Maggie of the Mist by Madeleine M. (best ebook reader for ubuntu txt) 📕

to slight irritation. Before he had time to answer her questions, Maggie began to drag him towards a corner. They were headed for a well. He started to panic. What did she plan to do when they got to the well? Throw him in? Hit him unconscious with the bucket so they wouldn’t have to drag him all the way to Koal? He realized that his nerves were getting the best of him – not that nerves were his problem. He tried to focus on something else. He started to hum a tune in his head, the one that he had heard the same night he had met Maggie on the road. The melody calmed him down enough that he could think straight by they reached the well.

 

“Sit.” She ordered him like Vika, except without the attitude. As he sat on the edge of the well, she began to pull the bucket up. He would have helped, but by the time he thought of it, the bucket, filled with cool water, was on the ledge next to him. For a girl that seemed so weak and fragile, she had muscle. She untied a cloth that was tied around her thin arm – she was ready for almost everything. Dipping part of it in the water, she started to tie it around his forehead. He hadn’t realized how hot his skin was until the cold dampness touched it. With quick fingers, Maggie tied it with the knot at the left side of his head. She is such a mother hen, he thought to himself. “There,” she said stepping back to access her work, “Feel a bit better now?” Keith smiled. He felt so much better. As she placed her hand back on his forehead to check the heat, he felt more than better.

 

*****

 

Maggie always knew that men in general were oblivious to how sick they really were. But she thought that Keith was just a little too clueless. His skin was blotchy, as if it was trying to decide whether it should be pale or beat red. He seemed cool and collected most of the time, yet here he was acting like a mad man. In his defense she had only travelled with him for only four or five days – and she barely ever had the courage to speak to his face – so she could hardly make a good comparison. The look that he had when they met Redd earlier made her shiver; it looked like hatred. Did his fever cause him to act strange? He really had no reason to hate her trainer.

 

When she had stood and watched Keith sink to the ground leaning on that tree, he looked like he was confused. She had tried to figure out why he had acted strange. He seemed too concentrated to notice her standing right in front of him. Not knowing what to do, she decided she had to snap him out of it. The way he looked at her when she first talked was expected, but after she brought him back from the next little daze he fallen into, he looked at her the same way he had when they had met in the forest. It made her feel self-conscious.

 

Now here they were, at the edge of a well in the middle of a village, and he looked like he was a lost dog. His eyes looked longingly at her, and she felt uncomfortable. Trying to focus on something else, Maggie started to wonder why he would hate Redd as she fiddled with the thin rope attached to the bucket. He was nice enough, and he had trained her for the longest time he had ever trained another. One of the unique things that made him stand out from all other trainers that her uncle could have chosen was the fact that they were cousins and he was only five summers older than her.

 

She sat down next to Keith on the well, and slowly lowered to bucket back down. It was because of Redd that she was able to travel alone with Vika and Angus to find her family, whether he knew it or not. She was very lucky. Even if she only had the skills Aunt Heather had taught her, she might have made it to Koal, but not Tìrbogha.

 

“Well,” she said standing again, “We probably should –.” With such suddenness, Keith reached out and grabbed her arm. The Tine’la had no time to explain his actions before instinct kicked in. Maggie didn’t realize she had grabbed his arm and flipped him over the wall of the well until after it happened. Now he was dangling from a stone that jutted out of the inside of the wall. Great, she thought. How am I supposed to get him out?

 

“Hold on!” Maggie cried, looking around. There was no one in sight, no rope to be seen, and Redd’s house was on the outskirts of the village. There wouldn’t be enough time to run and get him. The rope on the bucket was thin and fraying already, the Tine’la’s weight would break it for sure. She would have to pull him out herself.

 

“I don’t think that I have a choice.” Keith called from the well.

 

“I could do without your humour at the moment.” Maggie took off her cloak and reached her hand down as far as she could. Keith reached up. If they both stretched, Maggie could reach his elbow. Grabbing onto his arm with both hands, and bracing her feet on the rocks, she pulled.

 

“Ow! Ow! What are you trying to do, rip my arm off?” Keith’s voice echoed off the stone sides of the well, as Maggie pulled harder. His comments were not needed. Puffing, she decided to rest a little, hoping to try again or come up with a better way of getting him out after she caught her breath. As she sat and thought about the option of leaving him after all – if he was a spy, he wasn’t going to tell anyone about them if he was at the bottom of a well – she heard a faint crack. It came from the well. Then there was an even fainter splash.

 

Oh no! He fell in! She thought as she turned to look into the well with her heart in her throat. Nope. He was still there, but the stone that he was hanging from was half its original size. Maggie knew she couldn’t just leave him hanging there, her heart wouldn’t let her. She reached into her shirt and tucked the leather strip that held her stone into the tighter folder of her undershirt. Thank the Maiden’s Moon she was wearing pants, because the next thing she was about to do would be very awkward in a dress.

 

Standing on the wall, Maggie bounced on the balls of her feet, checking to see if it would hold their weight. Hearing another crack, she sat down again with her back to the well. She took a long slow breath. Carefully, she lowered herself over the edge while her bent knees were clinging to the top of the little wall.  She had done this kind of thing before – kind of. When Redd was training her, he had made her hang up side-down on a tree branch, and once she was strong enough, he made her reach down and pick things up off the ground. The heaviest thing she had lifted was a medium bag of potatoes right before he left. Now she hoped that her slight adrenaline rush she got after that first crack would help her lift Keith out.

 

“What in Veils are you doing?” Keith yelled at her as she lowered herself down.

 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She said when she was finally in place. “Can you reach my hands?” When he tried, he could reach just above her elbows. “Good. Now I’m going to start pulling you up.” With both hands, she held onto his reaching arm, and began to pull – despite his protest of her being not strong enough. “Alright, when you get so you can bring your feet up to that stone you were just dangling from, don’t hesitate to help push yourself up. Oh, and watch your head on that bar across the top of this thing.”

 

Maggie didn’t have to wait long. Just as a dull empty pain spread in her core, the Tine'la weight eased up, and she knew his feet had found the stone. She had enough time for one breath before Keith used his footing to propel them both out of the well. With one swift motion – using Keith’s momentum – Maggie pulled them both out. Gasping, she looked up to see Keith sprawled out by her feet. Hysteria escaped from her in laughter. Sitting up, his mouth was wide open, and he rubbed his head. He must have hit it off the bar across the top of the well – it was used to keep the rope straight. That thought, and his open confusion, made her laugh all the more. She stood up and put her cloak on and her hood up, still laughing.

 

“What in the world?” Keith sounded stunned as Maggie helped him to his feet. “How did–who showed–you–you just…” He was obviously struggling with her little upside-down stunt. Maggie stood and brushed the dust from her clothes. She picked up her cloak and shook it out before placing it over her shoulders again. Turning her back to the red head, she released her necklace from the folds. Maggie did so quickly, afraid that it might burn her because she touched the Tine’la. Instead, she felt a warm pulsing heat, like her own heartbeat. Finally, he had gathered enough wits to form a proper question. “Where, in the foggy Veils, did you learn that? I mean - you know - the part where you were hanging upside-down.”

 

Maggie started walking out of the small courtyard. Keith stumbled a few times as he tried to match her quick pace.  “Well, as I told you before, Redd trained the three of us,” she explained, “A few years ago, before Redd left – and before my aunt passed – he came up with this new exercise. He told me to hang upside-down on a branch. Eventually, he had me lifting things. Redd said that if I kept it up I might get a few planks of a washboard.” Keith stifled a laugh. Then it turned into a cough and soon he was doubled over. Maggie stopped walking and scolded herself. Keith had a fever, and probably a concussion after hitting his head off the bar. She needed to set a much easier pace.

 

But she also needed to get him to Redd. The faster Keith was out of this fever, the faster they'd be able to move north towards the bog. At the thought of the bog, her stone suddenly went cold against her skin. The shock made her gasp. When she averted her attention back to the Tine'la, he had stopped coughing and was now looking at her with a very puzzled expression.

 

"What?" Maggie tried to shrug off his gaze and stalked out of the little square space. She kept her pace quick but comfortable for her sick prisoner. Every so often, she would glance over her shoulder and find him tripping over roots that stuck out of the newly green ground. The birds chirped and sang their songs of mid-spring in the branches above their heads, keeping them company as Maggie lead the trek through the underbrush.

 

It wasn't long before the smell of wood smoke came to tickle Maggie's nose. Behind the next few trees she could make out a wooden shack that had been weather worn. As they approached the cottage, Keith collapsed face first into the softness of the tiny new blades of grass.

 

“For love of the Maiden!” Vika complained from the small wooden porch. She heaved an annoyed sigh. “Angus,