I stood against the wall and watched Karen, the township’s best healer and beloved by our community. She was a frail, old, wiry-haired woman who looked as if she wouldn’t be able to carry a bucket of water, much less reposition a human being.
But that was the way of it with healers. Thin as a rail, but able to wrestle an angry badger and win. I had learned long ago not to underestimate a healer. Especially the elders. An elder healer had survived all the ills they’d healed. An elder healer was tough as nails and had forgotten more things than you had ever learned.
Finally, she straightened from where she had been bent over Ashley’s still form. When she turned to me her gray eyes were worried.
“You didn’t see the rash?” Her face was fierce, and her voice was hushed but hard. She thought I should have seen the rash, but there had been none. Unless Ashley had hidden it from me, but I thought that unlikely. She must have seen the confusion on my face, because she turned back to Ashley and waved at me to follow.
When we stood beside the bed, she grasped Ashley’s wrist and rotated her arm until the pale skin between wrist and inner elbow was clearly visible. The rash there was red and violent, mottling Ashely’s skin and making the unblemished patches look even more pale.
I hissed out a breath and Karen and I returned to our spot against the wall. “Those were not there this morning.” I met her eyes, all but begging her to believe me.
“It’s not just a heat rash from the fever.” My words were a statement, not a question. I knew what heat rash looked like. This was different, if for no other reason than that Karen was worried.
I started to protest but the words stuck in my throat when she turned her healer’s glare on me. Only a fool argues with that facial expression and my mother had raised no fools. I let her shoo me out of the room.
I hugged Karen gently and thanked her. Then I did as I was told and took myself to bed. Like she said, I didn’t think I would sleep. I was too stressed. But as soon as I lay down sleep took me.