O’Neill stands and brushes the dirt from the seat of his trousers. “I will go with you,” he says.
“No!” I say. “I need to be alone, to think.”
Jasper grunts. “I smell a lovers’ quarrel. Which, by the by, smells far better than Mama’s medicine. It is regrettable that you did not choose your lover more carefully, Clara. Of course, it is not too late to change your mind.”
“Oh, be quiet!” I shout. I flounce away toward the woods.
“Wait!” O’Neill calls, following me.
“Leave me alone,” I say. I walk faster, ducking under branches and stepping over fallen tree trunks, stumbling often in the growing darkness.
“Look, I said I was sorry,” he says, close to catching up with me.
“Sometimes sorry doesn’t mend things, O’Neill. You had no right!” I pull aside a branch so I can pass, and then let it go. It hits his chest with a loud crack.
“Clara,” he says breathlessly. “Please stop. We must talk. You must listen.”
From high in the trees comes a shriek. Seconds later, a wyvern descends, knocks O’Neill to the ground, and sits on him.
Osbert is my hero, again.
“Get off!” O’Neill shouts as Osbert licks his face. “Down, you big lout! Down, Osbert!”
If I were in a better mood, I would laugh at O’Neill’s ineffectual struggling.
Finally, Osbert hops off O’Neill’s body. He sits on his haunches and smiles, drool dripping from his pointy chin.
“Good boy, Osbert,” I say. I rub the spot between his triangular ears and he whacks his tail against the forest floor. “At least I can still trust Osbert to behave as he should.”
“It is good that he stays nearby,” O’Neill says, “although he can be quite a pest.” He pulls himself to his feet using a sapling for leverage. He brushes pine needles and slobber from his cheek. “We may well need a wyvern’s aid very soon.” He picks a beetle off my shoulder and I wince at his touch. “Clara, you must forgive me for Maren’s sake. Or at least pretend to forgive me long enough for us to plan our escape.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “For Maren’s sake.”
“Good.”
“I do have an idea,” I say. “If I can get into Soraya’s herb cupboard, I think I can concoct a sleeping draught for Jasper and Soraya. I helped Auntie make a few doses not so long ago. But if I mix it wrong—”
“I have every confidence in you. Do not consider failing, Clara. Not now.”
His compliment and the earnestness in his voice warm my whole body. I wish I could become immune to him. Quickly, I ask, “Will we take horses?”
“Yes. The two fastest. They have pledged their loyalty to me.”
A rumbling growl comes from the treetops. I remember Dr. Phipps’s dream monster and begin to panic, but Osbert continues happily smacking his tail up and down. If we were in danger, he would certainly alert us.
“We should go back,” O’Neill says. “Or Jasper will come looking for us.”
Yes, I think, and you might be forced to kiss me again, which would only further confound my heart and send Jasper into a jealous rage. I turn my attention to my wyvern. “I will see you again soon, Osbert,” I say. I kiss his cool reptilian jowl. It is the only kiss I will be doling out today. I hope. I think of Jasper and I shudder.
Briskly walking side by side, O’Neill and I follow the vile scent of Soraya’s medicine back to the camp.
We are within sight of the wagon when O’Neill grabs my hand and says, “We do need to talk. I know you are still angry with me, and I do not like it.”
“You ought to have thought of that before you made me angry,” I say, pulling my hand out of his grasp. “Sometimes you are as bad as Jasper, taking liberties with no regard for the consequences. With no regard for anyone’s feelings but your own.”
I run ahead of him into the circle of firelight. Jasper eyes me hungrily as I straighten my skirt and tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. Am I any safer here than in the woods with wild beasts and the enigmatic, exasperating O’Neill? A blush heats my face like the hottest summer sun, and I feel like I am a living example of the expression “out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Nestled amongst plump cushions and down-filled coverlets, Dr. Phipps dozes as Jasper and O’Neill drive the wagons northward. It is early June, and even with every window of the wagon thrown open, the atmosphere within is close to stifling. Soraya, wearing only a cotton shift, beats the air with a fan made of brightly colored feathers. Beads of sweat dot her forehead and upper lip.
Constrained by my innate modesty, I refuse to lounge about in my undergarments. Jasper can clearly view us through the open window, and Auntie always warned Maren and me not to tempt men by revealing “too many secrets.” Besides, I know full well that Jasper needs no temptation at all. Since O’Neill’s foolish kiss, Jasper has made plain his desire for me.
Consequently, I am drenched in perspiration, short of breath, and short of temper.
Maren is unbothered by the heat; I imagine she dreams of tropical waters as she sways within her jar.
Whenever Dr. Phipps moans, Soraya dabs his forehead with a damp cloth and sings softly, foreign songs with foreign words, but unmistakably songs of love. From time to time, she puts a cup to his lips and he swallows some of her malodorous medicine. She has dosed him with it a hundred times, and yet he seems neither better nor worse.
He sleeps most of the day away, much like Maren. And in his case, it seems a good thing. He does not bellow, threaten, or terrorize. He does not create lies to enslave people, or dole out poisoned (or unpoisoned) tea.
In fact, Jasper, O’Neill, and I have not tasted the doctor’s Beloved Bondage tea in days. And none of us have suffered for lack of it. Jasper has not mentioned it once, but surely he must have noticed by now.
“The medicine is gone,” Soraya says as she taps the little bottle against the rim of the cup. “I will make more tonight.”
“Is it helping?” I ask, wishing she would doze off so I could search her cabinets for the ingredients to make the sleeping draught. But her naps have become exceedingly rare since her husband fell ill.
“Of course,” she says. “Without it, he would have faded away by now, into the world between life and death. And then, one day, the gods would choose his next path. Perhaps leading into the everlasting pleasures of paradise, perhaps not. The gods are such temperamental beings. On one day, they might deem a man worthy of paradise, but on another they might decide the very same man should return to earth as a dung beetle. You simply cannot predict these things.”
“Oh,” I say. Her religion does not sound comforting in the least.