Page 55 of House of Crimson Kisses
“A fingle drop of blood.” He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. There’s a little spike on the end of it.
A drop of blood doesn’t seem like much to offer if Eleanor is inside. Besides, I know that she uses blood in her magic anyway. This is probably their currency.
“Sure,” I reach out and press my finger on his tongue. His hackles bristle, I swear a wash of colour flutters over his cheeks, and then when he’s satisfied the door opens.
As I step inside, I gasp and glance back at the cottage opposite, which is of a similar size.
The inside of this cottage does not match the outside at all. It’s an enormous sweeping corridor that stretches further than I can see. There are dozens of people milling about, most of them in uniform. There are people being wheeled around on stretchers and in chairs on wheels.
“May I help you, miss?” a man, behind what I assume is a reception desk, says.
“Umm. I’m looking for a woman who would have been brought here a couple of days ago. She was badly burned. Her name is Eleanor.”
“Eleanor? Hmm.” He scratches his beard; it’s neatly trimmed and a little orange like the windows outside.
“I ain’t got no Eleanor, but I got a Jane Doe.”
“Jane Doe? Her name is Eleanor,” I reiterate, urging him to check his records again.
“Aye, but Jane Doe means we don’t know her name. Either dead on arrival with no identification or unconscious with no identification.”
My stomach rolls hearing that. Bile claws at the back of my throat, my stomach threatening to expel itself. I swallow hard.
“May I check if it’s her?”
“We don’t normally let visitors in without proper identifications or being family members.”
“Please?” I say, and I cannot prevent the desperation from spilling from my lips. I get on my knees, clasp my hands together. “Please sir, I will do anything. I possess coin. I can give it to you. Anything so long as I can check it’s her?”
He presses his lips together, thinning them. “Just this once. Follow the corridor down there, third turn on the left. Second door. Any trouble, tell them I sent you.”
I glance at his name badge, committing his name and the instructions to memory.
This is it. This is the moment I get to see her.
I run, not walk my way towards her door, leaping out of the way of uniformed staff and those assisting patients.
When I reach the room, there’s a healer woman standing outside. She wears an orange apron and carries a basket of herbs and jars.
I stand there gawping at the basket. Two words scream through my head.
If she’s carrying healing supplies in, then, then…
“She’s alive,” I whisper, mimicking the words pounding in my brain. I collapse to the floor.
“She’s alive?” I say again and grab the legs of the healer. I sob into her legs. If she startles, then she doesn’t show it. She politely pops the basket down on the table outside the room and disentangles herself from me.
“Beg your pardon, miss, but I need me legs back. Is everything okay?” she says, patting my hand.
“I do apologise… it’s…,” I wipe my face, my breathing hiccuping back to normal. “The woman in there, is she… she’s alive, right?”
Her face lines, deep grooves carving into the curve of her eyes. As she pulls me up, I discern she’s older than I thought. But the expression she’s wearing does nothing to reassure my waning confidence.
“She’s… she’s alive, though? Your…” I scratch my head trying to remember the name. “Jane Doe?”
“I think it’s best I show you.”
She pushes open the door and my world crashes down.
