She tried to move. "No." Clara's hand went firm on her shoulder. Stay still, sweetheart. Don't move until we know you're not hurt.
I The child's voice was barely a breath. I wanted to see the cat. She had her kittens up there. "I know," Clara said. I know.
You can see them later. Stay still for me. Ethan arrived at a run that broke into a stumble when he saw his daughter on the ground. The sound that came out of him was not a word. He was beside her in two strides, and Clara moved back enough to give him room, but not enough to leave.
She fell from the hayloft ladder. Clara told him, "Steady. Her heart is beating. She's breathing. Her eyes are responsive.
She tried to move and I stopped her. We need to check for broken bones before she sits up. Ethan's hands were on his daughter's face, his throat working. Lily, Lily, baby. Papa.
Her voice was small but clear. He pulled in a breath that shook. Can I move my legs? Lily asked. Clara looked at her.
Try moving just your toes first. Just your toes. Lily's face went concentrated. They're moving. Good.
Now the fingers. Both hands. Fingers moved. Clara worked through it carefully, methodically. Every piece of knowledge she'd gathered in years of frontier medicine, where the nearest doctor was often 3 days ride.
By the time she was satisfied, she had determined that Lily had nothing broken. A bruised hip, bruised ribs on the left side that would be sore for a week, a goose egg rising at the back of her head. Lucky, impossibly lucky from that height," she said as much to Ethan calmly. "I didn't look calm. He looked like a man standing on the edge of something he'd already almost fallen off of once before."
"Can I lift her?" He asked. "Slowly," Clara said. "Support her head." He lifted his daughter with a gentleness that was almost unbearable to look at the gentleness of a man who had learned not to show it everywhere else and could only give it to this one small person without defense.
He carried her to the house. Clara followed and went ahead of him up the stairs to pull back the covers on Lily's bed to bring water to find the cloth she would need to get everything ready before he arrived with the child in his arms. She worked efficiently and quietly, and Ethan watched her from across the small bedroom. His daughter settled against the pillow, watching Clara's hands. "You knew what to do," he said.