The Healer Read online

  As dawn comes and the gray light with it, I finally spot a signpost pointing to Crouch Hill: ten kilometers. Out here, it’s mostly open stretches of land mixed with gently rolling hills, for the most part unpopulated. But the closer you get to Upminster, the villages grow larger and begin to run together until you reach the city. Then it’s nothing but paved roads, pubs, markets, and crowds.

  And prison and scaffolds and flames and death.

  “You’ve been quiet tonight,” Father remarks through a yawn. “Are you nervous about seeing Nicholas?”

  “No,” I say, his yawn making me yawn, too. “Just wondering what’s wrong with him. Why all the secrecy? Why haven’t I heard he’s sick? That sort of news would travel fast in Harrow.”

  “Which is exactly the reason for all the secrecy.”

  “You said he’s seen other healers,” I say. “Seems like word would get out—”

  “John.” Father stops, turns to me, and takes my shoulder. His eyes are bloodshot with fatigue, somehow making them darker. “It’s imperative you keep this information about Nicholas to yourself. You mustn’t tell anyone. Not that Nicholas is ill, not that you’re here. George knows about Nicholas, of course, and you and Fifer. But that’s it.”

  I feel a tug of anxiety at the urgency in his tone. “I don’t discuss my patients with other people,” I say. “Besides, there isn’t anyone to tell.”

  Father pulls me to him then, holding me tight and patting my back. Another gesture he hasn’t made in years. I start to push him away but then I don’t, and for a moment I think I’ve been wrong to shut him out, wrong to shut everyone out. But my misery, despite what they say, does not love company.

  Another hour and we reach Nicholas’s house, hidden behind a copse of trees. While I’ve been to his house in Harrow before, many times, I’ve never been to this one. It’s huge, brick, and beautiful: three stories tall, walls covered with greenery now beginning a slow winter death on the vine. From the outside, it looks abandoned. So many homes nowadays look abandoned—are abandoned—that it doesn’t draw notice. We cross the graveled path toward the entrance. Two large wooden double doors, stained glass windows on either side, each bear the symbol of the Reformists: a sun surrounded by a square, then a triangle, encircled by an ouroboros, a snake with its tail in its mouth.

  It’s meant to symbolize renewal, a balance of creation out of destruction, life out of death. But there’s no balance, not now; not anymore. Now we’re trapped in an endless cycle of fear and terror, devoured by flames and death, until eventually there will be nothing left.

  3

  I’m not two steps inside the house before there’s a shriek and then a laugh as Fifer hurls herself at me.

  “John!” She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes tight. Then, just as abruptly, she releases me and steps back, a scowl replacing her smile. Fifer is as mercurial as a spring day: sunny one moment, then the next thing you know you’re caught in a downpour, running for cover. I’ve known her since she was six and, ten years later, not much has changed.

  “It’s been weeks since I heard from you,” she starts. “Didn’t you get my letters? You look good. Did you forget to shave? You need a haircut. And are you eating? You’re too thin.”

  I shake my head, a small smile working its way across my face.

  “Yes, yes, and thank you,” I say. “I’m not sure but probably, and you’re right, I do. What was the other?”

  “I asked if you’re eating. You’re too pale and too thin.” Her scowl softens, and she glances at Father across the hall, deep in conversation with Nicholas. “Is everything all right? Are you still having, you know, episodes?” She practically whispers the word.

  I nod. There’s no point in hiding anything from Fifer anyway. She’s known me too long, and she’s the closest thing I’ve got to a sister, now. Fifer is the complete opposite from Jane in looks: rust-red hair, matching red freckles, pale-green eyes. But aside from that, they’re exactly the same. Jane never passed up an opportunity to take the piss out of me, and Fifer doesn’t, either.

  “Is your journal full of feelings helping?”

  I roll my eyes. “What do you think?”

  Fifer smiles. “I guess not. Better than drinking dog urine, though, right?”

  “It was fox urine, and I wasn’t supposed to drink it. I was supposed to bathe in it.”

  She barks a laugh. “Oh, that’s much better.”

  Of all the remedies I researched for melancholia, bathing in fox urine was actually one of the more appealing ones. There was also bloodletting, leeching, anointing my pulse points with snake bile, and eating bone marrow mixed with the sweat of a boar. I don’t even know how you collect boar sweat.

  “If you don’t think bathing in fox urine is better, then you’ve never tried to keep a journal.”

  She laughs and hugs me again, hard.

  “I really am glad to see you.”

  “Me too.”

  Nicholas comes up behind us then, my father in tow. Immediately, and even before examining him, I know something is wrong. The last time I saw Nicholas was perhaps six months ago. Nine, at most. He came to see Father at our home; I don’t remember what for, I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t paying attention to much of anything then. But I know he didn’t look the way he does now. His posture wasn’t stooped, his dark hair wasn’t streaked with white; his skin, while not youthful, wasn’t blanched gray. He almost looks diluted: a strained form of his usual self.

  “Fifer,” he says. “Would you be so good as to show Peter to his room? And take John’s things to his?” It’s unnecessary, this request, as Hastings, Nicholas’s ghost servant, could just as easily do it. But it’s typical patient behavior: He’s getting the others out of the way so he can talk to me alone.

  Fifer pulls my bags off my shoulders. Crooks a finger at my father, winks at me, then flounces up the stairs. Father stares a moment, then starts after her. Fifer’s attitude, her mannerisms—they’re so like Jane’s that sometimes it’s like being punched in the gut.

  Nicholas extends his hand to me in greeting and I take it. His skin is ice cold.

  “Why don’t we adjourn to the sitting room?” he says. “We can speak more comfortably there.”

  Off to the side of the entrance hall is an impressive room, spanning the length of the house from front to back. A fire roars inside the large fireplace that takes up half of one wall. Groupings of settees, tables, and chairs line the other. Blue stained glass windows obscure the view out the front window, but the back windows are clear, offering a view to the courtyard. I can just make out a knot garden, the browning shrubs neatly trimmed into the symbol of the Reformists.

  “Please, sit.” He leads me to one of the chairs by the fireplace, a great, overstuffed thing in blue velvet, and settles into the one beside it. “How was your trip?”

  “Uneventful,” I reply.

  Nicholas smiles. “Uneventful almost passes as good these days.” A pause. “Blackwell’s men are expanding their persecution to include all Reformists, even those who do not practice magic. We’re getting reports almost weekly of men and women going missing. From their homes, from their places of work, even from their beds. Without warning.”

  I grip the edge of the chair, and my fingers dig into the plush fabric.

  “I know it was dangerous for you to come, and I thank you for that,” Nicholas continues. “And I know how busy you are. It was good of you to take time away from your patients to see me.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” I say.

  Another pause as Nicholas leans back in his chair. He lets out a muffled grunt of discomfort, the smile abruptly leaving his face. He twists around in his seat, his hands—gnarled and thin—gripping the armrests.

  He’s not doing what most people do when they see a healer for the first time. He’s not avoiding my gaze, not making excuses for how he feels, not putting on a brave face. People do this because they know they’re ill but they don’t want to hear the truth
of it, of how bad off they might be, or how, despite everything I could do for them, it might not be enough.

  He’s being honest, which is somehow even worse.

  “What has your father told you about why I asked you here?”

  “He told me you were having health issues,” I say. “But he didn’t get into much detail.”

  Nicholas clasps his hands together, his fingers resting under his chin. “No. I suppose he wouldn’t. He’s a good man, your father. Very loyal.”

  I nod.

  “I’ve seen a number of healers over several months,” he begins. “They’ve all told me different things, all prescribed me different medicines. I daresay I’ve got enough herbs now to start my own apothecary.” He chuckles then, which gives way to a heavy, rattling cough. “But I’d like to know what you think.”

  Nicholas is the most powerful wizard in Anglia. The idea of him wanting my opinion is madness.

  I hesitate a moment, then get to my feet and find one of the smaller chairs in the room, pull it directly in front of his, and sit down. Patients don’t like it when you hover over them. I take his hands, feel his palms. Touch my hand to the sides of his neck, behind his ears, his forehead. Make him breathe for me, listen to the way he coughs. Listen to his heartbeat. Look again at his skin. His eyes. His posture. These things don’t lie, even if the patient does.

  Slowly, I stand up again. Return my chair to its place, and then cross back to the one by the fire. I settle in, silent for a moment. Nicholas is watching me, his expression avid.

  “I suppose the other healers told you that you have pneumonia,” I say. “And I imagine one or two said you have catarrh.”

  Nicholas nods.

  “You don’t have either. But I think you know that already.”

  Again a nod.

  “Coughing, chills, the gray tinge of your skin are all symptoms of pneumonia, no doubt what they based their diagnosis on. You have a fever, too, which is another symptom.”

  I pause.

  “But while fever can be a symptom, it’s not usually present in older patients. Also, were it pneumonia, you wouldn’t be able to think clearly. Not after this long. Your mental state would have already begun to deteriorate, and you seem fine to me.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “Your symptoms aren’t quite right for catarrh, either,” I continue. “Your pulse and your breath would be racing and they’re not. They’re almost too slow, in fact.”

  “Go on.”

  “What you’re experiencing is unnatural, which makes me think the cause is unnatural, too,” I say. “Something magical. Usually with men, when there are conflicting pulse and breathing issues, the cause is often a love spell gone wrong. But you aren’t likely to fall prey to a love spell.”

  “Regrettable.”

  I almost smile.

  Nicholas leans forward in his chair. Looks me directly in the eye.

  “What would be your diagnosis?”

  I don’t answer right away. Because what I think, what my diagnosis would be, can’t possibly be true. Except there’s no other explanation.

  “I think you’ve been cursed.”

  Nicholas stands up abruptly and walks to the window overlooking the garden. I start a little. Have I offended him? By daring to suggest that the leader of the Reformists is cursed—could be cursed?

  “Cursed.” His voice is flat, all earlier levity gone. “And what, may I ask, led you to this conclusion? I presume you’ve seen a lot of cursed patients in your four, perhaps five years of healing experience?”

  I frown, feeling a sudden surge of anger. He was the one who had summoned me here. I didn’t ask to come. I try to remember that he’s old, that he’s ill. It’s not the first time someone has gotten angry at me for my diagnosis and it’s unlikely to be the last.

  “It’s not my experience—or my lack of it—that led me to this,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I think you’re cursed because my father wouldn’t look at me when he talked about you. Because Fifer looks terrified, though she’s doing her best to hide it. Because you’re living in this house, too close to Upminster and too far from Harrow for comfort. I think you’re hiding yourself because you fear that whatever’s happening to you is going to get worse. Because if word got out that you were ill, cursed, possibly dying”—I swallow—“it would set off a goddamned riot inside the council, and the last thing we need is to be distracted with another fight when we’ve got an even bigger one in front of us.”

  Nicholas whirls around, and for a moment I worry I’ve gone too far. That I’ve said too much and presumed too much. That he’s going to throw me and my father out of the house when we only just got here, and that it’s going to affect my father’s standing with the Reformists.

  “I’ve seen seven healers,” Nicholas says. “All of whom are twice your age, with twice your experience and more than twice your deference. And you come in here, look me over for five minutes, and determine that I’m cursed? From just a handful of unnatural symptoms and what amounts to nothing more than guesswork and intuition?”

  I get to my feet then, without waiting for his dismissal. Best to go before he gets even angrier, and before my father unpacks his bags. We haven’t slept in two days and I’m out of tonic, but I think that’s beyond mattering. I begin to form an apology and a farewell until I see the amusement dancing in Nicholas’s dark eyes.

  “I do hope you’ll stay for a while, John.”

  4

  Living at Nicholas’s home is unlike mine in every way. My every need is taken care of without my having to ask. My clothes are washed, mended even. My stores of herbs have been refilled. Food is brought to me throughout the day: roast chicken and pheasant and venison and lamb, fresh fruits and vegetables, so many different breads and pies and cakes I haven’t had a chance to try them all. I haven’t eaten so well in months.

  I also haven’t worked so hard in months. I’m up nearly round the clock, tending to one potion or another, things that have to be done precisely or they won’t work. It’s a near-constant juggling act to keep Nicholas steady. No sooner does he begin to respond to one potion than it begins to fail, and I’m brewing another one.

  This is only half the problem. The other half is finding the source of the curse; more specifically, the person who performed it so that I can force him or her to execute a countercurse. But there are other ways, too. Ways that, as my father says, involve not magic but a sword.

  We’re searching for a witch or wizard, naturally. But who? There are some who have the means but not the motive. Others who have the motive but not the means. We visited Veda, Nicholas’s seer, last week to get some answers, but she was as cryptic as seers usually are—this one even more so since she’s only five years old. Veda insists he needs to find someone named Elizabeth Grey, that she’s the only one who will be able to help us find who we’re looking for.

  Elizabeth Grey. It’s a common-enough name, which means there could be hundreds of women or girls or even babies who share it. Nicholas sent my father to locate them all the day after we arrived, and he’s already been gone three weeks. There’s no telling how much longer it’ll take.

  I’m hunched over my alembic, leather gloves up to my elbows, stirring a potion that gives off a scent so rotten I wish I’d thought to open the window, when there’s a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I call.

  The door swings open and Fifer walks in.

  “You’re wanted downstairs for supper, and—ugh. What is that stench?”

  “Black cohosh and valerian root.”

  “Well, it smells horrible,” she says. “And you look horrible. You’ll have to clean up before eating. Hastings won’t allow you at the table looking that way.”

  That’s another difference between my home and Nicholas’s: He insists on everyone dining together every night, clean, dressed, and presentable. No exceptions.

  I glance down at myself.

  “Right.” I lean over the table and push open t
he window with my elbow. “Let me just finish up here and I’ll come with you. It’ll be about five minutes. Less. Four and thirty.”

  Fifer rolls her eyes. “Whatever you say. I’ll be out in the hallway.”

  I siphon off the clear potion from the black residue, pour it into a clean glass flask, and set it by the window to cool. Then I peel off my gloves, my apron, and my shirt to change into the clothes that are folded and waiting for me at the end of my bed.

  I step into the hall and Fifer gives me an appraising glance.

  “You look good. Well, almost good.” She taps her forehead.

  “What? Oh.” I reach up, feel for the protective spectacles I’d pushed to the top of my head. I pull them off and hook them onto the door latch. “Wish I’d thought of hanging something here earlier. I won’t get lost now.” This damned hallway is dark and long and all the doors look the same.

  “Lost.” Fifer snickers. “It’s the eighth door on the right. How hard is it?”

  We reach the bottom of the stairs and turn the corner into the dining room, where I see my father at the head of the table, sitting beside Nicholas.

  “You’re back,” I say to him, then turn to Fifer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know,” she replies, sliding into a chair.

  “Just arrived,” Father says.

  “Did you find her?” I say. “Them, rather?”

  Father nods. “Yes. Turns out there’re not as many Elizabeth Greys as you’d think. Well, there used to be. But…” His voice trails off but I know what he was going to say anyway.

  They’re all dead now.

  “According to the registries, there were five. One an elderly woman who died two weeks ago. It’s not her, though,” he adds in response to Fifer’s look of concern. “She wasn’t right in the head. Never been out of her own home, barely knew her own name. No chance she could have helped us find anything. The others were children. Babies, really. One a stillborn, the other died of the sweat at three weeks old.”