With a bowl of lukewarm rice and potatoes, stewed to mush, I took a spoon out of the drawer and returned to the drawing room. On the couch, right on top, was Abbey. The black cat lounged there with its paws outstretched, its head resting flat. Her ears pricked towards me as I approached before she raised her head once I was close enough.
Rounding around to the other side, Jane was still tending to the girl, still squeezing out her hair with a towel. She had not moved on to dry the spirit girl’s body.
“She’s breathing, all right,” she informed with a murmur.
I crouched down next to her. “That’s good.”
Jane moved to the side so that I could work with Alice. Holding the bowl with one hand, I tried to prop up her head with the other. Holding her head a few centimetres off the cushion, I held it there, bringing the bowl towards her mouth, hovering nearby. I was left with no other hands to actually feed her.
“Do you need me to help, dear?”
“Yes.” I lowered her head for the moment, glancing over my shoulder to the other couch. “Could you fetch me a pillow for her?”
The grandfather clock loudly ticked away, each second becoming painfully longer. I raised the girl’s head again as Jane slipped the pillow underneath, pulling up the towel so that the pillow was covered as well. I rested Alice’s head up high, her face remaining expressionless the whole time I was moving her around. Mixing up the porridge a bit, I shoveled up a tiny spoonful. I set down the bowl on her chest, watching it precariously nested in the wet towel.
“Here.” Jane picked up the bowl and held it for me.
Gently, I brought my fingers up to Alice’s, thumbing her limp lip downwards as my other hand approached with the spoon. I moved up my thumb a little bit to latch onto her lower teeth, carefully prying her mouth open so that I could feed her. Despite how soaked through she was when I found her, her lips were completely dry, feeling rubbery to the touch. Slipping in the spoon, I let her mouth close on it, letting it sit in her mouth for a moment before slipping it back out, lifting up the end as I pulled out.
There was no reaction from her. Nothing to indicate what I did worked. Or if she had even swallowed what I fed her. I had no idea what I was actually doing. Would she choke if she was unconscious?
Jane nudged the bowl forward, expecting me to scoop up another bite. Leaning forward, I thumbed open her mouth open again and inspected inside. The food was gone. It seemed like she swallowed it. I scooped another spoonful and fed her again, repeating the same step several times and checking here and there if she was swallowing it all.
Eventually, I finished the entire bowl, scraping my spoon along the sides to gather the remaining bits of porridge. Jane handed off the bowl to me and continued to watch me feed the girl.
“Poor thing,” she mumbled, her voice filled with pity.
I did not say anything. Feeding Alice the last of the porridge, I set the bowl aside on the end table. The insides of her lips were a little wet now, which was a hopeful sign.
“Was this what you wanted to show me?”