“Perley, can you hear us, Perley, can you say something?” Lily said.

Perley’s small voice returned from a long and lonely journey. “Madcoil,” he said.

“Madcoil,” I answered.

“It was Madcoil,” Perley said, stronger this time, and Lily said, “I’m holding you,” and Perley said, “You’re holding me.”

Direct pressure was the next thing, so I pressed Rudy’s filthy T-shirt to Perley’s cheek. He drew back, which I took as a good sign. Pain meant he wasn’t in shock. “Helen, go boil some water,” I said.

Helen opened her mouth, but I said, “The last thing I need right now is the benefit of your wisdom. You want to be fucking helpful? Then do what I tell you.” She didn’t use the ladder, but swung herself down to the kitchen. The first day I met Helen she’d been useless but for boiling water. That day, we took charge of killing her drakes, and here she was again, filling the pot and setting it on the burner while I gave her a rapid list: alcohol, iodine, tweezers, swabs, bandage. She handed it all up to me. Lily kept Rudy’s shirt on the wound while I cleaned my hole-punched hands. Easily, I dressed them. Then I set to Perley.

“I can get you herbs,” Helen called from the kitchen.

“Don’t interrupt,” I said.

“Plantain,” Helen said. “It says so right here in the Best Practices Binder.”

“I don’t care what you wrote down in that binder of yours,” I said. “Plantain’s no good if there’s infection underneath. He could get an abscess. Yarrow might be the one. It’s antibacterial, pain-relieving, and it’ll stop the bleeding. Sage is a good disinfectant.”

“Both in the garden,” Lily said.

It was for Perley’s body that I’d quit working as a nurse and now I took it up again. He cried. He yelled. He shuddered. I attended the body I most wanted to attend. I dug out tooth fragments, cleaned, compressed, applied salve, dressed the wound. Lily held him hard from beginning to end, murmured to him, kissed his ear, smoothed and smoothed our son’s sweaty forehead. The snake had left a slick substance, some kind of rank defensive oil. It coated my arms and chest. It soaked the sheets.

Finally, when my work was done, Lily released Perley into my arms. It had been two years since she’d stopped nursing him, but as she fell back into the bloody pillows, I saw the damp circles spread from her nipples, darkening the sheet. Her new milk mingled with the snake oil.