The Winter Sisters Read online

  Sarah saw the doctor—Waycross, wasn’t it?—go ahead of her into Snell’s store. If he introduced himself to her, the poor fellow would find himself arguing his principles against an even more mischievous opponent than Thumb, and it would draw attention that Sarah didn’t want. She was only there for coffee, after all, and what few things they couldn’t make or grow up in Hope Hollow.

  Sarah kept an eye on the general store, walking past every few minutes to see if Waycross had finished his business there so she could do hers. While she waited, she saw that not much in Lawrenceville had changed since her last visit, nor since they’d lived here, before the fire and the pastor. Sarah saw all the same faces that had been there the night Boatwright had fanned the terror of the mill fire into a hot and angry mob. One face she didn’t see, of course: Everett’s. He was in the graveyard, cooling with the clay.

  Still, the same sad little shops and church were there, as worn and weather-beaten as the farmers and sawyers and other settlers despite not being as old. The spring was still crowded with more hogs than people, and the little house Everett had built for Rebecca was still a pile of black cinders.

  The spindly willow tree in the yard had survived the mob and the fire. Three poppets hung from its branches—three sisters, made from twigs and twine. No one had cut down those effigies in the months since, not even Snell or Richardson or any other person who came up to Hope Hollow for a cure, and it made Sarah burn with anger. The sisters were not friendless in Lawrenceville, but no one had the courage to cut the effigies down.

  Sarah, her mother, and her sisters had been in Hope Hollow longer than the town of Lawrenceville had existed. Before the militia pacified the Cherokees, old Indians—men and women, their faces hewn as if from rock—had come calling regularly. Taciturn natives wanted to trade ginseng, willow bark, and sassafras for half-pint bottles of turpentine, and desperate ones fell at the Winters’ door, pleading in a foreign tongue for foreign cures. Sometimes Sarah’s mother gave them hyssop tea, or she covered their open wounds in honey, or she wrapped their fevered foreheads with cold rags. That was straight medicine, and Rebecca, being older, attended at her mother’s side and fetched the herbs and kept the tea on the boil. Sarah was left to look after Effie.

  Each new year, though, brought a new crop of chimneys and a new crop of white farmers who pushed the Indians northward. Sarah’s mother did not like the white settlers. When there was a rap at the front door, Sarah’s mother would look out through the chinking between the logs to see who it was, and if it was a white woman huddled beneath a bonnet or a hard-scrabble sawyer with a mangled hand, she’d let Rebecca see to their needs instead.

  “Where’s your mother?” they’d ask, and Rebecca would say, “Sick.”

  Perhaps she was sick, rotten with an illness inside that even she couldn’t cure, but that was probably a lie, for how could there be a sickness that couldn’t be cured?

  Then one night—the moon a crescent, cicadas crying—a circle of Cherokees drew up around the Winters’ house, and they made sounds that were not quite singing. Sarah’s mother brought her girls out, and the Cherokees surrounded them. They drew a circle on the ground with charcoal that circumscribed the girls. They braided lavender and sage and dove feathers into the girls’ hair. As long as the three sisters stayed together, their protection would never be broken.

  Sarah’s mother was not in the circle, but she drank from a wooden cup, and she vomited onto the earth, and the women turned over the soil so that the sick was buried, and the fresh ends of earthworms glimmered in the moonlight.

  Sarah had never seen a more delightful or ridiculous or powerful thing. There was no magic: no enemy would be afraid to step over a charcoal line, and no bandit would be frightened away by the smell of lavender, but force and grace were writ on the faces of everyone assembled. Everyone there believed in the charm.

  The most fervent believer was her own mother. After the ceremony, she’d be gone for weeks at a time, and the oppressive authority that Rebecca adopted in their mother’s absence made the time seem even longer. Effie was still little. When their mother would come in from the woods, her skin browned, her cheeks hollow, her eyes yellowed, Sarah came to understand that she wanted to die alone. She didn’t want her children to bury her.

  “Sarah, Sarah—remember that you’re bound with your sisters. If you keep together, you’ll be protected. Your enemies will fear what three of you can do, more than what any one of you can do alone. Your talents and your faults will remedy each other.”

  And it had worked, hadn’t it? She and Rebecca and Effie hadn’t been hanged, except in effigy. They hadn’t been burned—only Everett had. And they hadn’t been harmed, save for the harm they did to each other.

  Sarah left the straw effigies to hang. Would it be another six months or a year before someone cut them down? Or would Nature have to rot away the string?

  Finally, Sarah passed by the barn behind Snell’s store and saw Waycross busying himself inside. That meant she could get to the store without mixing up in conversation, and she could buy her coffee and be done with that place for another few weeks, until they needed coffee again.

  A tinkling bell announced her entrance.

  Snell at once looked up. “Miss Sarah, I need your help. It’s my arm.”

  Sarah Winter dropped the red kerchief from in front of her face. “My disguise isn’t fooling anyone, is it?”

  “Boatwright and Lizbeth Samples and Mrs. Maltbie and their friends won’t see you. They don’t want to see you. Those of us that need you, though, we’ll see you fine.”

  Sarah considered that for a moment, and then she folded the kerchief and put it into her pocket. “Let me do my shopping first, Mr. Snell, and then you tell me about your arm.”

  Snell nodded. “What can I get for you?”

  “I’d been aiming for coffee and some blue silk thread. Rebecca can’t make her coffee tree bloom, no matter how much pigeon shit she heaps on it, and the silk—well, silk comes from bugs, and none of us fancy bugs that much. But after that display in Honest Alley, I’m thinking that a bottle of Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic would do me more good than any coffee you could scrounge up here.”

  Snell reached up toward the shelf where he’d placed a few bottles of the tonic that he’d bought from Thumb. He winced as he reached.

  “Did you try Grove’s for your arm?” said Sarah.

  “It’s sprained real bad.” Snell rubbed the muscle below his shoulder. “I was lifting a ham. Grove’s isn’t going to do that a bit of good.”

  “And you didn’t want to ask the doctor that was just here? The one you put out into the barn by your hams?”

  Snell grunted. “Doesn’t seem like much of a doctor. Didn’t even want any turpentine.”

  “It was a hell of a sight to see him try to out-talk Thumb,” continued Sarah. She plucked down a brilliant-blue jar labeled Hamilton’s Great Fastener, the Nev-R-Un-Stick Glue, and tossed it from hand to hand. “Like seeing a mule and a chicken get into a kicking contest.”

  “He’s just back there in the barn. He’ll hear you.”

  “I don’t give a right damn if he hears me.” Sarah put the jar of glue on the counter next to where Snell had measured out a little sack full of coffee. “And he sure doesn’t care who hears him. More the better, he’d suppose. Why not ask him if he’d fix your arm?”

  Snell leaned forward over the counter, his voice dropping low. “Because those kind of doctors—any ache or pain, they want to cut you open. Bleed you if you’re lucky, make you puke if you’re not, and anything that can’t be made to come out the vein or out the top or the bottom, they’ll just lop off with the bone saw.”

  Sarah laughed. “You’re more afraid of a doctor than you’re afraid of a witch!”

  “Because I’ve heard all about doctors. Sawbones and leeches!”

  “That’s why I’m gettin’ the glue,” said Sarah. “Anybody’s arm gets cut off, you just send them up to Hope Hollow, and I’ll
glue it back on. ‘Great Fastener, Nev-R-Un-Stick.’ With a promise like that, how could you doubt?”

  “I’ll give it to you free of charge,” said Snell, “and you can have the coffee, too, if you tell me what to do about the pain in my arm.”

  Sarah clicked her tongue. “You’re not much of a shopkeeper, Mr. Snell. What’s the missus going to think if you’re giving away all your stock? You sure you wouldn’t rather have Rebecca mix up a dram for you? I think she’d put willow bark and honey into a tea for the pain, and then she’d make a poultice of green leaf of something-or-other mixed with turpentine and goose grease and, I don’t know, liver and onions.”

  “Still sounds much better than having my bowels rinsed out by a Hippocratic,” said Snell. “But Rebecca’s up in Hope Hollow, isn’t she? And I’m not giving out free coffee if I have to go all the way up there. You’re standing in my store right now.”

  “Convenience has always been my greatest talent,” said Sarah. “Here, you take this red kerchief.” She took it out of her pocket and wound it around Snell’s upper arm, tucking it in and tying it off above Snell’s elbow, visible on top of his shirtsleeve. As she tied, she pressed her finger on the knot so it would be tighter. The whole of the soreness was under pressure from the kerchief.

  “Does it have to be so tight?” said Snell, rubbing the muscle again with his free arm.

  “It does if I say it does,” said Sarah. “Tighter the better. You leave it there all day, even after you go to sleep.”

  “And that’s going to help?”

  “Not enough,” said Sarah. She put her elbows onto the counter, unloading her purchases. “You’ve got to wake up at midnight.”

  “That’ll wake the missus.”

  “Tell her it’s nothing, it’s just your sore arm. You put on your boots and you go down to the spring. Take off the kerchief and soak it in the spring water. The midnight spring water. And you wrap up your arm again, tight as you can, in that midnight spring water.”

  “The midnight spring water…”

  Sarah knew that’s when the water would be coldest, and the night air would add to the cooling effect. “Three nights you do that, and on the third night, you won’t feel the slightest soreness.”

  In three nights, thought Sarah, a little sprain would probably be gone all on its own, but if it was worse than a little sprain, the cold compress would help speed the recovery. Mostly, though, the patient would feel the power of the midnight spring water. That would always be better than ice, if there were any ice, because midnight had a mystery that ice never would.

  “Now, do I get my coffee?” said Sarah.

  Snell pushed the glue bottle and the coffee toward her. “Midnight spring water is a hell of a lot better than having Doctor Waycross amputate.”

  Sarah scooped up her prizes and turned to go. She didn’t see the door open, nor did she see Ouida Bell walking in with a box wrapped in a pretty red ribbon, distracted by looking at the lithographs of the advertising beauties.

  Only by an inch did they miss colliding with each other, but the jar of Hamilton’s Great Fastener, the Nev-R-Un-Stick Glue, did not stay where Sarah had balanced it. It crashed to the floor, and Ouida Bell slipped on the white mess. She came down hard on her rump, and the box she was carrying popped open. Molasses balls rolled through the glue and to all corners of the store.

  “Oh hell,” said Ouida Bell, and then she put her hands to her mouth in modesty at her accidental oath. Glue from her fingers spread onto her lips, her cheek. “Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh hell. Just, oh hell. Those were meant to be for Mrs. Snell, those molasses balls. I can’t think why she’s mad at me, but she is, and those were meant to be for her, so maybe she wouldn’t be so mad. I baked them up special, and now they’re all ruined.”

  Sarah knelt down beside Ouida Bell. She no longer had her kerchief to wipe away the glue from the poor girl’s face, so she used the sleeve of her dress. “Why, Ouida Bell, the boys are going to be stuck on you worse than ever.”

  Ouida Bell smiled through her distress, and Sarah thought it was an honest smile. It suited her well. Neither her ruined dress, her ruined shoes, nor her ruined present for Mrs. Snell could dampen Ouida Bell’s good humor.

  It was past nightfall before I’d finished inspecting and arranging my equipment. My glasses and vials had survived the journey. The copper tubing, alembics, flames, condensers, and crucibles were serviceable, too. I stood them all on a wooden plank balanced across two sacks of cornmeal. For a bookshelf, I had three fruit crates stacked atop each other. The surgery was a chair by the window. Starlight leaked through the drafty walls.

  I’d purchased a poor supper of crackers and cheese from Snell, on credit. I found my pens and paper from among my supplies, and I drafted a letter.

  To the Gentlemen of the Georgia Medical Society:

  I find myself lured under false pretenses to a town on the far frontier. I came here to doctor, but it appears that all the doctoring is seen to by charlatans, banjo players, and granny women. All the locals are afraid of some polecat that they fancy to be a panther. The threat of rabies is no real threat, only a few mad dogs that have already been killed. My own connection to the disease made me pay it undue interest, and for that I blame myself. My finances do not permit me to extricate myself from my circumstances and return to Savannah. Please, if there is charity among you, collect for me the cost of a third-class trip back to Savannah. I should happily serve in any capacity until my debt is repaid. Only save me, a fellow of your society, from this backward and benighted place.

  Yours sincerely—

  Aubrey Waycross, Doctoris Medicinae

  A letter would take at least two weeks to travel back to Savannah, and the response just as long. I was captured for a month, doctoring to hams and hogs.

  I settled into the pile of straw that was my humble bed and struggled for a half hour before I was able to tamp down the prickly ends, but the bad memories only grew sharper. I hadn’t faced the thought of so many charlatans since… since Eva’s sickness. No doubt we would have tried Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic and then called in the Winter sisters for their cobweb cures. Each time I pulled up my blanket to try to sleep, I saw poor Eva’s sweat-soaked brow, her knotted hair, the intelligence fading from her gray eyes. Damn all the hucksters for their false cures and false hopes. The disquiet of my situation wouldn’t cease. My brain was too unsettled by the incurable past.

  In Savannah, I’d had a little garret apartment. Young, vigorous people lived in the rooms below me. They played whist and ombre, drank liquors, and sang under the influence of ether. These ether frolics were all the fashion. The host would provide silken cloths soaked in the chemical, and guests would fall into good-natured hysterics. While still at my studies, with an eye to my dwindling funds, I’d provided my downstairs neighbors or their acquaintances with the ether they needed for their guests.

  I disdained their card games and liquors, but I approved of their ether frolics—or the ether, at least. Frail humanity is consumed by the need to find amusement, happiness, laughter, and repose. Ether is a hygienic and efficient enjoyment, without the maudlin moods of drunkenness or the hours needed to read a novel or knit the complicated web of social relations or learn the rules of ombre. I am not a religious ascetic or mirthless curmudgeon, but my conscience does not allow the frittering away of time. Medicine is long, and life is short.

  I sprinkled several drops onto a clean cloth, placed it against my nose, and inhaled. The medicine showman, the slippery mayor, the rabid panther, the ignorant townsfolk…

  Ether’s sweet smell lingers long in the nose. It tickles the brain just at the front, above the eyes. The holes in the roof revealed small spots of stars, the lamp of the heavens shining down upon me. The straw was fresh. A breeze curled through the worm-riddled walls. Outside, hogs in good company murmured among themselves, and I fancied I could hear their jokes. The voice of an owl echoed, and the hogs and I found this a first-rate delight. I cuddled farther into
the straw. Why, a man is just a hog with shoes on. I knocked off my boots. They fell down from the hayloft and rang out like fireworks upon the floor below. The stars exploded in reds and greens and yellows. Then, wonder of wonders, the window and roof fell away, and the whole sky spread out like a pasture before my eyes. In the center was the moon, the great hog-nosed moon! The hogs made worshipful oinks, and I joined in their chorus.

  2

  THE AGE OF MIRACLES IS PASSED

  The next morning, I left my letter to the Georgia Medical Society with Snell. He could not make promises regarding when the next mail coach would come through. Lawrenceville does not enjoy a regular mail service. That is a luxury reserved for county seats, and the late rumors of the panther had made the inconsistent visitations even less frequent.

  At the southwest corner of the muddy town square was a spring. It had been improved enough to ensure that the humans did not have to drink from the same place as the animals. A metal basin with a tin dipper held the water for the people. A knee-high trough caught the overflow for the animals. Several animals were struggling to satisfy themselves. A large bristly hog rubbed against my trouser legs.

  Then I heard banging followed by a loud yelp—a man’s cry of pain.

  It is the doctor’s burden that he cannot flee from cries of danger and anguish. Sensible citizens may run, preserving their own lives, but the doctor’s obligation is to the suffering. I headed toward the sound, which was coming from the church. As I got closer, I noticed the church’s unpainted boards had warped in the summer humidity, and its limp bell tower was listing by ten degrees. The entrance doors were off-center. The left, by custom, was for the men, and the right was for the women. Neither fit well into its frame. The church was sagging under its own weight. A man stood in the shadow of the tower, sucking on the fingers of his left hand. His ears stuck out prominently from his head, and he was wearing ragged field clothes stained with mud.