The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

John sat up. He held his head in his hands for a minute or more,
willing the dizziness away. What in the Lord’s name had happened just now? How
much time had passed? He blinked and dared a glance at the moon. It had not
moved, so he’d not been out very long. He rubbed his hands down the sides of
his face and flexed his fingers. The tingling that had intermittently plagued
him since the day of the lightning incident was gone.
    He stood. The pain in his legs
had vanished.
    His arms. They no longer ached.
    He looked around at the other
cottages in the village. No lights showed under doorways, no human shadow
appeared in the moonlit meadows. He prayed no one had witnessed the event.
There was talk enough in the village and in town about his escape from the
lightning bolt that had felled the massive tree. He took a step and felt ... he
felt good! Young, spry!
    He retrieved the carved box from
the ground. Did the ugly brown stain take on a golden glow when he touched it?
He held it at arm’s length and decided it was only a trick of the moonlight. He
started to set the box back on the cart but at the last moment changed his mind
and carried it into the house.
    Inside, sounds of sleep filled
the small space. Overhead, Sean’s loud snores echoed through the rafters, while
Maggie moaned lightly as she rolled over, adjusting to find comfort for her
large belly. In the corner, Ethan was quiet—too quiet. John knelt and held the
lamp above the pallet in the corner. The boy’s face now had a rash of dark
spots against the heat of the fever. John’s heart lurched. He held the back of
his hand near the boy’s open mouth, hoping to feel breath. It was there, but
very shallow.
    Should he wake Maggie? Should he
start for the O’Sullivan place?
    “I don’t know what to do for
you,” he whispered under his breath. “Son, I don’t know what to do.”
    He leaned forward and pulled
Ethan’s limp body into his arms, hugging the boy to his chest, stroking one
puffy, hot arm with the hand that was accustomed to discerning every knot in a
piece of fine wood. Ethan stirred, his eyelids fluttering.
    “Da’?”
    “Hey, boyo ,
how are you?” John kept his voice low, rubbed a fingertip across his son’s
forehead. It seemed a little cooler than a moment ago.
    “Da’ I don’t know what happened.”
    “You’re a little bit sick. Your
mother’s been here all afternoon but she needed to sleep.”
    The flush drained from the
child’s skin, and John could barely tell a difference now between his own
temperature and the boy’s. Ethan struggled in his arms and sat up.
    “I’m hungry, Da’. I missed my
supper, I think.”
    John nearly laughed aloud, tears
of joy threatening to spill. “Aye, you did that. Supper’s long over, but I’ll
find you something. Wait here.”
    But when John stood to look for
something to feed the child, Ethan got off his pallet and skipped to the table.
“There’s bread,” he said gleefully, “oh, and fresh milk!”
    Maggie sat up. “What’s this noise
about, then?”
    John found himself speechless. He
moved the lamp to the table and watched his son scramble around, picking up and
munching whatever he spotted to eat. Maggie stared at John, almost accusing.
    “You let him out of bed!”
    “He got up. The fever’s gone and
look at him!”
    She couldn’t argue with the happy
face and exuberant energy of their son. But she gave John a long, hard look.
    “We’ll not be repeating this
story,” she said. “Not unless you want to see me burned as a witch.”
    He nodded somberly. There was one
suspected witch who lived in the town, and she’d gained that reputation for an
event very similar to this. When a young girl had fallen ill two summers past,
the gray-haired woman had brewed a concoction—she protested that it was a tea
of herbs but no one else, including the doctor, knew of these herbs. When the
little girl began to sing and dance about, the old woman’s friends had all
stood at a distance,