Gargana grumbles as she busies herself in the kitchen, yet her eyes flash with color. Eventually she comes out with a heaping plate of stew for Gargan. Next comes two thimbles of stew that Gargana places quickly in front of the two guests—as though she is feeding snakes. Inside the thimbles are spoons that are the right size for Edna and Cellu. Edna wonders why the giants don’t have right size bowls, as well.
“Thimbles make for a better story, here in Storia, I guess.” Edna mumbles under her breath.
Cellu picks up his thimble and examines it and Gargana goes back into the kitchen and comes out with a plate of her own and sits in the chair next to Gargan and eats quietly.
Edna exams the food as she takes a bite. There seems to be a variety of vegetables that have been mashed together in a thickened savory broth, and the stew is flavored with mellow spices that have a familiar yet exotic taste. The meal is so soft that it reminds Edna of the meals that are served to those at the assisted living facility who have neither teeth nor dentures. Suddenly scenes emerge, in Edna’s mind, of her elderly neighbors’ conversing with loved ones, and Edna has a faint memory of feeling angry, and she cannot bring herself to eat anymore. Gargana must have put a lot of effort into making this edible for us, she thinks, because she cannot find a lump in it—and it is, looking at Gargan’s plate, a very lumpy meal. She wishes that Gargana had not put so much effort into it; some lumps would have been nice.
Gargana looks at Gargan often as she eats her food, examining him with what looks to Edna like tenderness. But whenever Gargan looks towards Gargana, she looks away and the tenderness disappears; replaced with another look, a look familiar to Edna. After only a few years of marriage with Grady, many things about him—characteristics that Edna had been drawn to—began to irritate her; his cheerfulness, lightheartedness, and his laissez-faire attitude. These traits of Grady’s did not alleviate Edna of her angst, but intensified it through the juxtaposition.
Gargan has many of the same qualities that Grady had, but Grady did not seem to have the patience that Gargan has. And Edna does not think she would have been irritated by impatience. Edna always appreciates it when others try to understand her, even though she has a hard time understanding herself—especially because she has a hard time understanding herself. Grady wasn’t very understanding. And patience goes hand in hand with being an understanding person.
Gargana looks at Edna and the uneaten thimble of food. “Don’t you like the food?” she asks.
“Oh yes dear, it’s delicious,” Edna says.
Edna looks at Cellu. He is eating without any sign of enjoyment, but his quiet concentration is sign enough that he finds the meal satisfying. Watching a centaur eat out of a large thimble is enough to remind Edna that she is not in the dining hall at Sunflower Assisted Living, and she begins to eat again.
Once the meal is finished, Gargana swoops up the dishes, and quickly washes them. Edna cannot imagine that the dishes have gotten very clean.
“Now Gargan,” Gargana says, just as she finishes washing up, “why are you so sure that that little creature is the dragon slayer?”
“Do you remember what’s said about the maiden of the prophecy?” Gargan asks. Gargana looks at him incredulously. “Okay,” Gargan says, putting his hands up. He pulls the magnifying glass back out of Gargana’s desk, then holds it above Edna. “Come here and look,” he says to Gargana. Soon, two pairs of eyes that were already huge are now astronomical spheres that eye Edna comically above a glass canopy.
“Look at the cane again; the detail of the vines. Then look at her legs. Do you see the vines on her calves?”
“Veins,” Edna mumbles.
Gargan puts his arm around Gargana’s waist, and smiles at her.
“Well, then what should we do?” Gargana asks, taking the magnifying glass into her own hands, eyes still on Edna.
“She needs to get back to her companions. They may already have a plan.”
“Why isn’t she with them?”
“I needed space,” Edna says.
“Why did you need space?” Gargana asks.
“They were mean to me.”
“How?”
“They weren’t helpful when I needed help. They just—well I thought they were being mean. I don’t know. I just needed some breathing space.” Edna is irritated by Gargana’s questioning. Deal with your own issues, lady, she thinks.
“Then she met me, and I treated her nice,” Cellu says abruptly. “And I still don’t see any sense in our being here.” He trots towards the edge of the table, raises his front legs and taps Gargana’s leg with his front two hooves. Gargana screams and jumps back, dropping the magnifying glass. It falls onto the table and a shard brakes off a cracked edge, shooting towards Edna and slashing the side of her left arm.
Cellu begins to run around the table yelling, “I knew it! We can’t trust these giants; they’re trying to kill us. They just want your cane!”
The giants do not hear Cellu over their own panic, but Edna does. Gargana runs into the kitchen and comes back with a cloth napkin. She rips off a tiny piece of material and gives it to Edna. Edna presses it to the gash, but it is too thick and too stiff to wrap easily around her arm. The wife is wringing her hands.
“Gargana,” Gargan says, “help her!” The blood continues to soak into the material as Edna tries to work with the rough cloth. Edna is more frightened by the flowing blood than the pain. The pain is not so bad. There was an initial pang, but it quickly calmed into a comforting throb. Edna feels the slow rhythmic pounding of her pulse throughout her body, and she is tempted to fall asleep to the rhythm. But when she imagines herself lying on the giants’ table unconscious, with her hair and clothing soaking in her own blood, she changes her mind. She looks at Cellu. He is staring at the blood that flows from her arm, and he looks disgusted. She looks back at the giants, and large hands are coming towards her, one holding a pair of scissors.
“I’m gonna cut off the sleeve of your good arm, Edna,” Gargana says, seeming to have gathered some nerve. “I think it‘ll work better to wrap your arm with than any materials I have.” After cutting the sleeve off, she works delicately with her large fingers, gently lifting Edna’s injured arm with her pinky. She holds one end of the material in place above the cut, and winds it tight around Edna’s wounded arm, successfully stopping the blood.
“Thank you dear. You did that very well.” Edna says when Gargana is finished, slurring her words a little. Gargana puts a thumb against Edna’s back, so Edna can rest against it, and turns to Gargan. “Bring me an elderberry.”
When he comes back with a plump berry, Gargana directs him to replace her thumb with his, then takes the berry and scratches the top with a fingernail, piercing the top barrier of skin. She then applies enough pressure to it to break up the pulpy cells inside, while keeping the outer shell intact. “Suck on this,” she says to Edna, as she hands her the berry.
As Edna sucks the juices from the large bulbous fruit, thick purple-red juice stains her mouth and runs down her cheeks and chin, soaking into her shirt. She is uncomfortably sticky, her head aches, her face is fuzzy, and the world is spinning above her; but she is alive, and she drinks as much as she can.
Gargana checks Edna’s pupils with the magnifying glass at close intervals, and makes sure to keep her grip tight to the glass while she holds it above Edna.
“You sure know your stuff,” Edna says to Gargana.“I feel like I’m being taken care of by a bona fide nurse.”
“You are,” Gargan says. “Gargana’s a medicine woman.”
“Medicine woman?”
“Yep, Gargana has the healing gift.”
Edna looks at Gargana curiously.
“It’s really not so mysterious,” Gargana says, “those with the healing gift have a keen intuition of the body. I just know how to take care of a body that’s unwell. If one is sick, I know which herbs to pick and how to prepare them to make the sick person better. Anything that ails you, I know what to do. I know what the body needs.”
“My heavens,” Edna says, “that sounds mysterious to me, and very impressive. How often do you help others?”
“Hardly ever,” Gargan says.
Gargana rolls her eyes. “Are we gonna get into this again? I didn’t choose this gift; there are healers for the small people. And I don’t turn giants away.”
“The problem,” Gargan says, “is that there have been healers who have disappeared, and there is only a set amount. Gargana is needed more than she is willing to admit. But she won’t go past the villages or let any little creature near her.”
“This is another reason he’s always trying to get me to believe that we are all the same size beyond the villages. He thinks that if he gets me out there it’ll cure me of my fear. But I’m not falling for it.”
“Honey,” Gargan says with a hint of irritation, “we have the actual maiden of the prophecy right here in front of us. And she’s going to need care along the way—with her arm the way it is. Do you want to go with her; help her, or not?.”
Gargana looks directly into Gargan’s eyes. Her fear has controlled her for much of her life. But though it may control some of her beliefs, it is no match for what she ultimately believes in. She breathes a sigh of defeat and puts her hands up in the air, “fine.”
Because Gargan knows Gargana, and loves her, he holds in the explosion of emotion that her response has sparked within him. Yet he cannot help but slap his hands together and lift his knee when he swivels towards Edna.
“How d’you feel about a couple of giants tagging along?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Edna says.
“Are you feeling up to walking yet?”
“I think I’ll be alright, with a nurse to look after me,” Edna answers groggily.
Gargan swivels back towards Gargana. “What do you think?”
“I think she’ll be okay. I’ll keep my eye on her. Let me just gather some things for the road. And you’ll need to find someone to watch Dina while we’re gone.”
Dina is their baby dragon. We almost forgot about her.
Renee Rushing 
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