were three families with at least one person ill with a vicious bloody flux—and in all of the samples I had looked at so far, I had found this amoebic stranger.
“Is it really?” Malva had looked up when I spoke, but now returned to the eyepiece, absorbed. “However can something so small cause such a stramash in something so big as a person?”
“Well, there is an explanation,” I said, swishing another slide gently through the dye bath and setting it to dry. “But it would take me a bit of time to tell you, all about cells—you remember, I showed you the cells from the lining of your mouth?”
She nodded, frowning slightly, and ran her tongue along inside her cheek.
“Well, the body makes all kinds of different cells, and there are special kinds of cells whose business it is to fight bacteria—the small, roundish sorts of things, you remember those?” I gestured at the slide, which being fecal matter, had the usual vast quantities of Escherichia coli and the like.
“But there are millions of different sorts, and sometimes a microorganism comes along that the special cells aren’t able to deal with. You know—I showed you the Plasmodium in Lizzie’s blood?” I nodded toward the stoppered vial on the counter; I had taken blood from Lizzie only a day or two before, and shown the malarial parasites in the cells to Malva. “And I do think that this amoeba of ours may well be one like that.”
“Oh, well. Will we give the sick folk the penicillin, then?” I smiled a little at the eager “we,” though there was little enough to smile at in the situation overall.
“No, I’m afraid penicillin isn’t effective against amoebic dysentery—that’s what you call a very bad flux, a dysentery. No, I’m afraid we’ve nothing much to be going on with save herbs.” I opened the cupboard and ran an eye over the ranks of bottles and gauze-wrapped bundles, puzzling.
“Wormwood, for a start.” I took the jar down and handed it to Malva, who had come to stand beside me, looking with interest into the mysteries of the cupboard. “Garlic, that’s generally useful for infections of the digestive tract—but it makes quite a good poultice for skin things, as well.”
“What about onions? My grannie would steam an onion, and put it to my ear, when I was a wee bairn and had the earache. It smelt something dreadful, but it did work!”
“It can’t hurt. Run out to the pantry, then, and fetch . . . oh, three big ones, and several heads of garlic.”
“Oh, at once, ma’am!” She set down the wormwood and dashed out, sandals flapping. I turned back to the shelves, trying to calm my own sense of urgency.
I was torn between the urge to be with the sick, nursing them, and the need to make medicines that might be of help. But there were other people who could do the nursing, and no one but me who knew enough to try to compound an antiparasitic remedy.
Wormwood, garlic . . . agrimony. And gentian. Anything with a very high content of copper or sulfur—oh, rhubarb. We were past the growing season, but I’d had a fine crop and had put up several dozen bottles of the boiled pulp and syrup, as Mrs. Bug liked it for pies, and it provided some vitamin C for the winter months. That would make a splendid base for the medicine. Add perhaps slippery elm, for its soothing effects on the intestinal tract—though such effects were likely to be so slight as to be unnoticeable against the ravages of such a virulent onslaught.
I began pounding wormwood and agrimony in my mortar, meanwhile wondering where the bloody hell the thing had come from. Amoebic dysentery was normally a disease of the tropics, though God knew, I’d seen any number of peculiar tropical diseases on the coast, brought in with the slave and sugar trade from the Indies—and not a few further inland, too, since any such disease that wasn’t instantly fatal tended to become chronic and move along with its victim.
It wasn’t impossible that one of the fisher-folk had contracted it during the journey from the coast, and while being one of the fortunate persons who suffered only a mild infection, was now carrying the encysted form of the amoeba around in his or her digestive tract, all ready to shed infective cysts right and left.
Why this sudden outbreak? Dysentery was almost always spread via contaminated food or water. What—
“Here, ma’am.” Malva was back, breathless from her hurry, several large brown onions in hand, crackling and glossy, and a dozen garlic heads bundled in her apron. I set her to slicing them up, and had the happy inspiration of telling her to stew them in honey. I didn’t know whether the antibacterial effect of honey would be likewise effective against an amoeba, but it couldn’t hurt—and might conceivably make the mixture a little more palatable; it was shaping up to be more than a trifle eye-watering, between the onions, the garlic, and the rhubarb.
“Phew! What are you guys doing in here?” I looked up from my macerating to see Brianna in the door, looking deeply suspicious, nose wrinkled against the smell.
“Oh. Well . . .” I’d become habituated to it myself, but in fact, the air in the surgery was fairly thick with the smell of fecal samples, now augmented by waves of onion fumes. Malva looked up, eyes streaming, and sniffed, wiping her nose on her apron.
“We’re magking bedicine,” she informed Bree, with considerable dignity.
“Is anyone else fallen sick?” I asked anxiously, but she shook her head and edged into the room, fastidiously avoiding the counter where I had been making slides of fecal material.
“No, not that I’ve heard. I took some food over to the McLachlans’ this morning, and they said only the two little ones had it. Mrs. Coinneach said she’d had diarrhea a couple of days ago, but not bad, and she’s all right now.”
“They’re giving the little ones honey water?”
She nodded, a small frown between her eyebrows.
“I saw them. They look pretty sick, but nothing like the MacNeills.” She looked rather sick herself, at the memory, but shook it off, turning to the high cupboard.
“Can I borrow a little sulfuric acid, Mama?” She’d brought an earthenware cup with her, and the sight of it made me laugh.
“Ordinary people borrow a cup of sugar,” I told her, nodding at it. “Of course. Be careful with it, though—you’d best put it in one of those vials with a waxed cork. You do not want to chance tripping and spilling it.”
“I definitely don’t,” she assured me. “I only need a few drops, though; I’m going to dilute it down pretty far. I’m making paper.”
“Paper?” Malva blinked, red-eyed, and sniffed. “How?”
“Well, you squish up anything fibrous you can get your hands on,” Bree told her, making squishing motions with both hands in illustrations. “Old bits of used paper, old rags of cloth, bits of yarn or thread, some of the softer sorts of leaves or flowers. Then you soak the mash for days and days in water and—if you happen to have some—dilute sulfuric acid.” One long finger tapped the square bottle affectionately.
“Then once the mash is all digested down to a sort of pulp, you can spread a thin layer of it on screens, press out the water, let it dry, and hey-presto, paper!”
I could see Malva mouthing “hey-presto” to herself, and turned away a little, so she couldn’t see me smile. Brianna uncorked the big square bottle of acid and, very carefully, poured a few drops into her cup. Immediately, the hot smell of sulfur rose like a demon amidst the miasma of feces and onions.
Malva stiffened, eyes still streaming but wide.
“What is that?” she said.
“Sulfuric acid,” Bree said, looking at her curiously.
“Vitriol,” I amended. “Have you seen—er, smelled it before?”
She nodded, put the sliced onions into a pot, and put the lid neatly on.
“Aye, I have.” She came to look at the green glass bottle, dabbing at her eyes. “My mother—she died when I was young—she had some of that. I remember the smell of it, and how she’d say as I mustn’t touch it, ever. Brimstone, folk called the smell—a whiff o’ brimstone.”
“Really? I wonder what she used it for.” I did wonder, and with
a certain sense of unease. An alchemist or an apothecary might have the stuff; the only reason that I knew of for a common citizen to keep it was as a means of aggression—to throw at someone.
But Malva only shook her head, and turning, went back to the onions and garlic. I’d caught the look on her face, though; a queer expression of hostility and longing that rang a small, unsuspected bell somewhere inside me.
Longing for a mother long dead—and the fury of a small girl, abandoned. Bewildered and alone.
“What?” Brianna was watching my face, frowning slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, and put a hand on her arm, just to feel the strength and joy of her presence, the years of her growth. Tears stung my eyes, but that could be put down to onions. “Nothing at all.”
I WAS GETTING TERRIBLY tired of funerals. This was the third, in as many days. We had buried Hortense and the baby together, then the older Mrs. Ogilvie. Now it was another child, one of Mrs. MacAfee’s twins. The other twin, a boy, stood by his sister’s grave, in a shock so profound that he looked like a walking ghost himself, though the disease hadn’t touched him.
We were later than intended—the coffin hadn’t been quite ready—and the night was rising around us. All the gold of the autumn leaves had faded into ash, and white mist was curling through the dark wet trunks of the pines. One could hardly imagine a more desolate scene—and yet it was in a way more fitting than the bright sunshine and fresh breeze that had blown when we buried Hortense and little Angelica.
“The Lord is my shepherd. He leadeth me beside—” Roger’s voice cracked painfully, but no one seemed to notice. He struggled for a moment, swallowing hard, and went on, doggedly. He held the little green Bible in his hands, but wasn’t looking at it; he was speaking from memory, and his eyes went from Mr. MacDuff, standing alone, for his wife and his sister were both sick, to the little boy beside him—a little boy about Jemmy’s age.
“Though I walk . . . though I walk through the valley of death, I shall . . . shall fear no evil—” His voice was trembling audibly, and I saw that tears were running down his face. I looked for Bree; she was standing a little way behind the mourners, Jem half-swaddled in the folds of her dark cloak. The hood of it was drawn up, but her face was visible, pale in the gloaming, Our Lady of Sorrows.
Even Major MacDonald’s red coat was muted, charcoal-gray in the last vestiges of light. He had arrived in the afternoon, and helped to carry up the little coffin; he stood now, hat somberly tucked beneath his arm, wigged head bowed, his face invisible. He, too, had a child—a daughter, somewhere back in Scotland with her mother.
I swayed a little, and felt Jamie’s hand under my elbow. I had been without sleep for most of the last three days, and had taken precious little food. I didn’t feel either hungry or tired, though; I felt remote and unreal, as though the wind blew through me.
The father uttered a cry of inconsolable grief, and sank suddenly down upon the heap of dirt thrown up by the grave. I felt Jamie’s muscles contract in instinctive compassion toward him, and pulled away a little, murmuring, “Go.”
I saw him cross swiftly to Mr. MacAfee, bend to whisper to him, put an arm around him. Roger had stopped talking.
My thoughts would not obey me. Try as I might to fix them on the proceedings, they strayed away. My arms ached; I had been pounding herbs, lifting patients, carrying water . . . I felt as though I were doing all these things over and over, could feel the repetitive thud of pestle in mortar, the dragging weight of fainting bodies. I was seeing in vivid memory the slides of Entameba, greedy pseudopodia flowing in slow-motion appetite. Water, I heard water flowing; it lived in water, though only the cystic form was infective. It was passed on by means of water. I thought that very clearly.
Then I was lying on the ground, with no memory of falling, no memory of ever being upright, the smell of fresh, damp dirt and fresh, damp wood strong in my nose, and a vague thought of worms. There was a flutter of motion before my eyes; the small green Bible had fallen and lay on the dirt in front of my face, the wind turning over its pages, one by one by one in a ghostly game of sortes Virgilianae—where would it stop? I wondered dimly.
There were hands and voices, but I could not pay attention. A great amoeba floated majestically in darkness before me, pseudopodia flowing slowly, slowly, in welcoming embrace.
63
MOMENT OF DECISION
FEVER ROLLED ACROSS MY MIND like a thunderstorm, jagged forks of pain crackling through my body in bursts of brilliance, each a lightning bolt that glowed for a vivid moment along some nerve or plexus, lighting up the hidden hollows of my joints, burning down the length of muscle fibers. A merciless brilliance, it struck again, and again, the fiery sword of a destroying angel who gave no quarter.
I seldom knew whether my eyes were open or closed, nor whether I woke or slept. I saw nothing but a roiling gray, turbulent and shot with red. The redness pulsed in veins and patches, shrouded in the cloud. I seized upon one crimson vein and followed its path, clinging to the track of its sullen glow amid the buffeting of thunder. The thunder grew louder as I penetrated deeper and deeper into the murk that boiled around me, becoming hideously regular, like the beating of a kettledrum, so that my ears rang with it, and I felt myself a hollow skin, tight-stretched, vibrating with each crash of sound.
The source of it was now before me, throbbing so loudly that I felt I must shout, only to hear some other sound—but though I felt my lips draw back and my throat swell with effort, I heard nothing but the pounding. In desperation, I thrust my hands—if they were my hands—through the misty gray and seized some warm, moist object, very slippery, that throbbed, convulsing in my hands.
I looked down and knew it all at once to be my own heart.
I dropped it in horror, and it crawled away in a trail of reddish slime, shuddering with effort, the valves all opening and closing like the mouths of suffocating fish, each popping open with a hollow click, closing again with a small, meaty thud.
Faces sometimes appeared in the clouds. Some seemed familiar, though I could put no name to them. Others were the faces of strangers, the half-seen, unknown faces that flit sometimes through the mind on the verge of sleep. These looked at me with curiosity or indifference—then turned away.
The others, the ones I knew, bore looks of sympathy or worry; they would seek to fix my gaze with theirs, but my glance slid guiltily off, giddily away, unable to gain traction. Their lips moved, and I knew they spoke to me, but I heard nothing, their words drowned by the silent thunder of my storm.
I FELT QUITE ODD— but, for the first time in uncountable days, not ill. The fever clouds had rolled back; still grumbling softly somewhere near, but for the moment, gone from sight. My eyes were clear; I could see the raw wood in the beams overhead.
In fact, I saw the wood with such clarity that I was struck with awe at the beauty of it. The loops and whorls of the polished grain seemed at once static and alive with grace, the colors of it shimmering with smoke and the essence of the earth, so that I could see how the beam was transformed and yet held still the spirit of the tree.
I was so entranced by this that I reached out my hand to touch it—and did. My fingers brushed the wood with delight at the cool surface and the grooves of the axmarks, wing-shaped and regular as a flight of geese along the beam. I could hear the beating of powerful wings, and at the same time, feel the flex and swing of my shoulders, the vibration of joy through my forearms as the ax fell on the wood. As I explored this fascinating sensation, it occurred to me, dimly, that the beam was eight feet above the bed.
I turned—with no sense whatever of effort—and saw that I lay upon the bed below.
I lay on my back, the quilts rumpled and scattered, as though I had tried at some point to throw them off but lacked the strength to do so. The air in the room was strangely still, and the blocks of color in the fabric glowed through it like jewels at the bottom of the sea, rich but muted.
By contrast, my
skin was the color of pearls, bloodless pale and shimmering. And then I saw that this was because I was so thin that the skin of face and limb pressed hard upon the bone, and it was the gleam of bone and cartilage below that gave that luster to my face, smooth hardness shining through transparent skin.
And such bones as they were! I was filled with wonder at the marvel of their shaping. My eyes followed the delicacy of the arching ribs, the heartbreaking beauty of the sculptured skull with a sense of awed astonishment.
My hair was tumbled, matted, and snarled . . . and yet I felt myself drawn to it, tracing its curves with eye and . . . finger? For I had no consciousness of moving, and yet I felt the softness of the strands, the cool silk of brown and the springing vibrancy of silver, heard the hairs chime softly past each other, a rustle of notes cascading like a harp’s.
My God, I said, and heard the words, though no sound stirred the air, you are so lovely!
My eyes were open. I looked deep and met a gaze of amber and soft gold. The eyes looked through me, to something far beyond—and yet they saw me, too. I saw the pupils dilate slightly, and felt the warmth of their darkness embrace me with knowledge and acceptance. Yes, said those knowing eyes. I know you. Let us go. I felt a sense of great peace, and the air around me stirred, like wind rushing through feathers.
Then some sound turned me toward the window and I saw the man who stood there. I had no name for him, and yet I loved him. He stood with his back turned to the bed, arms braced on the sill, and his head sunk on his chest, so the dawn light glowed red on his hair and traced his arms with gold. A spasm of grief shook him; I felt it, like the temblors of a distant quake.
Someone moved near him. A dark-haired woman, a girl. She came close, touched his back, murmuring something to him. I saw the way she looked at him, the tender inclination of her head, the intimacy of her body swaying toward him.
No, I thought, with great calm. That won’t do.
I looked once more at myself lying on the bed, and with a feeling that was at once firm decision and incalculable regret, I took another breath.
64
I AM THE RESURRECTION,
PART 2
I STILL SLEPT FOR LONG PERIODS, waking only briefly to take nourishment. Now the fever dreams were gone, though, and sleep was a lake of deep black water, where I breathed oblivion and drifted past the waving waterweed, mindless as a fish.
I would float sometimes just below the surface, aware of people and things in the air-breathing world, but incapable of joining them. Voices spoke near me, muffled and meaningless. Now and then some phrase would penetrate the clear liquid around me and float into my head, where it would hang like a tiny jellyfish, round and transparent, yet pulsating with some mysterious inner meaning, its words a drifting net.
Each phrase hung for a time in my purview, folding and unfolding in its curious rhythms, and then drifted quietly up and away, leaving silence.
And in between the small jellyfish came open spaces of clear water, some filled with radiant light, some the darkness of utter peace. I drifted upward and downward, suspended between the surface and the depths, at the whim of unknown currents.
“Physician, look.” Fizz. A stirring there, some dormant spore of consciousness, disturbed by carbonation, splits and blooms. Then a stab as sharp as metal, Who is calling me? “Physician, look.”
I opened my eyes.
It was no great shock, for the room was filled with twilight, still light, like being underwater, and I had no sense of disruption.
“O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou great Physician: Look with Thy gracious favor upon this Thy servant; give wisdom and discretion to those who minister to her in her sickness; bless all the means used for her recovery . . .”
The words flowed past me in a whispering stream, cool on my skin. There was a man before me, dark head bent over a book. The light in the room embraced him and he seemed part of it.
“Stretch forth Thy hand,” he whispered to the pages, in a voice that cracked and broke, “and according to Thy will, restore her to health and strength, that she may live to praise Thee for Thy goodness and Thy grace; to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen.”
“Roger?” I said, groping for his name. My own voice was hoarse from disuse; speaking was an intolerable effort.
His eyes were closed in prayer; they sprang open, unbelieving, and I thought how vivid they were, the green of wet serpentine and summer leaves.
“Claire?” His voice cracked like a teenaged boy’s, and he dropped the book.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the dreamlike sense of submergence threatening to engulf me again. “Am I?”
I COULD LIFT A HAND for a moment or two, but was too weak even to lift my head, let alone sit up. Roger helpfully dragged me semi-upright against piled pillows, and put his hand at the back of my head to prevent wobbling, holding a cup of water to my dry lips. It was the odd feel of his hand on the bare skin of my neck that began a dim process of realization. Then I felt the warmth of his hand, vivid and immediate, at the back of my head, and jerked like a gaffed salmon, sending the cup flying.
“What? What?” I spluttered, clutching my head, too shocked to formulate a complete sentence, and oblivious to the cold water soaking through the sheets. “WHAT?!”
Roger looked nearly as shocked as I felt. He swallowed, searching for words. “I . . . I . . . I thought you knew,” he stammered, voice breaking. “Didn’t you . . . ? I mean . . . I thought . . . look, it’ll grow!”
I could feel my mouth working, vainly trying different shapes that might approximate words, but there was no connection between tongue and brain—there was room for nothing but the realization that the accustomed soft, heavy weight of my hair was gone, replaced by a fuzz of bristles.
“Malva and Mrs. Bug cut it off, day before yesterday,” Roger said, all in a rush. “They—we weren’t here, Bree nor I, we wouldn’t have let them, of course we wouldn’t—but they thought it’s what you do for someone with a terrible fever, it is what people do now. Bree was furious with them, but they thought—they truly