Needle and Thread

Kaleb was resting his head against the window.

Outside, the road wound between low hills. The fog crept along the ground and hid everything beyond a few yards. The sky was the same gray as that morning, and the morning before.

“Does anyone remember the last time they saw the sun?” he asked.

“I told you, the sun doesn’t rise in Barovia,” said Laghai, without opening his eyes.

Kaleb turned to Ireena, as if hoping she’d prove him wrong.

“Some days are brighter than others,” she said. She thought about it for a moment. “But no. I’ve never seen it.”

Kaleb stared at her in disbelief.

“Never?”

Ireena shook her head.

Alexis, sitting across from her, pictured a little Ireena playing with her dog in the manor gardens under that gray sky. It seemed a little sad to her.

After a while, the landscape began to change. On the left side of the road, gray stones appeared, poking out of the tall grass and the brush. At first there were only a few, scattered and half hidden by the undergrowth, but as they went on there were more and more.

What looked like a graveyard stretched on for acres. The headstones jutted out of the fog like broken teeth, among rusted mausoleums and angels with shattered wings.

“What a cheerful place,” Kaleb murmured.

Here the mist felt thicker. Several ravens watched the cart from tall statues, perfectly still, not cawing. The only sounds were the rattle of the wheels and the horses’ hooves on the wet road.

A small figure appeared in the middle of the road.

Sinnos yanked hard on the reins. The horses stopped, restless, tossing their manes.

“What the hell…?” he muttered.

It was a boy, no more than eight or nine years old. He raised his head at the sound of the cart. His face was dirty and streaked with tears, his clothes soaked and torn, as if he’d been running through the bushes.

He looked at them with big, frightened eyes. His lower lip was trembling.

“Help me,” he said in a broken voice. “Please… I can’t find my mom and dad.”

Ireena sat up in her seat.

“We have to help him. He’s just a child.”

Alexis frowned.

“Ireena, stay…”

But Ireena was already opening the little door.

“We can’t leave him here. What if something happens to him?”

The boy started toward the cart with small, unsteady steps.

He dragged his feet over the wet leaves, and every step seemed to cost him.

“Please,” he repeated, his voice almost gone. “I’m lost. It’s so cold… I don’t know where mom and dad are.”

The group tensed. Even Kaleb had stopped smiling.

But Ireena was already leaning out of the cart’s door, holding out her hand.

“Come here, little one. You’re safe now.”

The boy looked up at her and smiled. It was a brief smile, one that lasted an instant too long.

It happened in the blink of an eye. The boy’s skin turned gray as a corpse’s, his eyes went empty and his mouth opened impossibly wide, showing blackened teeth. His fingers stretched into claws while his whole body twisted and cracked in front of them like a broken puppet.

And then, from among the headstones, at least a dozen more creatures began to emerge.

“Ghouls!” Sinnos shouted.

The ghoul-child hissed, its claws reaching for Ireena. She stumbled back with a strangled cry.

Alexis leaped through the door with her swords already drawn and stopped the first swipe almost without thinking.

“Ireena, stay back!” she yelled.

The ghouls were coming from every direction. The stench of churned earth and rot became unbearable.

All around the cart it was steel against rotting flesh.

Sinnos’s hammer came down on one crawling toward the horses. The blow shook the ground.

Kaleb climbed onto the roof of the cart with his bow. Laghai was already sliding toward a pair of ghouls.

Alexis deflected another attack from the ghoul-child and went for its neck with her blade. The creature fell with a guttural moan.

Over her shoulder she caught sight of Ireena in the doorway, frozen, clutching her father’s rapier to her chest.

Two more burst out from behind a toppled tomb, faster than the others. Alexis barely managed to turn. She blocked the first one’s claws with one sword and sank the other into its neck; she kicked it away while already turning toward the second.

A ghoul bigger than the others, wearing the tatters of what had once been a nobleman’s clothes, circled around the cart. Its dead eyes fixed on the horses.

It leaped onto Miladi. Its claws sank into her neck, and blood gushed out, dark and heavy.

Miladi’s scream split the air.

Alexis ran toward her, but there were two ghouls in the way. She cut down one, dodged the other. By the time she got there, it was too late.

Miladi fell to her knees, the ghoul still clinging to her neck. The calm eyes that had looked at Ireena the night before went dark.

Alexis drove both swords into the creature’s back. It writhed and fell.

“Alexis!” Kaleb shouted.

A burning pain tore through her side. She felt the claws rip through the leather of her armor, through skin, deeper.

A hoarse cry escaped her.

An arrow pierced the chest of the ghoul that had wounded her. The creature didn’t move again.

After that, there was only the group’s ragged breathing and the smell of blood in the damp air.

Alexis staggered, clutching her side. Blood seeped between her fingers.

Sinnos came over and examined the wound with a critical eye. Kaleb was already beside her, pressing a rag against her side.

“We need to leave, now,” said Sinnos, looking down the road. “With luck we’ll find somewhere to sleep before nightfall.”

Laghai was cutting the straps that tied Miladi to the cart. The brown horse was still trembling.

“Alexis…” Ireena had climbed down from the cart, her face white. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

But Ireena’s eyes had already gone to Miladi. The pool of dark blood was spreading beneath the motionless body. The white spots on her muzzle were stained red.

“No! Miladi!” Ireena cried, sobbing. “I… I only wanted to help the boy. I didn’t know…”

Laghai walked past her, holding Alexis up by the arm.

“You can’t trust anyone. Don’t be naive,” he said curtly.

They climbed back into the cart in silence.

Ireena was the last one in. The tears were still running down her cheeks, but she no longer made a sound as she cried.

---

Inside the cart, nobody spoke. The surviving horse pulled alone, with nervous steps, and Sinnos guided it carefully, avoiding any sudden movements.

Time stretched on. Every time a wheel dropped into a rut, Alexis let out a groan she tried to swallow. Ireena couldn’t stop looking at the hand pressed against her side.

The gray daylight began to fade.

“There,” Sinnos said at last.

A two-story wooden building appeared through the fog, with faint lights in the windows. A hanging sign read “The Silver Fox” in faded letters.

Sinnos stopped the cart in front of the entrance. He jumped down and helped Alexis climb out.

Inside, the warmth and the smell of food wrapped around them all at once. A few regulars sat at scattered tables, and the fire in the hearth crackled low.

“How many rooms?” asked the innkeeper, a burly man with an enormous beard, without looking up from the register.

“Two,” Sinnos replied, dropping a few coins on the counter. “And a bottle of your strongest liquor.”

The innkeeper raised an eyebrow, but pulled a bottle out from under the counter.

Kaleb laughed.

“Seriously, Sinnos? Now’s the time for a drink?”

Sinnos gave him a flat look.

“It’s for cleaning the wound. Don’t be an idiot.” He turned to Alexis. “Are you going to need help?”

“I can manage, thanks.” Alexis took the bottle and one of the keys.

She climbed the stairs slowly; every step drew a grimace from her.

The group spread out among the tables. Kaleb ordered food. Sinnos dropped into a chair with a huff. Laghai stayed near the door, watching.

Pancracio walked over to Ireena.

“You should get some rest.”

Ireena didn’t answer. She was staring at the stairs.

“Ireena.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“You should get some rest. It’s been a… difficult day.”

Ireena nodded.

---

The room was small but clean: two narrow beds, a table, a pitcher of water.

Alexis set the bottle on the table and began taking off her armor with clumsy movements. The leather was soaked with dried blood and stuck to the wound. When she finally got it off, she let it drop to the floor with a dull thud. She unbuttoned her shirt: three deep gashes ran across her side.

She took a needle, thread and bandages out of her pack.

She sat on the edge of the bed and poured the liquor straight onto the wound.

The pain went through her like lightning. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming, gripping the edge of the bed.

She breathed. Once, twice, three times. She waited for the pain to turn into something more manageable.

She threaded the needle with fingers that were still shaking and brought it to the wound, looking for the right angle to stitch up her own side.

The door opened.

“Alexis, I…” Ireena stopped short.

Alexis whipped around, the needle still in her hand and her shirt open.

“Don’t you know how to knock?”

Ireena closed the door behind her and hurried over.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Alexis replied, trying to sound casual. “Stitching myself up.”

“By yourself.”

“It’s not the first time.”

Ireena looked at the wound, then at the needle in that shaking hand, then at her face.

“Let me help you.”

“You don’t have to…”

“I know how to sew,” Ireena cut in, and held out her hand.

Alexis hesitated. She studied her for a moment. Then she handed over the needle.

“All right.”

Ireena washed her hands with liquor and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at the wound, which was still bleeding, and took a deep breath.

The first stitch was tentative. Alexis tensed, but didn’t make a sound. The second was firmer. By the third, Ireena had found her rhythm.

“It was my fault,” Ireena said quietly. Her hands didn’t stop. “What happened to Miladi.”

Alexis took a moment to answer.

“It was a trap.”

“But I was naive,” said Ireena. “Because I don’t know anything. I couldn’t even…”

She bit her lip.

“You couldn’t even what?”

“I don’t know how to fight,” she finished, and went back to the wound. “I don’t know how to defend myself. I feel like I’m useless.”

“You’re stitching a wound right now.”

Ireena kept working in silence, her stitches growing more and more sure.

“They taught me this at school,” she said after a while. “To be a good wife. To mend my husband’s clothes, embroider pretty things for the house.” There was a bitter edge to her voice. “Not for… this.”

“But it worked.”

“I suppose.”

Alexis watched her work. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

“Ireena, you’re not useless,” she said.

Ireena didn’t say anything else. She finished the last stitch and cut the thread. Her hands were stained with blood, but the job was done: the stitches were a little uneven, but firm.

“Done,” she whispered.

They stayed like that for a moment, Ireena still bent over the wound, her fingers brushing Alexis’s skin as she checked her work.

“Thank you,” said Alexis.

Ireena nodded and began bandaging her. When she finished, she stayed sitting there, looking at her stained hands.

“You should wash up,” said Alexis, pulling her shirt closed.

“Yes.”

But she didn’t move.

“Alexis?”

“Yes?”

“Could you… teach me?” Ireena looked her straight in the eye. “To defend myself.”

Her eyes were still red from crying.

Alexis held her gaze for a moment.

“I can teach you a few things.”

A small smile appeared on Ireena’s face.