The days that followed settled into a new, delicate rhythm. The open defiance between Darren and Maida had subsided, replaced by a tentative, unspoken truce. He was once again her apprentice, gathering herbs and grinding roots, his diligence unwavering. Maida had not acknowledged his makeshift laboratory again, yet she had not forbidden him from using it. It existed between them, a silent testament to his strange methods.
Occasionally, Darren would offer a quiet suggestion. "The poultice might hold together better if we mixed it with a little flour paste," he'd say, or, "Perhaps this tea would be more effective if we let the leaves steep in water that has just finished boiling, rather than boiling the leaves themselves." He framed his ideas as questions, couching them in the language of a curious student rather than a knowledgeable equal.
To his surprise, Maida began to listen. Not always, and never with overt approval, but sometimes he would later see her adding a bit of flour to a paste or changing her method for brewing a tea. The changes were small, but the results were noticeable. A salve was less irritating; a tonic seemed to settle a stomach more quickly. A quiet acknowledgment would pass between them—a brief, searching look from her, a steady gaze from him. He was a puzzle she was slowly, reluctantly, beginning to solve. But the core of her traditions remained untouchable, a fortress of ancestral knowledge he could not yet breach.
That fortress was put to the test when the sickness came. It started subtly—a farmer's wife with a sour stomach, a child with a bout of looseness. Within a week, it had spread through the village like a foul miasma. It was a vicious stomach ailment that left its victims weak and pale, wracked by vomiting and debilitating diarrhea. The central well, Darren suspected, was the likely culprit, its water contaminated by the summer heat and the village's poor sanitation.
Villagers lined up outside Maida's hut, their faces drawn with worry. She worked tirelessly, her expression grim, handing out cups of a bitter, brown tea brewed from river-root, a traditional remedy for calming the gut. Darren watched her, a cold dread coiling in his stomach. He knew, with the chilling certainty of his advanced knowledge, that the tea would do nothing to combat the true killer: dehydration. It might soothe the stomach lining, but it wouldn't replace the vital water and salts the body was losing at an alarming rate.
He had to act. He could not stand by and watch people waste away while the solution was, in his mind, so simple. His focus, however, was singular. He could not save the whole village, not without revealing himself completely. But he could save his own. He could save the orphanage.
He went to Sister Marta, his expression grave. "The children must stop drinking water from the well immediately," he stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "We will use only rainwater we have collected, and we must boil all of it before we drink."
Sister Agnes scoffed from the kitchen. "Boil all our water? What a waste of firewood."
"It's better than wasting lives," Darren countered, his gaze locking with Sister Marta's. She saw the seriousness in his young-old eyes and nodded slowly. "Do as he says."
His next step required capital. He took a significant portion of his earnings from the bakery and went to the market, which was subdued and thinly attended. He bought two precious commodities: a small, rough bag of salt from one of the few traders who dealt in it, and a large basket of the sweetest, ripest apples he could find.
Back at the orphanage, he went to work. He commandeered the kitchen, much to Sister Agnes's irritation. First, he had Lily and a few of the other children help him wash and chop the apples. He set them to boil in a large pot with a little of the purified water, letting them cook down until they formed a thick, sweet pulp. He strained the liquid through a clean piece of cloth, creating a concentrated, sugary syrup—a vital source of glucose. The leftover pulp, he spread thinly on wooden boards to dry in the sun, an idea for a future, more portable remedy already forming in his mind.
Then came the final, crucial step. In a separate, clean pot of boiled and slightly cooled water, he carefully measured and mixed his ingredients. A precise amount of salt, to replace the body's lost electrolytes, and a larger measure of the apple syrup, to provide energy and help the body absorb the water. It was a simple oral rehydration solution, one of the most important medical discoveries of his former world's 20th century, recreated here with medieval ingredients.
The resulting liquid was pale and slightly sweet, with a hint of salt. He poured a cup and brought it to Sister Marta. "This is the medicine," he said. "If any of the children get sick, they must drink this. Small sips, all day long. No solid food, just this."
Sister Marta looked at the concoction skeptically. "What is it?"
"Herbs and fruits," he lied smoothly. "A recipe I learned from Maida for when the body is weak." He would not tell them the truth, but he would give them the cure.
It wasn't long before he had to use it. A young boy named Thomas came down with the sickness first, his small body wracked with fever and misery. While Sister Agnes muttered about river-root tea, Darren, with Sister Marta's anxious blessing, began the regimen. He sat with the boy himself, patiently giving him a small spoonful of the solution every few minutes.
Within three days, the results were undeniable. While the villagers who took Maida's tea grew weaker, Thomas's fever broke. The vomiting subsided, and the diarrhea lessened. He was still weak, but he was keeping the liquid down, and the colour was returning to his cheeks. Soon, two more children fell ill, and Darren immediately started them on the same treatment. They, too, began to recover with a speed that seemed miraculous.
On the fourth day, Maida came to the orphanage. Her face was a mask of exhaustion and grim failure. The river-root tea was not working. People in the village were getting worse, and she had no other answers. She had come to check on the orphans, likely expecting to find a scene of despair.
Instead, she found the three sick children resting quietly, while others played in the main room. In the corner, Darren was carefully administering a cup of his pale solution to one of the recovering girls. Maida stopped in the doorway, her eyes narrowing as she saw the scene. She strode over, her presence silencing the room.
"What is that you are giving her?" she demanded, her voice low and strained.
Darren looked up, his expression calm. "A remedy for the sickness."
"Your remedy?" Her tone was sharp with accusation.
"I was worried for them," Darren said, choosing his words with immense care. "I remembered things you taught me, about which plants give strength and which ones soothe the stomach. I just mixed some things together." He met her hard gaze. "After all," he added softly, "I learn from the best."
The compliment, so simple and respectful, was like a key turning in a rusted lock. It gave her an escape from the corner he had backed her into. To admit he was right would be to admit she was wrong, that her traditions had failed. But to accept his success as an extension of her own teaching—that was possible.
She stared at the cup in his hand, then at the faces of the recovering children. The proof was irrefutable. It was in the life returning to their eyes, in the absence of the rattling cough of severe dehydration. For the first time, she looked at him not as a curious boy or a diligent apprentice, but as something more. Something she didn't understand, but could no longer deny. The weight of his knowledge was a tangible thing, and it was heavier than all her years of tradition.
Realizing the shift in the balance of power, as subtle as it was, Darren knew this was his moment. He had to press his advantage.
"Maida," he began, his voice still quiet but firm. "I need to ask something of you."
She just looked at him, waiting.
"When you go with the hunters into the deep woods, beyond the village lands… I wish to go with you."
The request shattered the fragile peace. Maida's face hardened instantly. "Absolutely not. It is no place for a child. The woods are dangerous, and the hunters have no time to be watching over a boy."
"But you will be there," Darren pressed, standing up to face her fully. "I will stay by your side the entire time. I won't be a burden. There are herbs out there, ones that don't grow near the village. I need to learn about them. If I am to truly learn from you, I must see everything you see, go everywhere you go."
"I said no, Kael."
"Please!" he begged, allowing a desperate, childish plea to enter his voice. It was a calculated risk, a blend of his adult ambition and his childlike vessel. "I won't get in the way. I'll do everything you say. This is important."
Maida wrestled with herself, her expression a storm of conflict. His logic was sound. His thirst for knowledge was undeniable. And his strange, inexplicable success with this sickness gave his words a weight they had never had before. She let out a long, frustrated sigh.
"Fine," she bit out, the word costing her dearly. "You may come. But you will follow my conditions. You do not speak to the hunters unless spoken to. You do not wander from my sight, not for a moment. And you touch nothing, absolutely nothing, without my permission. If you break these rules even once, you will never leave the village with me again. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Darren said, his heart hammering with triumph. "Thank you."
Now, for the second, and perhaps greater, hurdle. That evening, he found Sister Marta mending clothes by the light of a single oil lamp. He took a deep breath and made his request.
Her reaction was exactly as he'd predicted. She dropped the tunic she was holding.
"No, Kael. It's out of the question," she said, her voice sharp with alarm. "The stories you hear about those woods are not just tales to frighten children. There are wolves, bandits… It is far too dangerous."
"I won't be alone," Darren argued, keeping his voice reasonable and calm. "I'll be with Maida and the hunters. They're all adults. They know the woods."
"You are a child. And a frail one at that," she countered, her worry making her stern. "You collapsed in the garden from a little weeding. How would you handle a day of trekking through the forest?"
"I won't be trekking," he explained patiently. "I will be with Maida while she forages. It's not about strength, it's about learning. Sister Marta, think about what this means. The remedies I am learning, the things I am discovering… they can help everyone here." He gestured around the sparsely furnished room. "This is for the orphanage. So I can learn more, so I can be more useful. So I can help protect us all from sickness, like I did this week."
His argument hit home. She looked at him, this strange, serious boy who had single-handedly nursed three children back to health when the village's own herbalist had failed. He spoke of helping the orphanage, of protecting them. He was not asking for a chance to play, but for an opportunity to work, to provide. Her resolve began to waver.
"You must promise me you will be careful," she said, her voice softening. "You will listen to Maida and the hunters and do exactly as they say."
"I promise," Darren said earnestly.
She sighed, the sound heavy with resignation and fear. "Very well. You may go. But Kael," she added, her eyes pleading with him, "be safe. Please, just be safe."
He nodded, a profound sense of accomplishment washing over him. He had done it. He had leveraged proof into trust, and trust into opportunity. He was about to take his first step into the wider world, a world of unknown plants and unknown dangers. For the first time since his arrival, the walls of the village no longer felt like a cage, but like the starting line of a race he was determined to win.