Kailynn winced as she sat up. She was back in her bed in the large farmhouse with the Tamien's. Annie's bed was empty. So it wasn't a dream then. It had all happened. Sera holding her hand as the arrow pierced through her side, Annie lying there with her sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.
Kailynn swung her bare feet to the rough wooden floor, sending a fresh pang of pain through her. Putting her hand to her side, she felt warm, and sticky blood cling to her fingers. Slowly she lifted her nightshirt to look at her side. The bandages had soaked through and as she pulled them off her skin enough for her to look underneath, she could see that her stitches had ripped open. The blood from the arrow wound slid down her stomach to stain her underwear and threatened to reach the sheets. She stood so the blood wouldn't stain the sheets too. She was getting dizzy from all the blood loss of the past twenty four hours. She stood there swaying and holding her night shirt up. She grunted from the skin stretching against the remaining stitches as she slipped the shirt off over her head and let it drop from her fingers onto the floor.
Bare-chested, and dressed in only her underwear and a bandage wrapped around her midsection, she started slowly stumbling to her dresser where she kept her sewing supplies. When she reached it, she began rifling through the top drawer until her hand closed over a small leather bag. Pulling it from the drawer, Kailynn turned and dragged her feet back to the chair that sat beside her bed. She sat heavily and with shaking hands untied the bandage from around her mid-riff. She reached behind to her back. Good, those stitches had held. Turning her attention back to her stomach, she sat the bag in her lap. First she pulled out a small pair of scissors and snipped the remaining stitches. Whomever had stitched her up had some practice but it was clear that they were in a hurry.
Kailynn took a couple of deep breaths as she threaded her thinnest needle.
She gritted her teeth as she pinched the skin closed. If she was heard, it was certain that the Tamien's would punish her. Servants are rarely seen and never heard. Lady Tamien had told her once.
Kailynn bit down even harder as she slid the needle into her skin, through the wound and into the other side. The needle felt like it was punching its way through her skin. By the time she had finished the fourth and final stitch, she was sobbing quietly. Snipping off the thread at the last knot, Kailynn studied her blood soaked hands. Slowly rising she swayed her way to the handwashing bowl of water on the little stand next to the stairs that led down to the kitchen. She washed her hands, then hissed in pain as she mopped up her abdomen and her wound. She dried her hands on the dingy towel from next to the bowl. She looked at the towel for a moment, then folded it into a square and pressed it to her stitches.
Walking back to the dresser, she pulled out one of Annie's shirts and ripped it into long strips that she then used to bind the towel to her body. Staggering to her bed, she fell back into it. Just as she was about to fall into the sleep of the dead, she heard a familiar sound. A small bell rang out from the floor below. Her bell. Someone was summoning her.
She dragged her unwilling body from the bed and slipped on one of her uniform dresses. She made no attempt to do anything with her blood matted dark hair. She needed a bath. Badly. She gripped the railing to the stairs with a pale bloodless hand as she descended slowly one stair at a time. The bell rang again, more insistent this time. The kitchen door at the bottom of the stairs opened and one of the house matrons bellowed up the stairs, "Kailynn!"
"I'm coming," Kailynn whispered.
Finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, she opened the door to the kitchen. One of the kitchen maids looked up, "You had better hur..." her voice trailed off as she saw Kailynn standing there. Ghostly white from blood loss, deep sunk eyes, blood matted hair, Kailynn stood there swaying as if she would fall any moment. All activity in the kitchen stopped as every eye in the room turned in her direction. The only sound was the tea kettle beginning to whistle on the stove.
"I'm coming." Kailynn whispered again as the bell was shaken vigorously once more. Looking more dead than alive she stumbled to the main kitchen door and pushed though it.
Lady Tamien was seated with her back to the kitchen in her favorite high-backed chair waiting for tea to be served. Lord Tamien was sitting across from her facing the kitchen as he read a newspaper. The headline read, Revolt Crushed By Local Lords.
Lord Tamien folded down the top corner of the paper to look coldly at Kailynn, then shook the paper back up blocking her from his view. Lady Tamien twisted in her chair to look behind her and let out a little yelp of surprise as her eyes encountered the visage of Kailynn and her white gloved hand jumped to cover her mouth.
"Kailynn." Lady Tamien breathed out her name. She stood from her chair and started nervously wringing her white gloved hands. Lord Tamien folded down the paper again to look at his wife then back at Kailynn again. "You forgot the tea, girl. Go fetch it."
Lady Tamien turned to face him, "You said she was a little worse for the wear. This is an apparition, a specter! She is the dead walking!"
Lord Tamien shrugged and flipped his newspaper back up. Lady Tamien turned to Kailynn, "You will go and bathe as you smell like rotting meat. Brush out that mat of hair and put it into an appropriate bun." Lady Tamien paused, "Be prepared to resume your normal duties plus Annie's tomorrow morning. Go Kailynn. Now!"
Lady Tamien turned her back to Kailynn and sat down back into her chair and rang a different bell for tea service. Kailynn turned to the kitchen door and almost fell through it. The stillness in the kitchen was waiting there for her as the entire staff stood there gawking at her. Kailynn shrugged, turned to the side and vomited onto the floor next to the door as a wave of dizzying nausea swept over her. Her side ached and a dull heat was beginning to radiate from it. She felt her knees buckle and her head hit the edge of the table as she collapsed into a heap at their feet.
❧
The fever dreams were the worst. In one of the reoccurring dreams, Annie's eyes would fix on her and she would pull the knife from her chest and start screaming as her throat would split open spraying Kailynn with blood. Or there was the one where Lord Tamien would be standing at the foot of her bed with a riding crop in his hand and then he would start stabbing her with arrows. As Kailynn faded in and out of consciousness and myriad realities, she only had the demons of her mind to keep her company. Though sometimes, she would dream that Sera was there, bathing her hair, her forehead and neck. Hold on My Lady she would whisper as her cool hands would stroke her fevered skin.
When Kailynn emerged from the fog of fever and dreams, five days had passed and she had been moved into the general servants quarters where they had clearly cared for her. As she struggled to sit up an elderly laundress saw her and came to her bedside. She gently pushed Kailynn back down onto the mattress, shushing her as you would a child. "Go back to sleep. You will be stronger tomorrow."
And Kailynn slept a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.