He made no answer except to turn again to the book, which he opened to a section near the end. He turned the pages slowly, his lips moving, until he stopped and said, “‘Poisoned wounds.’” He stopped again and read to himself, then aloud: “. . . ‘wounds sometimes received by butchers, cooks and fish-dealers, who handle—’” He paused. I looked over his shoulder.

“Putrefying,” I said.

“. . . ‘putrefying animal matter,’” he continued. “‘Such wounds are particularly—’” He paused again.

“Virulent,” I said.

He looked at me. “I’m not a very good reader.” He tipped his head at Cate. “She’s been teaching me.”

“It will get easier, the more you do it.”

He nodded. Turned back to the book. “‘A wound of this . . . character should be thoroughly washed,’” he read, “‘opened and swabbed with pure carbolic acid, then washed with’”—he skipped a word or two—“‘mercury solution, and wet antiseptic dressing. Bites by animals should be so treated, the human bite being one of the worst.’” He took a deep breath, as if he’d climbed something steep.

I thought about how snippy Samuel became if I helped him with a tough word. “I hope you don’t mind that I helped you with that.”

“Why would I mind?”

I shrugged. “My little brother thinks he should already be able to do things he doesn’t know how to do.”

Larkin frowned. “Why would he think that?”

To which I had no answer. I looked again at the book. “What does it say about fever?”

“I already know enough about fever.”

“But I don’t,” I replied.

So he turned the pages one by one, past drawings of how to bandage and carry a wounded person, to a section called “Inflammation.”

We read the section together. “We don’t have what they say to use,” he said. “But she taught me about willow bark, and there’s some in that jar there.” He pointed. “I’ll build up the fire. You fetch some water from the spring. We’ll make her a tea.”

“And what do we use instead of carbolic acid or . . . those other things in the book? In case the honey doesn’t work?”

He tipped his head again. “Why would you worry about what might not happen? The honey is good for now, and we can brew witch hazel for cleaning her. And if we need something else, we’ll try something else.”

I thought of my father. I thought of the elses I had tried and the others that were waiting their turn.

Larkin was reading more of the book, Captan watching Cate like a mother, while I went out into the night to tap the spring, so I was alone when I saw that the stars had also come to be with us. They leaned down as if they thought I might have something to say. Or as if they did.