Chapter Thirty-Two - Poison Hemlock

  -Summer-

  “Belbet!” Kaion’s voice cut through the murky terror-fugue that had come over her, and Belbet sprung into action with the steadiness of Victoria’s first aid training. Admittedly not as much as perhaps a nurse, but enough to know that this was serious. Sudden vomiting like this was a sign of either major illness or major poisoning, as the human body actually really hates to throw away food.

  She hefted the five year old up into her arms, grunting at the weight distribution as she pulled them both out of the sucking mud. “Kaion, get water. Clean water, quick.” Dahnei continued heaving and shaking in her arms, even as Belbet got her onto the travois and out of the mud. The water seemed to appear at her elbow, even as Kaion spoke.

  “What’s wrong with her? Did she get bit? Stung?” She couldn’t see it, but with the way his voice was changing, it sounded like he might be looking for any signs of something that might have hurt the little girl. Belbet herself was focused on cleaning her daughter’s limbs. She didn’t see any signs of a bite or a sting, no sudden redness or swelling, but there was a rashy redness on her daughter’s palms, near several scrapes.

  “Dahnei, baby, baby, where did you get these scrapes?” She asked, trying to keep her tone steady. “Dahnei, did you cut yourself on something?”

  “D-grk!-Digging! Mama, hurts!” Dahnei managed through the terrified tears and panic.

  “I know baby, I know, I’m so sorry. Mama’ll make it better, okay? Just rest, alright?” Belbet soothed, as she cleaned the mess from her daughter’s face. She looked at her eyes, opening them wide and checking. “No dilation, okay, that’s… that’s a good thing, I think?”

  Her memories from Victoria weren’t telling her much in how to determine what the poison was, or how to treat it. So she grit her teeth and nodded, turning to Kaion. “Kaion, I need some herbs to detoxify. I need you to stay here with her, and I need you to watch her and Mohniit, so they don’t get worse. Okay? Do not let her eat anything. Do not give her water.”

  Victoria could remember that some poisons were activated by water, and in fact that was why you weren’t allowed to drink anything when you went to the emergency room. “I’ll be right back.”

  She took off, trying desperately to run through the mental rollo-dex of herbs Victoria had studied. Detoxification was such a wild array of things and who knew if any one thing might work, so she settled on looking for a couple of things.

  “Dandelion… Nettle….” Belbet muttered to herself, eyes casting through the tall grasses for the tell-tale purple flowers of Nettle and fluffy heads of dandelion, and sure enough it didn’t take long for her to find them. No wonder they were called weeds in Victoria’s world, they grew everywhere.

  It was way, way too late in the season to really use nettle, she knew that, but if she could just find some that hadn’t flowered yet… She skirted around the edges of the patch, the grass already scratching her skin and she didn’t want to imagine how painful diving into that patch would be. She looked for smaller plants, and found a few that didn’t have flowers.

  Coating her hands in mud, she tried to use strands of grass and mud as a sort of glove to protect herself from the little stinging hairs. Picking the leaves was a painful experience, but she made sure to find only ones that were smaller than three inches. Victoria couldn’t remember anymore why that was important, but she knew it was, so she didn’t pick any longer than that.

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  In comparison, the dandelions were positively delightful to harvest. These, she dug up roots and all and carried the armload back to the travois. There, she set out the strenuous task of boiling out some nettle-and-dandelion root tea. It was perhaps the least effective method of medicine for these herbs but honestly, she didn’t have much else to work with.

  Every sob, every little whine, every heaving cough from her baby made Belbet’s heart squeeze in pain, and she wished there was a way for her to take this on herself instead. Dahnei mumbled pleas for her mother to come and hold her, but Belbet couldn’t hold her baby AND boil the tea.

  After what felt like forever, she had usable tea. Some of it she used to wash her daughters little hands and legs, hoping that the detoxification offered by these two herbs would help remove whatever it was that got into those cuts. Then, she had her daughter drink it. Time seemed to both crawl and fly until Dahnei’s stomach settled, and the poor girl no longer shook.

  “We need to go back to camp.” Belbet murmured. “Kaion, I’ll carry Dahnei strapped to my back. Can you pull both Mohniit and the forage?” She asked, turning to the man, who was looking at her with a frown.

  The man nodded, “Yeah.”

  Belbet nodded, and before she began to tie her daughter onto her back, she took one of the furs from the travois and wrapped the separate roots her daughter had been digging up in it, and set them on the travois. It was imperative they figure out what had caused this reaction, and Belbet was not about to leave this to chance. That done, Dahnei secured, the four of them traipsed back to camp much less happy than they were when they left.

  It seemed forever ago that Mohniit had been playing with a frog, the boy now pale and quiet, sitting in the travois and looking up at her with scared eyes. She tried to smile down at him, but she knew it was shaky on her face. She could feel Dahnei’s body against her back, and every few seconds had to stop herself from spiraling into worries about whether the girl’s temperature was going up, whether she was limper than before, whether her breathing was heavier or thinner.

  Finally, they arrived in the camp, and Belbet had never been so glad to see Deenat. “DEENAT!” She cried, and bolted forward, past Kaion and towards her sister. She heard Mohniit make a shriek as well, probably because his mother was leaving him behind, but Belbet knew he was safe and had to focus on the one that might not make it.

  Deenat’s white-haired head snapped in her direction and she accepted it as her sister barrelled into her, arms open and ready. “She’s poisoned, Deenat, she’s poisoned!”

  Between Deenat and Belbet’s scrambling, the two of them got Dahnei untied and laid down on a fur near the fire. Deenat looked over her, and then looked at the bundle of roots and leaves that Belbet had brought with her. Belbet felt an odd sort of anticipation, and recognised it. Oh. Belbet was trusting that her older sibling knew what would fix it. The same way Victoria had always believed her older siblings knew better. Tears slipped down Belbet’s cheeks, relief and fear all mixed up.

  “Can-Do-” She paused and swallowed and tried again, “Do you know what it is? Is it curable?”

  “...This one-” She pointed to the thick, fleshy tubers that had slender roots growing out from near the bottom, “Is a fake groundfrost root. It grows near these ones-” She pointed to what Victoria honestly thought was probably a type of parsnip, “and is poisonous. See, this one is thick. This one, thin.” She pointed here to the thinner, longer roots that looked like parsnips. “These are edible. The others are not. Did she eat them?”

  “No. She just touched it.” But Victoria knew that some poisons could be transferred through hands and skin, and she knew that there had been cuts on her daughters hands from the dirt and rocks she’d dug through. “She might have gotten some of it in her cuts. I put nettle and dandelion on them, and gave her tea that will help her pee out the poisons.”

  Deenat nodded, thinking, “Not much to do but wait. If she ate even a small bit of this-” She pointed again to the fake parsnips, “she’s dead. Nothing to do but wait. But since she just touched it… she might live.”

  Belbet choked, and was surprised that there wasn’t as much relief as she thought there would be. Might was better than absolutely no hope, sure, but it was still not enough. She wanted to know her baby was safe.

  “She threw up everything in her.” Kaion supplied, now that he had settled Mohniit on the ground. The boy was at his mother’s side in an instant, burrowed against her hip, as she watched his older sister with terrified tears.

  “...That’s Dizzy Death.” Mermel murmured, having come over to see what the fuss was about. He used a stick to turn over the fake parsnip herb. “My uncle ate one of these once, and said he was dizzy and everything was swirling. Then he threw up and threw up until he died.”

  Ollob set a hand on the dog man’s arm, the serpent shaking his head, “Not the time, Mermel.”

  “Wait. Wait, what-” Something about that triggered a memory. Victoria remembered a half remembered sentence from an herb book, one of the ones that talked about poisonous herbs. “Hemlock.” She breathed, staring at the roots like she’d seen a ghost. “Hemlock. It was… it was called that because it made people dizzy.”

  Her daughter had touched hemlock. The true poisonous hemlock, the poison that killed a philosopher. She turned to look at the pale face of her little girl, who had finally managed to sleep, and realized she was absolutely helpless.

  After all, Victoria doesn’t know everything. And there are so, so very many things that could kill them in this world.

  Mini Character List

  Victoria/Belbet - Our Main Character, 21 yr old pregnant Mom. - God, Hemlock can kill a grown man with a bite... There's no cure for it! She... Am... Am I going to lose my baby?!

  Dahnei - 5 year old paleolithic child. Daughter of Belbet. Jerboa Mouse-Spirited. - I'm so dizzy, everything hurts! Mama! Help me, Mama!

  Mohniit - 2 year old paleolithic child. Son of Belbet. Rabbit Spirited. - What's happening?! Why is Sissy so sick! Why is Mama crying?!

  Unborn Baby - Oh great, more stress.

  Deenat - 25 year old paleolithic gatherer - Ermine Spirited. - Ah, fuck. This isn't good... Belbet is so attached, if Dahnei dies... ...what am I gonna do if Dahnei dies?

  Eefim - 11 year old paleolithic hunter-in-training - Is... Is Dahnei going to die?!

  Kaion - 26 year old man. Ram Spirited. - Shit, Shit shit, okay, the kid's sick, or dying... fuck, Keep calm, Kaion, we don't need panic here!

  Wolf - ...my food is very VERY late.