SWNOVELS Jinxed: Chapter 22
antibiotics, people used to treat illnesses with herbal remedies.
In South America, cinchona bark was dried, ground into powder, and mixed with water to reduce fevers.
The Sumerians were thought to have used honey to treat wounds as far back as 2000 B.C.
Even during Felix’s time, different infections were combated with mercury treatment–not to mention the more visceral treatments, like bloodletting or leeches to remove the poison. Savannah told me they still used leeches in 2022. I wasn’t sure I believed her.
Regardless, none of this knowledge helped, because we had nothing to help fight off Felix’s fever except boiling water, a small bottle of ancient hydrogen peroxide, and sheer willpower. I didn’t tell Savannah the peroxide might be pure water at this point, because I didn’t want to upset her more. At least it was sterile–mostly–from being sealed. After three years in the real world though, it turned into water, even in a sealed bottle. I hoped like hell the house magic had preserved its efficacy.
For the next two days, Savannah and I took shifts watching and changing Felix’s bandages. The bite was steadily becoming worse. The welt spread across most of his palm now, and was hot to the touch. His arm was entirely streaked with angry red slashes. Most of the time he was sleeping. When he was awake, he wasn’t coherent enough to understand. We also couldn’t be certain if the infection stemmed from the spider or the soil, so we were fighting blind.
We only made Theo stay with him if we were both needed elsewhere. Theo being sober was great for so many things, but caring for a deathly-ill Felix was not one of them. Being around someone so near death was triggering for him, and the poor kid literally shook when he had to be alone with Felix. Neither Savannah nor I acknowledged this to each other though, because mentioning it would mean we were accepting how close Felix was to the end.
When I was alone in my bed, trying to scrape together a couple hours of sleep to do it all again the next day, I would think about it. I tried to rationalize what we would do with his body afterwards. How it would mentally and emotionally affect all of us, and what we could do to carry on. We’d have to rely on each other, more so than ever before. Because one thing was slowly becoming a very real possibility, and that was that Felix was unlikely to survive.
A knock at my door jolted me awake, already knowing who it was before my eyes adjusted to see her curves in the shadows. “Luther?” Savannah called in a quiet voice. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah.” My eyes had become used to the dark, and I could see her twisting the bottom of her shirt in her hands. She was supposed to be with Felix while I slept, and my heart sank, fearing the worst, but hoping for good news. “Is Brynn back?” I held my breathing, waiting for the blow. “Is Felix okay?”
“No Brynn yet. I don’t know where the hell she is. And Felix is sleeping. Theo is with him.” She sighed. “I just…I had to get out of there, you know? I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
“I know.” Felix’s room was physically suffocating with no window to open while he burned from the fever within. It was also emotionally stifling as well. You sat there doing very little, knowing you were doing fuck all, basically waiting for Felix to take a turn for the worse. It was killer on your psyche to know we were all helpless. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Savannah padded over to my bed, sitting on the edge and curling against my chest. She fit so damn perfectly, like her curves were molded specifically to the lines of my body. I held her tight, wanting to take away all her pain and fear. I wanted to carry her burdens, the weight she bore, and let her live her life without a care in the world. She turned her face into my chest, muffling her words as she spoke. “Tell me it’s going to be okay.”
I pressed my lips together. Would it be thought a lie if I considered “being okay” outside of Felix’s sickness? Because that was a yes. In the end, I walked the line of reassurance and truth. “It’s going to be okay, no matter what. I promise you that with my whole heart.”
It didn’t feel like a lie, and when she lay down next to me, clinging to my neck, I knew I had chosen the right words. They were a comfort to her, like she was to me. My chest grew wet. She was crying, sobbing silently against me. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and make her uncomfortable, so I just held her close until the shaking stopped. She sniffled once or twice, pulling back from me to dry her eyes on the back of her hand. “I love you, Luther.”
I smiled, stroking her hair. “I love you more. We’ll get through this. I promise.”
Savannah sat up on the edge of the bed. “I hope you’re right. I’m not sure any of us can take another tragedy. We’ve already lost so much.”
I reached for her hand. We sat in silence for a moment. Her words sliced through my heart in one seamless motion. We had lost a lot. We had lost our freedom, our lives. Our opportunities and our potential. But hadn’t we gained a lot, too? We had found each other. And maybe, just maybe, we had found parts of ourselves hidden away to the rest of the world. Our close proximity had forced our secrets to the surface, exposing them one by one. I couldn’t speak for the others, but I felt lighter. My soul didn’t feel stuck to the ground anymore, collecting dust as it dragged behind me. There was a chance this was the cleanest my soul had been in decades, scrubbed free of all its stains.
Of course, I didn’t say any of this to Savannah. If I spoke those words aloud, she would stare at me and nod, those same thoughts already echoing in her brain. So we sat quietly, feeding each other’s souls with our presence. Solidifying our spines for another day, another battle against an army we faced with no weapons. No armor. Just our love.
I thought back to the first time I saw Savannah, the first time she snapped back at Felix. This girl, I thought. This woman will turn my world upside down, as small as it was trapped inside this lonely house. And she had, with her sunshine smiles and her quiet presence in the library. She had made me realize we had a chance, while we scoured the books for any kind of escape, never giving up hope. She had shown me love, and lord almighty had she taught me how to fuck. She gave me so much comfort, and right now I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and watch her fall apart in my hands, building her back up with pleasure in the next moment. It would certainly help with the tension building inside us. But now wasn’t the time or place, so it would have to wait.
Eventually she patted my hand, bending down to press a kiss to my forehead. She didn’t say a word, but I knew she was telling me she was going back to Felix. As she should. I needed sleep, since being tired would make me no help to her the next day.
I squeezed her hand. I love you, I tried to say with my touch. I didn’t want to ruin the moment with words, like our strength would dissipate if we said the wrong thing.
Savannah squeezed back. I love you, too. And then she was gone, my bed slightly cooler without her warm body. I turned to my side, the conflicting emotions fighting each other for dominance before I finally caved to sleep.
I woke up to a commotion down the hall, raised voices that had to be Theo and Savannah because Felix was effectively incoherent. I jumped out of bed, pulling my pants on as quickly as I could. I didn’t run down the hall, but jogging was a pretty damn close definition. It felt like all of our lives depended on what was going down in Felix’s room. I turned into the doorway, but Felix wasn’t sitting up in bed. I had half expected to see him scowling at all of us for making a big deal out of nothing. Instead, Savannah knelt next to his face, holding a basin as he retched, his stomach long empty. Theo was silent, in the midst of a panic attack, his chest rising and falling, his skin whiter than Felix’s.
“Luther, thank fuck.” Savannah’s shoulders visibly relaxed at my presence. “He woke up about ten minutes ago and won’t stop dry heaving. I can’t leave him like this, but we need more water. And well…” She tipped her head towards Theo, who still stood frozen on the other side of the room. I knew she didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to his state of mind, but worry was clearly scrawled across her face.
I nodded and walked over to Theo, placing both of my hands on his shoulders. “Theo,” I murmured, keeping my voice level and calm. “Theo, look at me.”
His eyes darted to mine, but his body still trembled under my hands. He was newly sober, and all his old reasons for getting high were smacking him in the face. Death was a bastard that way.
“Theo. Take a breath with me, come on now.” I exaggerated my breathing, keeping our gazes locked, until he finally began mimicking me. After a minute or two, his face regained its color, and he could focus on me. “It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m going to take you to your room, and you can rest. If we need you, we’ll come get you.” I reassured him the whole way out the door, meeting Savannah’s grateful gaze as we walked. Once I had Theo in bed, calmer and clear-headed, I returned to Felix’s room.
Savannah looked up at me again, rubbing Felix’s back as he continued to retch. He didn’t seem to be aware of what was happening, which sent a stab of panic running through me. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. They both needed me, and I couldn’t split myself in two. Poor fucking Theo. I don’t even want to think about his mental state right now.” She shook her head, falling silent.
“I’m here for you. And Theo wants to be, too. His brain is just stopping him right now. But he’s safe in bed.” I stepped over to her side, avoiding the piles of dirty laundry and basins we had collected over the last few days. “What can I do to help?”
Savannah held the basin under Felix’s chin with one hand, and thrust the kettle my way with the other. “More water. Please. Quickly.”
I nodded and rushed out the door, not wanting to leave her for any longer than I had to. We needed to be a team. Theo tried, he really, really did. But we couldn’t control our scars and past hurts. Maybe one day these things wouldn’t send him into a panic, but for now, it was just a fact of life.
For a second, I thought of moving Felix to the humidity of the conservatory, thinking it might help break the fever. But there was also a chance there were more spiders, and I wasn’t sure that was worth the risk.
There were over 43,000 species of spiders in the world. It was thought over thirty of them could kill a human. Africa has the most variety of arachnids, but every continent has them except for Antarctica. A natural spider defense was citrus scents, like lemon or orange. Spiders didn’t normally come near the house, and we thought it was because animals and insects could sense the curse. Maybe this spider’s ancestors had been in the house before the curse, and weren’t affected, breeding quietly through the decades. None of these explanations stopped Felix from being bitten by what I thought was a black widow, and none of them stopped him from being a stubborn jerk and noticing the bite sooner so we could have had a damn chance.
I thought about Savannah, crying in my bed last night, and Theo, wide-eyed and worried. Would I be enough for either of them? Could I keep us all together? I couldn’t stop the thoughts from swirling as I boiled more water, wishing for faster electricity, faster water, faster everything. I had no idea how everyone hadn’t died in 1907 if it took this long to do anything. We needed Brynn, wherever the hell she was. We needed an icebox, which was just wishful thinking. We needed a lot of things. Eventually the water boiled, and I snatched the pot up with a tea towel, hurrying back to Savannah and Felix’s side. I’d take over basin duty when I got upstairs, and let Savannah have a bit of a break. Hopefully Felix would nap soon, since his body needed sleep to heal.
A knock at the door startled me so hard I nearly jumped out of my skin. The kettle hit the floor with a bang, spilling water everywhere. I jumped back to avoid the splash, watching the boiling water spread out on the hardwood floor. It would leave a mark, perhaps permanent, forever changing the wood. I didn’t care much at this point.
More banging. “Sav! Savannah! Come to the window!”
Brynn was back. Maybe with good news. Please, please be good news. We desperately needed it. I turned back towards the stairs to call up to Savannah but she was already at the top of the stairs. She must have heard the knocking, too.
“Brynn is back.” I waved her down, expecting a smile or something to break the solemn look on her face. Some kind of relief, at the very least. “Come down and talk to her and I’ll sit with Felix. I’ll have to reboil the water…”
Her expression didn’t change, and I wasn’t even sure if she heard what I said.
“Felix won’t wake up.”