By morning, the rain had thinned to a silver mist, and Doctor Pell was waiting beside the bakery door with a wheeled cart.
I woke on the narrow bed in Clara’s storeroom with my splinted ankle elevated on folded towels. For a few seconds I did not know where I was. The ceiling sloped above me. Flour and yeast clung to the air. Somewhere beyond the wall, pans knocked together and Clara hummed under her breath.
Then the pain found my ankle, and the rest of the room followed.
I pushed myself upright too quickly. The floor tipped. My hand caught the blanket, and the sound brought Clara into the doorway.
“Slowly,” she said. “Your body has been working all night.”
“I have to go somewhere?”
“To the clinic.” She carried a tray with porridge, stewed apple, and tea. “Doctor Pell came back before the ovens were hot.”
I looked toward the window. Mist blurred the street beyond it. Oakhaven had woken without me. Shapes passed the glass: a badger with a basket, two squirrels under one umbrella, a tall deer carrying a crate against his chest. Each moved along the road without looking in.
The clinic was only a few streets away. I had heard Pell explain that yesterday. It still seemed far enough to lose myself in.
“Do I have to?”
Clara set the tray on the small table. “You have a choice. Pell believes the image would tell us whether your ankle is fractured. He also wants to make sure the cold hasn’t damaged your feet.”
“And if I don’t go?”
“Then he’ll examine what he can here and be cross with the weather.”
From the bakery floor, Doctor Pell called, “I heard that.”
Clara’s whiskers lifted. “You were meant to.”
I looked down at the splint. It had held through the night. My ankle throbbed, but the pain had settled into a shape I could understand. The idea of another examination made my stomach tighten. The idea of not knowing whether the bone was broken made it worse.
“Will you come?” I asked.
“I’ll walk beside you.”
“Will Miller?”
“He has been sitting by the door since before sunrise.”
That answer should have frightened me. Instead, I ate the porridge while Clara helped me into a thick coat. She asked before lifting the sleeve over my injured arm. When the wool caught against my bruised ribs, she stopped and let me pull free. I tried again myself.
Next
Miller now has enough of Brindle’s description to begin searching for the place Toby escaped, while Toby must face what it means to have given the town a name from his past.
The coat hung from my shoulders like someone else’s life. The sleeves covered my hands. My fingers looked small and pale against the dark cloth.
Doctor Pell entered with his case. “Ready?”
I nodded.
He waited. “That sounded like a polite nod. I’m asking you, Toby.”
I held the edge of the blanket in one fist. “I’m ready to go.”
“Good.”
Miller rose from the chair by the door. In daylight, he looked even larger than he had the night before. Rain had darkened the fur along his shoulders. He held a broad black umbrella in one paw and a lantern in the other, though the morning was bright enough to see the road.
“You don’t need the lantern,” Pell said.
“Didn’t ask.”
The bear opened the door.
Cold air slipped into the bakery. My body remembered the road before my mind did. Wet leaves. Mud against my knees. The endless ache of walking when each step had become a question.
Clara’s paw rested on the doorframe. “The cart is padded. You can sit in it, or we can take the slower way on foot with Miller supporting you. Which would you prefer?”
The cart waited on the covered walk. Its sides were high enough to keep me from falling, but its wheels made the whole thing look like something for a child.
“Cart,” I said.
Miller’s ears shifted. He did not comment. He set down the lantern, rolled the cart close, and held it steady while I climbed in. My ankle protested when I lowered myself. Clara tucked a blanket around my knees, then stepped back.
No one carried me.
The choice mattered enough that I kept thinking about it as Miller pushed me into the street.
Oakhaven smelled different in the morning. Wet bark, chimney smoke, yeast rising behind us. Water clung to every branch. The town had narrow paths between its cottages, most of them roofed with wooden awnings. Animal residents moved through the mist in furred coats and wool scarves, glancing at me and then away.
A rabbit carrying a sack of flour stopped so abruptly that the sack swung into his knees. He stared at my bare face.
Miller’s paw tightened on the cart handle.
I pulled the blanket higher. “They’re looking.”
“They are,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re new.”
“That isn’t the only reason.”
He took a moment before answering. “No.”
The honesty settled more comfortably than a lie would have.
A fox woman stepped out of a green-painted house and watched us pass. Her gaze stayed on my hands, my thin neck, the bruises beneath my eye. She whispered to the mole beside her. The words disappeared under the wheels.
Clara walked on my left, one paw skimming the cart’s side without touching me. She knew where every crack in the path lay. When the wheel struck a raised stone, her head turned before Miller could correct it.
“Left wheel,” she said. “Small rut.”
Miller steered away. “You’ve walked this road blind more times than I’ve walked it with eyes.”
“I have had longer to practice.”
The clinic stood behind the town hall, a low stone building with blue shutters. Pell unlocked the door and led us into a room that smelled of herbs, clean cloth, and cold iron.
There were no patients waiting. That helped. I had not wanted strangers watching me climb from the cart.
The examination room contained a padded table, a cabinet of glass bottles, and a machine with a broad metal plate. Pell noticed me staring at it.
“That’s the imaging device,” he said. “It makes a picture of the bones in your ankle. It doesn’t cut you. It doesn’t hurt, though the position may.”
“Who has to touch me?”
“I’ll need to move your foot onto the plate. You may do it yourself if you can.”
I looked at the table. The distance seemed manageable. I put both hands on the edge of the cart and stood.
My injured foot barely reached the floor before pain shot up my leg. Miller’s paw moved toward my elbow, then stopped in the air.
“May I steady you?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
His paw closed around my sleeve instead of my skin. Even through the coat, I felt the size and warmth of it. He gave me enough support to turn. I sat on the table with my teeth clenched.
Pell adjusted the splint. “I’m going to remove this. Then I’ll support the ankle while you place it on the plate. If it hurts beyond what you can tolerate, say so.”
He explained each step, just as he had the night before. The splint came away. My ankle looked swollen and wrong, but less frightening than it had under the cloth.
“Your turn,” Pell said.
I lowered my leg. My hands shook. Miller remained at my side, holding the cart rail instead of me.
The machine clicked and hummed. Pell studied the image while I sat with my foot wrapped again.
“Well?” I asked.
He turned the plate toward the lamp. “The bone is intact.”
I did not understand the words at first.
“No fracture,” he continued. “A severe sprain, but no break. You’ll need the splint for at least two weeks, possibly longer. Keep the ankle raised. No walking without support.”
The relief came out as a laugh that sounded unfamiliar. I covered my mouth.
Miller looked at me. Clara’s ears angled toward the sound.
Pell allowed me a moment, then checked my fingers and toes for sensation. My feet were warming. The color had returned to them.
“You’re recovering,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you’re well yet.”
I nodded.
Miller pulled a chair close. “There’s something else we need to discuss.”
My relief folded in on itself.
Pell began packing the imaging plate away. Clara sat near the window, her paws folded over her skirt. Nobody blocked the door.
“If somebody hurt you,” Miller said, “I need to know enough to keep them from walking into town and taking you back.”
The room became very quiet.
I watched a drop of rain slide down the blue glass. It passed over the reflection of my face and broke it apart.
“I don’t know if they’re looking,” I said.
“You think they might be.”
I pressed my palms flat against the table. “He always found me.”
Miller did not move. “Who?”
The question carried no demand, but my throat closed around it anyway.
Pell said, “You can stop here.”
I looked at the bear’s dark paw resting on his knee. It had held my sleeve. It had held the bakery door. It had stayed away when I asked.
“His name was Brindle,” I said.
The name entered the room and stayed there.
Miller’s expression hardened, though his voice remained quiet. “Brindle what?”
“I don’t know. Everyone called him Brindle.”
“What did he do?”
My fingers curled against the table. The old answers waited behind my teeth: fell, clumsy, deserved it, don’t make trouble.
“He kept the place,” I said. “The place I left.”
Miller leaned forward. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know the town.” I swallowed. “There was a red water tower. A road with white stones. He made people stay inside when the weather got bad.”
Pell stopped packing.
Clara rose, crossed the room, and placed a cup of tea within my reach. She did not touch me.
Miller looked toward the door, then back at me. “That’s enough for today.”
I had expected him to say more. To turn the details into an order, a search, a promise that someone would catch Brindle before he came. Instead, he stood and moved the cart closer.
“Can you take me home?” I asked.
His gaze softened by a fraction. “Yes.”
I reached for his sleeve before I could lose the courage. My fingers closed around the rough fabric.
“Don’t ask Clara to send me away,” I said. “If he comes.”
Miller’s paw covered the cart handle. “She won’t.”
Clara’s voice came from beside me. “Neither will I.”
Outside, the mist had begun to lift. Miller pushed the cart toward the bakery, and I kept one hand around his sleeve all the way home.