Page 12 of Curse of Immortality
Rose cut him off with a hard “No. That won’t do.”
For a moment they stood caught in a power struggle with Rose staring at Frederick with an arched eyebrow, and him staring back at her with annoyance. It was evident that he found Rose too overprotective and wasn’t used to being refused.
“I think my father might need my help,” Marcus mumbled and with a polite nod to both Althea and Maeve, he walked back to help sell beer and cider.
Frederick averted his gaze from Rose and gave Maeve a sugarcoated smile. “What a shame. I was merely trying to be welcoming. I hope to get the pleasure of meeting you again another time.”
Only when he walked away did Rose relax her stance. Turning to Althea and Maeve, she complained. “I knew it was a bad idea to bring you here. You are far too pretty to go unnoticed and infatuated young men rarely take no for an answer. We can’t have them sniffing around to find out where we live.”
“We told them we were here for a short visit,” Althea assured Rose, but Maeve felt cheated of an adventure and crossed her arms.
“You didn’t have to be so rude.”
“Yes, I did, Maeve. Didn’t you see the entitlement in his eyes? Men like him are dangerous.”
Maeve pouted. “Just because you had a bad experience with some humans doesn’t mean that they arealldangerous. In this town, people might be different.”
Althea who was always the peacemaker, mediated, “Rose is just worried that they might confuse us with witches. Isn’t that right, Rose?”
Rose threw out her hand and looked into Maeve’s eyes. “Oh, trust me, there are many ways a man like that can ruin a girl like you.”
Being a teenager, Maeve didn’t appreciate that Rose was being protective and coming from a good place. Her natural longing to break free of the suffocating and limiting fear she had grown up with made her hiss low. “I wouldn’t know since you never allow us to go anywhere.”
“Maeve!” The warning in Rose’s tone only provoked Maeve further and in a fit of immature anger, she ran off.
“Maeve. Maeve, come back here.”
The more Rose shouted the faster Maeve ran. She wasn’t scared of these people. She was scared of missing out on life. Running in the direction of the bird, she told herself that she needed to help the sick girl, but of course, that was merely a way for her to justify her poor behavior toward her aunt.
Show me the way, she told the bird without uttering a word.
It lifted from the fence and flapped its small wings, taking off in the direction of a narrow street. Maeve didn’t think, she just followed the bird for every turn it took until it stopped on top of a sign with a hat on it.
Coming to a halt, Maeve took in the house in front of her. There was a display of hats in the window of the small shop. On the second floor, two windows were open and as she listened, she heard the sound of a woman crying.
Maeve’s heart was pounding in her chest as her heart and mind warred. According to the bird, there was a sick child in this house that needed help. Maeve had no experience with healing humans, but she had healed plenty of animals and was eager to help if she could.
With the resentment she felt toward her aunt in that moment, Rose’s warnings of staying away felt cowardly to Maeve. They were Earthens and born to heal.
Disregarding her aunt’s order to stay away from humans, Maeve took a step forward and placed her hand on the door to the shop.
A discreet bell sounded when she pushed it open, but no one was inside. The sound of the woman crying intensified and pulled Maeve past the rows of hats in all colors and shapes to a wooden staircase.
“Hello?” she called softly. For a second, she listened and realized there was more than one voice. A low muttering told her a man was upstairs as well.
Taking a tentative step up, Maeve called out again, “Hello?”
When no one answered, she continued until she stood upstairs in an open loft with two beds against opposite walls. A woman lay head down on one of the beds, sobbing. Her feet were still on the ground and looking closer, Maeve could tell she had buried her head against a girl who had her eyes closed. Next to the bed sat a man on a wooden chair with his head down and his hands tearing into his hair.
The low mutter came from a man in black who stood with his back to Maeve. Although Maeve had been only five when she left her village, she understood that he had to be a priest, and it made her throat tighten. Priests were the leaders of the witch hunt and the ones posing the biggest risk to an Earthen like her.
It was as if the people in the room were completely absorbed at the moment and didn’t register Maeve’s presence as she stood with her hand on the banister unsure what to do.
“She’s in heaven now with our Lord and creator,” the priest said and walked over to place a hand on the grieving mother.
This time a heartbreaking sob came from the father.
There was nothing Maeve could do, and she knew she was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the priest declared, “I’m sorry for your loss. These are grim times indeed when innocent children are targeted by the dark forces.”
