Aziz's wooden clog lay belly-up on the rug.
Adam poked his ribs. His cheek. The spot between his brows where it usually landed. Nothing.
She could knock horseflies dead at ten paces with that thing…
"Hrrk—cough—"
The sound rattled through the hut.
Aziz hunched over her mortar, grinding herbs with the same hands that wrung chickens' necks. Her rough skin had gone old tallow, her one good eye milkier than yesterday. The bad one didn't even try anymore.
"Well?" The vinegar voice cut through his staring. "You closing the door or letting winter in for supper?"
Adam kicked it shut. Mint, camphor, woodsmoke—and under it all, something that smelled like the butcher's drain. A dark smear sat at the corner of her mouth.
"Tch. Since when you miss?" He scooped up the clog, harder than a rock, handier than a hammer. The grooves where her toes rested had worn deeper than he remembered.
Aziz snorted. "Since when you dodge? Get over here and make yourself useful." She shoved the mortar toward him, but her fingers trembled. A heartbeat later she snatched it back to wipe her lips.
"You supposed to be resting, y'know."
"Rest when I'm dead." Her laugh broke apart into coughing. She spat black into the firepit, went back to stirring. Slow, uneven circles. "Little girl's lungs drowning, and you fuss over my nap."
Another cough tore through her. Wetter.
"You know old people need rest!" He gripped the mortar till his knuckles ached.
"Where's that herb?!"
Adam passed her the crushed leaves, then dropped into the crooked chair by the hearth.
His stomach was killing him. "What's for lunch?"
Aziz wrestled with a glass vial. Clink-clink against ceramic, her hands shaking worse than a drunk's. She wrapped it in cloth, knuckles bone-white with the effort, and pressed it into his palm.
"Buy bread with the money you get. Or meat. Something proper. None of that stall-garbage."
"What? Now?!"
"No, after I'm eaten by crows!" She jabbed a finger at him. "Move, before the girl's lungs close. Dawn's too late."
"It's pouring buckets—"
"Oh, grow a pair!" She half-rose, brandishing the second clog. Her cheeks flushed red as a slapped arse. "Fareed's sister's dying while you whining, ain't they your friends? Go, or I'll haunt your useless hide!"
The big clog hitting the floor barely reached him before Aziz swayed mid-throw, her balance gone, eyes rolling back.
"AZIZ!"
Adam scrambled across the room. He slammed into her ribs, shoulder bracing her just before she hit the hearthstones.
She tried to straighten, her weight sagged into him instead. A wheeze rattled against his chest.
"What's wrong with you? You forgot your medicine?!"
Her eyes slid to the wall. Anywhere but him.
"Don't need no medicine!" she lied. "I'm just… tired."
Adam could kick a baby right now.
Aziz's good eye cracked open. Found his face. The corner of her mouth twitched, laughing at him even flat on her back.
Then the dangling clog tapped against his cheek, and the knot in his chest loosened.
"Look at you...my little sweetling."
Damn this woman!
Her calloused hand cupped his jaw, thumb tracing the hollow under his eye. "Did you have fun today?"
His throat tightened. He looked at the wall. "…Sure."
"Did that old goat pester you?"
Adam smirked—old goat. "Don't worry about him. He's yesterday's trouble. Anyways, caught you like a man, didn't I?"
The laugh tore out of her, breaking into coughing, but the grin never left her.
"Big man. My man."
Adam's lips twitched. Damn. This. WOMAN!
He hauled her up before she could feel his hands shaking, guided her to the straw pallet like she was made of old paper.
He grabbed the fallen clog—didn't want her tripping on it with those eyes—then rummaged through the cabinet. Found her bottle.
Three pills rattled inside. Three…
He'd spent half of yesterday knee-deep in leech-marsh, hunting bog-moss to pay for a new batch. His shins still itched where the flies had feasted. Eight pills, that moss was worth. She'd burned through five in—what, a day?
She frowned. Adam frowned harder. She relented, swallowing one down.
"Rest." The word scraped his throat. "I mean it!"
"I'll be fine, boy…" Her eyelids sagged, words slurring. "Just… give the brew…"
One breath. Two. Then she was out.
The vial bag dug into his shoulder.
Everything had gone to rot since spring. A new sickness was knocking on the village doors, and the Tower was filling with bodies faster than the fields could yield wheat. Rain fell by the bucket, yet no clean water to drink.
And through it all, people pointed fingers. The old favorite.
The spooky hag in the crooked hut.
Tsk.
Same song, different verse. Sickness took his real uncle before Adam was even born—blamed on Aziz. Five years back, it took his parents—blamed on Aziz. But back then, folk would look away after. What mother cursed her own children, eh?
Now her children were bones on the Tower. No shield left.
Adam looked at the two pills in his palm. Yesterday, he'd had eight. Eight pills' worth of leech-bites and marsh-stink.
His eyes burned. He squeezed them shut till the burning got worse.
Had to brew for another, didn't she?
Had to bless it away. Damn this woman…
…
Squelch. Squelch.
Rain hammered down, fat drops punching through the canopy to smack his head. His stomach growled, still empty.
His hand cramped.
He looked down. The wooden clog sat in his fist, worn sole grinding into his palm.
When did he—?
Right. Meant to set it beside Aziz's pallet. Forgot. Of course he forgot. Idiot.
He stopped, arm cocked to hurl the thing into the trees. Let the rot take it. One less—
Aziz's shadow stopped him before his head did.
His arm dropped.
Not the clog's fault she was stubborn. Not its fault she kept giving herself away.
Still. Damn thing was heavy. He tried wedging it beneath his belt, but the rough wood scraped and twisted, refusing to sit.
Adam fished a length of string from his pocket. What? He liked string. Good for tying rocks. Throwing them at stupid crows. Normal things.
He turned the clog over, tracing the grooves where Aziz's toes had worn the wood smooth. Then his thumb caught it.
A hole. Clean through the heel.
He knew this hole. Remembered the nail that made it—big rusty bastard, poking up from the floorboards back when the hut was more rot than wood. He'd been small. She'd stepped on it, said it was nothing, kept walking for three days before the fever knocked her flat.
The scar on her foot was still puckered thick.
Adam threaded the string through the hole, knotted it tight, looped it around his belt. The clog swung there, dangling like a hanged man's boot.
Huh, wooden bastard looked pissed, bouncing against his hip. No matter.
He walked. Rain plastered his hair flat. The clog knocked against his leg. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Happy now?" he muttered at it. "Hanging off me like that?"
The clog said nothing.
"Aziz thinks she hiding it." His voice cracked, swallowed by rain. "Coughing blood. Shaking. And she don't think to tell me. Selfish old bat!"
Tap. Tap.
"And my friends? Mansour? The rest of them?" His fist clenched. "They take what she gives. Show up when they need something. Then vanish when some idiot spits witch."
The path blurred. Rain. Just rain.
"Two pills left. Two! I spent all day in the marshes for eight, and she—" He choked on it. Shoved it down. "Damn this woman!"
The clog swung steady. Didn't care.
Adam wiped his face. Didn't help. Everything was wet.
"She called me her man. Big man." The words scraped out. "Then why don't nobody tell me nothing?"
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap…
Forest didn't answer. Clog didn't answer. Rain just kept falling, cold as spite.
SNAP
Adam froze. His grip strangled the clog's string.
"Who's there?"
Who's. There? Only a crazy person asked the dark that. Or a meal.
Tir's piss. He wanted food, not to be food.
Rustle
Not the wind. Too fast. Way too fast...
The itch had been there for weeks. That prickle between his shoulders. The feeling of eyes when the woods should've been empty.
Adam didn't ask again.
He bolted.
Mud tried to drag him down. He didn't let it. Tore through brush, stumbling, gasping, until the trees spat him out.
He spun around, chest heaving.
Nothing. Just wet and more wet.
Crazy. He was going crazy.
Even the clog bouncing at his hip seemed to be laughing.
Adam ignored it. Gripped the cloth strap on his shoulder, forced his breathing to slow. A shaky grin touched his lips.
"Can't wait to see Fareed. He's different."
Missed the ceremony, sure. But he'd get it. Hard enough with their mama gone. Lost her same sickness that took Adam's folks…
Probably why you couldn't split them apart. Two leftovers from the same bad year.
"String holding you's his, anyway," Adam muttered at the clog. "He owes me a new one."
Grrroooowwwl
"And his Baba's a fisherman. Hope he's got fish to spare…"
Fareed's hut sat in the mud like a squat brown toad. Thatch roof molting, walls leaning tired. Looked the same as always.
Two steps from the door, a sound stopped him cold.
"Cough! Cough…"
Hacking. Wet and deep. Like something clawing its way out of a small chest.
"Breathe! Just breathe, dammit!"
Fareed. His voice cracked, high and thin.
The coughing jagged up a notch, wetter this time.
"STOP IT! WHY WON'T YOU STOP?"
Adam's feet stuck to the mud.
Leyla…
Little Leyla with the gap-toothed grin. She'd brought him a handful of blackberries once—smashed to pulp in her sweaty fist, juice staining her chin purple—but she'd looked so proud offering them to the 'big boys.'
Now she sounded worse than Aziz.
Adam crossed the last two steps and raised his fist.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Fareed! Open up!"
The shouting inside died. The coughing didn't—sputtered on and on.
Adam's brow furrowed. No footsteps. A lot of nothing.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Fareed! What's wrong with you! I got the stuff from Aziz! Open the damn door!"
Silence stretched behind the wood.
Then—thin as a whipped dog's whine—a voice through the cracks.
"GO AWAY!"