“Aidan,” she gasped. “Where’s Aidan?” Jem looked at her, white-faced and wordless, turned his head to look. Aidan was at the top of the cliff, starting to let himself down into the vines, to get to his mother.
“Aidan!” Germain shouted. “Don’t!”
Bree shoved the other children at Jem.
“Keep them,” she said, breathless, and lunged after Aidan, catching him by the arm just as he vanished over the edge. She hauled him up by main force and clutched him hard against her, struggling and weeping.
“I got to go, I gotta get Mam, let go, let me go …！” His tears were hot on her skin and his skinny body writhed like a snake, like the rusty grapevines, like the biting ants.
“No,” she said, hearing her own voice only faintly through the roaring in her ears. “No.” And held him tight.
I WAS SHOWING Fanny how to use the microscope, reveling in her shocked delight at the worlds within—though in some instances, it was plain shock, as when she discovered what was swimming in our drinking water.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “Most of them are quite harmless, and your stomach acid will dissolve them. Mind, there are nasty things in water sometimes, particularly if it’s had excrement in it—shit, I mean,” I added, seeing her lips silently frame “excrement.” Then the rest of what I’d said struck her and her eyes went round.
“Acid?” she said, and looked down, clutching her midsection. “In my stomach?”
“Well, yes,” I said, careful not to laugh. She had a sense of humor but was still very tentative in this new life, and feared being laughed at or made fun of. “It’s how you digest your food.”
“But it’s …” She stopped, frowning. “It’s … thr—strong. Acid. It eats right through … things.” She’d gone pale under the light tan the mountain sun had given her.
“Yes,” I said, eyeing her. “Your stomach has very thick walls, though, and they’re covered in mucus, so—”
“My stomach is full of snot?” She sounded so horrified that I had to bite my tongue and turn away for a moment, under the pretext of fetching a clean slide.
“Well, you find mucus pretty much all over the insides of your body,” I said, having got control of my face. “You have what are called mucous membranes and serous membranes; those secrete mucus wherever you need a bit of slipperiness.”
“Oh.” Her face went blank, and then she looked down below her clutching hands. “Is it—is that what you have between your legs? To make you … slippery when …”
“Yes,” I said hastily. “And when you’re pregnant, the slipperiness helps the baby come out. Here, let me show you …”
I’d told Jamie what she’d said to Germain. He’d raised his eyebrows briefly, then shaken his head.
“Little wonder, given where she’s been,” he said. “Let it bide. She’s a canny wee lass; she’ll find her way.”
I was drawing pictures of goblet cells on the back pages of my black book when I heard rapid footsteps on the porch and an instant later Jem skidded into the surgery, wild-eyed and white-faced.
“Mrs. Higgins,” he gasped. “She got kilt by a bear. Mam’s bringing her.”
“Killed,” I said automatically, and then, “What!”
Fanny uttered a tiny, wordless scream and threw her apron over her head. Jem’s knees gave way and he sat down on the floor with a thump, panting.
I heard voices outside in the distance, urgent, and grabbing my emergency kit I ran to see what was happening.
Brianna had evidently met Jamie on her way; he had Amy Higgins in his arms, bringing her down the hill as fast as he could manage, Bree stumbling behind him, moving like a drunk. All three of them were covered in blood.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, and ran up the hill to meet them. There was a lot of noise—children were everywhere, crying and wailing, and Bree was trying to explain, chest heaving for air, and Jamie was asking sharp questions. He saw me, and at my frantic gesture squatted and laid Amy on the ground.
I fell to my knees beside her, seeing the tiny, rhythmic spurt of blood from a severed vessel in her temple.
“She’s not dead,” I said, and pulled rolls of bandage and handfuls of lint out of my pack. “Yet.”
“I’ll fetch Bobby,” Jamie said quietly in my ear. “Brianna—see to the weans, aye?”