There is a secret one inside
All the stars and all the galaxies
Run through her hands like beads
   (pagan trance chant/healing call)

--Day 34, evening, Sarah's privte apartments--

Flopped listlessly across the sofa, Sarah mused that she hadn't noticed the
fish quite soon enough in tonight's dinner. Usually the cook was supposed to
warn people of this sort of thing, but living on a river as the Warren did,
they probably assumed that nobody was allergic. Perhaps had it not been in
the stew as well as the main course, she would have been okay.

Wrenching pains caught at her stomach and she bolted for the washroom. For
at least the fifth time that night, she collapsed over the porcelain bowl
and choked up acid and spotty blood. She probably should go see someone in
the Med center about this, but wasn't quite sure if she could get that far
unaided. If her eyes or hands had started to itch, she would have made an
effort, but the reaction wasn't that bad. At least not yet, it wasn't.

Listlessly, the teacher slumped to one side of the toilet, flushing it as
she fell. Dizzily, she closed her eyes and heaved a few short breaths,
throat burning and raw with the taste of bile. Some intrinic part of her
knew she had to get up and drink some water, but she didn't want to move.

Sarah couldn't remember the last time she'd been this sick. Unfortunately,
as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she did remember. The hatching
party when she had the panic attack and threw up all over Tinker. Come to
think of it, the last time she'd been melted all over the bathroom floor
like this was when he scared the death out of her and she fell out of the
shower.

Very slowly, Sarah rolled to her knees. She wouldn't go so far as to say
she'd been avoiding him, but she'd definitely kept a discreet distance from
both Tinker and his steel gray dragon who knew too much about her.

Holding on to the edge of the sink for support, Sarah stood up, a little
wobbly, and drank two glasses of room temperature water from the bathroom
sink. She knew cold water, as much as she wanted some, would not stay down
right now and might make matters worse. She paused for a long moment,
waiting to see if her body would immediately reject the much needed liquid.
When it did not do so, she staggered back to the sofa and fell into it,
closing her eyes and curling around herself with a small pained whimper.

--Day 35--

Sunlight prodded at Sarah's sore, dry eyes and she grumbled something rude
at the alarm clock before getting up to shut it off. Her stomach no longer
felt like it was clawing its way out of her body, but she was thirsty and
dizzy and exhausted. Carefully, she headed for the kitchen, stumbling a
little bit, and drank a glass of fruit juice. Potassium and water were what
she needed, she knew that, and so she grabbed two bananas and poured herself
the biggest glass of cool water she could find, settling in at the ktchen
table.

She was going to have to talk to the resident cook about her allergy. Next
time she might not be quite so lucky to only have a stomachache. The only
reason she was so certain it was the fish was because the reaction was
familiar. Lately so many of the children had been falling ill that she had
thought for a moment she might have the current variety of flu. That didn't
fit with the rapid onset and release of the symptoms, though.

Muching one of the bananas but not really tasting it, she called roll in her
head. The number of children well enough to attend class was dwindling at an
alarming rate. Strangely enough, very few of the adults seemed to be unwell.
Usually when a flu went around, it hit the elderly as well as the children.
Strange.

Sarah downed the last of the water and waited a moment to regain her
equilibrium. Small or not, she still had a class waiting out there for her.
Pulling a jacket over her shoulders, she shaded her eyes against the sun and
headed out to the green. Unfortunately, the bright light momentarily blinded
her and she collided head on with a lamp post with a rather unladylike
grunt. As a result, her body promptly decided it was sitting down and she
had no say in the matter.

Shaking her head very slowly, she rolled over and stood up, gracefully
dusting the grass and dirt from her dress. It would be just her luck that
they had to put one right there in her line of travel. Smiling to herself,
she kept walking, recognizing the peevishness in her mental litany as a
simple lack of sleep and some lingering nausea. Once she got to the school,
she'd be all right.

She had to concede that Tinker's lamp idea had worked fabulously. Eleanora
was thrilled with it, and since that's who he'd had in mind when he made
them, he seemed more than content to continue expanding his brainchild
throughout the Warren. She hadn't the courage to watch the demonstration
where he might see her, so she had climbed the falls again and watched from
the ledge, laughing as he overestimated the gas and almost singed his
eyebrows off. She felt for him when Merissa started dressing him down, but
everything seemed to come out well.

Being able to see at night had made developing a friendship with the shy
deaf woman that much easier because they could go for walks at night when
nobody would disturb them. She was an incredibly bright young woman, and
they had been discussing the politics of the surrounding towns for some
evenings running now. Perhaps they could start on religion and the nature of
the divine soon - that was always good conversation fodder.

Smiling to herself and thinking of the pretty blonde woman, Sarah didn't
really notice Janet waving at her from the school doors until she almost
stepped on her.

"Sarah, your class fell ill. All of them. I guess you might as well have the
day off..." said Janet quietly.

"I... Janet..." Sarah hung her head sadly and looked into the empty
classroom.

"We all feel the same, Sarah," replied the headmistress with a reassuring
hand on her shoulder. "We're all concerned about what's making them so ill.
You don't look well yourself - are you all right?"

"Allergic to fish," replied Sarah with a weak smile. "I avoided dinner but
didn't think to ask about the stew."

Janet Witzherly laughed, a deep, throaty, rumbling sound. "Oh my. We've
picked the WRONG warren to live in, haven't we, dear?"

With a shrug, Sarah turned to go. "Not really, Ma'am. I just have to tell
the cooks that I'm allergic. I don't imagine I'll be the first. But you're
right. A checkup probably wouldn't hurt."

Sarah made her way slowly across the Warren green to the Med center. If all
the children in her class were sick, what was she going to do with herself?
What could possibly be making them all so ill?

Her biggest concern was Oberon.Since he began showing signs of illness, his
ability to communicate had been steadily deteriorating. She assumed it was
due to old patterns coming up as a survival technique, but it was still
unnerving to watch all that hard work and progress run from her hands like
beads.

Stepping through the door into the Med center was like colliding headfirst
into a wall of bodies.The front room was packed with people in varying
states of nausea. What happened here? Was the fish bad or something? Maybe
she hadn't been the only one sick last night.

Inching her way around everyone, Sarah finally got close enough to one of
the harried nurses to get his attention. "Excuse me, sir?"

He turned and looked, not really seeing her and replied, "I'm sorry miss,
but we're taking cases in order of arrival. You'll have to wait at the
front."

"I'm not here for that - I know exactly what's wrong with me," she replied
softly, "I'm here because of an allergy to the fish served last night. I
thought that was why all these people were here."

Shaking his head, he put one hand on her shoulder. "We don't understand one
bit either. Have a seat in here," he added, guiding her into a small room
with an open door, "We'll have someone come do blood tests as soon as we
can. It's a bit crazy right now."

Sarah let out a resigned smile, nodded at the nurse and settled into a chair
in the room while he wandered away. This wasn't looking like it was going to
be a very productive day. She waited perhaps fifteen minutes, then let
herself out the back door.

There wasn't much point in her taking up the staff's time. They had enough
to worry about, and tehnically she WAS feeling quite a bit better.

Squinting against the bright glare of the sun, Sarah made her way over to
the greenspace she'd heard affectionately called the lover's garden. Slowing
as she entered, she took a deep breath, relishing the wisteria and lilacs of
the season, tinged with the musky undercurrent of rose and jasmine. Settling
on to a bench out of the way of the main path, she relaxed on the wood and
soaked in the scent of life.

The alcove where she was hadn't been tended for some time, and when she felt
herself beginning to nod off to sleep, she rolled off the bench and dropped
to her knees, feeling through the undergrowth. She'd done some work as a
garderner and it seemed as good a thing to do as any, as she dug into the
soft soil with her fingertips and coaxed the weeds free.

--------======----------

NRPG: There we go. Sorry N'lin, but she needed something to do. Anyone gonna
come visit?

Namaste' (We Are All One)
   --Shadowsinger--
=========================
shadowsinger@bigfoot.com
     ICQ #: 3673956


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