Chapter 5: The Salve

"Your hands," I said.

"They're fine," Keir Halverson said, and a drop of blood ran off the leather and hit the step.

"They're bleeding on my porch."

"Then I'll apologize to the porch." His voice was even, but he did not step inside until I moved out of the doorway.

He stood in the middle of the cabin, too tall for the low ceiling.

"Sit," I said.

"I won't be here long."

"Sit anyway."

He sat on the edge of the chair by the stove and laid his hands on his knees, palms down.

"The medic gave me cream for this," he said. "It makes it worse. Everything makes it worse, except what you did yesterday."

"I put yarrow on my own leg."

"And then I touched your leg, and when I stopped, it was quiet. For about forty minutes. First time in six years."

He said it flatly, and did not look at me.

I reached for my pack under the cot.

At the bottom, wrapped in a dish towel, was a small tin with a dent in the lid.

It had been my grandmother Ada's. I had carried it through every house I'd ever lived in.

"It's comfrey and St. John's wort steeped in oil, with beeswax," I said. "She made it for burns on the stove and nerve pain in her knees."

"Does it work?"

"For her it did."

"Does it work on strangers?"

"I don't know. I've never had one who wouldn't let me look at his hands."

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