Seeds of Discovery (19 page)

The morning had passed by in a busy blur. There was so much to do in the clinic. By the time she found herself on horseback again, Quinn was starting to wonder what exactly it was she did with all of her time in Bristlecone.

They rode for about an hour before Thomas suggested they stop for lunch. Nathaniel found a shady spot near a stream where they could lay out a blanket and
unwrap
the neat little packages that Quinn and Essie had put together that morning.

“
You doing
okay, Quinn?” Nathaniel asked, once they were sitting down.

“Yes.” Although she could tell there was more to his question than just the trail ride, she decided to avoid the bigger question for now, and she smiled. “I’m getting used to being on horseback all the time again.”

Nathaniel smiled back. “I’m glad that hasn’t been an additional hardship on you.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful, “You’ve been a lot of help to us here the past couple of days. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “What else is there to do?”

Nathaniel frowned. “That’s a fair question, I suppose. This whole situation has to be pretty strange for you.”

“It is. It’s been interesting, though. I never imagined that something like this was going to happen when I followed William.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. Still, you didn’t freak out. You just jumped right in and became part of things.”

“You’re one of us now.” Thomas smiled at her. “Our mystery solver.”

“I didn’t solve the mystery,” she said. “We know what the problem is now, but we still don’t have any idea how all these kids are getting shadeweed poisoning.” Quinn reached across the blanket for an apple, and as she did so, the short sleeve of her shirt pulled up slightly.

Nathaniel almost choked on his sandwich, “Is that what Tolliver did to you?”

Quinn was confused for a moment, but then she remembered the deep bruise on her arm that was beginning to turn fascinating shades of green.

“Yes,” Thomas answered darkly, before she could form the words.

“That s...” Nathaniel looked at Quinn, and didn’t finish whatever word he’d been going to utter. “I’d like to kill him with my bare hands.”

Thomas looked stunned, “I’ve never heard you say something like that, Nathaniel.”

Nathaniel looked sheepish, but not sorry.

“Not that I blame you -- I wouldn’t mind serving his tongue for dinner myself.”

Quinn burst out giggling. Thomas and Nathaniel both stared at her. “Sorry -- I know it’s not funny,” she choked out between spasms. “It’s just...” but before she could finish her sentence, they were all laughing.

“I wonder if he’s finally left and gone to crawl back under the rock he came from,” Thomas said, once they had all calmed back down.

Nathaniel shook his head. “He was still at the castle yesterday when we went back for supplies. I spoke with your father briefly. The talks about the Philotheum crown are not going well.”

“He has to know we’d never allow it. And his own people -- he’d have a rebellion on his hands.” There was fury underneath Thomas’ words.

“Never allow what?” Quinn asked.

“We would never allow someone who is not a first-born of the royal bloodline to wear the crown of Philotheum,” Thomas answered.

“Can you stop him?”

“We have to,” Thomas said.

She looked over at Nathaniel, but he didn’t say anything. His expression was dark, but there was something more underneath it. Quinn couldn’t describe what it was, but it made her shiver.

“Time to get the horses ready again,” Nathaniel said.

The ride to Cloud Valley was long, and some parts of the trail were challenging.

“How do you get wagons back in here?” Quinn wondered at one particularly rocky pass.

“We don’t,” Nathaniel answered. “Whatever supplies can be carried in on horseback is all we can get in.”

“Wow. Can’t you build roads?”

Nathaniel smiled. “We could. You know that there are easy trails to access Mistle Village. However, most of the people of Cloud Valley prefer to live as they do, quiet and secluded.”

“Why?”

“Lots of reasons, I suppose. Do you ever wish that I-70 ran right through Bristlecone?”

She wrinkled her nose, “No, not really.”

“And why not?” Nathaniel raised an eyebrow pointedly.

“There would be so much more traffic, more people in and out all the time, tourists. Bristlecone would turn into another Vail or Winter Park.”

“True. But there would also be more stores, restaurants, things to do.”

Quinn thought about that for several minutes as they rode. “Some of those things would be nice in a way, but I like Bristlecone the way it is.”

Nathaniel only raised his eyebrows and smiled.

About twenty minutes later, as they reached the end of the narrow, rocky pass between two hills, Quinn got her first glimpse of why the people of Cloud Valley might feel so protective of their seclusion.

It was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen; nestled inside a nearly perfect circle of low, rolling hills, sat the tiny village of Cloud Valley. In the center of the valley was a sparkling, clear lake. All around the lake, huddled in groves of tall trees were the small houses and other buildings that made up the community.

As they rode down the hill, closer to the town, Quinn could see the minute outlines of a number of people, mostly children, jumping and splashing in a shallow end of the pristine lake. As the name implied, puffy white clouds drifted low in the sky over the valley, casting cooling shadows on the ground as they passed.

“Amazing,” Quinn breathed.

“It is gorgeous here,” Thomas agreed.

The Cloud Valley clinic was built in the same style as Jacob and Essie’s place in Mistle Village, only rather than the neat white everything was painted there; this clinic had been left its natural rich, red wood.

As they approached, Quinn could see Skittles among the horses grazing in the small, fenced field to the side of the clinic. Thomas, Quinn, and Nathaniel were dismounting their own horses in the yard when a young man stepped out onto the clinic porch, and then walked purposefully toward Nathaniel.

“Nathaniel! So good to see you! Thank you so much for coming.” The two men hugged.

“It’s wonderful to see you too, Eli.”

“Welcome back, Thomas. And this must be the lovely Quinn? William told me you’d be coming.”

Quinn blushed and nodded.

“Yes, Eli, this is Quinn. Quinn, this is Eli, the doctor here in Cloud Valley.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Lovely to meet you, too. Will you all come inside for some tea?”

“I’ll be along in a few minutes,” Thomas answered, “after I tend to the horses.”

Quinn followed Nathaniel and Eli around the back of the clinic, and up into his living quarters.

“So what is the situation here, Eli?” Nathaniel asked when they were sitting at the table with glasses of sun-brewed tea.

Eli sighed. “We had been pretty calm here for a few days. One little girl, Katie Cook, I’ve been treating for a few days, but she’s been recovering well. Actually had a little while there where my biggest worry was a sprained ankle. Then, night before last,
Cammie
Winthrop came in with her little boy, David. Do you remember
Cammie
?”

Nathaniel’s face looked stricken as he nodded.

“Her husband was killed in a lightning storm last year - a tree fell on him,” Eli explained, for Quinn’s benefit. “David is terribly sick - he hid the rash from his mother for several days, didn’t want her to worry about him. He has a high fever that we just can’t get down. Are you really thinking this is shadeweed?”

“The symptoms all match, and the shadeweed remedy seems to be working on the children in Mistle Village,” Nathaniel sounded like he was working to keep his voice steady.

“But how could it be?” Eli’s brow was furrowed. “We haven’t even had any reports of anyone finding shadeweed plants in the valley lately.”

“We don’t know,” Thomas said, entering quietly through the screen door. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Could it be something else? Something that just acts like shadeweed poisoning?” Eli’s voice was desperate.

“Even if it is, so far the treatment appears to be working. I think we need to treat all of the children like its shadeweed.”

“You know my concerns about it, Nathaniel.”

Nathaniel studied Eli’s face for a moment. “Yes, I do. But I don’t think we can take the chance of not treating it.”

Quinn looked at Thomas, confused, but Thomas only shrugged.

Nathaniel caught their exchange and turned to them. “About five years ago, we had a death from the shadeweed treatment.”

Across the table, Eli took a deep breath.

Nathaniel’s voice was sympathetic as he spoke. “Wyatt was older, Eli. He had other health problems, and he was already weak from the shadeweed poisoning itself. You didn’t have all of the supplies you needed that would have helped him, either.”

“I know. It just frightens me. William came in here a couple of hours ago, wanting to start the treatment immediately. He explained everything, and while I can’t disagree … I still told him I wanted to wait until I’d talked to you.”

Nathaniel’s voice was soft, “I feel the same way William does. We’ve already lost a child to this, Eli. We cannot afford to not try treating it this way.”

“What am I supposed to tell that boy’s mother?” The pain in Eli’s eyes was clear.

“Tell her he’ll get better.”

Eli closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. After a moment, he nodded and stood.

Nathaniel looked at Thomas and Quinn. “Thomas, I think it might be better if we didn’t have so many people in the clinic right now. Perhaps you and Quinn could brush down the horses, and then maybe think about dinner?”

“Of course,” Thomas answered, “Quinn?

She nodded, and followed him outside.

Thomas and Quinn had barely begun brushing out Storm and Dusk when she heard the clinic door open and shut and there were sounds up on the porch. She and Thomas turned at the same time to see the two small children who had appeared near the railing. The little girl looked maybe five or six cycles; the boy was probably less than two. Quinn walked over to them; the height of the porch put the little girl’s head level with hers.

“Hello,” she said through the railing. “I’m Quinn. What’s your name?”

“I’m
Tallie
,” the child answered, pushing strands of long, brown hair out of her face.

“It’s nice to meet you,
Tallie
. And who is this?” Quinn asked, looking at the little boy.

“That’s Caleb. He’s my little brother. He’s just a baby.”

“Bay-bee!” Caleb repeated, looking delighted and proud of
himself
.

Quinn smiled, “And you’re a big girl?” she guessed.

“Yes,”
Tallie
grinned widely at her.

“What are you two doing out here?” Thomas asked, climbing on to the first porch step.

“My mom said we needed to go outside. She said stay on the porch and watch Caleb. My big brother is sick in there.”
Tallie
pointed at the door to the clinic.

At that moment, Nathaniel opened the screen door and poked his head out. He gave Thomas a pleading look.

“Don’t worry,” Thomas told him. “We’ve got them.”

“Thank you,” Nathaniel said, and he ducked back inside, closing the solid wooden door as well.

“Hey you two,” Thomas said, “want to go see the horses?”

“Yes!”
Tallie
shouted. “Can we ride them?”

“
Horsie
?” Caleb asked.

“We’ll see,” Thomas told her, taking
Tallie
by the hand, and leading her over to the corral.

Quinn reached for Caleb. At first, he wasn’t too certain about allowing her to pick him up, but once she said, “Want to go see
Tallie
and the
horsies
?” he allowed her to take him.

Caring for
Tallie
and Caleb became Thomas and Quinn’s full-time task, so that their mother could concentrate on David.
Tallie
did talk Thomas into taking her on a horseback ride, while Quinn, too nervous to take wiggly little Caleb on a horse, instead enlisted the toddler’s help in harvesting some of the ready vegetables from the garden. Caleb ate more of the sweet peas than he managed to get inside the little bucket Quinn gave him, but it kept him busy and entertained.

They didn’t see much of Nathaniel or Eli all day, and the only time Quinn saw William was for a few brief moments when she carried in bowls of stew for him and for David’s mother.

William sat right next to David’s bed closely monitoring the child, who looked very ill. He did look up at Quinn when she handed him the food, mumbling a quiet “thank you.”