Autumn (16 page)

             
Arabel awakened a mere few hours after dozing initially commenced to find that her feet and hands were like frozen ice blocks and every part of her skin was aching and sensitive, even to the slight weight of the sheet upon it. Arabel’s symptoms ruled one another out and she knew she would favour and appease as best as she could the chill, and somehow deal with the pain of the blankets upon her icy skin as she struggled toward the relief of warmth. Arabel’s throat felt papered with grit and dust. Her hands felt clumsy and her fingers would not bend as she willed them to.

             
After braving an increased momentary chill, in order to replenish the wood for the faltering fire in the stone grate, Arabel thankfully climbed back in bed. She did her utmost best to ignore the various assorted pains and aches throughout her body as she piled thick and heavy blanket after blanket on top of herself. She was weakened and thirsty and it appeared as though a momentous weight had descended upon her chest, rendering deep breathing impossible. Arabel even thought once she heard the ‘death rattle’ sounding ominously from deep within her chest cavity.
             

             
When Arabel returned to a fitful and restless sleep, the chill had not yet lessened. Her feet and hands felt frozen and she ducked her head under the bedclothes to warm her head and face, trapping her released breaths and sucking what little warmth she could out of them. Arabel was so chilled and uncomfortable that it appeared falling asleep was to be an impossible task.

             
After what seemed an eternity, however, she did just that, but when she next awoke, Arabel was dismayed to learn she was now at the other end of the heat spectrum. She was now consumed by an all-encompassing, hotly raging, all-over-body-fever.

             
The moment she became conscious of the inferno within, Arabel threw the cumbersome blankets back from the bed in a sick haste and stripped down to her thin undershirt, mopping her forehead, neck, and chest with a cool cloth from the basin beside her bed. This took all of Arabel’s ebbing strength as the fiery heat depleted her internal energy and she sank back against the pillows in a fever-induced delirium.

             
Morna came in a few hours later to awaken Arabel and bring her a morning cup of tea and the maid became fairly hysterical upon finding her young mistress lying across the bed in a dazed stupor, undressed, hot to the touch, and talking rabid-sounding nonsense.

             
The doctor was immediately fetched and Arabel subjected to a variety of unappealing physical tests. The elderly gentleman (whom Arabel generally despised as incompetent) relayed to Amelia Bodean and Morna that Arabel was suffering from dehydration and what appeared to most likely be a good, solid dose of a particularly vicious strand of the common flu. The doctor prescribed liquids and rest and cold compresses for the fever. He also recommended an ice bath, if needed, depending upon how long the raging fever persisted.

             
Amelia Bodean was paranoid of fever. She’d lost her daughter, Violetta, to fever, and had inherited the keeping of Arabel when Arabel’s father, Patrick Edward Spade, had also succumbed to the deadly fire within the body. The very word ‘fever’ was a whispered one in the Johnston household and Arabel was therefore put under close watch.

             
As the second day wore on into a haze-filled inferno of heat for Arabel, her grandmother ordered constant surveillance. Amelia Bodean herself sat with Arabel and placed cold compresses and ice upon her body for two consecutive over-night shifts before relinquishing her granddaughter’s care to Morna’s supervision, and then disappearing completely for the next two nights in an extended version of prayer circle.

             
For many long, sickly, sticky, and uncomfortable days, Arabel was oblivious to both visitors and reality, and often muttered unprompted, largely incomprehensible phrases and words out loud. These were unintelligible half-sentences, which sounded intriguing but were never completed, much to the chagrin of Morna, who was still trying to figure out what had gone on with Arabel and her young handsome Gypsy suitor and was heartily listening for any available clue.

             
Shelaine came to visit and Morna let her into the sickroom for only a moment or two on the fifth day of Arabel’s illness. The fever had broken slightly and Arabel was no longer rambling about red sunflowers and luscious Gypsy kisses. Arabel was in and out of wakefulness and awareness. Her skin still burned but her breathing had evened out. She was still far too warm to the touch and she could only stand to wear a short, summer-like shift despite the faint chill in the room.

             
“Arabel, can you hear me?” Shelaine whispered to her friend’s inert form from her perch in the chair beside Arabel’s sickbed.

             
Arabel stirred. She could hear someone talking to her but it seemed to be too far away to be real. Arabel thought she saw the red of Shelaine’s hair, however, as she peeked out of one eye drowsily.

             
“You are real,” she murmured, and Shelaine moved closer, briefly touching Arabel’s shoulder.

             
“Yes, dear girl, I’m real, and so are you, but I might start wondering about that as I never see you anymore!”

             
Arabel let out a weak laugh. It did feel as if a long time had passed since she’d last seen her friend.

             
”You were ill, when I was at your house,” Arabel managed, noting suddenly how parched her throat was. She reached for the lemon water beside her bed and Shelaine passed it to her. Arabel drank deeply and gratefully.

             
“Oh, that was nothing,” Shelaine replied. “Just a headache, it was more of a nuisance really.” She peered at Arabel intently. “What happened with you and Eli?” she whispered.

             
Arabel tried to sit up in bed. The pillows were irking her and she was tired of reclining. Her body seemed to have moulded itself into one static repose and was whole-heartedly begging for her to alter it. Arabel wasn’t sure how to respond to her friend. She decided to be truthful. Mostly.

             
“I’ve fallen for him,” Arabel said simply.

             
Shelaine’s richly freckled face broke out into the widest grin Arabel had ever seen it wear. She laughed and the delighted sound filled the sickroom with brightness and a gaiety that had been missing for the last few days.

             
“Finally!” Shelaine squealed, laughing. “Oh, I’m so pleased!”

             
Arabel grinned in response, feeling slightly pleased as well, despite the burning up of her body and the headache, and lingering aches and pains that seemed to be plaguing her everywhere there were nerves, muscles or sensation in her body.

             
“And to think I had a hand in setting you up with him!”

             
“How did you know?” Arabel questioned.

             
“I asked him how the two of you had fared on your journey. He turned quite red and stammered some utter nonsense for a reply so I knew something was curious! He’s not the stammering kind.”

             
“You mustn’t say anything,” Arabel spoke earnestly. “It’s best not to let my grandmother know.”

             
Shelaine sent Arabel an arched look. “As if I would say anything!” she huffed indignantly, and then she smiled, despite herself. “He’s very handsome,” Shelaine continued, amused. “I dare say, though, your grandmother is not going to approve of a Gypsy boy.”

             
Arabel had no response. Shelaine was quite right on both counts: Eli was handsome and Grandmother Amelia Bodean would never approve of Arabel’s romantic and physical involvement with a Gypsy boy. Arabel pushed the thought away. She wished she could also push the fever away, as it was so greedy and energy depleting.

             
Shelaine could see Arabel tiring and she took her leave, promising to return in a couple of days.

             
“Feel better soon, love, and I will keep my eye on your boy,” Shelaine said with a wink and a good natured ribbing.

             
Arabel was pleased to see her friend but she wondered why she’d not heard from Eli. Maybe he’d come by and Morna had seen him, she’d have to ask. She was just so incredibly tired, and thirsty. Arabel sipped again at her lemon water and then sank back into the soft pillows, clutching the cold compress to her forehead.

             
Arabel slipped quietly back into deep sleep once Shelaine had gone. She dreamed she was floating in the sky, the big, bright, blue sky, but something was behind her, chasing her, and she was losing ground. Panic set her heart to hammering and her hands, which now resembled wings, jutted out to the sides of her body as she flew higher and higher over to a mountaintop and the snow-kissed peak of its highest point. She then dropped down and landed upon the soft turf of green ground, but whatever had been chasing her had landed also. Arabel turned, ready to fight, to defend, to flee, whatever was required, she would offer.

             
But the opponent chasing her was Alice-May Marpole. The victim’s long chestnut hair floated out behind her as she ran toward Arabel, uttering a bloodcurdling scream that echoed within Arabel’s head and caused her to feel as if her very skull would crack in two from the pressure.

             
Then the dream changed. Danger was now imminent and evil was already flooding the room in search of Arabel.

             
Someone was shaking her by the arm, insistently calling her name:  Arabel! Arabel Spade!

             
A tall figure, a man, wearing a severely cut black suit and sporting a similarly matching severe expression was staring insolently at her scantily clad and feverish body. The man was jostling her by the arm and calling her name. Arabel could feel his green eyes greedily feasting upon her bodice and long, uncovered legs and hopefully peering at where the thin shift ended at the top of her thighs.

             
A surge of shame rose up within her and Arabel instinctively fought it back at once. She would feel no shame over her own body. She had not asked for this man’s attentions. She was in the sanctity of her own bedroom, her own sickroom, if you please.

             
Arabel returned the man’s intrusive gaze as best as she could, letting him see that despite the fever, she still possessed ownership of her body and he could not claim sovereignty of it by visual force. Arabel felt the chalk in her mouth; the malevolent energy had returned. It stared back at her from the man’s arrogant green eyes.
             

             
Arabel fought to wake up; the dream had her clasped within vicious teeth, it was tugging her skin apart from invisible seams.

             
Was that Grandmother Amelia Bodean? Pulling on the stranger’s arm, leading him away from Arabel. Looking scornfully down her nose, through wire-rimmed reading glasses, talking, high-pitched.

             
The tall figure, condescending and yet desirous of her; the man reminded Arabel of Chief Constable Bartlin. Then there were pointing fingers. Hazy voices.  A door slamming. An empty room.

             
Arabel awakened to a pounding headache. The room had grown dark. She must have been sleeping for some time. Arabel felt a slight chill and pulled the blankets from the end of the bed up to cover herself and warm her cool skin. The fire lazily flickered in the grate but no candles relinquished the black corners of the room. Her fever had finally broken.

             
Arabel watched the flames, orienting herself to the dark. The flames danced and a face appeared to form within their glowing matter. The flames moved with the flickering image of a man; he reminded Arabel of Jonty Governs, the weasel. The flames ate at and spewed back the image, contorting and distorting it, rendering the face into the ugliest visage Arabel had ever seen. She shivered and looked away, pleased when Morna entered the room with a tray of barley soup and tea.

             
“Feeling better now, are you?” Morna clucked, tucking a linen napkin around Arabel’s neck and setting a large wooden tray securely across her lap.

             
“Very much so, thanks.” Arabel eyed the soup with enthusiasm; it seemed her appetite had returned and she was eager to sample her meal.

             
Morna’s face was worried. Arabel wanted to ignore whatever it was but it didn’t seem like she was going to get the opportunity to choose whether or not to do so.

             
“Miss, I’m dreadfully sorry. I must’ a cursed you, what with saying to your granny that you took ill, and then you did just that! And with such a terrible fever!” The maid moaned, looking away from Arabel, guilt and worry adorning her conscientious face.

             
Arabel held out her hand to Morna. “You didn’t curse me Morna, you silly girl. I’m fine now.”

             
Arabel glanced around the room, checking to see if she would experience any dizziness or pain anywhere. She’d yet to try standing, and frankly, at the moment, the idea was rather unappealing. Arabel wasn’t certain of her balance and equilibrium quite yet. Her headache persisted but it was not at the same vicious tempo as before and the accompanying nausea had abated. She knew the nourishing meal would go a long way toward recovering her strength and facilitating her well-being.