“Just take little sips,” Roderick instructs as simply as he can. “This will make you better.”
She slowly sips until the canteen is empty, but this does less to calm Roderick down than he had expected. The flowers are only a myth, after all, and she never tol
d him what the doctor had found. Maybe it ended up being nothing. Maybe that’s why she kept the flowers and didn’t do anything with them, not wanting to ruin their mystique for him.
The hours come and go, and little changes. Roderick lets the fire die down but then rebuilds it as the sun sets. Alba drifts into an even deeper sleep, one he is unable to rouse her from. He lies down by her in the night, but cannot bring himself to sleep, focusing only on the rising and lowering of her chest.
‘If I can hear her breathing, then there is still hope for her to come back,’ he tells himself.
As the sun lifts into the sky and shines its light on Alba, Roderick notices some things he hadn’t been able to see in the orange light of the fire. Her bruises have faded substantially. Some of the smaller ones have even vanished entirely. Several of her cuts have also begun healing over.
“Hey,” he excitedly whispers to her. “You’re getting better.”
She doesn’t respond or react to his voice. Despite the brightness of the morning light, she remains in her slumber.
‘She’s not out of the dark yet,’ he reminds himself.
He then determines to get her carefully out of the mountains as soon as possible. Thinking quickly, he makes a trip to his cache of supplies, constructing a crude stretcher with boards and ropes, which then fasten to the horse’s saddle, and adding layers of soft fabric and cushion to make it more comfortable.
“I’m sorry if this hurts you,” he tells her,
“but I need to get you to a doctor. Please stay with me. We’re almost through this.”
The journey is slow as he guides the horse back down the pass, leading with one hand and balancing Alba with the other as she lie’s resting on the horse’s back. It takes another night and day to reach the nearest town, and Roderick goes without rest the entire way. With Alba doing little more than breathing, he becomes anxious once more and desperate to find help.
Night has fallen again by the time they arrive in the tiny village. Roderick pounds on the doors of homes until he is able to find a doctor, which fills him with relief because not all places so small have one. Despite the lateness of the hour, the doctor is very kind in how he responds to Roderick’s plea for help, having Roderick immediately bring Alba in for examination.
The doctor, however, doesn’t know what to make of the injuries. Several of Alba’s bones are broken, and she has other severe injuries. Yet, her body as a whole remains strong, at least that is how the doctor explains it.
“I can’t really tell you why,” he says bewildered, “but strength seems to be returning to her body despite how broken it really is. The way her bruises and cuts have so quickly healed speaks to that. There’s little I can do but set the fractured bones back in place. The rest will be up to her, particularly the waking up part, but with head injuries that’s never a guarantee.”
Roderick thanks the doctor, who returns to bed after stabilizing her. Roderick remains by her side, wanting to stay awake despite his heavy eyelids. She may not be conscious to experience her suffering, but he is. It torments him. He wishes so much that they could somehow trade places.
When the sun rises, the doctor returns to check on her, waking an exhausted Roderick to give him an update.
“Remarkable,” he comments on her progress through the night. “This kind of healing normally takes days, not a few hours. I guess she’s just not meant to pass on right now.”
Encouraged, Roderick goes into town and buys a small carriage. The doctor helps him convert its bench into a narrow bed for Alba. Roderick then offers the carriage to the doctor as a gift if he will but drive them back on the week’s journey south to his estate. The doctor agrees, and Roderick spends most of the trip kneeling by Alba’s side on the carriage floor.
It takes a couple more weeks for Alba to wake up. At first, she is uncertain of where she is because Roderick is not in the room. She panics a little and tries to get up, but her aching body reminds her to take it slow. Carefully, she stretches out her arms and legs, bending her joints back and forth to find that other than some soreness, each works as it should.
Once she feels comfortable, she stands up and walks to the window, parting the curtains only to become overwhelmed by the brightness of the sunlight. Her eyes are slow to adjust as she stumbles back and closes them again. When she opens them back up, she immediately recognizes the large garden that stretches out below the window, and a quivering, elated smile fills her face.
“Do you remember what happened?” a familiar voice calls out from behind her.
She turns to find Roderick standing at the doorway but doesn’t run into his arms, though she nearly bursts into tears at the sight of him. She instead pauses and looks down, taking the question seriously because she wants to remember. She wants to understand how it is that she is in this peaceful place when she fell so far and was gripped by agony and death for so long.
“Just pieces,” she recalls, looking back up toward Roderick, who approaches her with soft footsteps. “I remember slipping and falling. After that, my eyes felt like they were sealed shut. As though I was paralyzed in some lost dream and couldn’t escape. There was a lot of pain, but it didn’t seem real. Nothing seemed real. Not until I heard your voice.”
Roderick places his arms around Alba as she begins crying into his shoulder. His touch warms her, calming her trembling body and granting her the composure to continue speaking.
“How did you find me?”
He smiles at her, ready to tell her the truth.
“I was the one who planted the flowers there.”
Alba begins to laugh and cry at the same time, looking up and smiling as she does so.