The healer, a woman nearly as old as Jorgen’s mother, stepped forward. “Hester,” she said, addressing his mother, “bring me some hot water for her to drink.”
His mother hurried away.
The healer set her bag on the table next to the bed and drew out some shears and started cutting away Odette’s sleeve. The arrow protruded from her snow-white skin, with blood oozing out around the wound.
She moved to Odette’s leg and started cutting a circle around the place where the arrow pierced her thigh.
Jorgen’s stomach flipped queasily, and he looked away from the bare skin.
His mother came back in the room with a steaming mug. The healer took a small pouch out of her bag and dumped it into the mug. She stirred it with a small stick, then carried it to Odette.
“Drink this.” She helped Odette sit up, causing her to wince and turn pale. After several sips, the healer said, “That’s enough,” and let her lie back. She set down the cup.
“Come here.” The healer beckoned to him with a claw-like hand. “I need you to pull out the arrows.”
Odette made a strangled sound.
Of course the arrows had to come out. Jorgen braced himself.
“The quicker, the better. Just pull straight out, as straight as possible,” the hardened old woman said.
Jorgen stood over Odette, staring down at his arrow protruding from her soft, pale arm. God, can I truly do this? He had to.
Ignoring his sick stomach, he bent and took hold of the arrow while the healer held her arm down on the bed, and Jorgen yanked it straight out.
Odette screamed, panting and writhing while the healer pressed clean cloths against her bleeding arm. Then she became still, apparently losing consciousness.
He grabbed the arrow in her thigh and yanked it out too. He dropped it on the floor and left the room without looking back.
Once outside, Jorgen heaved the contents of his stomach on the ground. He threw up until he forced himself to stop thinking of what he had done to Odette. Then he walked a little farther on and sank to his knees. He leaned forward until his forehead was touching the cool grass.
Questions and truths swirled through his head, but none of them were comforting. Tears squeezed from his tightly clenched eyes. Odette was the poacher. Odette.
He should go back inside and see if they needed his help. Now that the arrows were removed, she would be bleeding profusely, but the thought of her blood flowing from her body made his stomach threaten to heave again.
He pushed himself up from the ground, breathing deeply through his nose. His mother’s geese were honking nearby. He had come too close to their nesting area. He concentrated on the noise they were making while he took more deep breaths. He could do this.
He must face the truth—Odette had betrayed him, had pushed him to tell her what he knew, had pretended to know nothing about the poacher threatening his position, his livelihood, his relationship with the margrave, and even his home and all hope for the future.
Odette was the poacher, and he had shot her. Twice.
He had to do whatever he could to help make sure Odette didn’t die. His stomach clenched again. O Father God, please do not let her die.
25
ODETTE WAS AWAKENED by a groan, and then she realized the sound had come from her own throat.
Two intense centers of pain commanded her attention as she tried not to move—one in her thigh and the other in her upper arm. The night was hazy after Jorgen had carried her to his home. There was the nightmarish pain of him pulling the arrow out of her arm. She had blacked out, and when she opened her eyes again, the arrow was out of her leg, too, and Jorgen, his mother, and the other woman were pressing cloths against her arm and leg to stop the blood.
The pain was so bad, and the smell of blood so strong, she had floated away again, unable to stay conscious. Then, for what seemed like days, but was probably only a few hours, she kept waking up to horrendous pain and the strange woman giving orders to Jorgen and his mother as they tried to get her to drink something or changed her bandages.
Now she was almost afraid to open her eyes. Even though the pain was still there, at least no one was pressing on her wounds, making them hurt worse. Perhaps she was still asleep and could go on sleeping. But finally, she had to open her eyes.
Jorgen’s head was near hers, his face buried in his arms resting on the bed beside her. He appeared to be the only other person in the room.
Her arm was wrapped tight with some white bandages. Her leg was covered with a sheet, but it also felt tightly wrapped. Was Jorgen asleep? If he was, she didn’t want to wake him. His hair looked soft and boyish the way it curled in disarray on his head and by his ears. How long had he been sitting there, his head on his arms?