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The leaves have only just started to turn, some already red and gold, but mostly they’re still green. They’re green like the moss and the beetles and the young hazelnuts Ma brings back after she ties Clarabelle onto her back and goes foraging with Auntie Corrin.
Calliope’s begun to make her first breastplate a few days before, hammering away in the back shed, shaping it just right. On a break she wanders from the hut and spots Caduceus, having curled himself against an old oak’s roots at the edge of the grove, book in his lap.
“You’re still in your nightgown?” she asks, by way of a greeting.
Caduceus smiles at her. “I like my nightgown.”
Calliope raises an eyebrow, hands on her hips. “What book is that?”
Caduceus obediently hands her the book. It’s bound in old, worn-soft leather, a folktale book with etchings printed besides each story. He likes it for the pictures.
(Colton says he’s too old to listen to stories before bed, but he always sits with Pa when he reads to Clarabelle. Besides, he’s not that old.)
“Oh. This one again,” she says. “Don’t you know these off by heart at this point?”
“Yeah,” Caduceus replies. “I’m just looking at it.”
Calliope hmph’s and crosses her arms. “That’s silly.”
Caduceus scrunches his nose at her, and he throws a handful of dirt and tiny twigs at her face.
And just like that they’re chasing each other around the Grove, ducking between trees and under bushes, jumping over black pools of peaty water, and dodging each other’s scratches. Calliope is strong, and she’s bigger than Caduceus is, faster too. She’s almost as big as Colton, which comes in handy when Caduceus squeezes under a blackthorn bush and out the other side, hopping between freshly laid graves. Calliope catches up quickly, but doesn’t watch her footing and trips into a small pond, tumbling to her hands in the moss. Caduceus laughs as he runs past and she reaches out as he goes, yanking at his tail. He yelps and turns.
“Hey,” he says, pulling his tail away from her. “That’s not fair.”
He kicks her in the chin.
They run to the tree line, where the healthy forest still grows inside the grove, and chase each other around the gnarled old trunks. Caduceus darts behind an oak before Calliope can spot him. He finds a stick, willow leaves still green on the twig-ends, and grasps it in his paws, waiting. He hears her footfalls first, stumbling over the uneven ground. Then he hears her breath, heavy from sprinting. He waits until she’s right by the tree and jumps out, swinging the stick at her face. As he does she pounces, tackling him, knocking the air from his lungs. His foot catches on something as they tumble backwards over roots and fern. He closes his eyes and braces for the impact of his head on the earth.
There’s a strange snap-pop sound.
And then he’s lying on his back, covering his face as Calliope lands on top of him with a yelp. He keeps his eyes screwed shut as he waits for the next round of scrappy hits to deflect and deal out. But they don’t come. Instead there’s a gasp and a string of cuss words.
Caduceus opens one eye.
Calliope’s climbing off of him, staggering to her feet with here eyes wide and worried. She backs up, mouth hanging open.
“Oh. Oh no. Caddy, I’m sorry,” she says.
Why? What happened? Caduceus is yet to try to get up, still catching his breath. The damp moss beneath him seeps moisture into his nightgown. It’s stained green at the cuffs.
His leg hurts.
“What?” he asks.
Calliope is looking around guiltily. She looks back to Caduceus. “Your leg.”
He props himself up on his elbows, peering down at his thin legs, appearing from beneath his skirt like stripped birch branches.
Knees aren’t supposed to do that.
“I’m so sorry, Caddy,” Calliope says again. “I’ll heal it soon. I — I need to look in my spell book. I don’t know how to — Don’t tell Pa.”
Caduceus pushes himself upright on shaky paws, easing his weight into his other leg as he tries to stand. He begins to move his wrong-looking leg and almost doubles over as pain shoots up his thigh, through his hip and up into his stomach. White-hot and dizzying.
“Don’t. Don’t, Caddy. Lie down,” Calliope tells him.
He stays halfway-standing, leaning against the oak he’d fallen into the roots of.
“I want Ma,” he manages to whimper. He’s trembling, nose running and eyes watering. He sniffles.
“Well, she’s away foraging.” Calliope breathes quickly, presses her lips together. “Lie down, stupid.”
Caduceus freezes up, balancing on one leg, grasping at the tree.
“It hurts.” His voice is shaking too much, his leg too sore to move again.
Knees aren’t supposed to do that. He presses his forehead to the lichened trunk as he heaves, twice over, spitting acid-burning berry juice into the grass. He breathes a shaky, high-pitched whine through his gritted teeth. Then there’s a hand on his back and another scooping beneath his thighs as Calliope lifts him like a storybook princess. It’s then that he begins to cry, his legs swinging, knocking together, as Calliope takes off running back towards the temple. She skirts round to the front door, avoiding Pa where he’s kneading bread dough in the kitchen. Caduceus’ heartbeat thump-a-thumps in his ears. He covers them to see if it’ll stop.
Calliope hurries into the bedrooms and lays him on the bed, a nest of pillows and blankets.
Like that nest we found when the plum tree was blossoming, with the hurt baby sparrow inside.
And she pushes his nightgown out the way and just stares at his knee. She swallows hard.
The baby sparrow died. Caduceus hopes he won’t die too.
“May— Maybe we should wait till Ma’s back. So she can do it properly,” Calliope says. “And set it with a splint.”
Caduceus’ head is fuzzy, the room swaying. It hurts so bad that he thinks he might be sick again. Calliope shakes him by the shoulder and he’s too dizzy to stop his head from rolling to one side. She cusses several times over, running to the chest of drawers to pull her spell book from her own drawer. It’s got a nice pattern on it, a swirly tree. It’s nice to touch. Calliope kneels by the bed as she flips through the pages of scratchy notes and dried plants, and quickly she begins to draw sigils in the air, brokenly whispering the spell Ma taught her.
As she finishes the incantation she grabs Caduceus’ broken leg above and below the knee and moves it, to align all the bones. Stars flash across Caduceus’ vision, like fireflies on the longest day of the year.
“Caddy.” Calliope’s shaking his shoulder again.
“Caddy.” Rougher this time.
She whispers harshly, voice watery: “Wake up.”
At first the pain’s all gone, but it comes back after a moment, only half as bad though.
“Ow…” mumbles Caduceus as he lifts his head. He takes in Calliope’s face above his, the tears brimming in her eyes, and her wet nose. “You’re crying.”
She wipes her face with her sleeve. “I’m not.”
She is.
Caduceus sits up (which takes a lot more effort than usual) and cautiously looks at his knee, ready to look away again if it’s still all crooked. It isn’t though. And it looks normal, how knees are so supposed to.
“You— You fixed it,” he says.
Calliope nods stiffly.
Caduceus offers a smile and a pat on her shoulder. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Calliope gets to her feet slowly, leaning against the bed, all shaky. She puts her book away in her drawer again and helps Caduceus off the bed as he tentatively places his feet on the floorboards, testing his weight on his knee. It hurts still, enough to make him limp, but the pain doesn’t shoot through his body, it doesn’t make him want to throw up.
“Calliope?” he mumbles, staggering as he follows her out the bedroom.
“Mh-hm?”
“Are we going to tell Ma or Pa?”
Calliope presses her lips together, glancing towards the kitchen where Pa has begun to whistle a birdsong tune. “Maybe…but don’t tell them your knee was broken. Only hurt,” she says. “So as not to worry them…It’ll get better soon anyway.”
Caduceus nods thoughtfully. Maybe he’ll find a nice stick in the grove to use as a walking stick for a while, until it gets better.
“And,” Calliope begins, in a strict, big-sister kind of way. “I think it’s best we don’t play-fight like that anymore…It’s not safe, you know. Not responsible.”
Caduceus nods again, looking up at Calliope, and hugs her round her middle, pressing his face into her side. Eventually, after a long, quiet moment, she gives in and she hugs him back, arms tight and warm and apologetic against his back.