The Healer Read online

  The Healer

  A Witch Hunter Novella

  by Virginia Boecker

  Little, Brown and Company

  New York Boston

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  1

  It started, as it does, out of nowhere.

  Only it wasn’t nowhere. It was the same place every time: the pyre in the middle of the square at Tyburn. A pile of wood heaped around a platform constructed for one use, and one use only. A pole in the center. Bodies bound with chains, not ropes, because those would burn. A single flame from a torch lowered to the hay scattered along the wooden planks, mixed with peat to catch fast and burn hard, a roaring fire you could feel clear across the square. But I wasn’t across the square. I wasn’t across town, or a hundred feet away, or even ten.

  I was right there.

  Rushing the platform, trying to reach them. My mother, my sister. I remember searching for their faces: I couldn’t see them, not right away, their hair shorn to their scalps, poorly and roughly done with an executioner’s knife, careless of nicks or cuts because they’d be dead soon anyway.

  They grabbed me. Two guards, dressed in black and red, that damned red rose embroidered on the sleeve, the flower of the king’s house. They pulled me away just as I saw her. Jane. She saw me, too, her eyes stormy like mine, frantic and full of fear. She shouted my name but it was cut off by a scream and a punch and a shout and a cry, some of it hers, some of it mine, some of it the crowd’s, who watched with equal measures of horror and fascination and pity.

  I hit the dirt face-first, a mouthful of dust and ash, warm from the heat and scorched from the fire, stinking of burnt human flesh. I gagged on it. Rolled over to my back just as I saw her face—their faces—first red then yellow then white then black, the alchemy of change from life to death, from before to after, from here to gone.

  I bolt upright with a gasp, her name on my lips. My sister, Jane. Two years older than me, a loudmouth and a troublemaker but funny and wild and no one has ever made me laugh harder. She was my best friend.

  Was.

  Gone since a year ago today. November 2, All Souls’ Day, a day of prayer for the dead. I could choke on the irony, were I not still choking on grief. My heart pounds in my chest, so loud I can nearly hear it. I’m breathing fast, but I can’t get air. My hands are shaking, and I feel the urge to run, to get as far away from this as I can—only there’s nowhere to go. The horror is in my head, and I can’t escape it.

  I leap out of bed. Cross the room to the window and throw it open. The night air is cool, and judging by the moon in the sky—high but slightly off-center—it’s about three in the morning. I don’t know what’s significant about three in the morning, but it’s when I always wake up.

  And I always wake up.

  I stick my head out the window. Begin to breathe, the way she told me to.

  In for four.

  Hold for four.

  Out for four.

  I look down at the physic garden, just beginning to go dormant for winter. There are a few plants left, coriander and deadnettle and rosemary and honeysuckle, that still grow despite the increasing cold and the never-ending rain, the darkness that begins at four in the afternoon and ends at nine in the morning. My sister hated winter. She was fair, like my mother, but preferred summer because she said the winter months made her look too pale, like a ghost, like the dead.…

  I choke on another breath.

  The warm, sweet scent of the honeysuckle floats in on an errant breeze. This plant is useless for the most part; it doesn’t do much but look and smell pretty. It has no place in a physic garden, but my mother planted it anyway because when everything else dies, it comes alive.

  I push away from the window. Pace the room, my hands clasped behind my head. I’m trembling like I’ve got the goddamned ague. I walk to my desk, fumbling through the stacks of books and rolls of parchment and scattered pens and ink until I come to it: the journal.

  Loren—a healer and my mother’s closest friend—gave it to me as a way to come to terms with losing them. A way to work through the nightmares and the guilt and the shock, a way to figure out how to move ahead when everything’s been left behind. She said that if I wrote down my feelings, I could gain control over them. That they wouldn’t seem bigger than me, that I wouldn’t become trapped by them, a prisoner of my own misery.

  It’s not going very well.

  I slide the journal toward me. A letter slips out from underneath it and flutters to the floor: snow-white parchment, sealed with bloodred wax in the shape of a heart. I can just make out the scent of cypress—one of the primary ingredients in a love spell—mixed with the scent of cinnamon to mask it. I pick it up, taking care not to loosen or break the seal, which would activate the magic, and set it back on the desk. Open the journal to a blank page, easy to do because they’re all blank.

  “Write my feelings down…” I grip the pen, dip it in ink, hold it over the page. “Won’t do a damned thing.” I toss the pen onto the desk, watch as it skitters across the surface and lands on the floor. I’ve tried, I have. But I can’t seem to do it. I don’t know what I’m so afraid of, they’re just words. Death. Pain. Torture. Gone. Alone.

  But they’re words I’m afraid of.

  I stand up and walk back to the window. My breathing has slowed, but my heart still thuds against my rib cage, so hard my shirt twitches. It’s then I realize I’m still wearing my day clothes, the same clothes I wore yesterday. Blood of Christ. I can’t even get it together enough to remember to dress properly. I tear the shirt over my head, not bothering to unbutton it, then fling it into the corner. It’s not on the floor a second before my mother’s voice fills my head.

  John, it says. Shirts don’t launder themselves, do they? Then she would ruffle my hair before picking it up and handing it to me. As if on cue, I’m gasping for air again.

  In for four.

  Hold for four.

  Out for four.

  I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. Writing it down won’t help. There’s no sense in it. I don’t need to tell myself how I’m coming apart; I already know it. Melancholia, the healers call it. An episode, Fifer calls it. But whatever you call it, the meaning is the same.

  I’m losing my goddamned mind.

  I walk to my bed, crawl on top of the covers. Think about my breathing, only about my breathing. I lie there I don’t know how long before finally, I start to relax. I never got dressed. It doesn’t matter.

  I don’t know what matters anymore.

  2

  He pounds on the door, the noise sending me to my feet.

  “God’s nails,” I mutter. “I’m coming.” I fling open the door. Father stands on the threshold, fully dressed, the air of tobacco and brandy hanging over him like a cloud. The collar on his white linen shirt is fraying; there’s a button missing, a stain on the lapel. I make a note to myself to wash and mend it for him.

  “What’s with all the racket?” I say. “You could have just walked in, you know.”

  Father raises his dark brows. “If I recall, the last time I did that you asked me ever so politely to knock from now on.”

  I wince a little at the admonishment. The last time he came in without knocking I threw a b
ook at him.

  “Ugh,” I groan, and rub my face.

  “Rough night?” He looks me over. At my missing shirt, my wrinkled trousers. I don’t need a mirror to know my hair is standing on end. I can’t remember the last time I cut it. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “I’m fine.” I shrug. “Just up late. Studying.” I wave my hand at the pile of books on the desk.

  It’s quick, but I catch it anyway: Father’s furrowed brow, the one that says he’s grown tired of asking me if I’m fine because I always say yes, tired of asking me if I want to talk because I always say no. I don’t know when I stopped wanting to talk to him, but it’s no doubt the same reason I don’t want to write in that journal. I’m afraid of what I might say.

  “Ah.” He’s smiling now, pretending as I do. “Ever the scholar. Well, if you can’t remember to sleep, perhaps you’ll remember to eat? You look a bit peaked.” He looks me over again and frowns.

  I nod.

  “There’s food downstairs. Might want to clean up. We’re leaving soon.”

  “Leaving?” I rub my face again. I couldn’t sleep when I needed to, and now that I want to I can’t. “Where are we going?”

  “To see Nicholas Perevil.”

  Nicholas Perevil. The most powerful wizard in Anglia and the leader of the Reformists, what they—we—who support magic call ourselves. Father joined them two years ago and since then, he’s constantly doing things for Nicholas: running errands, attending meetings, carrying messages. But he always does it alone, never brings me along. I’m about to ask why it’s different this time when he says, “Actually, you’re the one going to see Nicholas Perevil.”

  “Me?” I say. “Why?”

  “He’s looking for a healer.”

  “A healer?” I echo. “Is he ill?”

  Father looks at the ceiling then. He blinks once, twice, and even before he says a word I know he’s lying. “He’s got some health issues.”

  “Health issues,” I echo again. “But why me? I mean, there’s any number of healers in Harrow who can help him, healers far more experienced than me. Galen Bray—”

  “—is a pompous ass and you know it.”

  “Fine.” I feel my mouth tilt up in a smirk. “What about Servetus? He’s not an ass.”

  “No. But John, he’s nearly seventy. The man can’t see more than two feet in front of him. The last time he saw Nicholas he mixed up his potions, gave him something meant for a woman going through her change of life. His voice went up an octave overnight.”

  My smirk threatens to give way to a smile. “All right. Not Servetus. But there are others—”

  “And he’s seen them all,” Father interrupts. “Nicholas wants you. He says you have a gift.”

  “A gift?” My near smile turns into a frown. “I haven’t given anyone a reason to say that.”

  “You’ve done plenty, and don’t ever think otherwise. What you did for Gareth’s son, for one.”

  “Gareth’s son died.”

  Father smiles then. A genuine smile, one that makes wrinkles form around his dark eyes, making him look older than he really is. Or as old as he actually is, a reminder that he, too, will die; maybe sooner, maybe later. Then I really will be alone, with everyone in my family dead but me.

  “You did more than anyone else could,” Father continues. “Gareth went through twelve healers before coming to you.”

  There are only twelve other healers in Harrow.

  “You never told me I was his last resort,” I say.

  “You were sixteen at the time,” Father reminds me gently. “You were his last resort. And you kept that boy alive for two years. Two years more than he would have had otherwise.”

  I press my fingertips against my eyelids, trying to push the image of the sick boy away. His rusty-red hair, his freckles, his bright-blue eyes that grew dimmer and dimmer until they faded away completely, dead from what started out as dropsy but spread throughout his tiny body. One by one, his organs failed. First his liver, then his stomach, then his lungs, and then, finally, his heart.

  William was his name. I try not to remember their names now. It’s so much harder when you do. They all stay with you, of course—but if you don’t know their names, you can’t remember them as well.

  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

  I push my hands through my hair. “Fine. Let me grab my bag and we can go.”

  I start to turn from the door but Father holds up a hand to stop me.

  “You’ll need to pack a bit more this time,” he says. “Nicholas isn’t in Harrow at present. He’s at his home in Crouch Hill.”

  I feel my eyes narrow. Crouch Hill is just outside Upminster. Where the king is, where the Inquisitor is, where the very cause and center of antimagic rhetoric is. And it’s where the witch hunters are, that sickening band of mercenaries who scour every village and hamlet within fifty miles of the city looking to capture and arrest Reformists; willing executioners for the king’s ruthless policy.

  I’ve never had a murderous thought in my life, not once. But if I ever come face-to-face with one of them, I’d do what I could to make sure they never drew breath again.

  “He shouldn’t be there,” I say. “It’s not safe. For him or for us.”

  Father looks at the ceiling again. “He wouldn’t ask us to come if it weren’t important. And it is important. He can explain everything to you himself, far better than I can.” He lowers his head and smiles. “He’ll be glad to see you. And it’ll be good for you to get out of the house. See your friends. Have a laugh. You know.”

  He cups his hand behind my head and gives it a gentle shake, a gesture he’s not made in years. Then he turns and leaves, closing the door behind him. I stand there for a moment, wondering what’s going on. Father’s hiding something, that’s clear enough. Whatever it is, it’s worrying me more than the idea of going so close to Upminster to figure it out.

  I pack my bags.

  I don’t bring much, though I don’t know how long we’re going to be gone. A few changes of clothes in one bag, another bag for medicine. I don’t know what I’ll need so I take it all: sachets of herbs, vials of tinctures, jars of powders and seeds, woolen bags for straining. And then there’s the journal. I consider throwing the damned thing out the window, but before I can change my mind I snatch it off my desk and shove it in there, too. I leave the cypress-and-cinnamon-scented letter behind. I’ve put off dealing with it for months; a few more weeks won’t make a difference.

  I throw on my cloak, old and travel-worn. Notice a hole in the sleeve and make a note to myself to patch it. Or buy a new one. It’s one of a thousand things I need to do now that it’s just Father and me. Our clothes need mending and washing. There’s a slow leak in the roof, there are birds nesting in the attic, and the hens have all stopped laying eggs. I would hire someone to sort all this out for us; it’s not as though Father doesn’t have the money. But having someone in the house to do all those things would be a constant reminder that someone else should still be here, doing them. It’s just easier for me to take care of it all.

  Mostly.

  Downstairs, Father waits for me. He’s no longer a pirate, but some of the old habits remain. His clothes are too fine for that of a simple Reformist; he still favors embroidered doublets and leather jerkins and starched ruffs, though I draw the line at being the one to iron them for him.

  “Fifer’s anxious to see you.” He claps me on the shoulder. “It’s been a while.”

  I nod. “It has been.”

  “And George. Though I daresay it’s not been long enough since you saw him.” He throws me a dark scowl and I flush. The last time I saw George we spent all night drinking and gambling our way through every alehouse in Harrow. I wound up getting a tattoo in a place I didn’t think anyone would see…until Father found me passed out facedown in the garden behind some witch’s house, and I was missing my trousers. I don’t even know how I got there. Or what happened to my trousers.

&n
bsp; “I don’t think we’ll be visiting the taverns this time around,” I say. I don’t even drink that much; at all, really. It leaves me with a foggy head and unsteady hands, neither of which are much use to me. But it was a bad time, last winter, and George thought he could get my mind off things with a couple of drinks and a couple of girls. He wasn’t wrong, though I usually wound up feeling worse afterward, rather than better.

  “Too right you won’t,” Father says. He releases me and walks away, muttering under his breath. I can just make out the words tottering and pompion and hugger-mugger and knotty-pated. I don’t really know what they mean, but I can pretty well guess.

  People think having a pirate for a father means you can behave however you like, but it’s not so. He’s been strict for as long as I can remember, sparing neither rod nor child if it came down to it. I was never one for stepping too far out of line—that was my sister—and I still don’t. I may be nineteen now, but my ass has a long memory.

  We don’t take the main roads to get out of Harrow. Even in a town full of Reformists, Father doesn’t like anyone knowing our whereabouts—those pirate habits again. Instead, we take the side roads, the forest paths, the desolate trails that lead south from our home in the tiny village of Whetstone, skirting the edges of the towns and hamlets that make up the rest of Harrow, until we reach the border: the magical protective barrier that separates us from them, safety from harm, Harrow from the rest of Anglia.

  The walk from Harrow to Crouch Hill is a two-day journey, comfortably. But we aren’t comfortable, not out in the open like this. The Inquisitor’s witch hunters, they normally keep to the areas around Upminster. But if they’ve got a lead on someone, they go after them, no matter where they are. Which means they could be anywhere.

  Father and I move quickly, and we don’t stop to sleep. Before we left home, I prepared a wineskin full of tonic to fight fatigue, to give us energy, to keep us alert. We pass it back and forth throughout the night, Father stifling a gag every time he takes a drink. I can’t blame him. It’s a mixture of licorice, ginger, dandelion root, and chicory, and it tastes like hell.