“I will do my best…”

Saoirse can barely hear the Healer’s words, through the pain in her midsection, leaving her nearly breathless. She is sitting on the pallet, her arms hugging herself, and she is hunched over her knees, her long yellow-white unwashed air damp with perspiration, over her face like heavy ribbons. She heaves in air, as much as her lungs will consume, then lets it out again slowly. It’s a trick she learned long ago, that seems to make the pain lessen somewhat.

Then she realizes that Moss has a hand on her back and one on her chest, helping Saoirse to breathe, awaiting Braca’s reappearance with the necessary medicines. She reaches her bony hand behind Moss’s neck and whispers, “Help me, Mossie-girl. Dinna let yer Auntie Freedom die here on this forsaken isle, mindlessly intoxicated on root brew, drool on me chin, an’ lyin’ in me own shite.” She then unintentionally coughs, although she was pleased that it happen at that moment. “Fix me up well enough to take me from…”

Saoirse’s eyes alight on the young Braca, coming through in the doorway with the required remedies, and Saoirse’s heart grows cold as she realizes that another woman accompanies her, with a cowl about her head through which strands of pepper hair come through. It is the nurse-matron, Maide, who is standing on the edge of the room with her arms crossed.

Saoirse’s hopes for escape are dashed.