Elixir

The first thing Ethan noticed was the light. He could barely open his eyes it was so bright. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was the living room, and that had been in almost total darkness.

There were voices. His ears were ringing, but he could definitely make out muffled voices.

He squinted against the light, trying to focus. Yes, there were people alright, moving around close by.

‘Mum?’ he said.

The voice that escaped his lips was faint and croaky. His throat was so dry. He’d never felt so thirsty.

‘Mummy?’ he tried again.

One of the figures moved closer, and Ethan managed to focus. He frowned in confusion back at the nurse.

‘Hello Ethan,’ she said gently. ‘Don’t you move a muscle. I’ll be back with the doctor in just a moment.’

‘Wait -’ he gasped, but she’d already bustled away.

Where was he? His eyes had adjusted a little more now, and he managed to look around the room. There were beds in every direction. All of them were filled with people, and most of them looked asleep. Ethan was in bed too.

Hospital. This was a hospital.

‘So what are you in for, young man?’

Ethan looked to his right. There was a man with a large moustache lying in the next bed, giving him a kindly smile.

His hand shaking, Ethan reached down towards his blanket and pulled it to one side.

‘Ouch,’ said the man. ‘That looks sore.’

He was right. The leg was wrapped in a huge bandage and definitely looked like it should be in pain, but Ethan couldn’t feel a thing.

‘What’s your name, son?’ asked the man.

‘Ethan.’

‘Pleasure to meet you, Ethan. I’m Montgomery. Captain Montgomery. But you can call me Monty.’

Ethan stared at him, wide eyed. ‘You’re a soldier?’

‘That’s right,’ said Monty. ‘What happened to you, Ethan? You look like you’ve been in the wars.’

Ethan shook his head. ‘I was at home. There was...’

The memory of the air raid siren pierced his ears. Mum had quickly turned out all the oil lamps, but it had already been too late. As they ran into the garden to the shelter Ethan had already been able to hear the drone of the planes overhead, and rush of something falling -

‘Mum!’ he gasped.

Where was she? Shouldn’t she be here too?

‘Your mother is in intensive care,’ announced a balding, strict-looking man in a white. ‘She suffered a serious head wound, I’m afraid.’

Ethan fought back tears. ‘Will she be okay?’

The doctor shrugged. ‘We’ll see. Now let’s take a look at you. We removed a large piece of shrapnel from that leg. Can you wiggle your toes?’

Ethan tried, but nothing happened.

‘Can you feel this? Or this?’

Still nothing. Ethan wiped his nose and shook his head.

‘Not to worry,’ said the doctor unconvincingly. ‘We’ll have you up and about in no time.’

‘What about my Mum?’ asked Ethan, but the man was already walking away.

Monty winked at Ethan. ‘Don’t you worry yourself, she’ll be fine. I know it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Tell me, Ethan.’ Monty leaned closer, like he was sharing a secret. ‘Do you believe in magic?’

‘That’s enough,’ said a nurse, pulling the curtain across. ‘You need rest, Captain Montgomery. And so do you, young man.’

Ethan didn’t see Monty for the rest of the day. He slept a little, and ate the most disgusting bowl of porridge he’d ever tasted, and eventually plucked up the courage to ask to go and see Mum.

One of the less scary nurses found him a pair of crutches, and taught him to lean on them as he sort of hopped down the corridor. He was quite good at it by the time the nurse pointed out a door.

The woman on the other side of the glass still looked like Mum, just about, but somehow smaller. She was surrounded by wires and tubes and covered in scratched and bruises, breathing slowly like she was in a long deep sleep.

‘Please be okay,’ whispered Ethan. ‘Please wake up. Please.’

When he got back to bed he hid under the covers and cried and cried, and didn’t come back out until morning.

‘Ah there you are,’ said Monty as he emerged. ‘I thought maybe you’d tunnelled to Australia.

Ethan shook his head. He didn’t feel much like talking.

‘I was in Russia myself,’ continued Monty, unabashed. ‘Ghastly place. Magical, but ghastly. How’s your leg?’

‘Bad,’ said Ethan. He still couldn’t feel anything.

‘Better than mine, I’ll wager.’

Monty pulled aside his quilt, and Ethan stared. He couldn’t help it. The entire bottom half of Monty’s leg was missing.

‘Were you in a battle?’ asked Ethan.

‘Oh, lots and lots. But that’s not how I hurt my leg.’

‘What happened?’

‘I was shot. By him.’ Monty pointed across the room to another man, passed out in his hospital bed. ‘One of my own soldiers.’

Ethan stared at the sleeping man in alarm. ‘Why?’

‘Well, you see, I had something he wanted.’ He leaned closer again. ‘Something magic.’

‘I’m too old to believe in magic.’

Monty’s eyes sparkled. ‘So was I.’

Ethan gave the other soldier a suspicious look. ‘So what did he want?’

‘Ice water,’ said Monty. ‘We hiked over a frozen lake. We were weak, hungry and desperate. I was injured. We made it halfway before the ice cracked beneath my feet. Thought I was a goner.’

‘But you were okay?’

‘I was better than okay, my boy. My tiredness left me. When I was pulled from the water I felt stronger than I’d felt in years. My bruises were healed. I no longer had a limp. We realised we’d found it.’

‘Found what?’

‘The elixir of life,’ breathed Monty. ‘We gathered as much as we could of course, and used it sparingly, but we could only carry so much with us. Soon there was only one flask left.’

The man on the other side of the room snored.

‘He tried to take it?’ said Ethan.

‘He did take it,’ growled Monty. ‘It’s there, in a flask under his bed right now.’

Ethan squinted into the darkness under the bed. He could just about make out what looked like some sort of bag poking out.

‘Get it for me, Ethan,’ whispered Monty. ‘Get it back, and we’ll use it to save your mother.’

Ethan shook his head and sighed. ‘I don’t believe you.’

If only it was that easy. He paid another visit to Mum that afternoon, but she still looked in a bad way. The nurses said she hadn’t woken up yet at all.

‘You’re going to get better,’ Ethan told her. ‘I promise.’

But it didn’t look good. Ethan tried to sleep that night, but he couldn’t. He tossed and turned, but all he could think about was his mother lying there, helpless and small, fighting for her every breath.

No.

She wasn’t going to die. He wouldn’t let her.

The ward was in total darkness. Everything was still. The only sound to be heard was the gentle snoring from each bed around the room.

His heart pounding, Ethan lifted his weight onto the crutches and hobbled carefully across the room, as slowly and gently as he could so as not to make a sound.

The man in the bed was fast asleep. He didn’t look like the sort of person who would shoot another man in the leg - he looked like a kindly schoolteacher.

But sure enough, as Ethan rummaged in the bag under the man’s bed there it was - a small leather flask. He snatched it quickly and hurried back across the room, practically leaping back into his own bed.

He waited, but the room stayed silent. No one stirred. After a moment the man on the far side of the room let out a single loud snore.

Ethan let out a slow sigh of relief. Tentatively, he raised the flask to his face and unscrewed the cap. He gave a tentative sniff. It smelt fine. It didn’t really smell of anything.

Well, what did he have to lose? Ethan took a small sip.

‘You got it,’ whispered Monty’s voice.

Ethan glanced over at his bed. He was sat bolt upright, a strange expression on his face.

‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘Give it here.’

Hunger. That was the expression. Monty looked really hungry.

Ethan hesitated. ‘I need to give some to my Mum.’

‘Never mind your damn mother, it belongs to me.’

‘But she needs it.’

‘Pass it over. Now.’

He was almost shouting. Ethan was amazed everyone else didn’t wake up. But still he held back. He had to make sure Mum got some of the elixir and there was a madness in Monty’s eyes like nothing he’d ever seen before.

‘Not yet,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m going to give some to my Mum, then you can have it.’

Monty lunged towards him, and Ethan quickly jumped out the far side of his bed. He’d left his crutches behind, so there was nothing else for it - he began to hop, as quickly as he could, making desperately for the exit to the ward.

‘Come back here, you thieving little shit!’ called Monty.

Ethan hopped down the corridor, desperately searching out doors. Where was she? Everything looked different in the dark.

Then suddenly he saw it, the door to the room where Mum was sleeping. He reached for the door handle, but at that moment something slammed into him, and he toppled to the floor.

Monty towered over him, teetering on his one leg, eyes blazing with murderous fury. There was a knife in his hand. Ethan stared at it in mute terror.

‘This is your last chance,’ growled Monty. ‘Give me the elixir, you rotten little thief.’

Ethan froze. Even now, even with that terrible blade dangling near his face, he couldn’t bring himself to part with the flask. Not until he’d shared it with Mum.

Monty growled in fury, and Ethan flinched and screwed up his eyes as the blade swiped towards him.

But it never arrived. Ethan risked opening one eye and saw that the man from the other bed was standing behind Monty, and had grabbed his arm.

‘Run,’ he told Ethan.

‘No!’ bellowed Monty. ‘You won’t stop me again!’

Ethan gasped in horror as Monty’s blade stabbed into the other soldier’s side. But the man didn’t fall. He continued to wrestle Monty, fighting off further attacks even as blood poured down his side.

There was no time to lose. Ethan fumbled to remove the bottle cap and kicked open the door to his mother’s bed -

- and Monty’s hand reached to snatch the bottle.

For a moment the two of them tussled, then Ethan felt his grip on the bottle slip.

It fell to the floor with a smash.

The three of them stared at the floor in silence for what felt like an eternity. Then Monty’s red, maddened eyes turned on Ethan.

‘I’ll kill you.’

He lunged again, and wrapped his hands around Ethan’s throat. Ethan thrashed and struggled, but he felt weaker by the moment.

Then suddenly the pressure released. He took deep, gasping breaths, and refocused his vision in time to see Monty topple to the floor, eyes glassy. The handle of his knife was sticking out from his neck.

The other man gave Ethan one final weak smile, then collapsed at his Captain’s side.

Ethan glanced down at where the bottle had broken. There was a bright red flower growing up from between the flagstones, where there hadn’t been one moments before.

There were still fragments of bottle around it. Ethan leaned in closer, and sure enough, there were still a few drops left on one of the shards.

In a daze, he stumbled into his Mum’s room and tipped the surviving droplets between her lips.

He smiled.