Chapter Four: Grandma's Healing Skills
She saw him rummaging through a wooden chest over the room and took a chance to have a clear view on the room – a conservatory of some kind.
The high windows were obscured by large wooden panels, tiny ray of lights breaking in by the interstices between the planks. The room itself was furnished with a few sets of shelves, the heavy mahogany table, the chest and a few chairs. Bleak and appalling when you were used to the cheerful and omniscient furniture of Halliwell Manor.
"How are you eyes?" she asked in an attempt to forget her own pain.
"Don't hur' so much no more."
Amos brought over a jar pot and a few bandages with him. Phoebe bit her lip in an attempt to retain any cry as he unscrewed the jar and poured some of the liquid it contained directly on the wound …
However her eyes widened. "It didn't sting…," she said, flabbergasted.
"Why should it?" Amos arched his eyebrows. "What good would a magical remedy be if it was more painful than the actual injury? That's good for so-called doctor's medicines. Hush!" he added briskly, stepping to a near, view-covered window.
Voices and footsteps were drawing closer so that Phoebe could hear the end of a sentence, "… here but he's out there still, I think."
"Cliff Brooks!" Amos cursed through gritted teeth.
The man called Brooks seemed to wait for an answer that never came so he spoke again. "Can I ask you, sweet lady, what it is you want with Old Stupidy Crapidy Dren? You're not in the whole junk mumbo jumbo business he does, you're not?" he sneered disdainfully.
"My business here is none of yours, old man," the 'sweet lady' answered.
"What's wrong with her voice?" Amos whispered, not seeing the fright in Phoebe's eyes.
Phoebe looked through one of the little gaps in the wooden panels to see a mane of auburn hair flashing red in the rising sun.
Christy did not so far as smile at Brooks.