As night fell, the marked boy finally had a moment to think clearly. Nobody was chasing them. Nobody was going to attack them. They were safe and sheltered in a place where nobody would track them.

Of course, the paranoia was still there. Maybe all this was going to be a significant and elaborate lie. Farmers were going to leave them locked up there, and then the lumberjacks would come and finish them off; maybe they were all relatives, perhaps they were all friends.

In a couple of hours of silence, the boy found his paranoia very active. At least they could be thankful that he had such a vibrant imagination to develop such scenarios.

Locked up and without much else to do, he watched from the window of that warehouse as night had come and everyone seemed to have finished their jobs. He heard how they had put the animals away in their pens and how several men had gone into the barn to leave tools and things.

When someone wanted to go to the storehouse, Samson prevented them, for he warned that that place was private at that time.

That awakened the boy's confidence, but he was still unsure about anything.

Soon, his companion awoke again from her feverish dreams, and he hurried over to her. She was trying to get up, becoming defensive again, but he had to force her to stay lying down.

He gave her fresh water to drink, and it wasn't long before she was vomiting again. The girl's condition was distressing.

Once again, she would go back to sleep, faint from pain and fever, her confused face would return to rest, and he could again stand guard, sitting on the hay that would be her sleeping place.

"You won't enter. That's an order!" a female voice was heard to shout.

Soon, mumbling, the boy listened to that voice approaching. Then, the door opened, and Erna, Samson's wife, entered. Without much of a word, she went to the girl and sat down on her knees beside her.

"How is she?" asked the woman, without looking up in the boy's direction.

Her voice was almost hostile, full of distrust.

He watched her, wary of the woman's movements, "S-She threw up again a while ago. Then she went back to sleep," the boy indicated.

"Did you say she started with symptoms today?" the woman asked.

From a large bag she had strapped to her belt, she pulled out a bowl and, next to it, a smaller one and a mortar and pestle.

"I think so," indicated the boy, hesitantly, "When we were coming on horseback, she started feeling terrible. She didn't want to tell me; she said she was fine,"

The woman remained silent, and as she examined the girl, she pulled from her purse several flowers tied together.

The boy smiled at the woman in that silence, "T-Thank you for helping us..."

With a hostile glare, the woman stopped and saw at the boy, "I'm doing this for my husband. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have let you into the farm."

The boy's look changed again, again sorrowful.

Erna added, "I don't know if I should be doing this either. She must be a criminal..."

The boy soon raised his gaze. But, although it was no longer a crestfallen look, he couldn't allow this woman such insolence.

"You're wrong. She's not..."

"Oh, what about the bloodstains?" she asked. "It's a coincidence that you have them on your hands. The bruise on her eye, what about it? Sure, I'm sure it was a woodland creature."

The woman was scathing and ironic with her words.

"She's not a criminal. She was defending herself," the boy argued.

"Oh, so she did commit a crime," the woman pointed out when the boy acknowledged.

"Some lumberjacks attacked her. They attacked me, too. We weren't doing anything. We were just looking for help."

The boy frowned as his words were filled with fury. In the end, however, his words brought pain.

"They were attacking us, yelling things at us. All we wanted was help..."

The woman remained silent, examining the girl. Finally, she opened her eyes, black, haggard, and with a blank stare.

Because of the girl's state, she began to mash several plants.

"Water," the woman ordered.

He did so and approached the wooden bucket near the door. It was then that he saw the door ajar, and behind it were several children.

He watched them in disbelief, wondering what they were doing there; two girls, two boys. The older one motioned with her finger for him to keep quiet about them. The youngest, the boy he had seen clinging to Erna's dress in the afternoon, watched with much innocence on his face. The older daughter pushed the younger one away from the door.

They were all Ruelle's siblings who also wanted to see the travelers.

"The water!" the woman shouted, along with several scoldings.

The boy moved the bucket closer to where Erna stood. Then he placed the crushing plants in the bowl and then prepared a concoction by pouring water into it. He stirred it for a while, and soon the light shade of the water turned darker.

"Will this work?" the boy asked, worried.

"It all depends on what she ate," the woman expressed, looking at the concoction, then at the girl. "How on earth does an akajsi get the idea to eat meat?" she asked incredulously.

The boy spluttered, for she was partly right. She was a marked one. She woke up not even knowing who she was, so it made sense that she didn't know.

"I think it was a mistake," said the boy. "S-She should think it was something else hanging."

"How silly," Erna exclaimed, shaking her head at such nonsense.

The boy watched the woman silently. He saw her face, sullen and hostile, distrustful of them. The burly woman watched the girl, who seemed to be trying to fall asleep carefully.

"Let's get this over with," the woman sighed.

She prepared herself for that horrible moment, taking the bowl in her hands.

"Come on, get her head up."

The boy stood behind his companion and lifted her head. Then he opened the girl's mouth and began to pour the concoction on her lips.

The work would be hard, for soon, she began to cough and writhe. Finally, the elf tried to pull away from the bowl, for the taste was fatal.

"Come on, drink it!" the woman exclaimed, scolding the girl.

The work would be challenging, but Erna managed to get her to drink the concoction. As the minutes passed, the girl seemed to keep the liquid in her stomach.

The boy smiled and looked Erna in the eye, who watched the girl with a sullen, but passive face.

"Derica," Erna called to her daughter.

The boy opened his eyes nervously.

Suddenly, a deep voice was heard from behind the door. Erna's children had been caught.

"Y-Yes, Mom?"

"Take your brothers to bed," the woman ordered, "Today, Grania and Bartram will sleep with you. I'll get some blankets. If she vomits, give her a drink."

The boy nodded and stayed behind to watch over his companion.

Inside the hut, Samson took the opportunity to smoke his pipe in the warmth of the fire after supper. After that long day and dinner, he deserved a puff of his line. He was accompanied by his eldest son, who was busy carving a new statuette for his brothers.

"Don't squeeze the knife so hard, son," remarked the father, "as I taught you, slide it."

The boy nodded and followed his advice.

After a few moments, his four children came running through the door.

Samson and Ruelle looked at each other and smiled at the mischievousness of the younger ones. They knew that they would go to see the new travelers one way or another.

The boys hurriedly said goodbye to their father and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the reed, wherein pitch darkness, the children prepared for bed.

Erna came in shortly after and headed for the stairs, then Derica held out the pair of blankets from her bed and one of her younger brothers.

"Go to sleep, son," that big man ordered calmly. "You have a long journey tomorrow."

Ruelle stopped what he was doing and proceeded to go upstairs to the second floor with his brothers. Now it was his turn to make his brothers sleep, who kept talking about that akajsi girl and his friend.

Samson looked at his wife, "Do you want me to stand guard for you?"

"It doesn't make sense for you to do that," the woman replied, "If you do, you would have to come back here, warn me, and go there. So it makes more sense for me to stay there tonight."

The man with the long reddish beard looked at his wife. Then, sighing, he rose from his chair, "I'm sorry about all this..."

"There was no other way," the woman exclaimed, sighing heavily.

She looked into her husband's eyes. The man lowered his gaze and chagrined.

"I guess not," The man eyed his wife in that silence. Then, finally, he got that off his chest, "Erna, the boy and her..."

"I know, I'm not stupid!" she exclaimed, folding the blankets in a hurry.

Erna looked at her husband judgingly, and the big guy looked down in shame and sadness.

The stout woman shook her head and let out a choked laugh, "It's not like I can say anything about it, don't you think?"

Samson smiled, "Behind that picky look, there's a good woman."

Erna looked at her husband and gave him a swat with the blankets in between laughs.

Later, she returned to the barn. The boy had not left his companion's side at any time.

"How is she?"

The boy carried the bowl in hand. It was nearly empty.

"She threw up a little a while ago. So I did as you asked," the boy indicated.

"That's good. You know how to follow orders," the woman exclaimed. Then, she tossed a blanket to the boy, "You go to sleep. I'll take care of the rest."

"Are you sure?" asked the boy.

The woman nodded. She settled into the hay next to the girl and rested the girl's head in her lap.

"Your wounds, how are they?" she asked.

The boy looked at her and remembered that he had been wounded. He lifted the bloody rags from his arms and noticed that his wounds, throbbing and painful, were but a minor annoyance. The cuts hadn't been profound, but they were terrible enough to make them bleed for quite a while. Now, it seemed that both wounds were almost sealed.

"They only bother me a little," he expressed, trying to deflect the chatter and a small laugh, "But I'll live, don't worry."

The woman watched as the boy went back to hiding his wounds, and at that, she saw the mark on his hand. That made it fleeting so as not to raise suspicion in the boy.

"Rest. If I need your help, I will wake you up," Erna clarified.

Then, finally, the boy could do something he had wanted to do all day.

Since that morning when he had left the cave, it had been all stress, discomfort, and trouble until then.

Perhaps he could finally rest with his head on the hay and a thick blanket covering him.