Crispin_ At the Edge of the World - Avi [7]
“Bear,” I said. “We’ve been found. There may be danger coming. We need to move!”
He opened his eyes. It was, at best, a foggy gape and conveyed no understanding. I was not even sure he knew I had spoken.
I put my hand to his face: hot and sticky with sweat. I had no doubt he was being consumed by the rankest of humors. The wound had taken full hold, poisoning his whole body.
“Bear!” I cried. “We must move!”
His reply was a moan of such despair it struck terror to the deepest regions of my soul. Distraught, I stood up and looked into the forest in hopes I’d see a sign of the strange child. The child was gone. Belatedly, I knew I should have begged for help.
I tried to pull at Bear, to make him stand, but his weight and bulk proved too great.
In panic, I searched round for a heavier stick with which, if came the need, I could make some defense. Finding one, I stood on guard before Bear, my heart pounding.
The forest was mute. No one came.
Still wondering what I’d see—someone real or unreal, friend or foe—I stirred the flame but kept looking round. Just how much time passed I don’t know, but as unexpectedly as before, the child—if child it was—returned.
Again, what first I saw were eyes gazing at me from deep among the bushes.
I jumped up. When the child did not shift, I called out, “In God’s name will you help us?” and moved forward. Even as I did, I heard another sound. I spun about.
A second person had appeared.
6
THE NEWCOMER was a woman, or so I took her to be, for she was aged to the point of being unsexed. Cronelike, bent almost double as if loaded down with the weight of years, her head was twisted to one side in the manner of a listening bird. Frail and small—smaller than I—her garments were foul rags, tattered and torn. Her skin was begrimed, her long hair gray, greasy, and unkempt, akin to the shredded moss that dangled from the trees. Her nose was beakish, while her mouth, etched round with multiple lines like so many needled stitches, fell in on toothless gums. Fingers were rough and misshapen, with long, clawlike and thick, yellow nails.
Though her wrinkled face had stiff, white hairs upon her chin, most striking of all was her left eye: glazed over with a lifeless, milky white, a sure sign of blindness. Her right eye seemed the larger, brighter too, with the deepest, most penetrating gaze I ever saw. Is this hag, I wondered, the bearer of the evil eye?
“Who … who are you?” I cried, backing toward Bear, determined to protect him. “What do you want of us?”
The old woman slowly lifted an arm and pointed her gnarled fingers at Bear. “Troth says—the man is ill.” She spoke with a clogged and broken voice, her toothless mouth continually munching.
“Who is Troth?” I asked, bewildered.
By way of answering, the old woman turned and gestured with a hand. The child I’d first seen stepped into the clearing. I saw now that she was a girl. Though shorter than me and much younger than the crone, she was garbed in similar motley rags. Whereas the woman was old, bent, and ugly, the girl was not misshapen. But her mouth! Dear God! It was cleft—grotesquely disfigured and twisted, shaped like a hare’s mouth.
The girl’s appearance was so dreadful I must have gawked. In haste, she pulled her tangled hair across the lower half of her face, veil-like, to hide her gross disfigurement.
I made a quick decision: no matter that these folk were outlandish—there was no one else to whom I could turn. “He’s hurt,” I said, indicating Bear. “Can you aid him?”
“Aude coaxes man to life,” said the woman, her good eye appraising Bear. “Aude keeps them in life. Bring him.” She turned as if to go.
“Who is Aude?” I called.
“Me,” muttered the hag, making finger movements at the girl. The girl edged forward, moving with great skittish-ness, eyes avoiding mine, like a fearful dog.
I went to one side of Bear. “I can’t move him,” I said. “He’s too big. Heavy.” I spoke loudly, simply, as if the hag were deaf.
The old woman lifted both hands and clasped them. The girl, with some kind of understanding, went to Bear’s other side.