Reagan didn’t go to school for the rest of that week. Mrs Crowe didn’t go to work either.
Unlike Reagan, Mrs Crowe didn’t have any marks on her face but if Eddy was correct, she was walking with a limp. He reckoned she was a brave lady. Throughout the days while Reagan recovered at home, she continued to smile at him and ask him how he was. Her eyes were sad though. Sad, not just because of what had happened to her and Reagan, but because she couldn’t hide it from Eddy and yet she couldn’t bring herself to try and explain it to him.
Eddy wouldn’t class Reagan as necessarily happy but she did improve over time. It was good having her at home. He could keep an eye on her that way and while she didn’t always smile at his ‘silly Eddy jokes’, when she did, it was all worth it.
When she was sleeping or when she was downstairs with her mother, Eddy put in the hours with Mr Tree. He absolutely had to. There were no guarantees anything would come of it, of course. Grandma Daisy might just have succeeded in her mission to destroy whatever it was that made Mr Tree so incredible, so magical. But, as Mrs Crowe had said once, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Eddy knew that the tree was taking something from him. It had to be. He’d sit for hours on end hoping for some sign of life.
Each day was a struggle now. Like Mrs Crowe, he did his utmost best not to show it but it was getting harder and harder to hide it. Even Grandma Daisy had said he looked a bit peaky and that was saying something.
Reagan, despite fighting her own battles, had noticed it too and although she pressed him for what was wrong, he wouldn’t tell her. If she knew she might try and stop him. She might even tell Grandma Daisy so she could put a stop to it and he couldn’t have that.
The last thing any of them needed to know was about the blood. Over the past couple of days, after a particularly long spell of sitting with Mr Tree, his nose had started bleeding, sometimes quite profusely. The only way he’d been able to hide it from everyone was to use one of his shirts as a towel. Thank goodness Grandma Daisy hadn’t noticed it missing yet but she was bound to sooner or later. It was stuffed in the back drawer of his desk and by now it was more blood than material.
But he couldn’t be getting ill. He needed Mr Tree to be better. He needed that because, if Mr Tree got better, then everything would be well again.