Wasting: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  Alec should add the woman’s injuries and her symptoms to it, but as he searched the top of the desk, he didn’t find anything to write on. Had he used the last of the paper too? Then he remembered he had, and should have picked some up while out earlier. More than any of the other supplies, his father would be angriest to learn he’d not left him any paper.

  He’d be sure to procure a new supply before his father returned.

  He eyed the blank sheet the woman had brought. She wouldn’t mind if he used it, would she? He could jot a few notes and keep that as record—and payment—for his healing. Besides, the page was blank anyway.

  Alec reached for the quill and dipped it carefully into the jar of black ink his father kept near the corner of the desk, and started writing. With the smoothness to the paper, he wasn’t sure how well the ink would take. Maybe it’d blob up and smear.

  The ink adhered for a moment, then faded completely, leaving no trace of his writing. He tried again, and again the same thing happened. And again.

  Alec sat back and considered the parchment before glancing over to the woman. Was this the reason she’d kept it in her boot? What kind of strange paper had she hidden?

  Perhaps different ink?

  Grabbing another bottle, this one dyed a deep blue, he cleaned his pen before dipping it into the ink. The blue barely colored the parchment before disappearing, fading away as if it was never there. He tried another, a thick brown ink his father preferred but Alec detested. The ink lingered a moment longer than the others before fading.

  The sound of the bell above the door startled him and he looked up. He’d meant to repair the lock when he returned but had forgotten. He felt a moment of panic that Hyp had returned.

  Mrs. Rubbles, a thin, older woman who ran the stationery store, approached the desk and looked from him to the parchment and bottles of ink. “Beautiful parchment. It’ll need a deeper colorant.”

  Alec nodded as he looked up at her. “I think you’re right, Mrs. Rubbles.”

  “Your father still not in?” she asked.

  “Not yet. He went for supplies about a week ago but isn’t back yet.”

  Alec stood and walked toward Mrs. Rubbles, and as he did, his father’s training set in. Faint sheen of sweat. Eyes slightly pronounced. Visible mass on neck. Likely glandular problem.

  “I might be able to help you until he returns,” he offered, but he wasn’t certain whether he really could. Hyp was one thing—his illnesses weren’t real—but Mrs. Rubbles clearly needed the help of someone like his father, maybe a physicker.

  She eyed him a moment and then nodded. “I’m sure you can, Alec.”

  He smiled and moved to stand in front of her. “What symptoms have you noticed?”

  “At my age?” she asked with a laugh. “What haven’t I noticed? Achy joints. Hair is too thin. Skin too loose! Bowels don’t work one day and then work too well.” She threw her arms up. “I can deal with the symptoms, but not having to close my shop! Is there anything you can do?”

  Alec glanced at the woman on the cot before pulling out the chair and waving for Mrs. Rubbles to sit. It would have to do. Calling Mrs. Rubbles eccentric was often an understatement, but also did her a disservice. A proud woman, and one of the few female shop owners, she cared a great deal about her business, and he knew she would not be slowed by any minor symptoms.

  A brief exam revealed a racing heart along with the other signs he’d noted upon her arrival. Alec considered the symptoms. No doubt glandular. There was little curative he could do until his father returned, but he just might be able to help. Leaving her in the chair, he walked toward the shelves and grabbed methimanine seeds, buglebalm leaves, and motherwort. Compounding them carefully, he placed the mixture into a small container and handed it to Mrs. Rubbles.

  “Mix a spoonful with hot water once daily,” Alec said. “I’ll have father stop by when he returns, but this should help until then.”

  She stood shakily and nodded. “I’m sure it will.” Hobbling around the desk, she set a half-silver mark near the paper he’d been writing on. “You’re much like your father, you know. Keep at it, and you might make it to the university.”

  “I’m too old now. Besides, what would my father do without me?”

  She smiled at him and tapped her temple. “What indeed?” Her eyes protruded slightly, making her look a bit excitable. Pausing as she turned toward the front of the shop, she said, “I like coffee grounds, but sometimes soot is needed.”

  He frowned, worried for a moment that her mind was finally slipping. But she simply snorted, laughing as she pointed toward the page and then slowly ambled out of the shop.

  Alec looked back at the desk. Darker colorant. If any would know about ink and parchment, it would be Mrs. Rubbles. He could have followed her to her store and bought more paper with the coins she’d paid him, but he was determined to figure out why he couldn’t write on the page. At least until the woman woke. Then he’d have different questions.

  Starting with coffee grounds, he gathered a few potential colorants off the shelves, shoveling a bit of soot out of the small stove at the back of the shop last.

  He tried the coffee grounds first, mixing them into the thick brown ink his father preferred. That had seemed to linger the longest. Taking a deep breath, he started writing on the page. The ink lingered—possibly even a little longer than before—but ultimately absorbed into the page.

  The soot was next, but did little to make the ink work any better. Then he mixed his own base. Years of working with his father and taking notes had taught him how to mix simple inks. Separating this into several smaller bottles, he added various colorants. The violet leaves of brackberry. Crushed oak gall mixed with a few drops of limseed. Shavings from a walnut. None worked.

  He managed to cut his finger on the walnut in the process of preparing it. As he sucked his finger, he stared at the page, wondering at its secret. A drop of blood dripped from his cut finger onto the parchment. Alec grunted and grabbed a rag, smearing it across his blood on the page. Too late, he realized it was the rag he’d used on the woman when cleaning her wound and covered with her blood, and now stained his hand.

  He thought the parchment might absorb the blood, but to his surprise, it remained, a crimson stain.

  Alec held his breath, waiting. The smear of blood stayed, slowly congealing.

  Moments passed as he realized the blood wouldn’t fade.

  A morbid sense of excitement filled him as an idea came to him. Squeezing his cut finger into one of the remaining unaltered ink bases, he wondered just how much blood was necessary to work. Some of the woman’s blood remained on his hand and probably mixed in with what he dripped into the jar. Would that matter?

  When he dipped his pen into the ink, his arm ached, as if he’d strained something carrying the bundle of supplies back to the shop. Without giving it any more thought, he started writing.

  Alec wrote down the woman’s symptoms.

  Unlike before, the ink and the words he wrote remained, and were not absorbed into the parchment. Though the bottled ink looked light red, the ink upon the paper took on a deep maroon, almost black. He touched it hesitantly, fearful that it might smear, but he needn’t have worried. It dried almost immediately.

  Alec started with a description of the arrow wound to the shoulder, and the way the blood congealed, thick around the arrow’s shaft, documenting how he’d removed it and then sutured the wound. He added a comment about the salve he’d created, writing it in a tight script, the format different from what his father preferred, trying to keep it neater. He moved on to describe the injury to her side, including his concern about whether the glass shard had penetrated her abdomen. Lastly, he added his thoughts about the blackening along her shoulder.

  Poison? Has the tissue already begun necrosing or is this from the congealing of her blood?

  Tingling in his arm persisted as he wrote, an annoying ache that eventually increased to something more, a warmth that spre
ad through him.

  The small ink bottle was nearly empty when he finished. Alec frowned, wondering how he had used the ink so quickly, before gathering a few more supplies to mix additional base. Only then did he realize how dark the shop had become.

  Had he really spent the rest of the day trying to determine how to write on the paper?

  What a waste. He could have better used the time going to Mrs. Rubbles’ shop and getting more paper. He might have discovered a way to write on the page, but what value did that bring, other than to satisfy his curiosity?

  Alec looked over to the woman. She rested comfortably beneath the blanket.

  He pulled it back and unwrapped the dressing around her shoulder, looking at the wound. At least the salve seemed to be working. The injury seemed less blackened than before, though Alec didn’t know if what he saw was real, or the effect of the shadows.

  After replacing the dressing, he covered her back up and returned to the desk, determined to at least organize his father’s stack of papers while waiting on her to awaken. His gaze kept drifting toward the page where he’d documented the woman’s injuries, and he realized he hadn’t noted what he’d done for Mrs. Rubbles. More than the injury to the woman, his father would want that documented. He could use the page for now, and later transcribe it into his journal.

  Alec reached for more of the base and pricked his finger as he prepared another bottle of the blood ink before starting to write once more.

  9

  The Thief Awakens

  Alec startled awake, practically falling off of his chair. Someone coughed near him, and his mind immediately took to processing it, categorizing the cough as dry, no sign of phlegm, likely irritant. Even half-awake, his mind worked as his father had trained.

  Who coughed?

  He rubbed sleep from his eyes and felt the aching of his back from the way he’d been sitting in the chair. Had he really fallen asleep sitting up? The last thing he remembered doing was documenting Mrs. Rubbles’ symptoms, then he’d begun to drift away.

  There came another cough, and he spun in his seat.

  The woman was awake.

  She sat on the edge of the cot, her injured arm held against her stomach, the other propped up behind her on the cot, almost as if to hold her upright. The woman looked over to him, her dark eyes seeming to take him in quickly.

  “Where am I?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “You’re in Aelus’s Apothecary,” Alec answered.

  She blinked, and it seemed as if she remembered. With her good arm, she touched her shoulder. “How bad was it?”

  “You’ve been out for the better part of two days. Maybe longer,” he added, realizing he didn’t know exactly how long he’d been sleeping. It was possible it was much longer than he expected. She arched a brow at him. Alec leaned forward and took a deep breath. “Plenty bad. I wasn’t sure you’d survive the injury. What happened?”

  She shook her head. “I got shot, that’s what happened.”

  “I took the arrow out,” he said, motioning toward the jar where he’d kept it.

  “Not an arrow. A crossbow bolt. Shorter. Thicker.”

  Thicker certainly described what he’d pulled from her arm. “It was poisoned.” He stood and walked over to the cot. “May I?” he asked, motioning toward the bandage.

  She watched him a moment before shrugging.

  Alec removed the dressing as quickly as he could, wanting to see the skin beneath. The sutures still held, and her movement hadn’t caused additional bleeding. Some blackness remained, but not as there had been. He reached for the salve and smeared a little more across the wound before replacing the dressing.

  “I’ll have to do your stomach too.”

  She touched her stomach with her good hand and her eyes widened slightly. “The window,” she muttered.

  “A window?”

  “Had to jump through it. There was no other way.”

  Alec waited, thinking she’d offer something more, but she didn’t. “What’s your name?”

  She looked around the shop before her gaze settled on him. “Samara Elseth.”

  “Samara, I’m—”

  “Please. Just Sam.”

  Alec smiled. Sam didn’t fit her any more than the idea of her as some sort of thief. “Sam,” he repeated. “I’m Alec Stross.”

  “You’re the apothecary?” She gave him an appraising stare.

  Alec flushed. “I’m his son.”

  She nodded and tried to stand but shook her head. “What do I owe you for healing me?”

  “Whatever you can pay.”

  With a frown, she laughed but stopped abruptly, grabbing her stomach. Her face twisted in a grimace. “What kind of business is that?”

  “It’s what my father does. He charges only what people can afford to pay.”

  “I don’t have anything on me now, but I can get some coin to you. I imagine I made enough of a mess. You shouldn’t have to clean up after me.”

  Alec glanced toward the now clean floor. It had taken quite a bit of scrubbing for him to get the stains removed, and even after everything he’d tried, he couldn’t get it all.

  “It’s fine. Besides, it gave me a chance to experiment on the paper you had with you. I hope you don’t mind me using it, but I’d run out and… well, you were out.”

  She started forward before catching herself. “You were able to write on it?”

  Alec shrugged. “Not at first. I don’t know what kind of paper you have there, but most inks didn’t work. I even tried a few different colorants, but without success.”

  “What worked?”

  Alec flushed. “It was an accident really. I was trying to use walnut shell, but I cut my finger and the oil in the shell didn’t seem to work but the—”

  “Alec. What worked?”

  “Blood. When my blood dripped onto the page, it didn’t absorb.” Well, hers too. When he’d wiped the rag across the page, her blood had stained the page along with his.

  Sam leaned back, wincing as she did. He still couldn’t believe she managed to sit up as easily as she did, given the extent of her injuries, but the fact that she’d survived at all told him how strong she must be.

  “Blood? Why would they need blood to write on their page?”

  “Who?”

  She blinked and looked over, finally shaking her head. “Can I see it?”

  He hesitated, but took the page off the desk and handed it to her. The ink had absorbed into the page, soaking in so it appeared strangely faded, lessened somewhat, almost as if it had been written a long time ago. The paper remained smooth, almost slick.

  Sam scrunched up her face as she studied it. “You wrote this?”

  He nodded.

  “You have neat handwriting.”

  He shrugged. “My father needs to be able to read this.”

  “Why?”

  He flushed again under the intensity of her gaze. “We make a record of everyone who comes into the apothecary. My father documents what he gives, how it works, that sort of thing.”

  “Your father sounds like a physicker.”

  He shrugged. “Just a healer, but one who takes his role seriously.”

  Sam scooted forward on the cot until she reached the end. She teetered there for a moment before managing to stand. She let out a little whoop, like a cry or grunt of victory, and Alec couldn’t help but smile.

  “Where are you going?”

  She looked at the floor, staring at her boots for a long moment. “I need to get back, but I think I need your help with my boots. And my cloak.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “The damn rope is gone though. I doubt Marin will get me more.”

  “You need to rest a little longer,” he said. He tried slipping his arm around her shoulders, looking to guide her back to the cot, but she pushed away from him with her good arm. Alec was surprised at the strength she still showed. Even after the extent of injuries she had, she still had a feistiness to her. He held his hands up. “Fine. I�
�ll help you with your boots. I don’t think you should risk yourself yet. Whoever hurt you might still be out there.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Kyza.” She whispered it under her breath.

  Many thought using a god’s name in that way would only draw unwanted attention, but Alec didn’t believe in that sort of thing. He didn’t really believe in those gods. His father had taught him a different set of beliefs, and he’d seen firsthand how effective they could be.

  “Has anyone come looking for me?”

  “The only people who’ve come here have come for my father.” When her brow furrowed in a frown, he hurriedly added, “They want his healing. He’s pretty well known around here. He might not be a physicker, but he’s a skilled enough healer and doesn’t charge nearly as much as the physickers.”

  “They only care for the highborns, anyway.”

  Alec blinked. “There’s no difference between highborns and lowborns. It’s only a matter of where you live.”

  She shook her head with a frown. “That’s the kind of thing only someone… wait a minute. Where am I?”

  “You’re in the Arrend section,” he said.

  Sam tried taking a step forward but staggered back. “Kyza. Arrend? Isn’t that a merchant section?” Alec nodded, and she frowned. “How would I have made it this far?”

  “Far? Where are you from?”

  She looked past him, toward the door. “Caster.”

  “Caster? That’s got to be a half-dozen sections from here. How did you…”

  She ignored him and stepped into her boots, wincing as she did. When she managed to get them on without his help, she turned to him, a hard glare pinching her face. “Are you going to stand there and watch me, call for the guards, or give me my cloak?”

  In spite of her small stature, she managed to make herself look much more intimidating.

  Alec hurriedly grabbed her cloak and handed it to her. “I’m not going to call the guard.” After finding her injured and bleeding out in the shop, that was what he should have done, but there was something about Sam that made him not want to.