“It’s just a little…” I began, then gave up and let her do her thing. She finished at last, and startled me by placing a kiss on the booboo.
“SIT! REST! WE’LL EAT SOON! NEED TO TEND THIS DOG OF YOURS, THEN YOUR MITTS!”
She put a kettle on the stove and when it was warm but not steaming, she produced a basin from under the sink and filled it. To this she added some foul-smelling stuff from a crock on one of the shelves. Those shelves were full of goods—some in cannisters, some in packages of what looked like cheesecloth tied with twine, most in glass jars. A crossbow hung on the wall to the right of the velvet curtain, and it looked like serious business. All in all, the place reminded me of a frontier home, and Claudia reminded me not of a royal relative but of a frontier woman, rough and ready.
She soaked a cloth in the stinking brew, wrung it out, then squatted over Radar, who looked suspicious. She began to press the cloth gently to those sore upper legs. While she did it, she made an odd crooning noise that I think was singing. It went up and down in pitch while her speaking voice was just a constant loud monotone, almost like announcements from my high school’s PA system. I thought Radar might try to scramble away, or even bite her, but she didn’t. She laid her head down on the rough boards and gave a sigh of contentment.
Claudia got her hands under Radar’s body. “ROLL OVER, HONEY! I NEED TO DO THE OTHER ONE!”
Radar didn’t roll over, just sort of flopped. Claudia re-soaked the cloth and went to work on the other back leg. When she was finished, she tossed the cloth in the tin sink and got two more. She soaked them, wrung them out, and turned to me.
“HOLD EM FORTH, YOUNG PRINCE! THAT’S WHAT WOODY CALLED YOU IN THE DREAM I HAD!”
Telling her I was just plain old Charlie wasn’t going to work, so I just held them out. She wrapped them in the warm wet cloths. The stink of her potion was unpleasant, but the relief was immediate. I couldn’t tell her so with words, but she saw it on my face.
“GODDAMNED GOOD, ISN’T IT! MY NANA SHOWED ME HOW TO MAKE IT LONG AGO WHEN THAT TROLLEY STILL RAN ITS ROUTE TO ULLUM AND THERE WERE FOLKS TO HEAR THE BELLS! THERE’S WILLOW BARK IN IT, BUT THAT’S JUST THE START! JUST THE START, MY BOY! HOLD THEM ON THERE WHILE I GET US SOME GRUBBIT! YOU HAVE TO BE HUNGRY!”
6
It was steak and green beans, with something like apple-and-peach cobbler for dessert. I’d certainly had my share of free food—grubbit—since coming to Empis and Claudia just kept filling my plate. Radar had a dipper of beef broth with little globules of fat floating on top. She licked the bowl clean, licked her chops clean, and looked at Claudia for more.
“NAH, NAH, NAH!” Claudia bellowed, bending to scratch behind Radar’s ears in the way she liked. “YOU’D KACK IT RIGHT BACK UP, YOU SAD OLD BITCH, AND WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT DO? BUT THIS WON’T HURT YOU!”
There was a loaf of brown bread on the table. She plucked off a chunk with her strong, work-hardened fingers （she could have pulled that cart all day without raising a single blister）， then grabbed an arrow out of the basket. She impaled the bread, opened the door of her stove, and stuck the bread in. It came out an even darker brown and flaming. She blew it out like a birthday candle, finger-smeared it with butter from the pottery crock on the table, then held it out. Radar got to her feet, picked it off the arrow-tip with her teeth, and took it into the corner. Her limp was better. I thought if Mr. Bowditch had had some of Claudia’s liniment, he maybe could have skipped the OxyContin.
Claudia pushed through the velvet curtain that concealed her boudoir and came back with a pad of paper and a pencil. She handed them to me. I looked at the stamped letters on the barrel of the pencil and felt a wave of unreality. What remained said COMPLIMENTS OF SENTRY LUMB. There were only a few sheets left on the pad. I looked on the back and saw a faded price sticker: STAPLES $1.99.
“WRITE WHEN YOU HAVE TO BUT JUST NOD OR SHAKE YOUR HEAD IF YOU DON’T! SAVE THE FUCKING PAPER, ADRIAN BROUGHT IT WITH THE NOISEMAKER ON HIS LAST TRIP AND THAT’S ALL THAT’S LEFT! UNDERSTAND?”
I nodded.
“YOU CAME TO REFRESH ADE’S DOG, DIDN’T YOU?”
I nodded.
“CAN YOU FIND YOUR WAY TO THE SUNDIAL, YOUNG MAN?”
I wrote and held the pad out for her to see: Mr. Bowditch left his initials as a trail. Which, I thought, would be better than breadcrumbs. Assuming rain hadn’t washed them away, that was.
She nodded and bowed her head in thought. In the light of the lamps, I could see a clear resemblance to her cousin Woody, although he was much older. She had a kind of stern beauty under the years of work and target practice on marauding wolves. Royalty in exile, I thought. She and Woody and Leah. Not the three little pigs but the three little bluebloods.