I standat the edge of the bed and take one last look at her.
Annie lies tangled in the blankets, one arm draped across her ribs. She looks young like this. Softened, unguarded when she sleeps. The fever hasn’t touched her face yet. Or maybe it has, and I just don’t want to see it.
I want to stay. God, I do. But something deep within me needs to see this through, to get better for her. To find answers for the Wharncliffes. We’ll have that day together at St Paul’s, but for now, answers and a cureawait me. I bend down, press my lips to her temple, and breathe her in. Jasmine, sin, and the sweet edge of blood.
“I’ll come back for you. Even if I have to claw my way.”
She stirs against me but doesn’t wake.
I take one last look about the room, the weight of Amah’s herbs solid in my pocket, and step into the hall. Amah is waiting by the stairwell, arms folded, shawl wrapped tight around her. She doesn’t say anything. Just nods once, dutifully guarding her granddaughter’s door.
I descend the stairs slowly, boots against wood the only sound in the entire house, every step pulling me further from the night I’d like to hold onto.
At the bottom, a long table holds the incense I’d smelled earlier, curls of smoke wafting undisturbed into the entryway like curled petals of chrysanthemum. Just when I creak the door open, there’s a faint shuffling behind me.
It’s Amah, descending the stairs. “Remember yourself, Jacques.”
The morning is cold, the sun slow to rise though the London fog. My returning fever is the only thing keeping me warm in these empty streets. The world feels like it’s paused here, a sepulchral spectre watching from the mist.
I turn and take Amah’s extended hand, bow to press my lips to the back of it, and start walking. Each step forward is heavy, but I don’t stop. Not this time.
CHAPTER 5
IN WHICH FILES ARE FOUND, TEETH ARE TAKEN AS TITHE, AND THE BODY MUST BE BROKEN TO REAP THE BLOOD
“Good day to you. Thank you.” I wave to the driver that had appeared at the end of the square. He didn’t say much, and it wasn’t a long drive, but I’m grateful for the lift.
Lewis & Allenby’s is closed, I notice, approaching the infirmary. Windows dim, curtains drawn. In fact, most of the businesses on the empty block seem to be.
I’ve forgotten it’s Sunday. A day for the Sabbath—and Beecham’s reckoning.
I’m prepared to knock repeatedly, announce my presence, or try and shoulder my way in. But the door swings inward almost as soon as I grip the knob.
Inside, intake is uneventful. Dull, almost. The receiving room is bare. Brand new wooden floors that are so pristine they’re nearly reflective. The walls, which are not new, are covered in faded lime-green paint, and naked. There’s nothing here, save for two chairs against a wall, another door, and a small window through which they take my information.
The old woman in the grey gown and cap stares at meboredly above the surgeon’s mask stuck to her mouth, and seems to be on the brink of turning me away until I pull out my business card for identification. I consider pulling out my letter of authority to work in London from the commissioner, but purposefully decide against that, and keep it in my back pocket.
I am a patient here, first and foremost. A fly on the wall.
The intake nurse disappears into the doorway behind her. It’s not long before the door to my left swings open, and I’m brought into triage.
Four nurses seems excessive, but they’re kind enough to walk ahead of me, and chat amongst themselves through their masks about the weather, before offering me a cup of water, which I gratefully accept but slosh into a plant pot as we round a corner. We enter a spacious hallway lined with doors, forking off to the right and left at the end. A short line of patients in monochrome robes made of coarse flannel offer feeble, tight-lipped smiles as we pass. At the rear is a young man, maybe even younger than me, in a wheelchair pushed by an attendant. As he passes, I can see there’s a crude gash on his shin, open and uncovered; I wasn’t trying to stare, but the swarm of buzzing flies is deafening in my right ear. Part of his bone is visible toward the front, where flies, gnats, and a cluster of squirming maggots make their home. Some of the flying insects have stuck to the pus leaking down his leg.
I should’ve stopped there and asked his name, what he was being seen for—evidentlynothis weeping wound—and hauled him out to a real hospital.
Instead, I stumble into the wall lost for words. I exaggerate a few coughs to mask my retching, which must work, because one of the nurses grips my shoulders and steers me into the first room around the left corner.
They attempt to robe me right away, grabbing at mywaistcoat and trousers, but I protest, unsettled. They’re strong, and continue as if they hadn’t heard me; I’m so taken aback by this, it takes me a few tries—maybe they speak another language—but I shout with everything in my arsenal. English, French, Latin, Occitan, Spanish…even my grandmother’s native tongue of Breton. Still, they tug at me until I secure two of their wrists in one hand and shove a finger in the others’ faces.
“I am fevered,” I snarl gently, as if they don’t see my undershirt stuck to my armpits, or the sweat curling and sticking my hair to my forehead. “I don’t need to remove my clothes. Ineedto speak to Beecham.”
They exchange glances, whispering, but not uttering a word directly to me. Their eyes are steeled above their masks. One nods, and they let me go. It is only then that they place the robe down on the counter and file out, one by one.
“The doctor will see you shortly,” is all that is uttered to me by the last, before the door slams shut.
A wave of panic crests over me; I immediately go to follow them, but the door is locked. The knob doesn’t even wiggle, there’s no movement when I try with all my might, as if it’s jammed or blocked, or deadbolted from the outside.
I drop to my knees and peer through the slim space underneath.
