Chapter 33
Algernon was wrong; it wasn’t just a cough. By the next morning, he could no longer keep any food or water down. Each attempt ended in a fit of hacking so violent it painted his handkerchiefs with streaks of blood.
I ran for the doctor, my heart pounding against my ribs faster than my feet pounded the dirt road.
Mother and Cynthia stayed at Algernon’s side, begging him to sip broth or tea, anything to soothe his throat.
When I returned, breathless, with the physician in tow, Comfort met us at the door.
Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line.
“You’d better hurry,” she said grimly, ushering us inside.
The doctor stayed all that day, all that night, and into the next day as well, but nothing helped.
Despite every remedy and every attempted poultice, Algernon slipped further away.
His fever climbed higher and higher until his skin burned to the touch, yet his hands trembled as though he were caught in a blizzard in winter.
Then came the hallucinations and delirium.
He spoke to people who weren’t there—his late wife, old business partners, even a blacksmith, haggling over horseshoes no one could see.
Cynthia never left his bedside. She dabbed his forehead, whispered back to him, pretended to understand his tangled words. Her small hands shook each time he flinched or coughed, but she clung to him anyway.
Finally, the doctor pulled Mother aside. His voice was heavy, like the words themselves resisted being spoken.
“Madam…I must be frank. I’ve seen this illness before and it never bodes well.”
Mother’s face went still. “Has anyone recovered?”
The doctor’s pause was answer enough. But still, he shook his head slowly. “I am afraid not.”
Her breath shuddered out of her. “How long does Algernon have?”
“One day. Perhaps less. This is a fast disease.”
Mother nodded, her chin quivering. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, her gaze drifting past the doctor and into the room where Cynthia sat at her father’s side, dutifully changing the cloths on his head while Algernon muttered nonsense to thin air.
Algernon died at dawn.
I had fallen asleep on the sofa outside his room but leapt up from the couch, suddenly wide awake, to Cynthia’s strangled cry tearing through the house.
“No! No, no, no! Dad!”
Her cry was raw and jagged, the sound of a heart breaking in real time.
She burst from the room, her hair tangled and face streaked with tears, and fled out the front door before I could catch her. My legs wouldn’t move. I turned my head toward the bedroom.
Inside, Mother sat by the bed, her hand still clasped around Algernon’s cooling fingers. She didn’t sob aloud, but tears streamed down her face, steady as rain.
I stepped inside, moving slowly, as though the very air around her were fragile. I laid a hand on her back, rubbing gently. “I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t stir or even look at me.
Comfort appeared then, and pulled me away, shutting the door behind us. “Let them have privacy,” she whispered, and nudged me toward the hall. She marched me along purposefully and pulled me any time my pace slackened.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To prepare his funeral,” she said simply.
I didn’t know the first thing about preparing a funeral, but Comfort did.
After the third errand, I realized with a pang that when Mother and I had fallen to pieces after Father’s death, Comfort must have been the one to make all the arrangements, even while she had been battling her own grief.
It seemed that any time a crisis arose, Comfort rose to meet the challenge head on, never faltering, no matter how daunting the task seemed.
We visited person after person, arranging for Algernon’s body to be collected and prepared for burial, asking a priest to officiate at the graveside service, getting flowers for the funeral, paying the tavern owner to board guests in his inn above the local tavern, and paying for the doctor’s time.
It seemed that the errands went on and on.
After organizing everything for the funeral, I expected to go home, but Comfort continued on, arranging for someone to go help Mother and then beginning to go through a long list of business associates Algernon had worked with, meeting with each to discuss his death and close his accounts.
I hadn’t realized Algernon operated his business with so much debt, and each business partner, while sympathetic, also insisted on the debts being settled immediately.
Comfort spoke firmly to each person, her voice strong even when mine wavered as she negotiated contracts and fair settlements. By the end of the day, my feet throbbed and my shoulders sagged, but Comfort callously pressed on. There was no falter in her step.
As we finally trudged home in the fading light, she fiddled with the coin purse in her hands, biting her lip. Finally she said, “Don’t tell Mother. But settling Algernon’s debts and arranging this funeral…it’s taken nearly everything we had.”
The bottom seemed to fall out of my stomach. We had never had to worry about finances before. Father had always made sure we had enough and plenty extra. “What will we do?”
Comfort set her jaw, determination blazing in her eyes. “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes. Mother has enough to worry about right now. I’ll figure something out.”
“You always do,” I whispered, but the deep worry etched into her face told me she wasn’t so sure this time. “What about Cynthia?”
“Let her grieve,” Comfort stated simply. “She will need some time, just like you did. But she will have to help when the money runs out, the same as us.”
She sighed heavily then gave me a small, sad smile. “Don’t worry too much. We still have a little left, and I can sell some things to keep us afloat for a few more months. There’s no need to panic yet.”
When we reached the house, men were carrying out Algernon’s body, shrouded beneath a sheet of white linen.
Mother sat inside by the fire, staring into the flames with eyes that saw nothing.
Cynthia was nowhere to be found. Our housekeeper was bustling around making tea and cookies.
I exchanged one last glance with Comfort before I plodded up the stairs to my bedroom, each step heavier than the last, thinking all the time about what we could do about our family’s money struggles.
Cynthia vanished for two days. When she finally returned, she looked just like Mother had after Father’s death, as if she had aged many years in just a few days. Burrs tangled in her hair and her face streaked with dirt, she looked like a child who had lost her way in the woods.
She cleaned herself before the funeral, but the sorrow remained carved into her face.
Comfort and I hadn’t known Algernon well enough to know what his final wishes were, and since he had been in no state in his last few days to tell us, his funeral was conducted in a similar fashion to Father’s, or so Comfort told me.
After his body was buried in the secluded graveyard, everyone who had known Algernon gathered around the stream in the town square, and we all told our favorite memories with him.
Once each person had finished telling what they remembered, they tossed a flower into the stream and watched as it was carried away.
Cynthia’s turn came last. Her voice broke as she spoke of childhood trips to the Fairy Godmother Tree, of her father teaching her to cook, of laughter on long journeys together.
I thought my heart might break watching her release her rose into the stream.
It bobbed once, then slipped swiftly out of sight.
Cynthia dragged her feet the whole way home, shoulders slumped and eyes vacant. She didn’t have a single family member left besides us, and I suddenly realized with sharp clarity that we were not enough.
At home, the housekeeper had prepared lunch, but Cynthia refused all food.
She retreated to her room, shutting herself away from the world, and didn’t emerge for days.
I left food, books, and little crafts outside her door, but nothing tempted her.
I was sure she wouldn’t have any interest in them, but I wanted to help her to feel better in any small way I could.
I imagined this was how Comfort had felt after Father had passed away and she saw the two of us—Mother and me—consumed by our grief.
True to my word, I didn’t mention our family’s dwindling finances to Mother.
She sat by the fire day after day, flames reflected in her hollow eyes.
I worked diligently with the few clients I had to earn a few more coins, which I would then turn over to Comfort.
She spent increasing amounts of time poring over budgets and ledgers, calculating and recalculating expenses.
Cynthia slowly began moving about the house again, but without the intentionality she had once had.
I hoped that our budding friendship would blossom, and that I would come to think of her as a close sister, not just a distant stepsister.
But she seemed too far away and too detached to have any kind of conversation.
I continued to try and do things for her but was unsure what would be most useful.
She didn’t read any of the books I lent her, wasn’t interested in the cross stiches or knitting supplies I left, and she avoided her previous love of cooking.
I was at a loss. How was I supposed to help someone who didn’t want to be helped?
The weight of grief pressed on all of us. But grief was not the only shadow waiting. And I knew, deep in my bones, that Comfort would soon have to reveal the other truth: our money was running out.