Chapter 405 - Horns
Madeline took a courageous step inside the room, and when the creature turned its head to look at her, she felt as if the air had slipped out of her lungs and she tried to catch her breath again. The creature opened its mouth as if wanting to tell her about something while pointing its hand towards Beth, who continued to lay unconscious in the bed.
As the creature continued to move its boney mouth, Madeline heard the creaking sound that came from it because of its jaw moving.
She didn"t know what this creature was, but she had seen a depiction like this in some of the books that her Aunt Mary had stacked in her study room. Her eyes widened when the creature"s hand reached towards Beth"s neck.
"Please stop!" exclaimed Madeline, "W-what, do you think you are doing?" she questioned it, while not knowing if the creature could understand even a word which she was saying to it.
On hearing her sudden loud voice, the two maids who had been standing outside the room quickly hurried inside. The maids looked startled, and they looked back and forth between the Queen and the unconscious girl on the bed with a perplexed expression on their faces.
"Is everything alright, my Queen?" questioned one of the maid wondering if the Queen was speaking to her sister who was resting because there was no one else around.
Madeline quickly looked at the maid, "Do you see it there?" she asked before holding her breath. The maids followed the line of sight of Madeline only to see the wall and the vase that was placed on the table.
"Does the flowers in the vase need water, milady? I will go and get the water right away!" and the maid was about to leave when Madeline shook her head.
"You don"t see it?" questioned Madeline as her body tensed further when the creature took a step closer to her sister. The maids, on the other hand, looked confused, not knowing what the Queen was speaking about. Did she need something to be cleaned?
Realizing the maids were not fooling around and were not able to see what she saw, she raised her hand and waved them to leave.
Was she dreaming? Madeline questioned herself, but it felt too real. When the maids closed the door, the creature"s hand went near Beth"s neck, and Madeline quickly took a step forward to hear the creature snarl, not liking her proximity near it or her very own sister.
"Why are you here?" asked Madeline to the creature. Its hand moved closer to Beth, moving its boney fingers around Beth"s neck and then brought the hand back to the front of its chest as if to emphasize it was taking Beth with it. Madeline quickly shook her head, "No," she whispered, "You can"t do it."
She didn"t know why, but she felt like she understood what it was saying even though it hadn"t uttered proper words. Was this because of the werewolf bite? She asked herself. The creature didn"t look like it was anywhere a wolf"s sibling, to tell that it had come here for Beth.
"Step away from her!" she stepped forward, her voice raising loud enough for the things in the room to shake and the comb that was on the edge of the table fell on the ground.
Hearing her loud voice, the creature took a step away from Beth, hissing at her in displeasure. And when Madeline took another step, the creature disappeared from the room. She looked around the room, making sure the creature was nowhere. She didn"t know what it was and what its abilities were.
Once she was sure that the creature had disappeared, Madeline couldn"t help but doubt that she had been imagining the creature that didn"t exist. Because if it did, how did it disappear?
Quickly moving towards Beth, Madeline checked Beth"s neck to make sure there were no scratches. She felt relieved, and she wondered if Beth was comfortable right now even though she was fast asleep. When Beth would wake up, she would be greeted by the pain of the werewolf"s bite. Beth was unlucky when it came to wolves. First, it had been Calhoun"s wolf, Madox who had bit into her hand, and now a werewolf had bit into her leg that would decide Beth"s fate.
Moving towards the foot of the bed where she had earlier placed a pillow under Beth"s injured leg, she went to make the blanket right when she saw the blood on the surface of the pillow, and she slowly pulled it away to see the pillow had turned wet because of the wound that had again started to bleed.
"Maids!" Madeline called the maids who were waiting outside, "Get a new cloth to bandage, and also alcohol along with the needle and thread," she ordered without losing a single second.
The maid"s eyes widened at the sight of blood. "Now!" demanded Madeline before turning to her sister"s leg and she started to unbandage the cloth that had been wrapped earlier that had soaked in blood.
When the bandage was removed, a small gasp escaped from Madeline"s lips at the sight of the wound that looked deep and b.l.o.o.d.y. The wound was still not healed, and her eyebrows furrowed. With the venom of the werewolf now running in Beth"s body, she had hoped that the injury would heal itself. Dropping the idea to wait, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
The maids arrived with a first aid box and handed it to the lady.
"Would you want us to bring a doctor, my Queen?" asked one of the two maids.
"No, that won"t be necessary," said Madeline. She opened the box and pulled the things that she would need.
There had been a time when she had treated a deer which had been hurt. It was the time when their parents had gone to visit their relatives, leaving her and Beth behind in the house. The deer had been hunted by someone with an arrow that had pierced into one of its hind legs, barely able to walk and had ended up at the back of their house in the middle of the night, which the girls had thought it to be a thief.
Beth and she had somehow pulled out the arrow before st.i.tching the wound.
Madeline didn"t want to waste time by waiting for a physician, she took the alcohol and washed the needles and the wound. Bringing a candle that was burning brightly, she held the needle over it so that it could heat up. It had been difficult with the deer, and knowing this was her sister, it was even more challenging.
She looked at the maids and said, "You can leave the room." Once the maids stepped out, she bent down in front of the wound and blew air, but nothing happened. The wound didn"t get better, but it only turned worse. She could see the discolouration of the skin around the wound, and the venom was spreading like an infection.
Taking a deep breath, she steadied her hand before bringing the needle towards the wound. She pushed the hot needle along with the thread from the bottom of the wound...