5
CODY
Cody’s father has been in a fever for days.
He tosses violently in his bed, and shivers, and howls like a banshee through the night. Even his wife can’t sleep through it. She takes her whiskey to the lean-to stall and sleeps beside the mare.
The sisters take turns, tending to him, and share a ratty scarf – wrapping it around their mouths and noses. Their father stinks of spongy scabs and rotting flesh, and they can't bear to smell it.
Cody still runs every morning, twice through all the alleys of Ithil, as if her father could still wield his cane. But he can’t even say her name, or Hayden’s or Emilia’s.
Once, Emilia screams, and swears that he has recognized her. But fast, he’s delirious again. So the older girls can only pretend to believe her.
They cannot make their f
