Chase the Wind (24 page)

The morning of the next day was much like the first. The resi
dents of the mission moved from place to place at the sound of the
bell tolling the hours. Jenny followed the schedule that had been
set down for her, did her lessons, and ignored Logan and Joe when they pulled their sneaky little tricks in class. She told Marcus about
Jamie when they took their short recess after lunch. Jenny was bored for the most part. She sought the plains to the west when
she came outdoors like a thirsty man seeking water. She longed to be on horseback, Jamie at her side, the wind whipping her hair as
they raced across the rolling land. She also understood that, as hard
as this confinement was for her, it was even harder for Jamie. As
least she had something to help her pass the day. He was still
confined to the infirmary. She vowed to get him outside for at least
a few minutes today. She needed him to get better so they could
leave.

When her class was dismissed, Jenny raced to the infirmary, a book that she had borrowed from the teacher under her arm. She found Jamie sitting in a chair by the bed dressed in his clothes, a
look of total disgust on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s going to take the bandages off.”

“They have to come off sometime,” Jenny said.

“That’s what I told him,” Sister Mary Frances said from the door.
She was carrying a steaming pot of water. “We were waiting for
you.” She quickly set Jenny to work soaking some cloths in the
water. “We’ll need to soak them off,” she explained to the two of
them. “Take your shirt off, young man.”

Jamie unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it, grimacing as
the skin on his shoulder cracked and stretched with the movement.
The nun took a pair of scissors and began to cut away the binding
on the wraps. “We need to expose your skin to as much air as
possible to help it heal. Before, we had to worry about infection,” she explained as she worked on the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and chest. Jamie watched her hands as they worked the
scissors, occasionally giving a little start when she came into contact
with a tender area. The padding underneath the bandages was in
deed stuck to the wound, and the nun had Jenny laid a steaming
cloth on it to loosen the scabs. The sister next went to work on his
neck, then finally pulled the top layer of bandages off his face, after
instructing Jamie to lay his head back. Jenny applied a steaming
towel to each area as the sister instructed her to. Jamie stared at
the ceiling with his deep blue eyes full of apprehension. He was
dreading this, Jenny knew, but it had to be done, and the sooner
the better as far as she was concerned.

Sister Mary Frances tenderly pulled the padding back from the area on his chest. It revealed a red oozing area about the size of a
fist. Removing the padding brought little rivers of blood, and Jenny
quickly mopped them away as they trickled down onto his ridged
stomach. Jamie kept his eyes on the ceiling. Jenny felt little quivers
shoot through him as she wiped the blood away, and she began to
pray to herself that he would be okay, that the rest wouldn’t be
that bad. She knew in her heart that it was bad, she would never forget how the blackened skin had looked on the day it happened.

The padding on the shoulder revealed several small burns, along
with two cuts from the globe of the lantern. The cuts had scabbed over quite well, along with the smaller burns, but the larger areas were still oozing and dripping blood from where the padding had
stuck. Jenny couldn’t tell if his shirt had protected him or made
the damage worse by catching fire from the oil.

The wound on his neck was long and narrow, as if the hot oil had slid down and then trailed onto his shoulder and chest. It ran parallel to the cords in his neck. Jenny watched the muscles in his neck work as he swallowed, his eyes still riveted to the ceiling.

Sister Mary Frances cast a prayer heavenward and crossed herself
before she began on the padding that was still attached to the left side of Jamie’s face. Jenny stood behind his chair, and caught his eyes with her own. She felt his terror at what was about to be
revealed, felt the tugging of his skin as the nun gently worked the fibers of the cloth away from the wound. She heard once again his
screams as he fell from the ladder, she smelled the burnt flesh
again. She wanted to look away, but she was afraid that if she did,
he would think she couldn’t look at what the bandages had hidden.
She kept her eyes locked on his as the nun pulled the padding
away.

Jamie slowly lowered his head, and Jenny stepped around to the front of the chair as Sister Mary Frances examined the wound to make sure there were no threads remaining. Blood began to gush
from the open areas, and Jenny placed a towel in the nun’s outstretched hand so she could stop the flow. She finally pulled her
hand away to reveal the burn. It started right under his cheekbone
at the corner of his eye and stretched back into his hairline, continuing all the way down the side of his face into his neck. The skin under his eye was perfect, but near his hairline it became a
blistered, oozing mass. He would never be able to grow a beard or a sideburn there; the wound was that deep. He could grow his hair long and cover part of it, but it would always be visible from the
front.

Jamie’s eyes jumped from one face to the other as he waited for a reaction. Jenny felt tears well up in her eyes, but she couldn’t tell
if they were from pity or gratitude.

“Jen?” His voice broke on her name.

“It’s not that bad,” she answered. Jamie put his hand up to his
face but stopped short of touching it.

“She’s right; you could have lost an eye, an ear, even your nose,
for that matter,” the nun assured him.

“I want to see.” His voice was strong now. Jenny felt a chill go
down her spine at the words, because he sounded so much like
Ian.

“I don’t think you should right yet. The skin hasn’t had a chance
to heal,” Sister Mary Frances said.

Jamie examined the wound on his chest and his shoulder. “Let me see it,” he said. Jenny exchanged a look with the nun and
nodded her head. The nun went over to her medicine cabinet and
took a piece of silvered glass out of the drawer. She handed it to
Jenny, who in turn handed it to Jamie. Jamie took a deep breath
and raised the glass to his face.

Wide, deep blue eyes full of fear stared back at him from the glass as he held it in his trembling hand. He willed his hand to be still, and focused on the side of his face. He turned his head to the
right to better reveal the burn on his face and neck. They were
right, it could have been worse. He was grateful for that, but still—
“I’m a freak,” he whispered.

“No!” Jenny cried. “No.”

“It’s okay, Jen, really. I’ll deal with it.” He handed the mirror
back to his sister.

“Jamie, no.” The look in his eyes made Jenny want to scream in
frustration. He had always been the quiet one, who analyzed each situation thoroughly before making a decision, while she had just jumped in, come what may. Once he had made up his mind, how
ever, there was no changing it. He stuck to his course with a fierce
determination that had made their parents shake their heads on
more than one occasion. She knew that he had made up his mind now. No matter what anyone said or did, he was convinced that
people would look on him as something less than he was, that they
would judge him as lacking because of the burns. It would take
time to change his mind, she knew, and she wondered if she was
strong enough to help him.

Sister Mary Frances had stood silent during the exchange be
tween the twins, her lovely, serene face hearing the words and seeing what was left unsaid in each set of wide, deep blue eyes.
She went to her work table as Jenny turned away from her brother in frustration. She found a jar of salve and handed it to Jenny, who
had busied herself wringing out the bloody cloths.

“Put this on the wounds,” she instructed the girl. “It will help
protect them while they heal.” The nun looked over at Jamie, who
was still slumped in the chair. She squeezed Jenny’s hand. “Go on,
he needs you.”

Jenny smiled gratefully at the woman. With her gentle squeeze
she had imported a feeling of strength and calmness. It was the
first time Jenny had felt safe since her parents had died.

Jamie sat as still as a stone while Jenny spread the salve over the
open wounds. She knew it had to hurt when her fingers rubbed
against the raw flesh, but he didn’t flinch, just stared ahead, moving
only when she instructed him to. When she was done, he got back
on his bed, settled himself against the pillows and opened the book.
Jenny looked at him for a short moment, her hands propped on her hips, then slapped the lid back on the jar of salve. Jamie’s
eyebrows twitched at her exaggerated motions, but he kept his eyes on the pages before him. Jenny began straightening the room, slam
ming cupboard doors, kicking chairs out of her way. Sister Mary Frances left the two to work it out for themselves.

Jenny finally had to leave the room. She was boiling over with
frustration, and she knew that exploding would do more harm than
good at the present time. Jamie had totally ignored her for the rest
of the afternoon, giving all his attention to the book in front of
him, as if he had never seen it before. She knew he had read
Oliver
Twist
many times, could practically quote it by heart, so he wasn’t fooling her with his act. She tore out of the mission as if chased by demons and headed towards the orchard at a full run. She ran into the stand of trees and didn’t stop until she reached the end, where
the trees gave way to a field that rolled down towards the buildings
of St. Jo, just barely visible in the distance. Jenny threw her arms around a bud-laden tree and laid her forehead against the rough bark, willing her heart to slow down, the blood to stop rushing
around in her head. She needed to be patient. Jamie’s wounds were deeper than his skin. Jenny raised her head with a start and whirled
away from the tree.

“He’s blaming himself!” she said to no one in particular. Jamie
had been charging down the ladder to help his father when the
lantern exploded in his face. He hadn’t been able to stop the mur
der of his parents; he probably would have died himself, and Jenny
along with him, if he hadn’t been stopped by the burning oil. Jenny’s first impulse was to run back to the mission and knock some sense into her bull-headed brother, but for once she hesitated. “I need to give him tune.” She said it out loud, so that she
could make better sense of the entire situation. “He’ll realize it soon
enough.”

The decision made, she immediately felt better. Then the reali
zation hit her that the words and tone she had used had sounded
just like her mother. She grasped her upper arms in her hands and
looked heavenward, trying to spot some blue sky between the
white blossoms that waved so lightly in the fresh spring air. “Oh, Momma, help me to help him, please,” she prayed. The branches
sighed and swayed above her, die scent caressing her senses like
the gentle touch of her mother’s hand. Jenny inhaled deeply, taking the scents inside her to help her make it through the night in the dark rooms of the mission. She felt better, she felt refreshed, she was strengthened. She would tackle Jamie again tomorrow. She would bring him out here so he could find the same peace that she had. She started back to the mission with a determined step, but stopped short when she came upon Logan and Joe.

They were lounging against a tree, obviously hiding from their chores. She knew they had been spying on her by the smirks on their self-satisfied faces.

“Hey, Joe, maybe they should lock her up with her ugly brother,” Logan said to his buddy, his eyes on Jenny.

“Why?” Joe looked at Jenny and gave a nervous little giggle.

“Cuz she’s crazy. You saw how she was out here talkin’ to the trees, thinkin’ they were her dead mom.”

“Maybe she’ll think the barn is her dad,” Joe added.

“Or maybe better, she’ll think he’s the jackass.” Logan smiled evilly at her. Jenny balled her right hand into a fist and punched him in the nose, driving his head back into the tree he was lounging against. Blood began gushing out, and he grabbed his nose with both hands, trying to stop the flow trickling between his fingers.