Chapter 42

Frankie gingerly entered their cottage, eyeing Lia. She did the same to him. Tamara paid them no attention and guided him in their small living room as he sat on a three-legged stool.

“Do you want a drink?” Lia asked out of politeness.

Their visitor shook his head rapidly. “We don’t have time. I need you to help my mother.” Under Lia’s cold gaze he added a hasty please in the end. “I beg you, help my mother.”

Lia might have felt crossed with the way Frankie acted but now that he mentioned Yolly, she could not help but be worried too. Her heart hammered on her chest as she recalled the events the day before. She did leave Yolly to face the town guards alone.

“What happened to her?” Tamara’s voice was soothing as ever, the kind of voice that makes you want to open up your concerns and worries to her.

“She drank that cursed drink.”

The words hung in the air. Tamara and Lia exchanged glances.

In a careful tone, Lia tried to dispel the heavy silence. “She…did what?”

“She drank. The gin. The, you know…” Frankie gestured around wildly. Then as if to realize something, his movements became small. “Oh. I guess you lot are not familiar to the news in town. About people forgetting and people getting sick.”

“No, we know that. We know that people get fevers and forgetfulness from drinking gin,” Lia said.

“No, no. You got it wrong. People get sick first. Then someone said, I dun know who, maybe in that shitty bar, maybe someplace, I’m not sure. They said the gin will make them better. So people drink and then they start getting better and they also start doing things. Then forgets ‘em after a few hours. Then gets sick again.”

“Are you sure about this?” Lia exchanged another meaningful glance with her mother. If Frankie noticed, he did not seem to care.

“Sure as hell! Look. I saw ‘my friends’. I saw ‘my mother’. You think I’m shitting you right now when my mother is…” Frankie crumpled on his seat, arms cradling his head. “I’m begging you, help my mother. You are her friend, right?” He stared his wide eyes at Tamara. Lia was afraid he would cry any minute.

“We will help, of course. But we have to understand what happened first and what was in that gin,” Tamara said.

Frankie seemed to take comfort in Tamara’s words and calmed down. He then narrated what had happened after the raid in their store. The guards turned the store upside down despite Yolly’s attempt to stop them. They did not find anything incriminating but the products being sold were destroyed. Once the guards left, Yolly and Frankie cleaned up the place, salvaging anything that did not get too broken to sell. Yolly felt ill then but thought it was just because of what happened. So she went out told Frankie to not let anyone in. When she got home, she was in a much joyful mood, happy and drunk. She got to her bed and Frankie thought that was it. But he got woken by the sound of thrashing and glasses breaking and found his mother turning their store upside down again. Frankie, being familiar with the symptoms, dragged her mother to bed, still thrashing. After a while, she got quiet and feverish. He gave her fever medicine and fled to seek help.

“I brought the gin,” Frankie said when he finished telling them the events that occurred and handed them a bottle of clear liquid.