Infinite 01 - Infinite Sacrifice

path and must use their heart as a compass.”
    He turns to me, smiling. “True, very true, Elizabeth.”
    He hops up but puts his warm hand down to help me. I call for the children, who come running at once with Mousie pouncing behind them. Simon carves up the rest of the apple while the children drool expectantly before he gives it to them. I decide to eat the last slice I’d been saving. Simon runs after Rowan, screaming in delight, grabs him up in one swift movement, and raises him to his shoulders. As we walk back up to the abbey in purple dusk, I wonder what his heart has told him.

Chapter 9
    The next night, Simon is chopping wood for the fire while the children are collecting kindling.
    I hear Oliver scream, “Elizabeth!”
    My stomach drops at the sight of Simon vomiting beside the woodpile.
    God, please, not Simon .
    I dab off his face with the hem of my kirtle and walk him back inside. We have some fresh beds ready for incomers, and I lower him onto one. He waves his hand for me to leave him, but I ignore the request. I get him a cool rag for his forehead and place a bucket beside him. He lurches to the bucket a few times and empties his stomach completely.
    He’s burning up by the end of the hour, and I go to Emeline to see if she thinks we should make a cold bath for him. As Emeline is drawing the bath, Daniel comes and places leeches at all his pulse points. Remembering the two antidotes I have left, I run up to get one. I come back down to Daniel helping Simon out of his robe and turn away to give him privacy as he steps into the bath. He shakes and his teeth chatter in response to the cold, but his fever won’t break. His shivering gets so intense that the water sloshes out of the basin. Daniel dries him off and slips back on his robe. Simon looks so feeble walking back to his bed—aged decades within hours.
    “E-Elizabeth?” he chatters.
    “Yes?”
    “E-Elizabeth?”
    “Right here.”
    “S-stay with me.”
    I lie on his blanket with him and remember my vial. “Before you rest, swallow this, please.”
    “W-what is it?”
    “It is an antidote all the way from France. My husband gave me a few vials of his antidotes as he left and I want you to take it.”
    “I don’t w-want it.” He shoves my hand away.
    I don’t understand. “It can help you.”
    “If you have s-saved that when others n-needed it, th-then I sh-shouldn’t have it either.”
    I feel ashamed I had selfishly been holding onto these vials in case Oliver or I got sick and watched as others perished. He keeps shivering for hours. I try to keep cold rags on his head, but the fever is so high, they warm up too quickly. Daniel comes to check his buboes and sees he has developed an egg-sized one on his abdomen, above his groin, and a smaller one on his thigh. Daniel became a master at cauterizing without causing the reaction I usually got. But that didn’t seem to help Simon either. Every time I give him the water that he begged for, he brings it up minutes later, to only to beg for more yet again. His lips crack severely from dehydration, and I see one of God’s tokens develop on his chest. I know he doesn’t have long. Malkyn comes to sing at her usual time, and I hold on to his shaking hand.
    “E-Elizabeth.”
    “Yes, I haven’t gone anywhere.”
    “W-will you let me have y-your braid?”
    I bend down and let him hold it in his hand.
    After feeling it for a moment, he says, “C-can I k-keep it with me?”
    I realize what he means and say, “Of course.”
    He reaches in his pocket, gets his knife, and tries to open it but can’t manage the skillful movement while his hand is trembling so much. I open it, cut part of the ribbon off, and give it to him. He takes the braid in one hand and cuts into the middle of it. I catch it before it untwines, making the hair above the cut spin out around my shoulders. I tie the piece of ribbon on the top to hold the braid, and he closes his pale hand around it.
    He dies around midnight, still clutching my braid.
    The Brothers come with their wagon to collect Simon for burial in their monastery’s graveyard. They treat his body with such care and place him in an ornately carved coffin. It is nice not to worry about his dignity in death or handing him over to Ulric’s apathetic care, but I can’t help thinking he would have been embarrassed by all this special treatment.

Chapter 10
    I try to busy myself to keep my mind off Simon being gone, afraid that if I fall into the hole