“Daddy’s been asleep for months,” I said. “How were you supposed to be? And you’re right. I am a twelve-year-old girl. I’m not a doctor. So it’s all right, Mother.”

Which earned me a look I’d keep for a long, long time.

—

After she’d gone out again, I shut the door and turned back to the bed.

Cate said, “Would you really have burned me with that chisel?”

It was the same question Larkin had asked days before, though the answer was no longer true.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I’m ever so glad you didn’t have to do that.”

“Me too. It would have made things worse.”

“Yes, but something like that—” She stopped to choose her words. “It’s something you should never have to do.”

“Because I’m twelve?”

At which Cate looked disappointed. Hurt, even. “Because no one should have to do such a thing if there’s another way.”

If there’s an else.

“Even this,” she said. “The hot vinegar. What you’re about to do will stay with you for your whole life.”

I nodded. “I hope so.”

Which earned me another look I’d hold on to forever.

“And then I’ll know how,” I said. “One more thing I can do.”

Cate smiled. “Just hours ago we were talking about your father and skunk stink and horseradish.”

“We were.”

“And now this.” She gestured at her leg.

Which reminded me of the balsam sap I’d given for Scotch’s hoof instead of using it on my father’s scar. The egg I’d fed to Maisie instead of using it to lure a skunk. The honey I’d left for the bees instead of adding it to my medicine brew. And the time I’d spent up-mountain instead of here, by my father’s side.

“My mother thinks he will wake or he won’t, regardless of what I try,” I said.

“You think that’s true?”

I remembered what Cate had said to me not long before. “Tell me what true is.”

She smiled. Said nothing.

I tried to find the words to say something I’d never said before. “It seems to me that what I do for one thing is what I do for everything.” Which wasn’t exactly right. “I can do this,” I said, looking at her wound. “So I will. And I have an idea that it will be . . . more than what it is.”

Cate didn’t say anything about that, and I didn’t know if she understood me, but I thought maybe she did.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Captan didn’t like the sounds that Cate made as I ladled the warm vinegar onto her wound, bit by bit, letting it seep into the cut and then collect in a reservoir on her skin, inside the glue dam I’d made.