CHAPTER TWELVE
After we took quick showers to get the mud off us, we sprang into action and started throwing stuff into our bags. At one point my bandage from my hand got caught on the zipper and pulled a bit of it loose.
I decided to check it out and unwrapped it. There were faint pink lines but other than that the cuts were completely healed. I undid the other hand and it was the same deal.
“Huh,” I mumbled. Dex came over to see what was up. I showed him my hands.
“Guess he really is a medicine man,” I said.
“Or was,” he added morbidly. He hunched down and lifted up the bottom of my tank top. I instinctively sucked in my stomach as his warm hands moved to the bandage. He peeled away the corners and peered at it inquisitively.
“Now that’s something,” he said, sounding impressed, and gently pulled the rest of the bandage off. I looked down. It looked like the cuts on my hands. Pink and smooth, like they had been that way for years. That was amazing.
Dex took the bandages from me and threw them in the trash. He wiped his hands and walked back to me.
“Let’s just hope he can heal himself,” he said.
There was a knock at the door. My heart beat loudly. Everything was going to catch me on edge now. Was it Bird? Was it Rudy?
“Who is it?” Dex asked suspiciously.
“Will,” was the reply.
Dex walked over and opened the door. Will looked as pale as a ghost.
“The phone is for you,” he said to Dex. “It’s Maximus.”
Huh. Dex hadn’t even had the chance to phone him yet.
“I better go explain,” he said and left with Will downstairs. I continued to pack, mulling over the speed in which my cuts healed. Rudy truly was a medicine man. It’s not that I really doubted it to begin with but I was obviously a bit skeptical. But he was a man who wanted to heal me, not harm me. If he were a skinwalker, why would he bother? No, that didn’t make sense. I didn’t sense anything but sincerity coming from him, even if he was a bit rough around the edges. As for Bird, I just couldn’t believe it. But then where did they go? If they were skinwalkers, the “logical” explanation would be that they turned into animals and left. If they weren’t skinwalkers, the “logical” explanation was that they had been killed or chased away by the skinwalkers. I hoped they had only been chased away, but either situation was devastating.
I heard the door click and my head snapped up. Sarah was in the room with me, the door closed behind her, a mug of something hot in her hands. She seemed to be staring straight at me behind those glasses. I could feel her unseeing eyes.
“Sarah,” I stammered and nervously crammed my last shirt into my duffel bag.
“I heard the news,” she said. Her voice had a soft, meek tone to it, a surprising change.
“Yeah,” I said and started fiddling absently with the bag.
She walked slowly around the bed but paused at the dresser, resting her mug on it. I studied her shyly, as if she was going to catch me staring. She didn’t look all that good, actually. Ashen and unkempt.
“I’m very worried,” she said wringing her hands. “It’s not like Bird to just disappear like that.”
I stopped packing and faced her. “Is it like Rudy?”
She thought about that for a second before shaking her head. “I don’t know Rudy very well. His business is none of my business. But he is an important man. That would not make much sense.”
I nodded, not feeling any closer to understanding the mystery. Sarah said nothing for a while. Perhaps she was reading my vibes or something. At last she picked up the mug and shuffled over to me.
“I made you this tea,” she said. She held the mug out awkwardly. I eyed it.
“It’s just Earl Grey,” she said quickly, sensing my hesitation. “None of that spiritual stuff.”
“Thank you,” I said slowly, “but I don’t really drink tea.”
I tensed for her reaction. She actually smiled and shrugged a little.
“That’s OK.” She moved forward, trying to put it down on the bedside table and missing. I grabbed it from her before it went all over the place. I sniffed it quickly. It was Earl Grey. It smelled like a London Fog actually. Damn drugs had me paranoid over everything I drank now.
I sat down on the bed and cupped the tea in my hands. Sarah still stood there, her attention now turned to the window.
“I have a feeling he’ll come back,” she said.
“Bird?”
“Mmmhmmm. As birds do.”
There were so many questions that I wanted to ask her. Mainly, why was she such a snickety bitch? And what did she think was going on? What were they going to do?
But I didn’t say anything. Instead I had a sip of my tea and let the silence get awkward.
She sighed and patted her frazzled black bun.
“Do you have a hairbrush I can use?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, putting down the tea and going into the bathroom where my toiletries bag was. My hairbrush was tangled with oodles of my hair which is only gross when you have to give your brush to someone else but I figured she was blind and wouldn’t know.
I came out of the bathroom and stopped behind her.
“Here it is,” I said loudly and reached over and placed it in her hand.
“Oh, thank you.” She carefully made her way over to the bathroom and started undoing her bun. Her hair was mad-ass long. She looked like an old-fashioned wench from the olden days, long dress, long hair that she slowly brushed with a blank yet fragile expression on her face. I watched her for a bit before I started to feel creepy. I turned my attention to my tea.
Eventually she called, “How does it look?”
I turned and saw her standing by the bathroom. Her hair was back in a smooth bun. She was smiling broadly. Was she really proud of herself, or….?
“It looks great,” I said.
“No bumps?” she asked, patting it.
“No bumps.”
Suddenly the door handle jangled. I flinched but Sarah didn’t budge.
“Perry!” Dex called from outside. “Why is the door locked?”
I got up just as Sarah moved in front of the door, still facing me, still smiling.
“She’s in here with me. You can see her in a minute,” she said through pearly whites.