Chapter 5: Fever

On the fourth night the pain stopped coming in waves and stayed.

By midnight I had a fever I could feel in my teeth.

I lay on the narrow bed in Hester's spare room with the blanket kicked off and the window open, and nothing helped.

I am a nurse. I knew what a fever of a hundred and four does to a body that has already lost blood.

Hester had gone to sit with a sick neighbor down the road and would not be back before morning.

I tried to stand and the floor tilted.

"Tobias," I said. It came out a whisper.

I tried again, louder. "Tobias."

The porch boards creaked. His knock came on the front door, then at the bedroom window, which was open.

"I'm outside," he said. "Tell me what you need."

"Come in."

"Dara."

"Rule two," I said. "I'm opening the door. Come in."

He came in fast and stopped at the foot of the bed.

I saw his face change when he looked at me.

"You're burning," he said.

"Cold water. A lot of it. I'm not joking, it's the only thing that works."

"The creek is forty yards down the hill."

"Then carry me," I said. "That's needed. That's rule four."

He did not argue.

He gathered me up with the blanket and held me against his chest, and I put my face into his neck because the light hurt my eyes.

His skin smelled like rain and cedar and something sharper underneath that I did not name.

He took the hill at a run and did not jar me once.

The creek was black and loud in the dark, and he waded in to his knees without stopping.

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