Chapter Sixteen: The Exchange
(Reilly has returned to the McKinley's tree home.)
Reilly had been asleep for just an hour when Roisin started
to wail. Not having younger siblings of his own, he couldn’t remember ever
hearing a baby cry so loudly. He tried covering his head with a pillow and plugging
his ears. He even ate two rowanberries, hoping they would help, but nothing lessened
the noise of the bawling baby. Reilly gave up and got out of his hammock..
He emptied his pockets and counted the remaining berries. Small,
perfectly round, and shiny, there were one hundred and thirteen left. As an
experiment to determine if the magical effect of the berries he had eaten earlier
was still potent, he focused on thoughts of Norah. He was relieved to discover
that the only pain he felt was in his ears, which was more of an annoyance. A sense of urgency about Norah’s
fate weighed on his soul.
Reilly pulled the flower from his pocket, and set it on the
table beside the pile of berries. When the flower was red, it gave him
strength. Now, although it was still as perfectly formed and soft as it was when
he tucked it behind Norah’s ear, its waning hue was a harrowing reminder that
Norah was in danger. She, too, was fading fast.
Roisin’s shrill cries added
to Reilly’s sense of unrest. Tomorrow night was too far away—he couldn’t sit
around and do nothing!
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