“Yeah. It put you off?”
I sat down next to him. “When I said that I was sick, I meant that I’ve got an illness. And I’m not sure how bad it is.”
I told him about the phone call and the diagnosis. How I didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t hear it, actually, on account of my three daughters who’d already been through so much.
He clasped his hands to his face. “You already know what I’m going to say.”
I nodded. “I need to speak to a doctor.”
“Like, yesterday,” he said, his voice pierced with alarm. “No more procrastinating. I’ll come with you. I mean, only if you want me to . . .”
I nodded. “Yes. I promise I’ll see someone.”
X
The day after Amy and I discovered the markings in the cave left by her mother, fate took another wrong turn for me. Her brother, Tavish, subjected me to another beating the day after. I was so tired from the night before, and quite honestly sick of his mindless brutality, that I stood up and threw the stones back at him, hitting him square between the eyes.
“You’re a lunatic!” I shouted at him, or words to that effect. “You deserve to be stoned, not me!”
He cowered on the ground, his hands up and his big blue eyes wide with terror. He’d forgotten that despite how skinny and small I was, I was fit as a butcher’s dog, what with spending twelve hours a day hauling rocks for his father and tending the fields. Once I knocked him down, I couldn’t stop kicking. I was yelling and shouting, Tavish was unconscious, blood splattered across his pale face. I hefted a huge rock from my pile of boulders and was about to bring it down on his head when someone grabbed me.
“Patrick, stop!”
I dropped the boulder and clamped my hand around the gullet of whoever had intervened, only to find that I was squeezing the life out of Amy. Her face was all crumpled and her skinny hands clawed at the one I was digging into her windpipe. I let go, as startled as though I’d been hit by lightning. I couldn’t speak; neither could Amy. She collapsed against a tree, coughing and hacking. I looked from Tavish to his sister, my awareness coming back in heavy, terrible increments. It was as if I’d somehow been lifted out of my body for a few minutes, my skin inhabited by a bear, while I drifted off in a dream.
“Amy,” I mumbled. “Amy.” I placed a hand on her shoulder and she pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and then I didn’t say anything more because Tavish had regained his strength and clouted me over the head with a rock.
When I woke up I was in the barn with a terrible headache, surrounded by hens and sheep. I could sense someone nearby, but my vision took a while to catch up with my other senses.
“Amy,” I called out. “Is that you?”
“Here,” I heard her say. “Lean forward.”
Now it was my turn to hack and cough, only I was spitting up blood and bits of teeth. She’d brought me a drink of water. I didn’t realize how weak I was with thirst until I started drinking.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I heard her say.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I told her. “I love you.”
She said nothing, and when she moved away I saw the reason why. Her father was behind her and in earshot.
“On your feet,” he said, casting a grim look over me. I got up stiffly and kept my eyes on my toes, expecting another beating for what I’d done to Tavish. He took three heavy steps forward, his boots squelching in the mud and his breath clouding in the cool damp air. He looked me over, cursing at the smell.
“It’s a crying shame,” he muttered. “You’d become a good farmhand. You’re to get your things. Lockie’ll take you to the boat.”