Raised by Wolves

Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42

ONCE HOLO AND I get all the tomatoes in the ground, Lacey goes out to check our work. I think it’s funny that she’s so obsessed with her garden when the whole meadow is edible. I wonder what she’d say if I told her that the cattails by the pond are delicious. Or that the plantain herb she calls a weed is good for poison ivy, or that the yarrow helps fevers and heals wounds.

“When’s that cake going to be ready?” Holo wonders.

I eyeball the timer. “Ten minutes.”

“I’m starving.”

“When aren’t you starving?”

He shrugs. “When I’m asleep.”

I swear he’s grown two inches since we came out of the woods.

And the wolf pups are gaining about three pounds a week.

Assuming they’re still alive.

“Can we take the cake out early?” Holo asks, gazing longingly at the oven.

I’m about to scold him— no, that’s a stupid question —when a short, high yelp rips through the air. Then comes a longer, low wail.

I hear, “Kai? Kai! ”

I run outside to find Lacey lying in the dirt at the edge of the garden. Her face is shiny with sweat and very white.

I drop to the ground beside her. A rock slices into my knee. I ignore it.

“Something—bit me,” she gasps. She’s clutching her left arm to her chest. Then she rolls over on her side, curls her knees up, and vomits.

Panic lights up my nerves. A rattlesnake , I think. But I manage to keep my voice calm. “Is it your arm? Your hand? Can I see it?”

Lacey doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s shaking, and now she’s crying in fear and pain. I gently tug on her arm, pulling it toward me. She squeezes her eyes shut and moans, “ Oh God oh God oh God —” A trickle of bile runs out of the side of her mouth.

There. I see it. Two deep puncture wounds on the fleshy part of her palm near the thumb. There’s no blood, but her hand is already starting to swell.

“Holo,” I shout over my shoulder. “Call the hospital!”

Lacey’s face is going from white to green.

Does the kid even know how to work a phone?

“It’s okay, Lacey, you’re okay,” I say urgently. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

I rush over to a clump of plantain herb, grab a few leaves, and shove them into my mouth. They’re disgustingly bitter and tough. I chew them for as long as I can stand it and then spit them into my hand. I run back to Lacey and press the green fibrous pulp against the bite.

“This is plantain,” I tell her. “It’s good for stings and snakebites.”

But she’s hyperventilating. Her legs start spasming. There’s no meadow herb that’s going to help her now.

“Holo!” I scream. “Are you calling?”

Once the chief showed us a movie where someone cut an X through a rattlesnake bite on someone’s leg and sucked the venom out. But that was a movie , and this is life , and what we need is an ambulance.

“It’s not working!” Holo shouts through the window.

“You idiot, you just press three buttons! 9-1-1!”

He’s crying and then he disappears from the window, and the next thing I know he’s shoving the phone in my face. The screen is dark.

And I realize that it’s dead.

“Isn’t there a cord?” I shriek.

“No, I looked everywhere!”

Lacey’s hand is getting bigger by the minute. Now there’s blood running down from the wounds, and it looks pale and watery because it’s been thinned by the venom. That must have been one big goddamn snake.

She’s sweating and groaning. She rolls over and vomits again.

“Then get me a towel and the car keys!”

But my brother just stares at me.

“Do you need me to bark it at you? Get the car keys! And a damp towel!”

“You don’t know how to drive!”

“I’m about to learn, aren’t I?”

With one final terrified glance at Lacey, Holo runs into the house. When he comes back, he’s got what I asked for. “Wrap that tight around her hand,” I tell him. “Keep the plantain on it.” I push Lacey’s hair off her damp forehead. “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper.

But I don’t know if it is.

I pull her to a seated position and then, with Holo’s help, I half carry, half drag her over to her car. We push her into the back seat, fold her legs up, and put a blanket over her. I feel her wrist. The pulse is so faint I almost can’t tell it’s there.

Holo gets in beside her. She’s almost unconscious now. “I turned off the oven,” he tells her. “The cake’s perfect.” Big fat tears start rolling down his cheeks. “Is she going to die?” he asks me.

God, I hope not. I grit my teeth and turn the key.