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She hesitated, her eyes moving to the merlin falcon on my shoulder. For a silent moment, the two animals stared at each other. Ember was the first to relax, pressing her body against my leg for a moment and then heading off toward the house. I smiled as I watched her go, despite my underlying worry about Ida’s host family. Ember and Phoenix took better care of me than I would have believed possible for a fox and a bird of prey, and their companionship always lifted my spirits.
As we left the garden and entered the town, Phoenix in tow, I quizzed Ida on the illness.
“Is it something your host family recognize?” I asked. “Have they had it before?”
“They downplayed it at first, but now they’re saying it’s unfamiliar.” Ida frowned. “It’s not something I recognize either.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t entirely surprised. In order to maintain their mesmerizations, the Constantines had performed constant healings on the islanders. Not only had their doors always been open to them, but they had even instituted monthly checkups. Most illnesses encountered by the islanders would have been quickly nipped in the bud by the Constantines. There were probably many diseases whose later stages were unfamiliar to the townsfolk.
I had already canceled the schedule of monthly checkups, of course. There was no way I could keep up with them on my own, and just the thought of them was distasteful given they had been an instrument of control and repression. Through those checkups, the Constantines had regularly renewed the mesmerizations on the islanders, beginning their insidious manipulation almost from birth.
I had received no patients in the nearly two weeks since canceling the checkups, but I hadn’t been especially surprised given they must all have been in good health at the point of the Constantines’ death. But Ida’s summons was making me question that assumption. How many others had hesitated to take their illness to the unknown new healer living in the empty house of their old rulers?
I glanced warily up and down the nearly empty streets. It had been over a week since I’d walked into town to the market, but something had changed. The atmosphere then had been somber, a haze of hesitancy and confusion hanging over the populace. The Constantines were gone, but their mesmerizations remained, and the same passivity we had first noticed in the islanders had only been exacerbated by the loss of their leaders. But while the people had all hung back from me then, this time was different. The people weren’t dismayed or bemused—they were absent.
The few who did pass within view walked quickly, not appearing to even notice me as they busied themselves with their errands.
Unconsciously my pace increased.
“Go over the symptoms again,” I commanded Ida, wanting to focus my thoughts before I started inventing catastrophes in my mind.
“They’ve been complaining of headaches, and most of them are coughing,” she said. “I checked for fever from the start, of course, and they seemed warm but not excessively so. Their condition didn’t seem too severe, or I would have come for you before now, like I said. But then this morning…” She grimaced.
I was about to ask for more details when she stopped outside a door. The house looked almost identical to the ones on either side, but Ida didn’t hesitate as she let herself in, beckoning for me to follow.
I hesitated, jerking my shoulder upward. Phoenix recognized the signal and launched himself into the air. Bringing a falcon into someone’s home was already questionable etiquette without considering that the family inside were ill. He would be better off waiting outside.
Phoenix flapped across the rooftops, looking entirely unbothered, so I stepped inside. As soon as I was all the way through the door, I flinched at the heat.
“First things first,” I said, focusing on Ida. “Get all the windows open and some fresh air in here.”
“Nonsense!” an old lady exclaimed, only to go off into a paroxysm of coughs. “It’s winter!”
I barely refrained from retorting that there was nothing wintry about the temperature outside. Instead I dropped to one knee beside her chair.
“You need fresh air to aid your recovery. Please trust me, Grandmother. I’m a healer.”
“A healer?” She squinted at me in suspicion. “You’re that newcomer, then? From up at the manor?” She shuddered at mention of the Constantines’ home. “Are you sure you’re a healer?”
She regarded my face for a silent moment before her expression cleared. “I suppose you were going to marry young Ignatius. Or maybe young Barnabas.” She nodded decisively as if she’d cleared up her own confusion.
I didn’t bother to correct her. I already knew the tragic truth about healers on the island. Strong healers didn’t make it past childhood unless they were earmarked as future spouses for the next generation of Constantines. If telling herself that story helped her to make sense of my presence, then I was willing to leave the misunderstanding in peace.
“May I examine you?” I held out a hand, my fingers hovering just above her wrist.
She nodded, her hesitation and suspicion apparently gone now that she had fitted me into her world.
I placed my hand gently against her skin and sent my power into her.
Within seconds, my mouth had turned down. My training at the hospital in Caltor had exposed me to a range of the most common illnesses, including some cases at later stages of disease. Those who lived more remotely, especially farmers like my own family, would often wait until an illness was severe before making the trek into a hospital for healing.
But whatever was ravaging this woman’s body, it didn’t feel familiar. I focused my attention, tracking down each area of her body that felt wrong.
For starters, there was nothing mild about her temperature. Even without my power, I could feel the heat radiating off her skin. And from inside her system, I could easily tell why her body was fighting so ferociously. There was inflammation in far too many places, and her lungs were struggling, her breath making an audible rattle.
We’d arrived only minutes ago, but she was already wilting visibly, clearly exhausted from the conversation. I sent a small burst of energy into her, but I didn’t dare risk using too much power when I hadn’t seen the state of the rest of the family yet.
“You need to be in bed,” I said gently, fighting hard against the urge to pour my power into her and heal all her unfamiliar symptoms.
