“Dammit, you’re bleeding,” his father said, shrugging out of his backpack. “I’ve got a first aid kit in here somewhere.”
Miriam knelt beside Thaddeus and put a hand on his back. “Thaddeus, hold your hand still now. Try not to let the blood drip on the ground.”
Thaddeus held his left wrist with his right hand. “Why not?”
“The scent of blood is an easy tracker,” Miriam explained. “If we’re being followed, it would be just like planting a sign with an arrow that points in the direction we’re walking. Hold still now, dear.”
As she spoke, Miriam rummaged through the pack she carried slung over one shoulder and produced a handful of leaves. She opened a small earthen jar and added a swipe of some thick, wet, brown glop to the leaves before firmly pressing the mixture against Thaddeus’s hand. Stinging pain seared Thaddeus’s palm, and he sucked in a hissing breath as tears flooded his eyes.
“It hurts.”
“Aye, that it will, dear. That means it’s chewing up all the nasty germs trying to get inside you.”
“Must be a hell of a lot of them,” Thaddeus grumbled as the sensation intensified. “Really smarts.”
“What is that you’re using, Miriam?” Thaddeus’s father asked as he finally pulled the first aid kit out of his backpack.
“Oh, just some plantain leaves mixed in with a bit of rose water, a touch of raw honey, and some comfrey leaf oil.” She smiled at them each in turn. “When you’ve got as many children under your belt as I have, you pretty much keep things like this in constant supply.”
To distract himself from the sting, Thaddeus asked, “How many children do you have?” He looked apologetically up at Teofil, then back at Miriam. “Sorry, I’ve lost count.”
Miriam smiled. “No worries, dear. I lose track of them on occasion myself. I have been fortunate enough to have fourteen healthy, happy, beautiful children. You know Teofil, of course, and Fetter and Astrid here,” she said. “After that there’s Seamus, River, Meadow, Rose, Violet, Robin, Martin, May, Stone, Iris, and young Flora.” She looked around at her three children. “Did I remember everyone?”
Astrid nodded. “All of them, Mum. And in order. Much better than usual.”
“Thank you, dear,” Miriam said, gently lifting a corner of the leaves to peek at Thaddeus’s hand. “The wounds look good, but we’ll need to keep the leaves and mixture on them for a while yet.”
“I’ve got tape here,” Thaddeus’s father said, kneeling beside him with the first aid kit. “How about your leg? Did you hurt that?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “No. Just pulled the stitches a bit when I fell, but it doesn’t hurt as bad anymore.” Thaddeus smiled up at Teofil. “Just clumsy me, having to make us stop.”
“We were due for a break anyway,” his father said, wrapping a long strand of medical tape around Thaddeus’s hand.
They all settled on the ground and sipped from waterskins or canteens. Teofil sat beside Thaddeus and, after looking around to make sure no one else was listening, leaned in to whisper, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that to you about liking the view.”
Thaddeus blushed again, and glanced at Teofil, whose expression was so serious he gave him a longer look. “Why do you say that?”
“It flustered you and made you trip and fall. I should have kept my thoughts to myself.”
“I’m glad you said it,” Thaddeus assured him. “I just…. No one’s ever said that kind of stuff to me before. It’s tough to believe someone could feel that way about me.”
“I can’t believe no one has ever said something like that before,” Teofil said. “You’re so handsome and caring and brave.”
“Not as brave as you. Leaving your family to live on your own with a wizard and tend to his garden without knowing why.”
“I guess we’re just brave enough to be drawn together,” Teofil said.
“I guess so.”
Thaddeus had to remind himself to breathe.
“How’s your hand?” his father asked, pulling Thaddeus’s attention away from Teofil.
Thaddeus winced as he flexed the fingers. “It’s okay. Hurts, but not like it did when I first tripped.”
“Your leg okay, too? No stitches pulled out?”
“My leg’s fine. I’m okay, Dad.”
“Think you’ll be ready to move on soon?” His father looked out across the grassy plain toward the thick line of trees. “I’d like to get closer to the tree line by nightfall.”
“We’re going to camp in the woods?” Thaddeus asked, more than a little nervous. The Bearagon had stalked him through the woods by his house before it had attacked them at Leopold’s.
“Just outside of it, if we can.”
“That’s the Lost Forest,” Fetter said from where he sat a few feet away. He had thick dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and a neatly trimmed dark beard. He was Teofil’s older brother, but shorter than his sibling by at least a foot. With a broad chest and thick, strong legs, Fetter was an imposing powerhouse of a gnome.
“Lots of travelers get lost in there,” he continued. “That’s why they call it that.”
“Stop telling stories,” Astrid said, letting out a heavy sigh. She turned to look at Thaddeus and his father, her blue eyes a shade darker than Teofil’s and her dark blonde hair pulled back into a single braid that hung halfway down her back. She was broad across the shoulders and strong as well, and her nose was crooked in two spots, which made Thaddeus wonder if it had been broken in the past or just formed that way naturally.
“That’s not why they call it the Lost Forest,” Astrid continued. Fetter grinned and shrugged one big shoulder. “They call it the Lost Forest because legend tells of a place hidden deep within its borders that contains a powerful magic.”
“Really? What kind of place? A temple or something?”
Astrid shook her head. “Nothing as fancy as that. None have seen it since the day it was built, but many know the stories.”
“Oh, Astrid,” Miriam said, standing behind her with her hands on her hips. “Are you on about that story again? I swear, you’re going to start saying it in your sleep, you’ve been talking about it so much lately.”
“The fairies told me about it, Mum. It’s all true.”
Thaddeus thought about the legend and wondered how many more of them he had yet to learn. Maybe the town library back home in Superstition had a secret room of big, dusty books filled with tales of history and heroism within the magic community, a room Vivienne would watch over. Thoughts of the stern but kind red-haired witch who worked at the Superstition library made Thaddeus feel a bit homesick, and he wondered how she was doing. Vivienne, Leopold, and Teofil’s father, Rudyard, had agreed to remain back in Superstition and work on uncovering the assumed identities of Isadora and her supporters, then meet up with them once they’d found signs of the Bearagon or Thaddeus’s mother who had been changed into a dragon by one of Isadora’s spells. He hoped they were having better luck than him.
“Tell the story as we walk,” Thaddeus’s father said and picked up his backpack. “We’re losing daylight.”