The Savage Curtain by Kathryn Le Veque

Author:Kathryn Le Veque [Veque, Kathryn le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B0089H007O
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing
Published: 2010-03-02T06:00:00+00:00

***

The first thing she was cognizant of was that her eyelids felt as if they weighed one hundred pounds apiece. They were so heavy that she couldn’t open them. And her head pounded painfully. Joselyn tried to lick her lips but there was no moisture in her mouth; not a drop. She must have sighed or made a noise, because Stephen was suddenly beside her.

“Jo-Jo?” he whispered. “Are you awake, sweetheart?”

She tried to speak but all she could manage to utter was a pathetic groan. A cool cloth touched her cheek and brow.

“Sleep, love,” Stephen whispered, kissing her on the cheek. “Just sleep.”

She did. Fading off, she spent an indeterminable amount of time in blissful darkness. But then the dreams came, crazy things, in which she could see her parents again. Her father, her mother, her grandmother. All making themselves busy in her dreams. They rushed past her, around her, and she could not keep track of them. Then she was back at Allanton, her family’s home, and she could even smell the violets that grew in great bunches against the manor wall. She was in the kitchens, watching her grandmother cook barley loaves and her mother was boiling down apples to make the wonderful apple butter she used to put up every fall.

She wanted some of that apple butter.

But she couldn’t seem to make it over to the hearth where her mother was cooking. She was rooted to the chair, sitting, watching everyone else go by her. Her grandmother picked up the barley loaves and they suddenly burst into flame, ashes falling to the floor. The kitchen seemed to be heating up and the apple butter boiled over, spilling into a fire that was now shooting flames into the room. She tried to get away from the flames but she couldn’t move. Everything was hot and frightening around her. She began to think that she might be in hell. It felt like it. And it was growing hotter.

Stephen had been awake all night, watching Joselyn sleep heavily. She awoke once, he thought, but she promptly fell back asleep. Just after dawn, sleep claimed Stephen as well as he sat next to the bed, his great head on the mattress near Joselyn’s still form. He had been asleep for a few hours when the mattress began to twitch, rousing him from his exhaustion.

His head came up, alert, as he fixed on Joselyn. She was quivering and he immediately put his hand on her head, feeling a fairly significant fever. Though he had expected it, still, he had hoped the heat of the wound would pass her by. It was disheartening but he was not overly panicked about it; it could be controlled. He removed his hand from her head and sent Tilda, sitting quietly in the corner, for plenty of cool water. As he moved for his medicament bag, Joselyn spoke.

“Apple Butter,” she mumbled.

Stephen froze at the sound of her voice, his brow furrowing as he attempted to figure out if she was lucid or not.

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