family always live around here?”

“No…” Kazy seemed about to say more, but then picked up her bread and took a bite instead.

Eva sipped her own tea for a moment, “When did they move here?”

“I don’t know…” Kazy looked off into the distance as if trying to remember. “My mom and dad moved here with my grandmother before I was born.”

“And…” Eva paused, not wanting to venture onto painful ground, but feeling she had to know, “the raiders killed all three of them?”

Kazy nodded jerkily, “And my brothers too.” She sniffed and picked up her cup for another sip.

They sat in silence for a while; then Eva suggested they sing a song of mourning. They talked about different songs until they found one all three of them knew. They started on it, singing relatively quietly, but it wasn’t long before more and more of the rescued girls gathered around. Eva and Daussie’s singing had calmed the girls earlier that morning and they wanted more. Farmers and caravaners collected too. Some of them started to join the singing. They went through the words they knew for the song several times, tears streaming down many of their faces.

Kazy began a “call and response” song, leading it with what turned out to be a beautiful soprano.

Eva looked up as they sang, seeing Daum mouthing the words and crying like everyone else. Many of the people looked as if they were experiencing some kind of catharsis. After all, even those who hadn’t actually been injured by the raiders had at least been through emotional trauma from the fear of what the raiders
might
do.

As the singing wound down, Mr. Prichard called for attention. “I know there’s been all kinds of questions about what happened last night down at Yates’ farm.” He paused as a murmur ran over the crowd, then he continued, “Well, I’m here to tell you I don’t rightly know myself. I suspect whatever really happened there will always be a mystery, but I’m going to tell you what we found this morning.”

Prichard had to pause again as heads turned and people whispered to one another. After a bit he cleared his throat and resumed. “You’ve seen Nyssa and her daughter Iris. Nyssa was the oldest of the women the raiders… kept. She’s confirmed that the raiders arrived at Yates’ farm yesterday, killing everyone but Yate’s daughter-in-law and granddaughter without even demanding extra taxes or anything. They kept them and the girls they already had in Yates’ house and barn,” his voice broke a moment before he continued, “doing
all
the horrible things those kinds of men so often do.

“This morning, when we were nearing the Yates’ farm we met Tarc on the road. He’d been our scout at the farm, watching it through the night. He told us the raiders were gone, though he didn’t really know what had happened to them. He was leading the girls back this way, trying to protect them as best he could all by himself and surely glad to see us. I’ve spoken to some of the girls and to Nyssa who all confirm that someone actually
killed
the raiders last night, though no one seems to have any idea
who
did it. Though it’s hard to be sure, it appears someone dragged the raiders’ bodies down to the big creek behind Yates’ place and set them adrift to float away.

“Now some of you are probably wondering whether the raiders just retreated. Whether they might show back up to continue demanding their damnable taxes.” Prichard shrugged, “I don’t think so because they left behind a lockbox full of money. They also left a big pile of swords, knives, bows, and other weapons. Raiders don’t leave that kind of stuff behind if they’re alive.