A Nightingale's Tale

Chapter Twelve

Lydia woke the next morning with a pounding in her head as if a fairy had flown in her ear and beat against the side of her head. She made a quick tonic and threw it down her throat. It had a terrible dirty taste. Arabella had always been better at making tonics than her. She tried to push the thought of Arabella down, she didn’t need any extra pain for the day ahead.

As she left her tent she noticed a piece of torn paper pinned to her tent. It read, “Tonight?”

It had to have been from Killian, she thought. She stuffed the note into her pocket and headed for the center of camp. She had breakfast with Sofia and explained all her research from the night before.

“You did all of this last night?” Sofia asked amazed asked she flipped through all the pages.

“Yea, we need to give this to patient two, three and nine. This goes to one. This goes to four, seven, eight, and eleven. Five and ten need surgery.”

“What about Willow, I mean six?”

“I don’t know about her yet. But we need to heal everyone else as soon as we can.”

Sofia wrote down the diagnosis’ and how to heal them, as Lydia showed them to her. They spent the entire day pouring elixirs and potions down the patient’s throats.

Lydia had to sit on top of the Ekek, in order to make sure the medicine went all the way down her long throat. Killian poked his head inside the tent as Lydia had her arm down the Ekek’s throat. Lydia saw the twilight of the sky outside the tent. She had lost track of time hours ago.

“Busy?” he said while examining Lydia’s arm halfway hidden down a throat.

“Just finishing up,” she said.

She jumped from the chair she had been standing on and went to wash her hands.

“Sofia, do you think you can replicate this water?” she asked.

Multiple bowls sat on a long table toward the front of the tent. They all had different purposes, from cleaning utensils to drinking water. The camp had previously been getting water from a spring, miles up the hills. Once back at camp it had to be cleaned with either an elixir Lyon made or by boiling the water. As soon as Lydia found this out, she immediately began teaching Sofia how to repeat water. It can be done with only a single drop left. It was possible with most food and drink, but it got more complicated the more chemically complex the nutrients had. At Covet, they almost exclusively ate replicated food.

“I’m not sure, I ruined that bowl this morning,” Sofia said pointing to the, now green, water in the bowl.

“Try again,” Lydia encouraged.

Killian came over to watch Sofia. There were a few drops of water left in the bowl. She poured the metallic mixture, Lydia had made earlier, into the bowl. She held each side of the bowl and began to whisper the words Lydia had taught her. The bowl was still but she kept her eyes locked on the water.

“Look into the structure of the water and repeat it.”

The water started to bubbly slightly like a glass of champagne. Water molecules began multiplying, slowly at first then faster as the energy in the bowl became charged. Sofia pulled her hands back once the large bowl was completely full.

“Good job,” Lydia said and began rinsing her arm in the water.

“What is that?” Killian asked as he pointed to the vile of the metallic liquid in Sofia’s hand.

“It’s an elixir made of mostly metals I brought with me from Covet. It helps when learning how to replicate things. Once she gets used to doing in, she won’t need it. It also helps when you’re trying to replicate a lot of something,” Lydia said.

“That’s amazing,” he swept his hand through the water, “We won’t we have to get water constantly.”

“Simon and Camille will be thrilled,” Sofia said.

“Yes, the will. Come on, food’s ready,” Killian said.

“Can you do that with other things like food?” Killian said amazed.

“Yea, it’s more difficult but she should be able to do it,” Lydia said.

Sofia ran off toward the center of camp ahead of them.

“What about the incantation?”

“Oh, that wasn’t anything. You don’t need a spoken spell for that, it just requires a lot of energy and chanting tends to help focus energy. They taught us that as children to help with similar spells.”

“Does she know?”

“No, but don’t, I think she likes the chanting.”

Killian laughed. Lydia hadn’t heard him laugh before. It was sweet, comfortable. Lydia wanted to hear him laugh again, it made her smile.

“We’ll be going to this open field through the woods at the back of the camp, near your tent. No one goes out there. After dinner just wait for me at your tent. I won’t be long,” he said.

“Okay.” Lydia wasn’t completely sure what she had agreed too but she knew she wanted to help him. He was risking a lot by letting her be there. She knew she owed him.

The whole camp was scattered between a handful of campfires. Two children, Lydia hadn’t seen before, ran around one of the fires laughing. A petite woman, with a red scarf on her head, leaned over Lydia to get to the pot over the campfire she sat at. Sofia sat next to Lydia on a wood stump. She had many more items in her bowl than what was in the pot in front of them.

“Each fire cooks something different,” she nodded to Lydia while biting into a piece of bread, “Strawberries and watermelon are in the bucket over there.”

Lydia picked up her bowl from one of the smaller trolls, Freddie, and wandered around the fires. Pots and cauldrons, varying in all sizes and shapes, were hung over the fires. As she passed each pot, the sweet white fumes captured her. There were, carrots and onions in the big one shaped like a bell. Berries and flour in a small pan resting over the burning wood by a grate. A bleeding, brown meat, that was already cut into long thick pieces, was cooking on the grill next to it. At a smaller fire, near the base of the hill, had boiling corn. Camille tossed a red spice into the pot. After Lydia made her initial tour of the feast, she came back to the seat by Sofia. She now had two bowls and a makeshift plate from a large fern leaf. Sofia looked at her personal buffet with wide eyes.

“You can go back for seconds,” Sofia said.

“I know,” Lydia lied. Being in Covet, she had learned once food was out, it was out. Eat while there was still food, or someone would take yours.

“Why so much food?” Lydia asked, “Even with a camp this size, this seems like a lot of food.”

“Killian’s trying to lighten our load for when we leave. We have a pretty good stockpile here.”

“Right,” Lydia said, “Where’s Henry?”

“Freddie steps in every now and then when Henry had too much the night before.”

They both laughed at the fresh memory of the drunken Henry. Lydia and Sofia sat and ate their dinners together. They were periodically joined by others throughout the evening. Lydia even joined in on some of the brief conversations. But, she kept her conversation to a minimum, she didn’t want to get attached to these people. She would just be leaving soon.

“How’d ye learn all dis?” Freddie said with a thick accent Lydia couldn’t place. He was holding her notebook of the patients.

“My mother, a friend, teachers, but mainly I’m making it up on my own as I go,” she said with a wink.

Freddie laughed so much his whole body shook. It made Lydia audibly laugh. She felt as if she hadn’t laughed this much in years.

“Me, mam, taught me, and she was a ‘orrible cook,” Freddie laughed, “More?” He asked her when her soup bowl was nearly empty. It was vegetables with a creamy pumpkin soup, she wanted more but she didn’t think she would be much use to Killian with as much as she had already eaten.

“No, but thank you,” she smiled at Freddie. She couldn’t help it. He made her happy. Freddie told a few more jokes and a story about the time he was stuck in the mud in a field and his youngest daughter was the only one there and she wasn’t old enough to even speak yet.

“She jus’ sat there starin’ ah me,” he bellowed. Everyone around them laughed with him. Lydia let out another small laughter. She didn’t want to keep laughing. She felt like it let the small amount of happiness she had regained leave her. She washed her bowl in the tub with the other dishes and threw her faux plate into the trees. It was getting late. The moon was already high above her. A few others had left the fire and headed for tents, so she deemed it a reasonable time to leave. She said her good nights and headed for her tent.

She lit a white candle with her praecant and dug through her bag. She went over a few spells Arabella had written over the years and given to her. Her handwriting fit her so well. It was large and curly, like a butterfly dancing across the paper. Arabella was always making some healing or energy tonic for when Lydia was too afraid to ask for it in practice. She knew the laughter would release that last bit of happiness in her. She didn’t feel anything other than despair at that moment.

Killian swept his hand across the tent, letting her know he was there. Lydia swallowed her emotions, the way she had so many times before, and walked outside.