A loud ‘thump’ on his door rousted Alvin from his nap. Rather, it rousted his cat, whose frantic mewling and scratching woke her keeper in turn. Alvin had fallen asleep sitting up in bed, with his bottle only half-finished and his leg propped up on bundled traveling clothes - almost as instructed by the miniature barber. He tightened his grip on his bottle and scooped up his cat he returned to the land of the waking: bleary, but more sober than he had left it.
After a few moments of silence, he whispered to his pet. “Shh. You’re okay, there-”
A second later, a forceful slam strained his door against its hinges. The wood buckled in and stayed bent, and a sliding thump traced down the center.
Alvin’s hand darted from his bottle to the underside of his mattress, and withdrew clutching a blunderbuss. The scent of liquor began to fill the room.
“Go away!” he shouted. His cat hissed as Alvin leaned in over top of it, bracing the front of the barrel over top of its back. “Still, now,” he whispered, adjusting his grip to cover its ears. Alvin bit his lip. His fingertip tapped gently on the trigger of his weapon once, then twice.
A third time, there was an impact on Alvin’s on the frame of his doorway. A weak rap, without any real force. After a few wide-eyed seconds, Alvin stood upright on his good leg and unlatched his lock, barrel lined up on the bulge in the wood.
Amity fell inside, limbs torn from her clothing and some black shape atop her. As she made eye contact with him, she pushed her arm forward from beneath her, and produced her now laden satchel, which spilled fox legs from its flap. “Hey Alvin,” she said, almost entirely face-down.
Alvin’s face reddened, and he dropped his gun. His cat ran outside as soon as she was released, stamping on Amity as it went.
“The fuck’ve you brought me, now?”
Alvin reached downwards as Amity replied. “She’s hurt. Gotta get her to ‘Ictor’s.”
Alvin’s eyes widened as they darted from Amity’s face to her legs- which were joined with a pale second set.
“God. Who even is this?” Alvin’s eyes scanned up and down the collapsed mess. She was no one he recognized- some kid, it seemed, who looked as if she’d been outside for a while.
“Need ‘ater.”
Alvin’s jaw slackened, and he shook his head in reply. He sat back down on his bed, uprighting his bottle and setting it on his nearby shelf. “I don’t know what we ought’re do. You’re sweating like mad.”
With lopsided effort, Alvin reached down for Amity’s good arm. Without prompting, she crawled out from the weight atop her, and Alvin dragged Amity up and onto his bed. “ Drink,” she said. “Her too.”
“Is this kid even alive?” Alvin’s eyes scanned the messy bandages on the stranger’s legs as he passed Amity the bottle from his shelf.
“Need ‘ater,” she replied, pushing it away. As she did, a hand darted out from under the black shawl on his floor, snatching the neck from his hand with frightening speed. Alvin jumped back, putting more weight on his ankle than he intended.
The girl rolled over onto her side with the bottle, half-unrolling from the shawl as she did. She was a mess. The girl was covered in dirt, and bandaged all over with fabrics that Amity had been wearing that morning. The wrap on her leg had bled through already. A crude, unpleasant-looking wooden mask covered her features, but she pushed it aside to put the bottle to her lips.
Her face was hideous - bruised into a swollen mess that shut both her eyes over top of purple-dark rings. Her lips had cracked open from the swelling, and blood ran from her broken nose, the inside of her mouth, and her visible ear. It looked like she’d been dragged through the forest with her weight on her face and then left there- some kind of moss was even growing on her near-white hair.
“Circle’a god,” Alvin muttered. The girl tipped the bottle back and held it upside-down, quietly swallowing with a rapid tempo. Alvin felt a tug on his arm.
“Uh, ‘ater, ‘lease,” Amity said. She stared at him with trembling eyelids, sweat beading on her brow. “Not doing great. Need a drink, then I gotta go.”
Alvin shook his head, and turned to his shelves for a waterskin. “ You’re doing worse than she is, I’d say. You’re shaking.”
“ I think it’s ‘oison. Need a ‘ezoar. At ‘Ictor’s. ”
To drink, Amity pulled down the cloth over her face. Alvin stared at her until he heard an empty bottle set down at his feet. The worked-over girl pulled the mask back over her face, rolled back into her shawl, and relaxed until she was limp.
“ I can’t carry you there,” he said. “You leave her here and come back. I can watch her.”
Amity shook her head, then tilted it back for another pull from the waterskin. She held the thing up with her jaw loose, and let it drain into the back of her throat. After a moment, she paused, to catch her breath.
“I can do it. I gotta do it. She’s under arrest, too.” Alvin studied the outline of the girl on his floor. Something not unlike a point was clutched beneath her shawl, extended from the ball of her fist. Quietly, but deliberately, he moved his blunderbuss to his lap.
“ I just needed a drink. There’s your ‘elts.”
“You’re haggard, Mitty. I’m worried t’let you go at all. Maybe I ought’a be the one, and I can send the barber-surgeon back for you both..”
Amity shook her head. “I gotta get there,” she said, wiping her brow. “Soon as I can. ”
She leaned over the side of Alvin’s cot, reached down for her bag, and dumped it out. A few wet pieces of paper fell alongside the corpses, and she scooped them back up with a quivering and. When she stood fully under her own power, it was unsteady.
“And I can’t lea’e her alone- alongside you, or at all. ”
A few minutes later, she was on the path back to Vena Cava, her burden lighter and one of Alvin’s traveling cloaks on her shoulders. The girl on her back was mercifully light, but felt heavier every step, even without the added weight of Alvin’s kills. The trapper was following behind her on the trail, somewhere, or at least he had been twenty minutes before. He was out of sight, now, and Amity’s breathing had grown even labored as her cargo’s had slowed. Progress was slower than she’d have preferred, and growing progressively slower.
She’d make it at least to the fork and rest, Amity decided- until Alvin could catch up, at least. Her limit was near- the horizon swam and darkened, even with the sun still overhead, and the numbness beneath her cast had spread uncomfortably far into her chest. Her lungs burned from exhaustion from under the tingling absence, and her face burned from where sweat-salt rolled into sensitive flesh.
The trail swam before her as the sunlight, dappled through near-overhead branches and filtered through far-overhead clouds, began to swirl into patterns that laid over and blended through the soil. She could hear the ocean to her east,against the cliffs far below and away, and the sound of the waves melded with the drone of her pulse rushing in her ears. Her head swam.
Amity lowered herself halfway to a squat, took three breaths, and then stood upright again, adjusting the weight on her back. Ten steps later she lowered herself all the way to rest her rear on her ankles, ad, after a few seconds of exertion, toppled sideways. She would rest here, she decided: the dirt felt cooler than the air. Alvin could aid her when and if he caught up.
Her eyes traveled up the path ahead, confirming that her sense of depth was gone in the blur: the shadows melded together and wobbled ever-closer to her from the direction she hoped was townward. She laid there for what felt like a very long time. The world around her grew quieter, except for the sound of the waves and her blood, and she became very comfortable in her place.
A repeated sound nearly cut through the din. “Hey,” and “Are you okay?” and so on. A man’s voice: one she recognized, and that was enough to put her at ease.
With significant effort, Amity croaked a reply: “ I gotta get to the ‘ar’ery. Need t’return. ‘Ictor’s. ‘Lease. I gotta… Her, too. ” Amity pointed in the direction of the nearest black shape, who had moved not at all since being unceremoniously dumped.
She felt hands at her sides, and the ground pulled away from her, and in short order she was being bounced along, her weight supported across a shoulderblade. When she mustered the effort to open her eyes, she saw a black shape carried beside her. A mask protruded from it, staring directly into her eyes until she shut them again.
