The Ruby Dream by Annie Cosby Read Free Book Online Page A

while the little doctor lumbered upward. Sarah
appeared behind me with a bucket and shuffled down the path, water sloshing
over the edge, darkening the dirt behind her like blood. With her heavy burden,
Jan beat her there, lugging his great big black bag behind him. The bag that
had, on so many occasions in Killybeg, marked a failed attempt at resuscitation.
Marked death.
    As the group parted to let
the doctor in, a prone figure was revealed, unmoving and covered head to toe in
gray-brown dust. A man rolled the figure over, but the grime obscured the face.
Just before Sarah reached the end of the path, a pair of men broke away and
rushed to relieve her of the burden. As they did, one stopped and stared
wonderingly at a pile of rocks. As I looked, I realized it was wobbling
slightly.
    “Hey!” the man yelled.
“There’s someone else here!” He bent and pulled at the rock, but it didn’t
budge. The man near Sarah rushed back and together they heaved until the rock
tumbled over itself and away.
    A shaggy black and white
dog hopped up, limping slightly, and licked his savior all over the face. The
dislodged rock seemed to have tumbled right into my stomach, cutting down my
heart in one fell swoop.
    “Felix!” I nearly screamed.
Felix was never alone.

Chapter Eight
     
    Wyn was laid out on Sarah’s bed, in the main
room of the yellow cottage, where it was easier for the doctor to work. All the
townspeople had been shooed out of the house, even the men who had carried him
here. But not me.
    “Let her stay!” Sarah had
commanded through a torrent of fresh tears, and the little doctor had shrugged
miserably and gone back to his task.
    His tools were laid out on
the kitchen table, gleaming, formidable, and frighteningly sharp. I hovered
near the stove, pretending to mind the boiling water, for what felt like hours
turned to days. Maisie, stalwart and stern, took up the daunting task of
holding Sarah as she wailed. They were shut up in Wyn’s empty room, and the
sound was muffled and unearthly, setting my nerves on edge. My own tears
wouldn’t come.
    After all, I couldn’t cry
until I knew. Knew what I was crying for. Just a mangled leg or …
    Finally Jan straightened to
his full height, barely coming up to my nose, and wiped his hands on a
once-white towel stained a bloody red and black.
    “That’s all I can do for
him,” he announced, before stepping back and dropping the gory towel on the
table. He began to heap his things, the shine now stained with blood, back into
his bag.
    “That’s it?” I asked
incredulously. I took my first step in hours, as unsteady and callow as a
newborn lamb. The dust had been wiped away from Wyn’s face, but that only made
the injuries more ghastly in comparison to his soft, creamy skin. Two great
gashes had been ripped, one on top of the other, in the smoothness of his
forehead, but they’d now been hastily sewn up with gruesome black stitches. His
sweet freckles were dwarfed by a scattering of bright red lacerations. Colossal,
russet-colored bruises littered his cheeks, neck, and arms, and the old burn
scars on the backs of his hands seemed comfortable in comparison. Jan had built
a mound of quilts to keep Wyn’s left leg, bent and badly bruised, elevated. And
Wyn’s brown eyes – my favorite in all the world – were hidden from
me behind purple-gray lids.
    “If you pray, lass, he will
be fine,” Jan said, patting me on the arm.
    I hadn’t even noticed Jan
approach me, and I felt a sudden flare of rage. “He doesn’t look fine!” I snapped.
    Jan took a step back and
studied my face for a moment. “I know you care about the boy. So for now, all
you can do is care for him.”
    “Is he even alive?” I
choked out, something foreign and painful strangling the temper right out of
me. As if a goblin had taken residence in my throat.
    “His heart still beats, if
that’s what you call alive,” Jan replied cruelly. “Whether he will wake up,
that I do not know. That’s a