Black Scales VIII: Innocence

"I told you I could do it. I told you I would do it. I've done it before, too."

A slithering of rock and scale in the dark, and then...

I never once doubted you. Better you had left it to me, or brought it into the Lair. They can accept losing the occasional offspring because another creature needs to eat. But to be killed mindlessly, without purpose, and left there to bloat and rot? This they may not forgive. This will bring them into my Lair, will endanger my Egg. It will be tiresome. And you have your Pet, that you would have me spare. You might hope, little one, that they believe one of their own did it.

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"Orla, you're not to go out tonight. You heard the Elder."

Orla looked at her Da, full in the face, and considered this.

She never used to do that. Stare back at me, so defiant. Look at her! She looks like she's deciding whether to obey me!

"And you'll leave that stick outside."

Orla walked over to the door and leaned her staff against the wall. It still had a fist hole in it. Garrick wondered whether that placement was on purpose. Of course not! But see - everything she did seemed more deliberate these days.

Garrick was a practical man, not given to fanciful notions, or nervousness, but he was having one right now and it was making him nervous. That might be why he didn't push, like he once would have done, for her to take the stick back outside.

Is this even my Orla?

The change was marked, and it was clear when it happened. It was that damn fever. He'd thought then that she'd die. Maybe she had, and this was... someone else. Some thing else. He pushed this thought away, which only made room for the other, just as unpleasant thing that he needed to confront.

"Come on," he said, "I need to check your wound."

Orla recoiled, and Garrick frowned.

This was supposed to be a perfect opportunity; she stuck sat there until the task was done, unable to slither away from his questions. And he - he would have a task to focus on, and he wouldn't have to look at that strangely direct gaze that was so un-Orla-like, and unsettled him so much.

"There's no need," she said. "It's fine. Didn't the witch say keeping it bound was better for slowing the poison?"

She said it was magic, not poison, but the end result will be the same.

"I'm your Da," Garrick tried being stern, but it sounded a weak assertion even to his own ears.

The old Orla would have jumped to do my bidding. What's this, then?

"I had a look at it yesterday," Orla said. "Binding it has done as you hoped, it hasn't climbed any further up my arm."

A new version of Orla this may be, but he still felt sure he could tell when she was lying.

"It hurts when you mess with it," Orla said, trying a meeker tone, and watching him set everything out on the table. The bowl of water, the roll of clean dressing.

"I'm your Da," he said again, "And I want to keep an eye on it. Come on, now. Don't make me ask again."

Orla stepped closer and sat on the stool, but she did it as slowly as she dared, as if she hoped to think of something to get out of this.

What is she nervous for me to see? What is she trying to hide?

The moment he touched her wrist, he hesitated, feeling the terrible heat even through the bandage.

"Are you well?" he asked her.

She shrugged.

"Orla. I think there might be infection. If you feel unwell, you have to tell me."

Orla looked horrified.

"You'll not call the doktor will you? I didn't like him. At all."

"No, no, of course not," Garrick lied. "The witch, then, if you like her better."

"I don't feel ill, Da, I swear. I feel the same as always."

Her father started unwrapping the bandage, steeling himself twice. Once for what he might see, and once for what he must say.

"The boy, Jenson," he began, peering at the sliver of dark red he had exposed. "There's whispers there was something odd with his body. A lady's hairbrush." He unwrapped more, and almost choked. Partly from the smell rising from her skin, and partly from shock. The parts that weren't scald-red looked blackened, like charred wood.

Orla said nothing. Perhaps she was too transfixed by the state of her own arm, and hadn't paid attention to what he said. But her face looked passive, and completely unsurprised.

"I didn't want you to worry," Orla said. "There's nothing to be done, is there? Except keep it bound up tight."

"Hmmm." Garrick was thinking about the mark the old witch had made on Orla's arm, and her words, you may have only days before it reaches her heart...

Worry shortened his fuse and made him curt.

"Look, I know that hairbrush was Serena's. I know you stole it. But why did Jenson have it? Did you... With that stick, did you hit him? Did he try to bully you, or hurt you? Did he try to take the brush off you and-"

"Yes, Da," Orla said, with her eyes so wide he could almost believe her innocence. "That's what happened. I'm sorry."

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Thank you for reading!

If you are intrigued, maybe read this one next:

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