Healers Read Free

and gave her a tentative smile, “I’m hoping it’ll earn me some lunch.”
     
    Eva frowned when she turned around to find Kazy helping, but she didn’t tell the girl to go away either. Helping her own mother and grandmother on the farm, Kazy had a lot of experience with cooking. Eager to help, she made herself very useful.
     
    Daum saw Kazy helping to serve food, first to the other girls, then to the caravaners as they came through to get their lunch. He caught Eva to one side, “Is that one of the girls the raiders were holding?”
    Eva nodded, eyeing the girl and wondering again about her situation.
    Daum said, “ Why’s she helping us?! Does she think we’re going to take care of her from here on out?”
    Eva shrugged, “ I don’t know. She just started pitching in, and I haven’t been able to ask Daussie about it. I have noticed she’s been following Daussie around like a lost puppy dog ever since I started talking to the girls back there in the forest…” Eva chewed a lip worriedly, “What if she doesn’t have any family left?”
    “ We can’t take care of her!” Daum said with dismay. “We still don’t know if we can take care of ourselves!” He looked over at the girl again, “Some of her more distant relatives’ll need to step up.”
    Eva turned her penetrating gray eyes on Daum, looking at him consideringly. “Remember… when you were upset because none of these people would help Daussie ? And you told me you felt guilty because you had told Daussie we couldn’t help everyone? Now, here’s a girl who may have absolutely no one to help her. Are you going to turn her away?”
    Daum closed his eyes, and after a moment he hung his head. “No,” he whispered, “we can’t turn her away.” He opened his eyes and looked at Kazy again. “Maybe she has family here and she’s just helping out because she’s a good kid,” he said hopefully.
    Eva turned and looked at the girl also. “Maybe… but I don’t think so,” she said slowly.
    Daum sighed, “Well, try to find out, would you?”
    Eva nodded slowly.
     
    Once the girls had gone through the serving line to get lunch, Kazy started keeping her eyes down. She found men frightening and didn’t want to know when she was serving one. However, as they held out their bowls, she saw their hands and could tell whether they were men or women by the size and shape of their fingers.
    She reminded herself that she was going to have to get back to dealing with men. The way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to deal with them without some of her hate and fear surfacing… so she’d need to learn to hide her feelings.
    As she ladled some of the thick vegetable soup into the bowl before her she recognized the hand holding it belonged to a young man. She made herself glance up. A frightened shiver ran over her body. Dark blonde hair, brilliant blue eyes, he looked a lot like Kazy’s heroine, Daussie. Kazy’s memory shot back to the moment the door to the horse stall slowly swung open. Shaggy hair and slender build, this young man could have been the man who pushed it open. Could this young man have mystically transformed himself into Daussie when he saw the fear and hate in Kazy’s eyes?
    Kazy blinked and looked up to her right, No, Daussie’s still right here beside me! She looked back at the man who was smiling tentatively at her. He must be Daussie’s brother! Kazy realized she had stopped in the midst of pouring soup into the young man’s bowl. “Sorry,” she said, dumping the rest of the ladle into his bowl.
    The young man moved on, taking some bread from Daussie and heading off to sit on the ground a short distance away. With a start, Kazy realized someone was wiggling a bowl in front of her. “Oops,” she said filling her ladle with soup again. As that customer moved on, she nudged Daussie, “Is that your brother?” she whispered, pointing with her chin.
    Daussie’s eyes followed the direction of Kazy’s