A misplaced child, p.18
A Misplaced Child, page 18
“I’m Ellie,” she said, to break the ice.
The girl chuckled. “I’m Callie. We’re a great match. Ellie and Callie.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“It’s short for Calendula, but I think that’s too big a name for me. I’m not tall enough for it yet.”
“Oh, I love calendula, they’re such beautiful flowers.” Elodie moved to the table and lifted up the paper waiting. A list of tinctures needing to be made up. It was busy work, but much better than dumping chamber pots. Pulling down a few bundles of echinacea, Elodie found a few sharp knives and laid them out.
“First we need to chop this into fine little bits.” She grabbed a few large empty jars from one of the cabinets. “When it’s chopped, drop it in here, until it’s loosely full.”
Callie seperated a few of the dried stems in front of her, and picked up the knife. “Are there any specific ways I need to be doing this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well aren’t there some plants that need to be cut with a silver blade under the full moon?” Callie asked, throwing her arms wide and saying the words with a deep dramatic voice.
Elodie laughed, and moved the girl’s knife-wielding arm to a safer distance from her head. “Actually yes, thistle bright needs to be cut under a full moon but only using a copper blade or it loses its potency. There’s a few others as well, but that’s usually only when harvesting magical ingredients, or sometimes when preparing a magical potion. What we’re doing is creating a standard tincture. No magic involved. You could make this one yourself and it would be as effective as someone with magic.”
“Do you have magic?”
“Yes, a little, but I don’t use it often.” Elodie started chopping.
“So you’re a witch?”
“No, I haven’t been accredited. I guess I’m just a hedgewitch right now.”
Callie nodded. “Apprenticing here will be good for you then. If the healer accredits you, you can make good money as a witch. I knew a girl once who got apprenticed. Best thing to ever happen to her. Kids on the street with magic don’t stay on the street long.”
“Do you have magic?”
The girl laughed. “If I did I wouldn’t still be on the street at my age.”
Elodie didn’t know what to say to that, so she kept chopping.
“So do you like making medicines?” Callie asked.
Elodie shrugged. “My magic works best with plants, so I’m good at it. I like being good at something.”
“Magic with plants,” the girl said with wonder. “What does that do exactly?”
“Well there’s a lot, helping plants grow, or figuring out what’s wrong with them if they’re sick. When making a tincture like this I could boost the ingredients and make it more powerful, but we’re not doing that today.”
“Why not? If you can make something more powerful why not do it?”
“Well for one when treating the sick you need to know the exact strength of your potion. If you don’t know how the person’s body will react to the magic then a stronger potion could kill them. Right now Healer Beathan set me for creating basic tinctures. I’m sure at some point I’ll be creating more powerful ones but for now this is it.”
“So for this tin-cher, it doesn’t matter how I cut this?”
“Nope, it just needs to be cut up into little tiny pieces.”
Callie started trying to cut up the plant into very small pieces making tiny precise cuts, one stem at a time. When Elodie realized she wasn’t joking she stopped laughing and showed the girl how she could rock the blade back and forth and cut it quicker. “Just make sure you don’t cut your fingers,” she warned.
“Do I look like a four-year-old who’s holding a blade for the first time? I may not know all the fancy ways for cutting but I know which one’s the pointy end and how to keep my bits away from it.”
“Good.”
They chopped for a few minutes, and Elodie tried to think up something to say to break the silence. She was saved the trouble when Callie spoke up.
“Do you like jokes?” the girl asked.
“What kind of jokes?”
“Where does the King of Wulfram keep his armies?” Callie asked.
“I’m not sure?”
“In his sleevies,” Callie replied in a squeaky voice, shrugging her shoulders so the worn fabric of her dress sleeves wiggled.
Elodie chuckled at the absurdity of the joke.
“Want to hear a joke about paper?” Elodie asked after a few moments.
“Sure.”
“Nevermind,” Elodie said, shrugging. “It’s terrible shite.”
Callie laughed so hard she had to set down the knife for a moment. “Did you hear the rumor about butter?”
“No, what was it?”
“Well, I’m not going to spread it!”
The girls went back and forth as they worked, telling jokes so basic, and at times stupid, they couldn’t help but laugh. Once their first jars were full and Elodie’s face started hurting from laughing as she grabbed more jars and herbs, Healer Beathan opened the door to the preparation room, her arms crossed.
“You two better be getting work done in here, not just chittering like a group of flighty feather brains.”
“Sorry, Healer Beathan, we’re laughing while we chop, I promise.” Elodie smiled at the healer.
The older woman nodded with a stern look in her eye. “I expect that list to be complete by lunchtime, Ellie.”
“Yes, Healer Beathan,” Elodie said, with a curtsey.
Once the door was closed Elodie returned to her chopping.
“Don’t you sigh at me, girlie, and chop faster or it’s back to the streets for you, Ellie!”
Elodie spun around in surprise, she hadn’t heard the door open again or Healer Beathan come back in. Turning she saw Callie standing behind her, posture rigid with a scowl on her face. “Well? Back to work Ellie,” Callie said in the exact same tone and inflection as Healer Beathan.
Elodie burst out laughing and Callie broke, her posture dropped and a smile crossed her face.
“That was amazing! How did you do that?”
Callie laughed. “I’ve always been good at copying people.”
The girls continued to think up jokes to tell the other, laughing quieter as they worked. After they filled the first few jars with echinacea, Elodie cleared away the remaining herb bits from the table and pulled out fresh bundles of dried marshmallow flowers.
“So where are you from? You don’t talk like you’re from around here,” Callie said, copying Elodie’s accent at the end.
“Oh I’m from Mysener. My grandma was good friends with Healer Beathan, and my mom, well she just remarried and thought it would be a good idea for me to go on a long trip,” Elodie said with a frown. The lie came easier to Elodie this time, and she made sure to look down and feel as sad as she could about the event, hoping this would cause the other girl not to ask any other questions.
Callie nodded. “I hear that. Same thing happened to Rich. He’s one of the boys doing laundry. It sounds like you were lucky enough your parents found a good place for you before dumping you. Rich got dumped in the streets when his ma left with the merchant she married.”
“She just left him?” Elodie couldn’t believe it. It was so cold and unfeeling. How could someone do that to their kid? Elodie’s stomach sank in fear. What would it take for her mom to do that with her? Except instead of leaving her on the streets she would pack her away to some facility to ‘help’ her. Elodie shook her head trying to make the thoughts go away. “What about you? Where are your parents?” she asked, not thinking.
“My dad died when I was a babe. My mom died four years ago from a fever, which also took my brothers,” Callie said casually.
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It is what it is. I was helping out at this house over near market street. There’s an old woman who converted it into a sort of orphanage. Us older kids helped with the younger, and she provided food and necessities. Some rich old cracked woman thought living in the lower city and helping orphans was her calling from Dima or something. I didn’t really care who was telling her to do it. As long as it meant two meals a day and a corner under a roof to sleep.”
“It doesn’t sound like she was so rich if that was all you got.”
Callie raised her eyes at Elodie. “That’s more than anyone else has given me since my ma passed. Besides, she had a lot of kids living there, so we took what we got and were happy for it.”
“Why aren’t you there anymore?”
“She died over the winter. Same as most of the kids in the house. The rest of us moved on, looking for some other place to crash. It’s fine, I wasn’t there long,” she said at Elodie’s expression. “I had experience on the streets from before I went to her house, so I know how to handle myself.”
They completed their tasks after a few hours. Elodie filled each jar with a strong alcohol before screwing on the lids. She labeled and stored each one in a dark cabinet.
Next it was time for lunch. Elodie waited in line with all the other children. After getting a roll of thick bread stuffed with cheese, she ate alongside Callie. The rest of the children were getting dismissed, and Healer Beathan told Elodie she could take a break for the day as well. Callie waved to Elodie as she prepared to leave, but Elodie followed her.
“Where are you going now?”
Callie shrugged and looked away, then she looked back at Elodie. “Why? Do you want to come?” she asked with a gleam in her eyes.
“Yeah, can I?”
“You’ll have to take off that apron, and you have to be quick. Are you quick?”
Elodie knew from many P.E. classes she wasn’t in fact quick.
Callie smiled. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll watch out for you.” She gestured for Elodie to follow. Elodie took off the apron and stowed it in the cabinet of an exam room before rejoining Callie on the street.
They wandered the streets that afternoon. Callie didn’t seem like someone who grew up on the streets. There was a joy that radiated from her even as she jumped across gutters in her bare feet. She taught Elodie all the secrets and hidden spots of the lower city. Callie knew which shops and pubs threw away the best food scraps at the end of the night, and which sold seagull meat and should be avoided. She could tell you which cart sellers didn’t keep a very good eye on their merchandise and what corners and crannies to hide from the city guard with your stolen loot.
Callie’s true gift wasn’t for thieving and outrunning the slow guards of the lower city, although she did enjoy it on occasion. Her true passion was for playing like other people. Putting on the voice and mannerisms of someone else and talking in their words for whoever would listen. Elodie and Callie spent most of their time together, with Elodie bent over with laughter watching her friend put on pretend shows walking the streets in rags and impersonating the elite of Aluna.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Elodie’s days followed a similar pattern that summer. Every morning she would bring in the street kids waiting for work, and help sort them into roles they could best help in.
She noticed after some weeks, kids she used to see wouldn’t come around anymore. When she asked Callie about this, she shrugged.
“There’s a million reasons why they’re gone, so there’s really no point in worrying over it. Either they got sick and died and are in a better place, somewhere they don’t have to fight for food or a place to sleep anymore, or they got snatched up by slavers and are now bound and will get sold off to some master and won’t have to fight for food or a place to sleep anymore. Either way they’re likely better off.”
Elodie’s chest ached at the thought.
Each afternoon was spent with Callie running the streets. Elodie wasn’t really built for running, and more so, she hated it. But over the last quarter in P.E. she’d built up quite a bit of endurance and now with Callie she began to build up speed, and a bit of coordination, dodging around carriages and horses. She ate less at mealtime since there wasn’t a ton to go around, and ran her afternoons away with Callie. As the weeks faded into months, her dress fit less and less snug and Elodie had an easier time dodging the occasional city guard and slipping into hidey-holes.
In the evenings, after her time with Callie, Elodie would return to the clinic and Healer Beathan would teach her advanced potions and medicines. She showed her principles and fundamentals of healing Gedas only ever glazed over. She let Elodie try new things with her magic. At first Elodie was hesitant to use her abilities. She’d decided back in the illusion to stop using magic, but as the days turned to weeks, and the ruakh saturated her life, she was back to her old curiosity.
Callie brought Elodie a bracelet one afternoon. It was a small thing, made with twine and uneven glass beads she found in the trash behind one of the glass makers in Prole. It was beautiful, and Elodie hugged her friend tight before she put it on, trying to hide the tears that fell.
Callie had so little, it hurt to think she was giving something to Elodie, and she hadn’t tried to return the favor.
“It’s for guidance and peace,” Callie had said, pointing out the different colors of the small lopsided beads. “Green and browns for the roads, and blue for the sea, all under Ravid’s domain.”
Elodie and Callie were hanging out behind the stalls of the Prole District market one afternoon with no plans for the day. Callie was doing an impression of a noble she’d seen once who stepped in horse poop in the lower city and Elodie was laughing along, her sides aching. Callie pronounced some of the most colorful curses Elodie had ever heard when a boy she recognized from the clinic came around the flower seller’s cart and nearly crashed into them.
“They’re doing a round up!” the boy called before disappearing around the corner. Callie came to life and grabbed Elodie’s arm.
“We need to run,” her friend said and dragged her away. Shouts and whistles echoed in the distance.
“What’s happening?” Elodie asked as she tried to keep up. Callie weaved between people and carts, never moving in a straight direction but always heading toward the east end of the city.
“The guards are rounding up the beggars,” Callie gasped out as she darted around a man on horseback.
They climbed down one of the city’s many sink holes into a tunnel network below the streets. Elodie had been shocked to learn the natural caverns she’d known caused cave-ins around the city were not natural at all with the tool marks to prove it. Tross’s underworld used the underground passages to move between each district and for who knew what else. Callie said it was safe to use as long as you didn’t get caught.
As they tiptoed through the dark passage, their path lit by the light stones borrowed from one of the thieves’ many hidden caches, Callie explained. Roundups came when the guards were looking for a criminal. They would round up anyone out of place, kids, beggars, homeless, and lock them up. If no one came to claim them in a day or so with the proper fees, it was assumed they were vagrants, and were bound and sold as slaves.
“That’s awful.” Elodie had never heard anything like this before. She knew criminals were sometimes punished by being bound, but this was so much worse. “Does it happen often?”
Callie shrugged, copying the motion with the same inflection Elodie often used. “Not so often to keep street kids from going into Prole, but I know a few who’s been caught and shipped off to who knows where. Aluna’s got a lot of farms, and they need someone to work ’em.”
Elodie’s stomach made uncomfortable turns.
* * *
That night a riot broke out in Odure.
It started when a well-respected tailor from Odure confronted the guards in Prole for arresting her son. She disputed the illegal soliciting charge saying he’d been making a delivery to a client in Prole on her behalf. The tailor was thrown out of Prole after a beating the guards said was for insubordination. With tempers running high from the round up, and one of their respected members bloody in the street, Odure responded.
Elodie didn’t see the fighting as it started, or as it escalated from protests of injustice into an angry mass of hate. She didn’t see the destruction of the lower city until long after the fires were out. Instead, Elodie spent the night and the following three days working alongside every able body of the clinic patching and tending the wounded.
She spent hours stewing dandelion greens and water moss, to help with blood loss, adding in a good dose of her magical strength. She made potions to stop infections and poultices to clot wounds. Healer Beathan taught her how to tell if a bone needed setting and how to stitch up a wound. She watched people grieve over loved ones, and saw life leave glassy eyes. She was sick many times when faced with ruined flesh or broken bones. She ate little and slept less.
After the third day those who were worse off died or were starting to mend, and the frantic pace the healers and assistants had worked finally ebbed. Healer Beathan gave Elodie a tonic for deep sleep and sent her to bed.
When she awoke the next afternoon, Beathan sent Elodie out of the clinic for fresh air and to remember what life looked like.
She found Callie at one of her favorite stalls, watching the baker fold bread into unique designs. Somehow Callie knew exactly what her friend needed, and the two spent the afternoon sharing light-hearted laughs, and stayed far away from the parts of the city recently damaged.
They passed a small shrine to Dima, goddess of healing, and Callie stopped and bowed, pausing for a moment before moving on. Elodie did the same.
Each time they passed a shrine or temple for one god or another Callie always stopped to pay her respects, and Elodie copied her so as not to insult any prickly god. She knew it was good manners to be respectful to the gods, but Callie went out of her way to address each shrine they passed.
“Why do you always stop for them?” Elodie asked, after Callie led her to a shrine hidden behind a bakery.
