Page 42 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Dimitri flexed his fingers, shocked by the sudden freedom of movement. He still couldn’t quite make them meet each other, or coil into a fist, but it was the closest thing he’d felt to being able to do so in years. “That’s amazing! How did you—”
Leonie beamed. “Therapeutic massage. Mostly for arthritic patients, but I thought it might work. It won’t stay that way though. You’d need more, and exercises, to improve it. I could teach Adeline how to—”
“Please,” he said, aware of the slight tremor in his voice. For years, he’d given up hope of being able to use it properly. All his father’s healers had tried to treat the curse, not the symptoms, not the limb itself. If he could regain mobility in it…
He could play again.
He’d tried, of course, over the years. There were things you could play one-handed, and his left arm wasn’t completely useless, but it was like playing with a stiff hook, and trying to make it work like it once had had been painful and frustrating. The discordant notes crackled against his chest, and he’d rather never play again than do anything so poorly.
Leonie’s face was a picture of delight. “I’ll teach her the first points today.”
“Thank you.”
Adeline was smiling too, and the quiet pull of her lips reached something in the pit of his stomach. He wondered when that was going to stop, and why it had started in the first place.
Leonie left the room while Adeline helped Dimitri back into his clothes. “Thank you for indulging my sister. I know you don’t like being poked and prodded.”
“Honestly, I find her delight refreshing.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” He held up his large hand. “I would like to be able to do things with this again,” he said, and he stopped just short of placing it against her shoulder.
“My, Dimitri, are we making an effort to stop wallowing?”
“Well, I do wallow a lot. I’m sure I can schedule insometime for hopeful optimism.”
Banging sparked from the kitchen, a call to arms. Adeline smiled, tugging him from the room. Elliott was standing over a large simmering pot in the kitchen.
“Time to get lunch on the go!” he declared.
Dimitri frowned. “It’s hours away.”
The older members of the family looked down, saying nothing.
“It takes ages to cook!” said one of the young boys, laying out onions on the table.
“And there’s loads of us!” said the other.
“Food,” said Edie, and crawled up onto the bench to try and take a bite out of one of the onions.
Adeline laughed at her little sister’s attempts to eat the raw vegetable and scooped her from the table. She deposited her in a pen at the end of the room, filled with cushions, wooden cups, and a handful of very worn toys. Collecting a biscuit from a faded tin on a high shelf, she thrust it into the child’s grip and rolled up her sleeves.
“Right, hand me the potatoes!”
There was an audible flinch from the rest of the household.
“I’m just going to peel them!” she said crossly.
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “Am I missing something?”
“I’m... not a great cook,” Adeline admitted, cheeks flushed with shame.
A smile tugged at his cheeks. “Ohreally?”
“Don’t look so happy about it!”
“I’m just amazed to find out you’re bad at something.”
