Alima is taken to Heartenwood Hospital while Officer Campbell calls someone. The emergency room is empty besides the receptionist, until Alima hears a familiar voice float over. Brighid is checking an injection bottle, so she doesn’t notice Alima right away. "--out of stonemint in a month at this--"

Officer Campbell taps Alima’s shoulder. “I called your friends once you were in the ambulance. Owen should be here soon.”

“All right, let’s--Alima!” Brighid is startled, but keeps from both jabbing herself and dropping the bottle. But when Owen arrives, she relaxes. “Oh good, they won’t need to question her right away.”

Owen gets his phone out and shows the officer the video. “It was a bit past twelve when we recorded it. The original is on Aine McCallum’s phone, and she sent it to me a couple minutes later.”

“Did you use acorn powder or rowan?”

Brighid checks her needle again and draws in a little more medicine. “Alima, are you afraid of needles?”

“No,” she says. “It’s just that most people need a couple tries to find a vein.”

“Well, at least you’re honest.” Brighid sits down next to Alima, ties her left arm off near the elbow, and starts inspecting her left wrist. She tries the syringe on a spot near Alima’s wrist. (No luck. The syringe stays full.)

After two more tries, when Owen has told everything and sent the video to Officer Campbell, Brighid injects the stonemint somewhere near Alima’s elbow. Warmth pools out from the band-aid she sticks on Alima’s arm. “Poem or song, please,” she calls as a thread of magic winds outward from her.

Owen’s voice comes, wistful and haphazard:

“Cuchulainn said, ‘We were heart-companions once.
We were comrades in the woods.
We were men that shared a bed, when we slept the heavy sleep
After hard and weary fights.

Into many lands, so strange,
And side by side we ranged the woodlands through,
When we were taught by Scathach.’”

“Thanks, Owen,” Brighid says. She lays a hand on Alima’s burn, which pulses as it heals.

“Tomorrow?” Campbell asks, and Brighid nods. “Right, see you then. Owen, I’ll get you home.”

“Does my insurance--ack.” Her hand locks up, so she has to stop and shake it out. “Does my insurance cover this?” She wiggles her fingers to loosen them up.

“Your plan has about fifty-percent coverage, so you’ll only pay about thirty or forty euros.” Brighid takes her into one of the empty rooms and scans the chart. “No allergies or health conditions, right?” She asks, to Alima’s nod.

Brighid has to help her with combing and braiding her hair, since her right hand keeps cramping. Alima goes to sleep fine, but her dreams are filled with cat-green eyes and mocking laughter. She thinks she hears her father, howling for her like a wolf.

-----
Mal takes his uncle’s car to Heartenwood a bit after breakfast--the police were done talking to Alima at nine-thirty. The Folk blood has nearly eaten through the driver’s seat in spite of the police’s efforts, so replacing the seat is safer (and faster) than trying to repair it with magic. It’s still going to take a few days, though.

“Alima? They gave me back your knife--”

She goes taut when she hears him--people who were led off by the Folk startle easily--but then she just walks over and stares up into his face. She searches him in a desperate need for assurance, but he doesn’t know what for. “Brown,” she finally says, probably about his eyes.

“Em... yes?” Mal asks. He signs them out at the front desk and hands her the knife back.

“Oh.” She shakes herself and slides it back into its sheath. “Sorry, was that weird?”

“You were on the freeway with the Hunter--I’m surprised you didn’t take off.” He signs them out and takes her home.

-----
Ned calms down after two hours of restless seething, but he still doesn’t let Alima out of his sight for a couple of days. On a walk in the southern half of town, they take a break by the cemetery. Mal is there as well, and waves as he heads to the bench.

Ned’s wary of male things since his daughter is being stalked by a freak in a deer skull, so he sits between them under the bench with a grumble.

“Hi,” Alima says, and her scent turns to a mix of fear and sadness. “Did I interrupt anything?”

“No, you’re good,” Mal assures. “Mostly I just say hi and give a quick update. Leave a few coins for Da.”

“Coins?”

“They’re shiny,” Mal tells her with a laugh. “He was an electrician, so I guess it’s because they look like lights. We can’t leave actual lights on the graves, after all.”

Ned catches the scent of a woman as the two of them continue: Malachy’s mother walks through the fence to Mal’s side of the bench. “So you’re Ned Song, aren’t you? I’m Carrie Bray.”

Ned’s ears prick as he sits up. “You know I’m not a dog?”

“The Folk don’t pay much attention to the dead,” she says. “The Morrigan found your wife in the sidhe mound last week, so I’m just passing that on.”

“Tell Alima we’re alive!” Ned demands with a bark, tail wagging in earnest. “Or tell your son if you can’t--”

“Did you see a squirrel, Bulan?” Alima asks, ruffling his mane.

“He could fit one in his mouth!”

“I don’t want to find that out, though.” She takes a firm grip on Ned’s leash. The breeze blows a few leaves into Mal’s face, and she picks them out of his hair with a grin.

“I can’t tell anyone living,” Carrie apologizes. “If it weren’t the Hunter, I could say something to Mal. But he’s almost a god.”

Ned scrapes at the dirt. “Owen must know something--he had a vision of Lucy when he first saw me. She was hanging and her hair was cut off.”

“The problem is whether he connects it to his friend’s new dog,” Carrie counters gently. “As far as he knows, the Hunter is just yanking Alima around, like he does with everyone.”

“Is Lucy going to die?” Ned can’t help asking. He heard Owen tell Alima through the bedroom door, a few days after his vision. She spent a few hours on the floor with him, too uncertain to cry but too worried to sleep. She left her hair loose, and picked at it every few seconds.

“I don’t know,” Carrie admits. “Visions are always true, but the problem is how."

They listen to their children talk, and Carrie sighs. “I would have liked to meet you all. Alive, that is.”

“Same.” Ned rumbles and plunks down on Alima’s sneakers.

Next Chapter: XVI: keep away