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“HOW MANY WERE THERE?”
“Did we get them?”
“We got one.”
“What a mess.”
“Just stay still sweetheart while we sweep around you.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know...”
Fluppit felt a warm hand on her arm. It took a little while to register Sari’s warmth, “Come little one, it’s not safe here.” She gently helped her uncurl and stand, “I have saved food. We need to go.”
****
NEV WAS ALREADY IN the Sanctuary when they got there. He was making the kind of noises he only made when he’d run out of words and he was still making sounds to stop the panic setting in. At least extra folk being there seemed to quiet him. Fluppit had her mouth open, but closed it again when Sari spoke, “Is all well here?”
“No,” said Nev, “far from it. Smell.”
Whether that was a statement, or an instruction was unclear from his tone. The result was the same either way. The room, smelled danker, warmer, more of rot.
“I thought you’d fixed him?” said Fluppit, regretting the tone as soon as she said it.
“No, my dear,” Sari said, “I’ve made him more comfortable.”
“You said,” Fluppit took a breath, “you said you knew what was wrong with him.”
“I said he’d been poisoned my dear, not what had done it. What’s been done to him—”
“It’s bad,” said Fluppit. “I can feel it.”
“You are a shaman then?”
“I don’t know. I guess so? Kind of—” Had the grown-ups been discussing her? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
“Hmm...” said Sari. Then to Nev, “can you reconnect that speaking tube of yours?”
“Yeah, but we disconnected it because of the screaming.”
“I think we’re past that now, humour me.”
Nev muttered something about needing more paws and left the room to look for Kaj. The stillness and the increasing fug in the room made Fluppit feel uncomfortable. She said as much. Sari paced the room, lost in thought.
“He feels bad,” said Fluppit.
“I know my dear, but until we know what the poison was, we can’t help him more than we have. And this, whatever it is, is so unlike anything I’ve ever come across.”
“But you’re the best healer that there is! Dun said so.”
Sari placed that kindly hand on her shoulder again, “That’s very sweet of him to say so, but for all my healing, sometimes it takes different skills.”
“Like an alchemist?” offered Fluppit.
“Maybe,” said Sari.
Nev returned with Kaj in tow and with much less than their usual amount of banter, set to fixing the speaker, “Okay,” said Kaj when they were done, “last terminal.” Fluppit thought there couldn’t have been a worse turn of phrase but said nothing.
“Ready?” said Nev.
“Yes.” Sari had an edge of frustration.
“I think he’ll be quieter,” said Fluppit. “I’ve tried to tell him what we’re doing.”
“Okay,” said Nev.
There was a click from where Kaj was kneeling by the wiring, and the speaker hissed into life, then continued to hiss quietly.
“Is that it?” said Kaj.
In a way Fluppit would have preferred screaming.
Sari crouched by the vat where the speaker was, ears cocked to pick up any sound. The hissing gave her nothing she had listened for. She growled low in her throat, “Fluppit, can you talk to him?”
“I can try.”
She sat herself on the floor with a thump, alongside Sari and picked up the midwife’s hand to hold, “Does, that help?” she asked.
“No, not really, but it makes me feel better.”
“Oh—”
Sari’s hand felt awkward in Fluppit’s, “Have you got pups?”
“I... no... I... never did. It never... Things never worked out that way.”
“Huh,” said Fluppit, “is that why you became a midwife?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. Can you feel him?”
“Oh, err... hold on, let me reach...”
“Do you need...” Sari, twitched her hand.
“Oh, no,” said Fluppit giving a reassuring squeeze, “not that kind of reach.”
“Oh.”
Fluppit listened to a fan in the far corner of the room and tried to let her mind float. Everything was adrift—the personalities she usually found in the vat, even the people she could feel in the room. So little to hold on to. She shook her head and tried to focus on the gentle whirr of the fan. All her mind would settle on was the static from the speaker. It really felt like that right now, all over the Dark. That feeling that the white noise was all just notes, each one a person’s voice, but all in so much turmoil that the resultant choir was chaos. This was hopeless. She was just about to admit defeat when her mind touched something. Then she was sorry that she did. Fluppit’s stomach reacted at the same time her mind did. She wanted to apologise, but her hands and her mouth were full.
“Oh, child, let’s sort you out,” said Sari. “Can someone find some cleaning things and a cloth.”
“On it,” With Nev’s experience in the drains of the Dark, he was often the go-to person in this kind of crisis.
“What happened there?” Kaj, put a hand on the first dry part of Fluppit she could find.
Fluppit went to reply, but her stomach did it for her.
“Give her a moment,” said Sari.
“Let’s get you cleaned up pup,” Nev returned with armfuls of cloths, buckets and astringent-smelling liquids.
Kaj brought a plastic barrel and sat Fluppit on it once she’d been mopped and wiped, “That all a bit better?”
“Thanks.”
“What happened?” said Sari.
“I found him—them, but all I got was sick. OneLove, all of them, feel sick all the time, but— they can’t. So, I did.”
“You were sick for them?” said Kaj.
“I think they feel a bit better now.”
“You can’t really be sick for them, though,” said Nev.
“No,” said Sari, “I think the feeling just came through the connection.”
“It’s a bit more than that. You, know how you feel a bit better when you go from feeling awful wanting to be sick, to having been sick? They needed to feel that too. They could feel it a bit from me.”
“That must be weird,” said Kaj.
“Uh-huh. Poor OneLove.”
The static from the speaker started breaking up, as though the connection was faulty. Nev twitched and prodded Kaj. They went straight over to the small device and it’s wiring, still spilled on the floor.
“I think it’s okay,” said Fluppit.
