The Winter Sisters Page 24

  She brought up her legs so that she was hugging her knees, making herself smaller.

  “Not that we are hoping for a patient,” I said, “but if the inevitable compels a poor soul to seek our expertise—”

  Effie sneezed.

  I waited to see if her single sneeze would turn into a series, then I continued, “If a patient comes in, my questions to you are because I’m trying to learn.”

  “I don’t know how to teach.”

  “Don’t teach. Just treat. It’s my responsibility to learn. What can I have at the ready for you? An herb? A knife? A length of silver thread?”

  “I’d prefer a glass of water,” she said.

  “Is the coffee too hot? I’ll fetch you some cream.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll get it.” She unfolded herself from atop the ham and went to the ewer we kept near the laboratory glass.

  Effie hadn’t poured a full cup before the small door between our office and Snell’s store opened. In staggered Mrs. Snell, bent double, supporting herself with two crossed canes.

  I hastened to her side. Effie finished pouring her cup of water as I guided Mrs. Snell to sit in the surgery chair. If she were to faint, best to have her in position already, I figured. “Please, Mrs. Snell, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh, it would be faster to list what doesn’t hurt.” Mrs. Snell shuddered.

  I took out my silver pocket watch and measured her pulse.

  “I suppose that my eyelashes—the ones I have left—are all right, and I can’t complain of any pain in my pinkie fingers. But everything else, ah, me!”

  Mrs. Snell’s pulse fluttered arrhythmically under my fingers. Her lymph nodes were swollen. She had a fever, and she winced as I asked her to flex her appendages. Her joints crackled like wet logs in a fire.

  “I think half my troubles come from my guts,” she said, putridity on her breath. “I have violent dyspepsia. When I walk, you can hear the gravel rattling. And it’s mortifying to say this, but I must: my Snell says that I am issuing a vile, sulfurous flatulence.”

  “Gastralgia?” I asked.

  “Yes, two of them! And I have pains in my extremities and my innards. My back hurts, and my toes hurt, and my neck hurts, and my heart hurts. They are all so tired of their work.” She patted at her eyes. “And that isn’t the worst. I have a terrible brain congestion, a fog that keeps me from saying any right thoughts and makes me think fearful ones. My head is all in a mist, and in the mist, I see ghosts. Some are people that I knew back in Louisville, but others I’ve never seen before. Some are monsters with teeth like pitchforks, but these are not so frightful as the ones that are sweet and kind. They are like angels, and they are telling me that I am not one of them. They have the most terrible smiles.”

  Such a torrent of symptoms. I looked at Effie. She had fallen back to the wall, her arms folded across herself, and she pressed her stomach as though troubled by her own pains.

  “See, I am contagious!” declared Mrs. Snell, pulling her shawl across her face. “Dear Effie’s coming down with my pernicious nostalgia.”

  “Mrs. Snell, please, it’s all right,” I said.

  “No, I’m sure it is not. It will never be.” Mrs. Snell closed her eyes as she spoke. “What can cure all my ills? I will not survive it. The bleeding for the fever would drive the dyspepsia, and the pills for phlegm would stoke the fever. Give me a clyster for the gravel, and you’ll rip up my insides with fuel for flatulence. To say nothing of the ghosts, the nostalgia…”

  A previous rendition of myself would not have been dissuaded from giving her a bleeding, despite all those symptoms, but I knew what a bleeding would do. I did not know what Effie would do. What could she do for Mrs. Snell, and what could she do for Ouida Bell?

  I moved closer to Effie, meaning to unstick her from her place by the force of my presence, the same way a man can free up a bench by sitting too close to other occupants.

  “Let Rebecca do it,” she said.

  Did every patient in Hope Hollow stir fear inside her? “Rebecca’s with Mrs. Islington, who’s just in her confinement.”

  “Then Sarah—”

  “Sarah had to fetch some more human skulls.”

  Effie folded her hands. She pressed her fingers together so hard that the tips turned red. Mrs. Snell gave a series of glottal expulsions, hiccups of air driven by spasms of the lungs. Her head slumped to one side.

  Effie stepped forward, her movements small and uncertain. She drank from the cup of water she’d poured for herself. Her nervous tremors caused a few droplets to spill, but she did not wipe them away. They slid from her cheeks and left tiny blots against her collar.

  I held my breath to listen for the faintest whispers she might utter, be they prayers or spells. I watched every muscle for the slightest movement. I looked for her fingers to stretch out in therapeutic touch, but Effie’s hands never moved from her sides. I kept a constant watch on her fingers, looking for signs of prestidigitation. I looked at Effie’s eyes, pale gray and virtuous and memorable, in case mesmeric suggestions appeared in the rhythm of her blinking. But nothing was there to see.

  Minutes passed. Mrs. Snell’s eyes opened. She glanced around the room. “Do you know… I’m feeling a considerable lot better now.”

  I smiled. She was being kind to Effie’s feelings. “Yes, good work, Effie. First, do no harm, right?”

  Effie’s right eye disappeared behind fallen strands of gray hair. She brushed them back over her temple. She made vanishing bows to Mrs. Snell and to me then hastened out to the pig yard. She gave no excuse nor backward glance.

  Mrs. Snell grinned, showing more teeth than I’d ever seen her display before. They were in remarkable condition. Whiskey rots a tooth in a few years, but Mrs. Snell’s teeth looked as white as a porcelain doll’s. So many people in Lawrenceville had remarkably preserved teeth. How did they manage it? An herb, a mineral in the water? The Winter sisters?

  Mrs. Snell pressed a weight into my palm. I pulled my hand back and examined what she’d placed there. It was a five-dollar coin, a fortune.

  “I can’t accept this,” I said, dumbfounded. I held my palm out so that she could take her coin back. “You haven’t received anything—”

  “But I’m leaving with a lot less than I came in with. That’s worth a fine price.”

  She curled my fingers back around the coin, which felt cold in my hand.

  As she left, Mrs. Snell’s heels had spring. Her shoulders were back, her breast puffed out. Her walking canes swished like batons at her sides.

  What had Effie done? A trick of the mind? A sleight of hand? Executed a confidence game between her and Mrs. Snell, with me as the victim? I peered into the cup of water Effie had left unfinished as though it were a scrying glass. I saw only ordinary water in an ordinary world.

  When she heard the distant movement, Sarah quieted her breathing. She raised her rifle and willed her heartbeat to slow. The barrel of the gun was perfectly steady, aimed at the animal sound.

  When it was Effie, not the rabid panther, that stumbled from the rhododendrons and onto the forest path, Sarah kept the gun aimed for just a moment, just a moment longer. Then, she released her breath and her heart, and the blood rushed to her head.

  Effie looked up at her. “Where have you been? We haven’t seen you for three days.”

  “I’ve been looking for that panther again.” Sarah dropped downward, branch to branch, scaring up a brace of pigeons at each move. “And looking for you.”

  “Have you been up this tree the whole time?” said Effie.

  “Not always this tree. But some tree.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Effie.

  “For what? You haven’t done nothing yet.” Sarah alighted on the earth in a crouch. Leaves were in her hair and bird droppings and sap on her palms. Sarah wiped her hands on her skirt one at a time, tucking her rifle into the crook of her arm. “You’re heading up to see Thumb?”

  Effie nodded.

 
“It’s a wonder Waycross let you go. I thought he would be just fascinated by you.”

  “He is, but I couldn’t—”

  “I think,” said Sarah, “that you should go back. Thumb will be there tomorrow. But you need to see Ouida Bell.”

  Effie wrapped her arms over her chest, hugging her shoulders. She was making herself smaller as if she could hide inside her humility. Sarah flared inwardly at her sister. Whom did she think she was fooling?

  “Go back,” said Sarah. “If not now, then before daylight. Kiss your sweetie, and then go back to town.”

  “But won’t it encourage Aubrey… and what about Rebecca?”

  “Damn them both,” said Sarah.

  She knew the danger. If Effie cured Ouida Bell, Waycross would become fascinated with Effie, his natural curiosity tilting into obsession, and fascination was an affliction not easily cured. Rebecca would know the change at once. What would happen? More fire, more death? Life was a spiral, a spiral coiling in, but there was no way out if Ouida Bell was to live.

  “You need to see to Ouida Bell,” said Sarah.

  “I would prefer not to.”

  “I don’t give a right damn what you prefer or don’t.”

  Effie shook her head.

  “Maybe I sneak you in,” said Sarah. “You cure her, and then you sneak away. No one knows it was you. The town doesn’t know. Aubrey doesn’t know.”

  “Do you think that will leave the town at peace?”

  “No, no,” said Sarah. “But I don’t care. You have to cure her, Effie, if you can. And I believe that you can. You brought that deer back to life after the panther killed it. And Ouida Bell isn’t even dead yet. That should be simpler, right? Wash away her hydrophobia.”

  Sarah wondered what Rebecca had said to Effie on the night of the fire. How had Rebecca pleaded for Everett’s life? That could not have been so different from where Sarah found herself now, and Everett had died. Effie hadn’t saved him.

  Sarah had her gun, though. She had always defended Effie, trying to save her from all harm, but she had a gun. That was a terrible thought. Sarah should not value any life over the life of her little sister.

  “You have to go back,” said Sarah, and two tears threatened to fall. “You have to save her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you can, Effie.”

  The town square was swaddled in the purple blanket of evening. I could see the front facade of the courthouse. The rest was hidden in the night. Hogs and men and women appeared and faded like ghosts, stepping from shadow to illumination and back again. From a dozen glass windows, candlelight beamed. Snell’s storefront was a wash of reds and yellows. The air was thick and humid. The evening was as sweaty as I was.

  A hog came near me, the little sweet one. I hadn’t given her a name because no one should name his future supper, but I recognized her upturned snout and the bristly burst of hair above her rear right haunch. Her tail was wagging a hearty hello.

  “Good evening, madam,” I said. “Worms or heart troubles?”

  The hog snuffled at my shoes then scampered away, inviting me to play.

  Ebullient laughter spilled from the open windows of Snell’s house, along with enough light for a parade. As I climbed the porch steps, I saw Mrs. Snell was in a frolicsome mood, dancing with all four limbs flailing. Snell had a fiddle, which he was sawing with great concentration to stay on beat, if not on melody. Rebecca was dancing with them, her footfalls loud and gay. No one heard me climb the porch steps over the din of the music, so I put my face up to the open window, like a specter looming in.

  “Whoo! Whoop, whoop!” Mrs. Snell bounded toward me, her great arms thrust wide. A kiss smashed into my cheek. “Doctor, Doctor, come on in! It’s a party.”

  Snell stopped playing, but Rebecca still tapped out the rhythm with her feet.

  I disentangled myself from Mrs. Snell’s greeting. “What’s the glad occasion?”

  “Look at this!” Mrs. Snell arose on her toes and danced out a bounding rhythm on the floorboards. The house shook in her enthusiasm. Her heels kicked up so high that I could see the soles of her shoes were wearing thin.

  Rebecca came up beside Mrs. Snell and mimicked her pattern, matching her leap for leap.

  Mrs. Snell sprang higher, her energy increasing. She spun back to front, front to back. Rebecca was tiring. She couldn’t keep up, and finally, Rebecca stumbled.

  Mrs. Snell cackled with delight. “See, I can beat the whippersnappers. Remember what I was like this morning, Doctor? A useless bag of bones. Now, whoop, whoop!”

  It was a triumph, one that made me sick with mystery. Snell looked at me, and I wondered if he wouldn’t ask later for a male cure of his own, so high were his wife’s spirits.

  “I’m glad at your health, Mrs. Snell,” I said. “I wonder if I couldn’t see Effie, please. Is she here?”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Rebecca, who’d settled into a chair to catch her breath.

  Mrs. Snell clapped her hands twice. “Why, if I saw that girl, I’d hug her and squeeze her until her stuffing came out. I’d bake her up a chocolate cake and a mountain of cream, and I’d throw strawberries in her face until she plumped up enough to be pretty.”

  Rebecca stood up and crossed the room. “Aubrey, let’s go outside for a minute.”

  I offered her my elbow, and she took it. The two of us, so joined, took a moment to navigate the doorway. I turned myself so that Rebecca could pass through first, but she misunderstood, and we ended up squeezing through at the same time.

  Outside, we did not go far, just enough up the road so that we didn’t have to shout over the screech of the fiddle. My elbow was damp with sweat where Rebecca held it.

  “Aubrey, what’s happened?” She took her arm from my elbow and picked up my hand.

  “Mrs. Snell. Effie restored her so easily. By what manner, I could not say.”

  “What did you see her do?”

  “She stared at Mrs. Snell for a few minutes. Then, Mrs. Snell was cured.”

  Rebecca’s mouth narrowed to a small point. “Do you think she’s a miracle worker?”

  I scuffed my feet in the dust of the road. “This is only one case, but a fascinating—”

  That word, fascinating, set Rebecca aflame.

  “The graveyard is not empty, Aubrey. There’s a tombstone for Everett.” Rebecca turned to march back to the Snells’ house.

  “Please, wait.” I dashed toward her and caught her sleeve. “It’s not… whatever you think it is. I just… What is she, Rebecca?”

  “She’s an empty soul.”

  “You cannot leave me with that mystery! You are her sister. You know what she is.”

  Rebecca looked at me, and fire burned in her eyes. “She is evil.”

  I wound up at the Flowing Bowl behind a heap of biscuits and roasted pigeon and more whiskey than a soldier could drink in a week.

  I stirred my food, watching the steam curl. The extravagance was supposed to lift my spirits, but I had no appetite.

  The tavern was quiet. A few patrons played chuck-luck for dried beans. Buck debated the weather with his tablemates. P drummed his fingers and looked as though he were thinking out a difficult puzzle. Even Renwick was enjoying a moment of tranquility.

  Then the door flew open so hard that nails popped out like a porcupine’s spines. Framed by the doorway was the imposing Mrs. Maltbie.

  “Savages! Whiskey whore-mongers!”

  “Eula?” said Renwick. “What in the—”

  “I’ve warned you not to sell to my husband. I’ve prophesied your doom.”

  “I haven’t sold him any drink,” said Renwick, lifting his hands in honest innocence. “He hasn’t been in, except for the chicken and dumplings.”

  “And what’s in your vile chicken and dumplings?” Mrs. Maltbie spat on the floor. “Rum? Whiskey? Unvirtuous spirits?”

  “Worms is what’s in ’em!” said Buck. “But Sarah Winter will take ’em out.”

  “I
know you’ve been selling him liquor, you iniquitous devils!” said Mrs. Maltbie. Her fingers wrapped around the head of her iron-clad cane. “You impecunious tempters! You torpid jackanapes! You blighted roustabouts!”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “Mrs. Maltbie, if I may—”

  “You mayn’t! I will not be silenced. Your turpitude, Doctor, is as profound as theirs. Your ether is a poison no less pernicious than demon rum.”

  “I shan’t brook an ill word against ether.” My chest swelled, and the veins on my neck pulsed. “The fatuous sententiousness of your ilk—”

  “If you two would take your tiresome words outside,” said Renwick.

  “How’s this for a tiresome word, eh?” Mrs. Maltbie raised her metal cane and brought it down upon my table. It split like a stump beneath a mattock. My plates of pigeon and biscuits and chicken and dumplings shattered on the floor, and a spray of whiskey filled the air.

  “God damn!” I cried, shielding my eyes from the spray of splinters.

  At first, Mrs. Maltbie looked stunned, but she quickly recovered. “A righteous blow! The first of many.”

  Mrs. Maltbie whirled the cane and batted the cups and bowls from the length of the bar. Buck and P dove for cover, and Renwick lunged for her, but she riposted with her cane, catching him across the forehead. She shattered bottles of whiskey and beer and water and pickled eggs. The fragments rained down like grapeshot.

  I fled. I couldn’t stop Mrs. Maltbie by myself. I needed help.

  I careened out of the Flowing Bowl and straight into the solid wall of someone else. The impact knocked me flat. My head hit the hard earth. My jaw was knocked out of square. My left buttock fell on a sharp rock, and I think my coccyx came loose. I tried to stand, but my body failed to obey.

  “Aubrey, get up.” The hand on my shoulder was Effie Winter’s. She lifted me by the armpit with uncanny strength and set me on my feet.

  “Lord Almighty, you’ve got to help,” I said. “There’s a madwoman in there. She’s raging.”