The Healer (5 page)

Another pounding on my door.
Blood of Christ.
I wish people would just stop banging and learn to knock. Or maybe not knock at all, since it’s the middle of the goddamned night.

I roll out of bed, stagger to the door. It’s George.

“She’s awake.”

His words wake me like a splash of ice water to the face.

“She did? I mean, she is? Is she okay? What did she say?”

George smirks. “She fell out of bed, then wanted to know what I was doing there. Guess she remembered who I was. Anyway. I’m going to get Nicholas. Why not go see her for yourself? Not like you need an excuse.” Another smirk—damned Fifer, she’s no doubt filled George’s head with her accusations—then he shuts the door.

I go to my desk, light the flame under the alembic, then quickly prepare the mixture I’ve been making for her all week. Her potions are simple—or at least simpler—than Nicholas’s. I haven’t had to change them much, just adding tinctures to help her gain back some weight. She seems to be partial to the sweeter ones I give her in the mornings.

Not that I’ve noticed.

My stomach squirms with anxiety, though I don’t know why. I’ve seen her every day for two weeks. I cross the hall to her room, give the door a little rap. George opens it.

Elizabeth is sitting on the bed, watching me as I walk into the room. Everything about her is pale. Her shift, her hair, her skin. But her eyes are blue, just as I thought—a bright, clear blue, like a summer sky. I’ve spent days by her side, caring for her, feeding her potions; for Christ’s sake, I’ve even seen her naked. But she’s looking at me as though she’s never seen me before. It startles me a bit to realize it: She hasn’t ever seen me before.

“Elizabeth, this is John Raleigh, our healer,” Nicholas says.

She frowns a little, and I can almost see the thoughts flitting across her eyes. She wants to know if I’m the one who changed her, who bathed her. What’s in the goblet I’m holding in my hand.

“It’s angelica and burdock,” I say, for something to say.

She shrugs, unimpressed.

“It’s just a blood purifier. Plus something to help your stomach. That’s all.” I pause for her to say something, but she doesn’t. So I keep going. “Well, I added in a little cucumber for your fever, some burnet and elm for your cough. A bit of oat for your rash. Mugwort, too, because you have fleas. And a couple drops of poppy, just to help you relax. But that really is it. I swear.”

Shut up, John.

I smile and offer her the cup again. When she refuses to take it—again—I say, “If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have given you anything at all. You’ve been drinking it since you got here.”

She doesn’t trust me, that much is clear. She looks at George then, as if he is to answer for her, as if she trusts him instead. Something about that bothers me.

George nods.

Elizabeth reaches out, grabs the cup from my hand, and knocks it back in one swallow. Watching her sends a flurry of random thoughts through my head. The sound of her scream. The sight of her in the bathtub, with nothing but a wet blanket to cover her. The way she swore at me, called me a
goddamned swivving pisser whoreson
. The scent of jasmine in her bathwater. The way she punched me, then kicked me, then fell asleep in my arms. The color of her hair. Her freckles.

Absurdly, I start to laugh.

She looks at me, her unsmiling face expressionless, then thrusts the cup back into my hand. I watch her eyes drift from my face down to my shirt, which,
God’s nails
, I realize now is wrinkled and, worse, buttoned wrong.

I turn away from her, from her unrelenting stare, and walk back to Nicholas. Feel his forehead, his wrist. He’s cool, but his pulse is quick. His symptoms are beginning to shift again.

“Not too long, all right?” I look at her. “That goes for you, too.”

She raises her eyebrows. Skeptical.

“He’s very strict,” Nicholas says, nodding to me.

“Like a priest on Sunday,” chimes in George.

I flick my first two fingers up in a V, then immediately regret it. I can’t make obscene gestures at patients—or in front of them—but George and Nicholas laugh. I barely notice, focused instead on the smile that drifts across Elizabeth’s face then disappears, the first time I’ve seen her smile since she got here.

“I’ll check on you both tomorrow morning.” I walk to the door, half my mind on Nicholas, the other half on the girl in the bed.

“You don’t have to do that,” Elizabeth says. Her voice is soft but clear, with a bit of a lilt to it, a hint of the country. The way she says
you
comes out as
yew
.
Do
as
dew
.

“Why ever not?” George says to her. “He’s only been checking on you every hour since you got here. If we’re down to twice a day now, that’s a vast improvement.”

Color floods her cheeks, the same way it does mine. I scowl at him but he either doesn’t see me or is pretending not to.

“It’s not necessary, that’s all. I’m fine,” Elizabeth says, and I can feel her looking at me.

I turn back to her and manage a smile. “Don’t argue with the clergy,” I say. Then, before I say anything else equally stupid, I turn and leave, closing the door quietly behind me. I lean against the cool polished wood and huff a sigh—of relief, of an odd sense of embarrassment. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

“Well?” Fifer pokes her head out the door of her room down the hall. She must have been awake this whole time, waiting for me to come out. “Is she okay? What’s she like? Did she try to throw something at you? Hit you? Did she drink your medicine?” She steps into the hall.

“She seems fine,” I say. “A little scared, but that’s to be expected. No, she didn’t throw anything at me, she didn’t hit me, and yes, she drank it.” I hold the cup up for emphasis.

“So, what now?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess we wait and see. But I think things are going to be different now.” I say this without thinking, as if it’s a given.

Or as if, like healing, it’s just another thing I know without knowing.

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Virginia Boecker recently spent four years in London obsessing over English medieval history. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and spends her days writing, reading, running, and chasing around her two children and a dog named George. In addition to English kings, nine-day queens, and Protestant princesses, her other obsessions include the Smiths, art museums, champagne, and ChapStick. You can visit Virginia online at virginiaboecker.com or on Twitter @virgboecker.

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