CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Cressida, I’ve called for that fine young doctor to come out and take a look at you,” said her mother, Beryl with a sly grin.
“Mother, I do not need a physician. You’ve given me a tea and poultice and they are working just fine. It’s is nothing more than a cold.”
“Nonsense. This doctor needs to see you,” she said determined to keep the girl within her sights for a while longer.
Cressida went about doing her chores in spite of feeling under the weather. It was winter after all and she most likely had a cold. When the handsome new doctor arrived at their dock, she knew exactly what her mother’s plan was.
“Mother. Do not do this. I have no interest in the doctor,” she pleaded.
“Yet. You have no interest yet. He’s handsome, wealthy, and from a good family. Meet him and we’ll see what happens.”
Nothing Cressida said could convince her mother otherwise.
She’d learned years ago it was easier to just go with her mother’s crazy ideas and fight them later.
She was a witch, after all, and often her anger spewed toward her daughter as well.
She never hurt her, not really but she certainly did things that embarrassed the young girl.
“I believe it’s just a touch of a common cold,” smiled the doctor. “You’re doing all the right things and she’ll be well in a few days.”
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” asked Beryl. The doctor wasn’t foreign to mothers pushing their daughters toward him.
“Yes, ma’am, she’s a lovely young girl. I’m sure one day she’ll make a fine wife and mother.” He winked at the girl and Cressida somehow felt better knowing that the young doctor understood her mother.
“Perhaps you’d like to court her?” said Beryl. “She currently has a long list of suitors, but none as fine as you, doctor.”
“Mother! That is rude and forward. I’m sorry, doctor.”
“It’s fine. Miss Beryl I am not in a position to take a wife, nor do I wish to have one at this time. Your daughter will not suffer in finding many eligible men willing to marry her.”
“So you refuse?” she scowled.
“I respectfully decline,” he said standing and placing his instruments back in the bag. “Continue with hot broth or tea and stay out of the cold for a few days. You should be just fine in no time. By the way, what is that smell?”
“It’s something that’s always been on the property,” said Cressida. “Mother uses it for repairs on our cabin and it seems to work well but we also have an entire greenhouse with herbs and special plants that mother uses.”
“It’s not a pleasant smell, is it?” he smirked.
“No, not at all,” said the young girl.
No matter what Beryl said or did, the doctor was determined to leave a single man and she wasn’t about to have that. As the boatman pulled away, he shook his head at him.
“You’ve angered the wrong witch,” said the man.
“Beryl is a mother of an eligible daughter. She’s not a witch.”
Just then the wind began to rage, the waves lapping against the side of the small boat.
“We’ll see about that. Let’s get the hell outta here before we die.”
The storm raged for days before finally settling. But what blew in with the storm was something the likes of those in the area had never seen. A strange red algae with an noxious odor was carried into the bayou.
Crops were dying, people in the area were getting sick, and nothing could be done about it. Twice Beryl called him back out to the cabin to see her daughter and twice, Hezekiah had to gently let her down, insistent that he would not be taking a wife.
In the end it wouldn’t matter. He would be cursed for more than two-hundred years and live a life inside a mirror he only admired for its beauty, not his own.
“A red algae that smelled awful,” repeated Suzette. “This is going to take some more time to research but if the algae was carrying a parasite or bacteria unknown to us and it mixed with the wood tar, it could have been dormant for generations and came to life somehow this winter.”
“What now?” asked Quentin.
“We have to go out there and get some samples from around that cabin. Rachel will be going with you to tell you exactly what we need.”
“Wait, you want me to go? I’m a nurse not an environmentalist,” said Quentin somewhat panicked. Send him into war zones to treat orphans. Let him pull wounded soldiers from the fields, but to go to something with possible toxicity freaked him out.
“We do a lot of different jobs here, Quentin. If you have a reason for not wanting to go, just tell me,” said Suzette.
“Nope. No reason,” he frowned. He didn’t want them to think he wouldn’t pull his weight. He could get through this. “Let me get changed and I’ll be back.”
Quentin, Rachel, and Chief headed back out to the cabin to get some samples and only realized they had an additional guest when they were half-way there.
“It looks the same.”
“Oh, shit!” said Rachel jumping at the sound of the man’s voice.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “I wanted to see this place again. I needed to be certain that I hadn’t forgotten something about my visits here. I mean, it has been quite some time.”
“It has,” laughed Chief. “It’s fine, Hezekiah. You’re always welcome to come along. So, this witch, Beryl. Was she a voodoo witch or a ride a broomstick witch?”
“No one rides a broomstick,” frowned Rachel.
“You are correct, Rachel. I’m not sure. All I knew was that the people in the area said she was a witch and I needed to deal with her carefully. I tried but she didn’t seem to care for my style of care at all. I will say that storm that brewed seemed to come from nowhere and had a life of its own.”
“She wanted a husband for her daughter,” said Quentin. “There is nothing more powerful than a mother trying to unload an eligible daughter.”
“You speak like a man who has been there,” said Rachel.
“I guess I have,” he nodded. “I was stationed in Okinawa and met a beautiful young Japanese woman. We went out to dinner a few times and I even had dinner with her family once. But I never suspected that it would be more than just fun.
“We did nothing intimate. We held hands, we kissed, but she gave no indication she had any interest in me beyond a night out now and then. When I was returning stateside, I went to say goodbye and her mother asked why I wasn’t taking her with me.
“I spent hours trying to explain that it wasn’t possible. I couldn’t marry someone I didn’t truly love and the paperwork required for that would take months. She threatened to tell my superiors that I’d been inappropriate with her daughter.”
“Oh, wow. I’m so sorry, Quentin. What happened?” asked Rachel.
“Fortunately, the girl was honest and refused to do what her mother asked of her. I left a few days later but heard from another Marine that the mother eventually married her off to an American service member. I have no idea if they’re happy or not.”
“We could find out,” said Chief.
“No. No, she was a nice girl but that’s all. Hopefully, it all worked out for her.”
“This is it,” said Hezekiah. “This is the cabin.”
“What do you mean? How could you know this is the cabin that Harmon lived in?” asked Chief.
“Because it’s the cabin that the witch lived in. It’s bigger now but it’s definitely the same cabin.”
“Shit,” muttered Chief. “We may be dealing with things so far out of our control we can’t even see it. We need to talk to Irene and Matthew.”
“Let’s focus on getting these samples first,” said Rachel. “Everyone wear their respirators, protective eyewear and suits. I have no clue if anything here is airborne, absorbed into the skin, or how it affects those near to it.”
“You won’t get an argument from me,” said Quentin. Hezekiah nodded at the group.
“I suppose it won’t matter for me. Just tell me what you need me to do.”