Page 22 of A Curse On Black Lake
When I round the corner, she sits up a little and smiles softly at me. Pulling the chair closer to her, I lift her ankle, setting it on my thigh to inspect the gash better. I grab a couple napkins, off the center of the table and dab at it. She hisses but remains still.
“It doesn’t look like you need stitches, but it will probably scar,” I mutter.
“I didn’t think so either. A bandage should do the trick.”
I wipe it off, then wrap a bandage on it. “You should probably get some kind of antiseptic or something.”
She shrugs. “I’ll make a poultice with some aloe, and that should clean it out.”
“So you’re the medicine woman now?” I ask her. Back in the day, I faintly remember hearing about what happened to her in grade school. I was a year ahead of her, so I didn’t think anything of it. Everyone was in an uproar because she had a seizure, then her hair turned white, and her eyes changed color. I never knew her personally, but kids started calling her a witch. I figured it was all rumor.
“I am,” she sighs, and leans back as if she’s about to brace herself.
“What?” I ask her.
“I’m waiting for you…” she mutters and moves her ankle off my thigh.
“What do you mean? To take you home?” I ask her.
“No, to call me weird, crazy, a witch or something of that nature.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask her. She’s definitely weird, but aren’t we all? Plus, Black Lake isn’t exactly a town full of normalpeople. We’re isolated from the outside world, that very few of us ever get out to see. Most of the time, if someone leaves Black Lake, they don’t come back.
“So it is you,” she mutters.
I jerk back at the odd statement and ignore it, standing from my chair. “Let me see if I can bend your rim back so you can ride your bike home.”
Without waiting for a response, I go outside to get her bike. The front rim might have a little wobble, but I can probably get it straight enough to ride.
There is a small barn not far from the house where lawn equipment and tools are kept. Hauling the bike over my shoulder, I go to the barn and get to work.
After I’m done with her bike, I reattach her basket to the front and put it next to the porch and go inside to collect Eliana. It’s not terrible, still rideable, but she’ll need a new rim.
When I step into the house, the smell of biscuits and gravy fills the air. I’m a steak, potato, and eggs kind of guy. I usually don’t have time to make things like this, and my stomach growls in excitement.
“Make yourself at home, I guess,” I tell her.
She looks at me over her shoulder, favoring her uninjured leg while she stands at the stove and shrugs.
“Call it a thank you for helping me,” she says.
“Fair enough,” I say and sit at the table. It’s noon, and I have a mountain of things to do, but a man’s gotta eat.
I watch her move limp back and forth in the kitchen and then pull the fresh biscuits from the stove. She puts the biscuits on two plates and then pours the sausage gravy over them. Before she turns around to bring the plates to the table, I hop up and help her to the table. She plops down roughly, and I sit across from her.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She nods and takes a bite. Something passes through her eyes and I ignore it because it doesn’t feel like my place to say anything.
“Do you know who ran you off the side of the road?” I ask her before taking a bite. When I do, I almost groan at the taste. The biscuits are buttery and soft with just the right amount of crunch from the outside, and the sausage gravy nearly melts in my mouth with the perfect amount of pepper in it.
“It was a blue truck, which is not very helpful,” she says.
“There are a lot of blue trucks in this town.”
“Hell, I have a blue truck, maybe someone stole it and ran me off the road with it,” she says, chuckling to herself.
I stop and stare at her. Maybe that’s exactly what happened.
