laneys.info Beware of Yankees, drunks, and loose women.

Dillon walked quickly up the road. More important than the large bag of honeycomb slung over his shoulder was the bouquet of small, pale blue flowers he held in his left hand. They were sure to bring a smile to his mother’s face. She had been sick for several days now, and she needed something to smile about. Dillon’s face clouded briefly as he thought about her symptoms and how similar they were to what he had heard and seen of the plague that had been ravaging the kingdom for five years now. He pushed the thought aside. It wasn’t that. No way.

He entered the city gates and waved to the watchmen. They watched him pass, but didn’t wave back.

“Humph. Last week, they would have waved.”

Dillon had noticed that a lot of people acted differently now. After his mother fell ill, it was as if people thought they would get sick just by talking to him. Even the priests, nuns, and nurses that served the church of Arhus treated them differently.

His father had changed, too. He was taking care of Mom most of the time, now that Dillon could handle the candle-making. There were still the contracts and payments to make, things that no one would let a ten-year-old handle. Dillon knew that his father would have let him handle that, too. The other merchants, though, were a different story.

As Dillon walked through the square and passed the fountain at its center, he saw several boys his age. They watched him pass without saying a word. He thought back to all those years ago, when they were all friends. It seemed a long time ago. Their families, one by one, had stopped coming to services at the church. There were only a few boys his age now attending the classes taught by Father Andrew, and only a couple more that showed up for services. All the orphans attended with the priests and nuns, of course, and there were more of them than ever with the plague lasting so long, but they never had the chance to speak to each other.

As he turned the corner onto his street, Dillon stopped. Two men stood outside his door, a handcart between them. Dillon’s heart chilled; he had seen that cart before. He dropped the bag from his shoulder and broke into a run, tears already streaming down his face. He couldn’t hear anything for the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, but he must have cried out, for his father emerged from the house, followed quickly by Father Andrew. Dillon buried himself into his father’s embrace, his words jumbled and incoherent. His father didn’t speak at all, he just held onto Dillon as he wept. Father Andrew knelt down next to them both and cradled Dillon’s head with his one hand while he gently took the bouquet of flowers from Dillon with the other.

Some hours later, after the house had been emptied of people, cleaned, and blessed by the church, Dillon and his father sat numbly at the kitchen table. Finally, Dillon broke the silence.

“We’ll see her again, right Dad? In Ghevond?”

“Yes, son. Arhus promises his faithful a place with him, forever,” Brian answered softly.

“Is it wrong for me to want that to come soon?”

“No, son. I miss her, too. But Arhus has something for us to do here, still. That’s why we didn’t go, too.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but no words came out. To Dillon’s horror, his father instead pitched violently forward onto the floor as he vomited blood.

Just as his mother had done five days before.