Chapter 5 — Page 30
Always consult your physician when he’s inebriated.
I should probably get a page of characters up on this site. Until then, allow me to link to previous pages as reminders. Brian was introduced along with Bridget (the pixie flirting with him here), Mary and a few other squatters back in Chapter 2: Crude & Feckless. Brian’s medical ambitions and first aid booth appeared in Chapter 4: The Stolen Child, as well as mention of his father, a Red Cap; see notes on that post for more about redcaps. In the same chapter (next page) appears Bridget’s library and Mary’s school for refugee and homeless children where she teaches them to bake pies with blackbird stuffing.
If you’re reading this all in one session, you might remember these characters a little better. Or not. They appear in background, supporting and slightly antagonistic roles so far in this story, leading their own lives and making decisions independent of Fetch’s input. This is by design.
BRIDGET: Sooooo, Brian … wanna see my medical textbooks?
BRIAN: [blushing] Oh! Well…
FETCH: Brian! Are you sober?
PANEL 2: Brian stands up and Fetch gestures toward Owen.
BRIAN: Uh, mostly…
FETCH: Owen ate fae food and now he’s stuck here. Can you give him something? An antidote? A counterspell?
PANEL 3: Brian stands in front of a bookshelf and consults a book of antidotes. Bridget still sits on his shoulder. Fetch and Pooka speak to Owen who sits on a cot.
BRIAN: Aye. We in the med’cal perfessun call that a food anchor.
Very tricky. Some anchors are enchanted by spells and some are (hic) wuzzercallem …
BRIDGET: …home made?
BRIAN: Thass the one. Enchanted food needs a counterspell.
But homemade with ingred- (hic) -ients grown in fae soil, he’ll need somethin’ speshul…
FETCH: What did you eat, Owen?
OWEN: One of Mary’s pies. Blueberry blackbird, I think.
POOKA: Ooo, good choice!
PANEL 4: Brian reads from the book to Fetch, Owen and Pooka.
BRIAN:: Here ‘tiz!
“If ye food anchor of the fae soil be,
Find ye root of the alder tree,
Overgrown with liverwort,
In swamps where …”
PANEL 5: Brian close up, looks up from the book.
BRIAN: Oh no.
PANEL 6: Brian looks sober and afraid, imagining the fierce grimace of his Red Cap father.
BRIAN: “In swamps were red caps sport.”
That’s me dad. His sport is slaying humans.
OWEN: Er…
POOKA: Sorry, bud.
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