Yann left the old woman’s house, went downstairs, and loaded his arms with firewood. The townspeople who’d brought Anríq in still stood in the same place staring at Yann in slack-jawed horror.

They kept staring at him when he climbed back up the stairs to the woman’s house.

“It looks like we aren’t the only people who have tried to come in here and do something about her,” he told Anríq when Yann returned. “No one will come near the place.”

“Could you ask them to bring me some milk, some salt, and some of the white daisies we saw growing on the roadside earlier?” Anríq asked over his shoulder.

Yann got to work. He built a big fire in the woman’s fireplace to warm the house. Then he set a kettle of water over the flames.

The women of Middleborough always set a kettle of water on to boil whenever anyone got sick. That was always the first thing they did even if they didn’t know what else to do.

Yann didn’t know if Anríq would need hot water, but the woman would probably need a hot meal or maybe some soup when she finally got better.

Anríq pulled out all his trinkets from his bag, drew complicated designs on different parts of the woman’s body, and then started using his magic on her. Yann went back outside and crossed the road to where the townspeople stood gaping at him.

“You can all go back to your homes now,” he told them. “Anríq will get to you in your turn.”

“What if our relatives die before he gets to us?” Aria asked.

“I’m sure your sick relatives are no more important than that old woman,” Yann replied. “If you really want to make this go quicker, you could always help him. He needs all the help he can get.”

“How can we help him when we don’t have any magic?” Avol asked.

“I don’t have any magic, either,” Yann replied. “I’m helping him. If you don’t want to do that, I suggest you go home.”

He walked away from them, unlocked the town gates, and passed down the road until he found the daisies.

By the time he got back, only Gachu remained standing outside the old woman’s house. “How can I help him?” Gachu asked. “I don’t know anything about magic.”

“He asked me to bring him some milk and salt. Do you know where I can find any?”

Gachu nodded. “I’ll bring them to you.”

“Thank you.” Yann went back upstairs.

Anríq stood by the woman’s bed and let his hand hover over her face. She lay insensible on the mattress. She didn’t regain consciousness.

Anríq’s hand trembled for a minute. Then the woman’s body started to quake and convulse on the bed in time to the movement in his hand.

The vibration spread through the whole bed until her body bounced off the mattress. Even the bed frame bounced off the floor and thumped each time it banged down.

All at once, the commotion stopped without warning. Anríq doubled over and rested his big arms on the mattress while he gasped for breath. Sweat drenched his face and hair.

Yann went over to him. “Are you okay?”

“It’s harder than I thought,” Anríq croaked. “It’s buried deep inside her—inside all of them.”

“Do you want me to do anything? Here. I brought your daisies and one of the men is bringing the milk and salt.”

Anríq pushed himself up still breathing heavily. He cupped his hands and Yann scooped the daisies into Anríq’s hands.

“Thank you, Yann,” Anríq gasped.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do anything else?” Yann asked.

“Hold her down so she doesn’t move around so much. I need to concentrate. Her shaking breaks the connection.”

Yann didn’t understand a word Anríq just said, but whatever.

Anríq scattered the daisies all over the bed. Then he placed two in each of the woman’s hands, one of which he laid across her chest. He positioned her so she looked like she was holding the flower because she wanted to.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Just then, Gachu came in with the milk and salt. Anríq dipped his fingertips in the milk, flicked droplets all over the woman, touched a few droplets to her lips, and then sprinkled salt all over her and the surrounding bed.

He glanced up at Yann watching him. “She’ll probably fight back again. You’ll have to hold her down like you did before. Do you understand? Can you do that?”

Yann nodded even though he didn’t understand. He didn’t want to get into another fight against this woman, but he would do it to help Anríq heal her—of whatever the hell was wrong with her.

Anríq straightened up, placed his hand above her face where he’d been holding his hand before, and nodded to Yann.

The woman wasn’t fighting back now, so he took advantage of the lull, climbed onto the bed, and used his whole body to flatten her into the mattress.

He made sure to hook his leg over her legs to stop her from kicking—just in case she woke up suddenly.

Anríq took a deep breath and his hand started to tremble again. The energy in the room built to a pounding thump.

The bed jumped higher even with Yann’s weight on it. Gachu stood back by the door like he wanted to bolt for safety.

The racket escalated louder and louder. The woman’s body jolted so badly that she nearly threw Yann off even when he used all his strength to hold her down.

The tremor in Anríq’s hand spread to the rest of his body. His whole face shuddered from the effort and sweat poured off him.

All at once, the woman exploded to life with an unearthly roar. She launched herself off the bed.

Yann lunged on top of her to pin her down, and at that moment, a rushing surge of black vapor ejected from her mouth straight into Anríq’s hand.

The vapor streaked out of her, into his hand, and vanished beneath the skin.

The woman buckled under Yann’s weight and Anríq collapsed onto the floor. He folded like a wet sack and his body slammed down on the hollow boards.

Yann dove off the bed in a flash and tried to grab him. “Anríq!” Yann hauled Anríq up by the shoulders and got in his face. “Anríq!”

Anríq’s body weighed a ton. His eyes drifted half-closed. Sweat saturated every inch of his skin and hair.

“You gotta sit up!” Yann panted, but he couldn’t lift Anríq off the ground. “Come on! You gotta sit up!”

Yann fought harder than ever to move Anríq’s body, but nothing worked. Yann looked around in panic and saw Gachu standing there in the same place.

“Help me!” Yann roared. “Help me pick him up!”

Gachu shook his head fast, took a few stumbling steps backward, and took off staggering down the stairs to get as far away from this cursed house as possible.

Yann cast one last hopeless glance around. Anríq couldn’t be cursed himself now. That would be Yann’s worst nightmare.

“Come on, Anríq!” Yann husked. “Come on!”

Anríq groaned and tried to lift his head. He didn’t straighten up, but at least he responded.

He tried once to sit up and fell back on his seat leaning against the bed. Yann didn’t know what to do, so he darted back to the fire, grabbed a cup off the old woman’s shelf, dipped it into the bucket of water Yann had brought in, and carried it back to Anríq.

Yann knelt down and held the cup to Anríq’s lips. “Drink this. Then I’ll find somewhere for you to lie down.”

“No….” Anríq rasped. “I have to….keep going…..”

“You can’t even stand up,” Yann pointed out.

“I’ll be okay,” Anríq whispered. “Just….just let me rest for a minute.”

Yann didn’t want to let him rest. He wanted to grab Anríq and run for it. He wanted to leave this god-forsaken town behind and run far, far away from whatever curse these people brought upon themselves.

The old woman distracted him. She sighed as if she was just waking up from being asleep and tried to sit up to look around. “Doliva?” she called out in a quavering voice. “Doliva—are you there?”

Yann stood up and looked down at her. The instant he laid eyes on her, he knew she didn’t have any memory of using her sword to attack anyone or to destroy her own furniture.

Her face shone with a benign smile. This old woman never fought anyone in her life. Whatever Yann had been fighting since he came into this house wasn’t the woman.

He bent over her and stroked her ragged hair out of her face. “Doliva isn’t here, but I’ll take care of you. Lie quietly and rest. I’ll get you something to eat and a hot drink.”

She beamed up at him. She definitely recognized the person in front of her now. “Thank you so much, my boy. You’re so kind.”

He crossed to the fire, took the kettle off, and used a different pan to warm up the leftover milk. Then he ransacked the house until he found some ancient bricks of cheeks.

They must have been sitting on the cupboard shelf for the whole two years of the curse. The rind on the outside had hardened to solid granite. He had to use the hatchet from the fireplace to hack one of the blocks in half.

The inside smelled perfectly good. He carved off the rind and toasted the cheese over the flames.

By the time he got back to the bed, Anríq lay curled up on his side on the floor with his eyes closed.

Yann would have liked to drape a blanket over Anríq, but Yann didn’t see one apart from the torn blankets on the woman’s bed. Yann used them to cover her.

He sat down next to her and fed her the milk and cheese. She kept mumbling her thanks to him until she finished.

Then came the inevitable moment when Yann bent over Anríq. Yann touched his shoulder thinking Anríq might be asleep.

He opened his eyes immediately and hauled himself off the floor. He couldn’t have been asleep.

“I better go to the next house,” he mumbled.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Yann asked. “If everyone is as hard as she was….”

“They will be,” Anríq muttered. “The same curse is affecting everyone.”

He stood up and frowned down at the woman. Her magnificent smile slipped when she saw him. Then her frightened eyes darted to Yann.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “This is Anríq. He’s a Barbarian Servant. He’s the one who healed you. He won’t hurt you.”

Her smile burst back to life. She brought one of her withered arms out from under the blanket and held it out to Anríq. “Thank you so much, my dear. You’re both so kind.”

She clasped Anríq’s hand. He didn’t try to stop her.

“He has to go to the next house and heal the rest of the town,” Yann told her. “Stay in bed. Someone will come to check on you soon. If they don’t, I’ll come back myself. I promise. Stay here.”

“All right, my darling,” she quavered and smiled up at him like he might be her own grandson.

Yann and Anríq left the house. Anríq paused on the stairs. Yann frowned at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I will be.” Anríq started walking again.

Yann had his doubts, but Anríq seemed to rally by the time the pair got to the next house.

End of Chapter 38.