Vetta made a little nest, of sorts, for her sleeping infant out of sight of the road. She retrieved her own backpack, and Seltie’s, too. The first order of business was to get herself back into action. She cleaned her shoulder wound thoroughly with water from her canteen, then drank the rest.
She had gained some knowledge of herbal medicine from Seltie’s kind tutelage. She applied the herbs she had found in Seltie’s backpack. From some of Seltie’s clothing she made makeshift bandages and dressed her shoulder the best she could. The wound was deep and ragged and wouldn’t close completely. It was just a matter of time before it festered and turned septic.
Next, she had to bury poor Seltie. Vetta cried bitterly at the sight of her friend lying lifeless in the ditch. When she was all cried out, she mustered up her courage, cleaned Seltie’s body as well as possible under the circumstances, and pulled it as far into the woods as she could manage with her remaining strength. She had no tools to dig a grave, so she gathered stones and gently covered the body, then paused a moment to say goodbye.
She added the baby clothes and a few other items to her backpack. Then she found a piece of chalky stone, scratched out a crude epitaph onto Seltie’s pack, and laid it gently on the grave.
Seltie Thurbin of Lone Island
A Loving Friend
Thank You for My Life and My Baby
The sun had nearly set. Vetta needed to find a campsite before it was too dark to travel. She pushed her way into the woods, laid out her bedroll near a small creek, and collapsed into a deep sleep, interrupted only by the nursing baby.
The next day, the twenty-sixth day since leaving Lone Island, she rested. Her shoulder needed attention, and the baby needed some cleaning up. She made a small fire, carefully concealed by a little ring of rocks, and cooked up a nourishing stew with the last of the jerky and the root vegetables from Seltie’s pack. She ate three bowls and soon felt her strength returning.
She played with the baby on the bedroll for a while. When the baby dozed off, Vetta got out her diary and the medallion and finished recording some of the critical information her daughter would someday need to know. Afterward, she scooped some clay from the stream bank, mixed it into a paste with some ash from the campfire, then packed this mixture firmly into and around the medallion, forming the clay into a small head shape, with the necklace hidden in its center. A bit of cloth torn from one of Seltie’s garments completed the ‘doll.’
Next, she carefully wrapped the diary and the clay doll in a piece of fabric and secured it with a leather strap. She wrote on the bundle, “For my precious daughter, with love. Your mother, Vetta.”
Her strength gave out again, and she slept with her daughter until morning.
The sun was rising when Vetta awoke to her baby crying. She took care of the baby’s needs, then poked up the fire under the last of the stew in the pot.
She peeled back the bandage on her shoulder. Her wound wasn’t healing at all. It was red, swollen, and smelled sickly sweet—almost certainly infected. If she didn’t get it treated soon, it would become fatal. The pain was debilitating. Carrying a baby and a backpack was going to make for a miserable walk, maybe an impossible one.
Vetta felt the panic rising in her breast and forced herself to be calm and rational. No! I can’t die out here! My baby needs me. I simply must reach Feyar City. I must!