Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey Read Free Book Online

my lips, but Demetra pulled my jaw
open, dropped the spider-fruit in, and clamped it shut.
    O, Saint Alodia,
protector of children, come wrap Demetra with
your cord and drag her into hell,
I prayed. But
there was no saint. No cord. And the only
thing wrapped was my tongue around the wretched
prune. I pressed it to the side of my cheek while Mother ran her fingers through my hair. "Soon all
will be well, Rosie," she said.
    Demetra moved my jaw up and down to make me
chew the spider-plum. I never will forget the crunching sound the spider made
between my teeth.

CHAPTER NINE
    Flying as in a
Dream
    Mother had never let
me show my hand to anyone in the world but her, but all vows
were broken in Demetra's stinking cave. She
dismissed Ali and her child then carefully removed my glove before the
hag. Demetra's glance was hungry, as if she hoped
to toss my severed claw into a soup and sup upon its power.
    "Woman!" said Mother impatiently.
"Will you but stare and stare?"
    The hag applied a poultice of hot mustard
plaster and stinging nettles, wrapping the mustard cloth tight around my scaly
claw. Stinging heat seared my flesh, flamed into my hand, and burned up my arm.
Soon my hand began to round and swell like a
ripened peach. I was racked by shivers. So much for the
medici nal powers of spider-fruit.
    "Stop," I cried. "Make her
take it off."
    Mother, still holding me to my cot, kissed my
forehead. "Hush now," she said.
    "The nettles
sting."
    "They fight your cursed flesh,"
said Mother.

A small shadow hovered
in the hall; an edge of skirt appeared. Mother adjusted the poultice so no part of my claw could
be seen. "Enter now, Katinka."
    She came in with a tray of mint leaves.
    "Mint," I called.
    Katinka held out her tray. Mint would cool my
burning claw. I could stand the pain a moment more, knowing it was near. Mother
laid the wet mint leaves on the backside of my hand just above the burning
poultice.
    "Be gone," said Demetra, pushing
the girl from the room. Katinka tumbled to the floor in the shadowy hall, but
she did not cry out.
    I waited for the cooling mint to work, holding
my breath and thinking of a rhyme Father used to say. "Hug her and kiss
her and take her on your knee, and whisper very close, darling girl, do you
love me?"
    "Darling girl, darling girl. . . ," I whispered over and over, but my hand
grew redder and rounder till it seemed like a wormy apple torn from the branch
to rot.
    The fire in the pit crackled as Demetra
unwrapped the poultice. I felt a moment of relief, then she added more hot
mustard smear and nettle leaf.
    Burning. Stinging. "My
finger! It's stinging like a thousand bees."
    "Enough," said Mother turning to
Demetra. "Stop her pain."
    "Sleep potion has a
cost," said Demetra above my screaming. Mother tossed more silver on her table. Demetra pocketed the coins and
took a sea sponge from her little shelf.

"When Rosalind's a good girl, she'll
have her cakes and cus-tard," said Demetra, holding out the sponge.
"But when she pouts and cries, she'll have nothing but hot mustard."
Demetra laughed at this, her gap-toothed mouth showing her gray tongue. Leaning
over me, she pressed the sponge to my mouth. I thrashed and screamed into the
strange-smelling sponge.
    "What's in it?" asked Mother.
    "A good sleep potion. Poppy tincture and hemlock—"
    I drifted away from the hag, my mother's
worried gaze, the cell with its crackling
fire. In my fevered dreams, I faced a legion of angry sprites who cut off my arms with their grass-blade swords. No matter
how many arms the fairies cut, I grew more back, till I had eight arms in all.
    Rousing from a strange dream, I found Demetra
sitting at my side. Her rough voice still echoed in my head as if she'd spoken
through my sleep.
    "Ah," said the hag. "Your eyes
are open now."
    "Where is Mother?" I croaked.
    "Oh, where, oh, where has your mother
gone?" taunted Demetra. Her cheek twitched as she peeled the poultice from
my hand. I tilted my heavy head and looked down. On my