iv. In which Charlotte faces wood sickness #2
morning she shivered no matter how many blankets the servants brought or how much they built up the fire—she could hardly
get up without leaning on me, insisted she was fine, but by afternoon I’d made her get back in bed, and around sunset—”
She broke off. Charlotte was about to nudge her when Gracie’s voice came, like a rusty pulley.
“Aggie?”
“I’m right here, love.”
The other old woman’s lips cracked into a smile. A thin, wrinkled hand crawled through the blankets, searching for Agnes’s.
Agnes surged forward, shunting Charlotte aside.
Charlotte turned away. The sick woman needed whatever help she could give. That had to be her focus right now.
She reached into her pocket for her travel kit, a small leather case in which she kept general-use herbs and teas, an ointment
for pain, a paste to prevent infection in wounds, a tincture for sleep, tweezers, sewing scissors, thread, bandages, and gloves.
She slipped it into her pocket each time she left the house.
“You understand I can only do so much.”
Agnes perched on the bed, smoothing her companion’s hair. She blinked but didn’t cry.
“Anything to ease her, however little. She can barely breathe.”
She squeezed the other woman’s hand then sailed away in a rustling of petticoats.
Charlotte let out a breath. Life had long blown her about like a ship in a storm.
The sea had stolen her husband, the forest her father and, in a sidewise fashion, her mother; her own illness had left her weakened.
Her work as a healer was the one thing that gave her a sense of control.
No matter how bad an injury or illness, nine times out of ten she could heal or cure it.
If she couldn’t, she learned something from the failure and was more prepared next time.
The sickness reminded her it was an illusion. She had no control. No matter how practical she was, how proper, how determined,
how learned, she was at the mercy of forces beyond her ken. No different than the fishermen whose lives and livelihoods were
at the whim of the sea. The villagers who had been impoverished by the very ventures that had promised to enrich them. She’d
lost every person who’d fallen ill to the sickness, barely able to do more than ease their passing—sometimes not even that.
And despite the increasing number of cases, she knew so little about it.
It affected only those who entered the wood. The villagers’ many precautions had no effect—of course; Charlotte had admonished
herself more than once for thinking it could be otherwise. The sickness took hold quickly and killed quickly, in weeks, in
many cases, but just as often within the week. Aside from the telltale black veins, it caused headaches, pain, fatigue, and
difficulty breathing, but not fever. It was so like yet so unlike the myriad other illnesses she’d treated over the years.
“What do we do, Mama?” Jonas whispered.
With a groan, the sick woman turned back over, hiding her black-veined face in a pillow. Charlotte rubbed her forehead. The
throbbing had spread over her right eye now.
“Heal-all and meadowsweet. To help with the pain and ease her breathing.”
Jonas bit their lip. “But how do we make her better?”
Charlotte faltered, but if Jonas continued shadowing her work, they would learn sooner or later that sometimes nothing could
be done. “I’m afraid we don’t, my love.”
After they applied an ointment of heal-all, Charlotte sent Jonas to boil water for meadowsweet tea.
She wasn’t sure how far Gracie’s pain extended—asked twice, but Gracie had expended all her energy clutching at Agnes’s hand.
Usually, with how quickly the sickness took hold, Charlotte couldn’t ask her patients what had happened that might have sickened them.
It was the same case here, although Charlotte had the first inkling of an answer.
While Jonas was gone, she peeled the bandages from Gracie’s neck. Despite what Agnes had said, the claw marks were shallow;
Agnes was no outdoorsman and had probably thought them far worse than Gracie had. Under any other circumstances, they wouldn’t
have worried Charlotte. If she’d seen them before Gracie had fallen ill, Charlotte would’ve cleaned the scratches, dabbed
an antiseptic paste of sweet amber onto them, bandaged them, and called it good.
Now, however, black veins unfurled from them. The veins were thickest around the claw marks, spooling thinner as they traced
across Gracie’s throat and up her face.
Charlotte might have thought the wound infected, but there was no fetid stench, no redness, no sign of gangrene. Instead,
the wound appeared to be the source of the sickness.
She’d seen it before. Infection from an animal, she’d thought the first time, or some eldritch creature with dark magic in
its veins. The latter would certainly explain why nothing in Charlotte’s arsenal could cure the sickness. But the wounds differed
from patient to patient, offering little insight into what creature might have left them, and some patients had no wound.
Perhaps the sickness had multiple causes. The only certainty was that it came from the forest. Even there, Charlotte faced
frustration and confusion. Were those who returned without the sickness immune, or had they not had whatever experience had
infected the others?
She treated the claw marks with antiseptic—not certain it would help—and re-dressed them.
When Jonas returned, Charlotte poured a generous mug of tea for the sick woman, drank the rest, and rubbed a fingertip of
ointment on her own forehead before helping the woman sit up to drink. The throbbing in her head lessened, but not much. Enough
to make it home without wanting to collapse on the hillside, probably. As usual, she’d waited too long to take care of herself.
Charlotte tucked Gracie into her blankets and sank into a wingback armchair in the corner, pressing the heels of her hands
to her eyes. The darkness offered slight relief from her migraine.
“Mama,” Jonas said in a hushed voice, “do you think they’re really cousins?”
Charlotte glanced at Jonas and immediately regretted it; the sudden movement made her head throb sharply. Given Jonas’s unusual
relationship with gender, she imagined they wouldn’t find her suspicions as strange or unnatural as most of Seacliff would.
But her suspicions reflected things about herself that she preferred not to think of.
“Why do you ask, my love?”
Jonas shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
Charlotte hesitated. “Mrs. Livingston says they are.”
Jonas’s forehead crinkled, but they didn’t ask again. God help her if Sasha ever took an interest in healing. Had Sasha asked,
she wouldn’t have let it go until Charlotte gave an answer she found acceptable.
“Let’s find Mrs. Livingston,” Charlotte said. “I’m afraid we can’t give her good news, but sometimes that’s how healing is.”
Her headache jabbed at her as she stood. Thanks to the tea, it had retreated from the right side of her forehead back to the spot over her left eye, but it was as bad there as ever, as if to make up for its lack of territory. She winced, reaching for her cane.
“Mama?”
“I’m fine.”
Jonas hovered at her side, their face scrunched with worry. “I can run get Uncle Arthur if—”
“I’m fine,” Charlotte snapped, then drew a long breath. She attempted a smile that was contorted with pain. “Give me your
arm, love, and I’ll make it all right. Your uncle has his hands full with Sasha, I’m sure.”