Page 11 of The Sanguine Selection
Instead, we eat the fresh meat now and will smoke the rest to store in our pantry for later. This time of year, it’s very bare, and I look forward to lining its shelves with something other than empty glass jars and sparse, shriveled plants Papa finds.
My father shifts, dabbing his cheeks. At first, I think it’s tears glistening there, but when he swipes across his forehead, too, I realize it’s sweat. Even though he sits close to the fire, our home is never warm enough in winter to inducesweating.
I swallow my bite and set my spoon in my bowl. “Papa, you’re more than just a little under the weather. You barely finished your stew and are sweating profusely.”
When he tries to speak, he stumbles over his words, coughing violently instead. My father falls forward, and I lunge to push him back into the chair. His bowl clatters to the floor, but I ignore the mess. By some miracle, I manage to keep him upright. It’s then that I notice the red stain spreading across the bottom of his shirt.
I whimper, pushing up the cloth to reveal three deep gashes seeping blood. “Oh, Papa, what happened to you?!”
“N-n-nothing.”
“PAPA!” I shout his name in frustration and fear.
He winces as I apply pressure on the wound. “I was attacked…by an animal hunting the same jackrabbits.”
A sob catches in my throat. “Why didn’t you just let it have them? We would’ve been fine with just the plants.” It’s the truth. We’d survived on far less in other winters.
My father coughs again. “I promise I’ll be fine. I just need rest.”
I doubt his words. One look at that wound and I know this requires more than rest to heal. More than what we have here in our home. But like the good little daughter I’ve always been, I listen. With my arm around his waist, I help him to his room, then clean and dress his wounds before tucking him in bed. He’s asleep before I can ask any more questions, and I pull the thin, worn blanket over him as best I can.
After ensuring his breathing is calm and even, I go back out and clean up the spilled stew, lamenting about how wasteful it is while fretting about my father. Like me, he’s hale and hearty, rarely getting sick.
My mind wanders as I clean, as the image of those gashes flash before my eyes. I’ve never seen anything like that before. Sure Papa has gotten a few injuries during his hunts, but nothing like this. Nothing even close.
What kind of animal causes a wound like that? And how deep does it run? What if it’s too deep to heal with just rest? What if…
Realization hits me. What if he doesn’t survive? What if he’s too stubborn, too concerned about my own safely that he risks his own? The encounter with this wild animal…it could kill him. He could lose his life over a fucking bowl of stew. Terror lances me at the thought of losing him.
After I finally get everything picked up and check on Papa again, I ease into my bedroom, and try to still my racing heart. It consists only of a bed and a chest that once belonged to my mother. Inside are a few articles of clothing and her wedding dress that I hope to wear one day.
I sit on the edge of the bed, touching her necklace. The weight of the silver soothes me as my mind races, but I finally succumb to sleep, worry ebbing to exhaustion. I hum a lullaby my father used to sing to me when I was scared as I attempt to quiet my mind and fall asleep. As I run through the pitches and tones of the melody, I make a decision—if Papa isn’t better in the morning, I will leave to find a healer.
No longer can I hide indoors while Papa’s health is at stake. It’s time to face this world he’s always hidden me from, no matter the risk. My fear could cost his life, and that’s a price I’m unwilling to pay. Papa is all I have, and no matter how frustrated I am at his refusal to tell me anything, I never want any harm to come to him. It’s time for me to act like a grown woman and step out into the world beyond my front door.
Little did I know it contained monsters out for my blood.
6
Oxana
Sleep evades me,like the last warmth of summer I try so hard to cling to before the cool chill of fall sets in. Tossing and turning, all my thoughts are jumbled, racing at all the possible outcomes of father’s illness.
What happened to Papa?
Were those claw marks or was he bitten by a wild animal?
Why must he be so elusive?!
I’m a grown woman, not a child, and I know I can handle the truth—if he would just tell me.Instead, he leaves me guessing, a book half read, the final pages torn from the binding. I finally drift off, trying to fill those blank pages with my guesses, but my seldom moments of sleep are not restful.
Dreams filled with nightmares, harrowing music that echoes around cavernous chambers, and pale monsters with rivets of blood dripping from fanged mouths greet me. I wonder if perhaps this is what torments Papa, why I hear him crying in his sleep across the hall.
Are these the very monsters chasing him in his own dreams—his nightmares?Am I seeing, through his eyes, the creatures that might have wounded him?No.Such things do not exist—certainly not here in the central ring.
But maybe that’s exactly why he keeps me so close, because our part of the world does not only live here in the central ring. There are more rings, outer rings, maybe filled with the creatures I sometimes hear howling along with the wind.
A pained shout rings out from Papa’s room, and I throw off the moth-eaten quilt that’s covering my legs. Hurrying to his bedside, I note the thin blanket soaked from sweat and his face contorted in pain. He’s worse—far worse—than he was at dinner. Sucking in a breath, I shift the covering and lift the hem of his shirt, revealing the wound.
