Aether Spirit

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Stop the cart!” she wants to yell, but she’s struck motionless in that way she’s only experienced in her dreams. Even when she was injured she could move with pain, but now she’s paralyzed listening to the sound. She can’t run, can’t scream, can’t—

  Rough hands shook her awake.

  “You woke me with your moaning,” Nanette spat. “I’m staying with a friend down the hall. Tomorrow you’re finding another space to sleep. By the way, Chadwick Radcliffe is spoken for.”

  “What? Why did you bring up—” The words hung in the air that once again vibrated with the aftershocks of the door slamming.

  What did she—ouch!

  She pressed her fingers to her temples and massaged the sudden pain. She typically had headaches after the nightmares, but this one was particularly intense. She opened her trunk, found the small vial of laudanum Doctor Charcot had told her to use in case it seemed the blocks he installed were failing, and took two drops, all she would allow herself. She wasn’t a hysterical woman. She was a perfectly logical woman with a neurosis problem. By the time the headache subsided, she’d fallen into a dreamless sleep, but she wore dark circles under her eyes the next morning as an extra accessory under her spectacles.

  Thankfully she didn’t run into Nanette while eating salty cured meat on biscuits with jam in the former hotel’s small dining room. She wondered again about the girl she’d met in the hallway, but there was no one to ask. In fact, she found the quarters to be very quiet with an absence of the usual sounds of people moving about, and she ate alone. Had she slept that late?

  Her problems with other women were nothing new—her aunt had instilled in her a sense of her own unworthiness for being more interested in her father’s tinkering than her mother’s domestic activities—and she had bigger problems. It was time to meet the irritable Doctor Radcliffe for a tour of Distillery Hospital and to attempt to convince him of her usefulness there.

  When she walked outside, the fresh after-rain smell of the earth made her smile even as she shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun on wet ground and plants.

  Compared to my aunt, charming him should be easy.

  Radcliffe met her at the door of the hospital and looked none too pleased to see her. She sensed he wanted to get away from her as quickly as possible. Probably hates neuroticists. She wished the genial Mister O’Connell could give her the hospital tour instead. He at least seemed happy to be around her.

  “Good morning,” she said, but to her it sounded like more of a question.

  “Generally,” he agreed. “Follow me. We’ll go through this quickly. I’ve got work to do. Tell me if you need to take a rest.”

  “Why would I—?”

  Before she could finish her question, she found herself having to trot after him or lose him in the gloom. She blinked to clear the after-brightness of the sun from her vision and caught up with him to walk beside him.

  “As you can see, the hospital is a fully functioning facility.” His gesture encompassed the entire building with its exposed brick and wood beam walls. “It was a whiskey distillery, but we’ve converted it.”

  “What happened to the distillery?”

  “It was abandoned and the tanks dismantled for their metal before we arrived, but they left an entire store-room of whiskey barrels.”

  “With whiskey in them?”

  “Yes, but it’s not very good. We use it for sterilizing medical instruments before surgery and to pour on wounds. It hurts like the devil, but it keeps the flesh healthier.”

  “Yes, I’m familiar with Lister’s work.” She looked up at him and was again struck by the irritability of his expression. “I’ve heard of some places boiling the instruments.”

  “The distillery is built on a stream, but most of the water goes to the steam weapons and machinery, then the horses, and then finally for drinking and bathing. We’re all on water rations because the stream only flows so fast, and there isn’t a good place to dam it for a reservoir in this terrain.”

  “So these soldiers rank below horses and machines.” Claire frowned. “That hardly seems fair.”

  They walked into the post-surgical area and spoke quietly. Nurses moved among the patients, but thankfully Nanette was not in sight. Claire tried not to wrinkle her nose against the hospital smells, made sharper by the wet wood odor of the building itself. Only half the beds had occupants, and Claire imagined a blanket between her emotions and theirs. It was the best way she had to think of what she did to get shadows of feelings—enough to sense the shape and form but not be overwhelmed.

  “I’ve been thinking about why you’re here,” he said and turned his intense gray gaze on her. “Look at these men. They’re barely more than boys, and all of them poor. These are the ones whose families can’t afford to bribe the draftsmen. We’ve been at war for a decade, and the supply of young men is running out.”

  She looked at the patients more closely and rubbed her temple, which had throbbed at the word draftsmen. Unlike the ones she’d worked with in Pennsylvania, most of these soldiers had the scraggly whiskers of middle adolescence and the hard expressions of children who had been forced to grow up too quickly.

  “They don’t talk of this on the continent or further away from the lines.”

  “No, because both the Union and Confederate State governments keep it quiet. It’s generally frowned upon to make children fight your wars. Or force them back into situations that almost destroyed them.”

  She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin against his implied censure.

  “I see why I was sent here. These boys need help.”

  She followed Radcliffe from the ward to a small office, and he opened the door. The desk bowed under the weight of charts, and books on a variety of medical topics leaned at all angles on the bookcase. She wasn’t surprised to see a lack of titles by famous neuroticists.

  “This is your office?” she asked.

  “I share it with the night nurse in charge, but we’re rarely here simultaneously. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the chair behind the desk.

  “Where will you sit?”

  “I’m fine. Feeling jumpy today.”

  He did, indeed, seem disturbed. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and he kept running his hand over his dark hair, which looked like it hadn’t seen a barber in a few months. She liked how it curled softly, and—

  “Ouch,” she hissed and massaged her temple with two fingers.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “It’s something to do with the blocks Doctor Charcot installed when he hypnotized me. From what he told me, the accident was so traumatic I reacted badly to any reminders of it. He made it so cues wouldn’t trigger the hysteria reaction.” She opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her. “But I don’t know why it’s happening so much here. Maybe it’s being in a hospital. They said I was in one for a long time after I was hurt, but I don’t remember much, just flashes.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “You had a long journey yesterday and need to rest.”

  She stood. “You’re not my doctor.”

  “No, but I—” He opened the door. “I have enough sick people here that I’m not going to add another one. Rest today and report tomorrow. You can give me the details of the treatments you want to try then.”

  Claire sensed he wanted her to leave and nodded. “Perhaps I am somewhat tired.” She’d barely stepped out of the office before the door shut behind her with the emphasis but not force of Nanette’s door slams.

  She pondered the situation as she wandered around the fort to familiarize herself with its layout. These people liked their doors. They especially liked her on the other side of them. She knew there was a lot of bias against the mental sciences, psychiatry and her specialty of neurotology in particular. She would just have to convince them of her usefulness. It s
eemed the handsome but irascible Doctor Radcliffe could benefit from it, too. If only he didn’t dislike her so much.

  A familiar sound drew her to a building in the center of the fort, the armory. She leaned against a small tree, closed her eyes, and allowed the memory to nudge at her consciousness. She was a little girl, and she went to see her father in his workshop. He was at his forge hammering at something.

  She sighed and opened her eyes. Her mother had told her he was away fighting the war, but she felt the lie and the grief underneath it.

  Everyone thinks I’m too fragile to handle the truth, but I don’t know if I should believe them.

  She didn’t want to dwell on dark thoughts, so she listened to the men’s voices. People’s talk always fascinated her, and she was a shameless eavesdropper. One shout startled her with its force.

  “Watch where you’re going with those, you daft pecker! They’re worth more than your hide and mine put together.”

  She’d heard that voice before. Ah, right, it wasn’t from distant memory but rather the night before, Patrick O’Connell. She’d spent enough time around men that she wasn’t put off by their cursing, and she was curious as to what he was working on. And maybe he could escort her to lunch. She suspected the snooty nurse wouldn’t be impressed by Claire coming in with a tinkerer, but she might be if Doctor Radcliffe joined them.

  With that decided, Claire walked around the building and saw O’Connell standing by an anvil, hammer in hand. A wave of déjà vu swamped her, and she stumbled into the path of a cart.

  Chapter Three

  Distillery Hospital, 23 February 1871

  After Claire left, Chad sat at the desk and put his head in his hands. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes until he saw stars, but they didn’t erase the pained look on Claire’s face when the headache struck her. As much as it hurt to have her near, he enjoyed her quick mind and humor. She’d preserved those, at least, even if she’d lost so much else. Including her memories of him.

  It just didn’t make any kind of logical sense. But then, very little since the start of this War Between the States, as it was called in the newspapers, did. The seven months he and Patrick had spent in Europe and then the five weeks in the Ottoman Empire seemed like dreams at this point. Or maybe that time was real, and this was the nightmare.

  A knock on the door interrupted his rumination.

  “Come in!”

  Nanette opened the door. She looked unhappy, as usual, but with an extra twist to her lips.

  “That neuroticist needs to go,” she said.

  And here’s another problem. “Why?” he asked with a sigh to tell her he didn’t have time for her petty squabbles.

  “The women’s quarters are full—the only spot left is with me—and she woke me with her moaning last night.”

  “Moaning?” Now this was interesting. “Did she say any words?”

  “One that sounded like Chad but nothing intelligible.” Nanette put her fists on her hips. “But that’s not the point. I need to rest to do my job, but there’s nowhere else to put her. We can’t have any more disruptions at night than we already do, and the building was particularly noisy last night.”

  “Wait, what disruptions are you talking about?”

  Nanette looked around and shut the door. When she turned, she’d dropped the disdainful expression and instead looked truly worried. “The girls are getting nervous. For the past month or so, there have been strange noises, and a few girls have seen things that shouldn’t be there.”

  “You’re telling me the women’s quarters are haunted.” The absurdity almost made him laugh, but he didn’t want to make her feel ridiculed. Not that he was that concerned for her feelings, but he knew her to be a vindictive sort, and he didn’t want her taking her revenge at an inopportune time for a patient.

  “I’m telling you that there’s something strange. None of us have been sleeping well, and having her there only made it worse.”

  “Then I’ll have her moved to the guests’ quarters.”

  “Wait—she gets to move to the General’s House, and we’re stuck in a haunted old hotel? That’s hardly fair!”

  She was going to argue with him no matter what he suggested, so he told her, “Discuss it with the quartermaster. Perhaps he’ll have a solution.” And I’ll give the man a bottle of good whiskey later for his trouble.

  “Fine.” She flounced out of his office. It occurred to him for not the first time that perhaps the former medical director had ridden across the border intentionally to get away from such personnel issues. Not that he would do such a thing, and he shouldn’t discredit his predecessor with such uncharitable thoughts. The general and quartermaster managed who and what were stored where on the fort grounds, but he’d found that the medical director managed hospital personnel.

  I have to focus on my first priority. Chad had rounded that morning and had a few cases he wanted to check up on further.

  When he walked into the general ward, he saw Nanette talking to a young man they’d picked up at the border who had a broken leg and other injuries that spoke of a fall from a spy balloon. He had been unconscious at the time, but when he’d awoken delirious, his speech said he was from the wrong side of the border but with an interesting drawl that the Tennessee and Mississippi boys who fought for the Union didn’t have. He almost sounded like a Yankee, or at least someone from the mid-Atlantic states. It wouldn’t surprise Chad if he was. The war had shown everyone’s mixed loyalties.

  Chad wouldn’t deny the young man care of course, and General Morley would want to patch him up and use him for a potential prisoner exchange. They had plenty of foot soldiers, but spies were worth more. Once he got out of him what the rebels were looking for, of course. Now Chad had to dance the fine line between keeping the general happy but not letting the young man go too early. They’d all heard what happened on the other side to spies who came back in disgrace, although he suspected a lot of it was rumors used to vilify the Confederates and turn them into monsters.

  It was easier to fight monsters than children.

  Seeing Nanette with the patient reminded Chad that whatever her faults, she was a good nurse, and the patients responded well to her. In fact, this young man looked up at her with a sort of adoration. When Chad approached, the young man’s expression twisted into haughtiness.

  “I’d heard you used slaves up here as doctors but didn’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t want that Negro anywhere near me, Miss Nanette.”

  “Now don’t be ugly,” she said in a surprisingly maternal way, and Chad thought he heard a little drawl come through her words. “His daddy was as white as you and me, and his mama was a free woman.”

  “But did she do that hoodoo thing? Is he a witch doc—?” Coughing interrupted his words, and he held a handkerchief over his mouth.

  “Don’t worry, I’m right here,” Nanette said. “I won’t let him practice any black magic on you.”

  “I trust you,” he said to her, but he continued to give Chad the gimlet eye.

  “I’m glad you’re awake,” Chad told him. “What’s your name?”

  “Private Dan Smith.”

  The boy was lying, but all they needed was a name for the chart. “All right, Private Smith, I need to examine you for further injuries, and it helps if you can tell me where it hurts.”

  “Let’s see how good you are,” the young man sneered, but he erupted in another fit of coughing. Chad frowned and had him lie back so he could listen to his heart and lungs. The crackling sounds that came through the stethoscope made his own heart thud. He then had the boy sit forward so he could listen to his lungs from the back.

  “Did you have a cough before you undertook your mission?” he asked.

  The young man nodded and grimaced before coughing again. Chad saw the specks of blood on the boy’s handkerchief.

 
“Get him to an isolated room, now,” Chad told Nanette and waved over a couple of other nurses and an orderly.

  “The single rooms are spoken for.”

  Oh, not now.

  Chad turned to see his fellow physician and biggest critic, Gregory Perkins, walk on to the ward.

  * * * * *

  Strong hands pulled Claire out of the path of the trotting horse, and she knew she deserved the cart driver’s ear-blistering curses. Her face burned at yet another failure to give the people at Fort Daniels the impression of being a smart, competent person. She turned to see her savior was Patrick O’Connell.

  “You need to watch where you’re going, lass. Everyone’s in a hurry these days pretending to make progress in this war without an end.”

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said and looked up at Patrick. “You moved quickly. Weren’t you just standing over there?”

  “I’m faster than I look, and Chad would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.” He led her to a bench in the shade, and she rubbed her temples to stop her head from spinning at the sensation of the past trying to suck her into its abyss.

  “Why should I matter to him?” she asked. “I met with him this morning, and I can say with certainty he’d rather I not be here.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” But she sensed he wasn’t giving her the whole truth. “He’s a deep man. Give him time to get used to the idea. Once you help that first soldier, show you know what you’re doing, you’ll have the good Doctor Radcliffe under your spell.”

  “If he gives me the chance. He sent me away from the hospital to rest.” She snorted. “I’ve been resting for the past three months. I’m ready to do something.”

  “You rested in Boston?” His curiosity was apparent, although she wasn’t sure why he was so interested in her.

  “Yes, with my mother and aunt. And then in Philadelphia. Although I trained to be here, I didn’t get to see that many patients.”

  “Poor lass.” He patted her shoulder. “I mean, are you and your family close?”

  She squinted up at him. With the light behind him, all she could see was a shadowed version of his face. She squeezed her eyes against the pain that bloomed through her right temple. Thankfully it dissipated after a couple of breaths.