I’d told Jamie what she’d said to Germain. He’d raised his eyebrows briefly, then shaken his head.

“Little wonder, given where she’s been,” he said. “Let it bide. She’s a canny wee lass; she’ll find her way.”

I was drawing pictures of goblet cells on the back pages of my black book when I heard rapid footsteps on the porch and an instant later Jem skidded into the surgery, wild-eyed and white-faced.

“Mrs. Higgins,” he gasped. “She got kilt by a bear. Mam’s bringing her.”

“Killed,” I said automatically, and then, “What!”

Fanny uttered a tiny, wordless scream and threw her apron over her head. Jem’s knees gave way and he sat down on the floor with a thump, panting.

I heard voices outside in the distance, urgent, and grabbing my emergency kit I ran to see what was happening.

Brianna had evidently met Jamie on her way; he had Amy Higgins in his arms, bringing her down the hill as fast as he could manage, Bree stumbling behind him, moving like a drunk. All three of them were covered in blood.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said, and ran up the hill to meet them. There was a lot of noise—children were everywhere, crying and wailing, and Bree was trying to explain, chest heaving for air, and Jamie was asking sharp questions. He saw me, and at my frantic gesture squatted and laid Amy on the ground.

I fell to my knees beside her, seeing the tiny, rhythmic spurt of blood from a severed vessel in her temple.

“She’s not dead,” I said, and pulled rolls of bandage and handfuls of lint out of my pack. “Yet.”

“I’ll fetch Bobby,” Jamie said quietly in my ear. “Brianna—see to the weans, aye?”

FIRST, STOP THE BLEEDING. And the best of British luck to you, I added grimly—and silently—to myself. A good portion of the left side of her face had simply been torn away. The scalp was lacerated, one eye had been gouged from its socket, the orbit and cheekbone splintered, and the white bone of the broken jaw exposed, seeping blood welling up around the remaining scarlet-stained teeth and dribbling down the side of her neck.

She lay oddly, crookedly, and I realized that her left shoulder had been crushed; her dark-green bodice and sleeve were black, sodden with blood. I whipped a tourniquet around the upper arm, feeling the broken ends of bone grate as I moved it. Pressed a towel as gently as I could to the shattered side of her face and saw the cloth darken at once, soaked through. And with a sense of utter futility, I pressed my thumb against the tiny spurting artery in her temple. It stopped.

I looked up and saw Mandy, dead white and shocked into silence, clinging fiercely to little Rob, who was whimpering and struggling, trying to get to his mother.