Aether Spirit

by Cecilia Dominic

  Claire started to say, “I know yours,” but she stopped herself. Did she? She prided herself on her ability to listen with an open mind.

  “And what will happen if I listen to your story?” Claire asked.

  “I might find some peace. If you could help me, that is.”

  The pressured whine that accompanied the young woman disappeared, and wave of exhaustion overtook Claire. “Could it wait until tomorrow? I’ve just found out my father is dead, my mother lied to me, and I suspect it’s all the doing of my aunt.”

  “Is she the mother of that handsome boy in the hospital, the one who only has one arm?”

  “Yes, Bryce’s mother.”

  The girl nodded once. “But tomorrow—you promise?”

  “I promise. I will come back and listen to your story.”

  “Good. And be careful. I’ve been watching the people on this base, and they’re not all as they seem.” She faded, leaving Claire alone with her reflection and her tears.

  * * * * *

  Chad knew something was wrong the moment he saw Claire on Monday morning. Her red-rimmed eyes and pink nose gave her away immediately, but there was something more, a dejectedness of spirit.

  What had happened to his feisty redhead? Not his, he reminded himself. But whatever bothered her, he needed to know, for his own peace of mind about her and about the patients she was to see that day.

  Instead of going to see the first patient as they’d planned, he invited her to join him in the office.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked once he’d closed the door.

  She sank into the chair behind the desk and rested her hand on the top file in the pile. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes.” He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he wouldn’t take the liberty. Plus, he was the medical chief, and if she wasn’t fit for duty, he would have to send her back to her room. He didn’t relish the idea of that discussion.

  “My father,” she said with a sigh.

  Oh god. Chad didn’t say anything, again covering the pounding of his heart with what he hoped was a neutral but duly concerned expression. “What about him?” What did you find out?

  “You mentioned once you’d lived in Boston. Did you ever hear of a tinkerer named Allen McPhee?” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, so she must have discovered her father’s death somehow.

  Chad didn’t want to be the one to confirm it for her. What if she connected him with the bad news? He could claim ignorance, but no, he wouldn’t lie to her. He also didn’t want to chase her into another six-hour nap.

  “Yes. Wait, sit back. Let me listen to your heart.” It beat with a reassuringly strong sound. Her problem isn’t there, idiot. Yours is. “What about him?”

  “Is he still alive?” She looked up at him with such hope he hated to dash it.

  “No. He died a few years ago. The entire city mourned the loss of his talent.”

  “Oh.” She slumped back in a way that told him she didn’t wear a corset. Of course she didn’t—her own underthings had been lost in the shelling. But she’d worn one the day before. Not that he needed to notice or think about what was under her clothing. He brought his attention back to what she was saying.

  “That’s what I thought, but I needed to make sure.”

  “How did you find out? It seems that you didn’t know the news before this morning.”

  Had she somehow been in contact with someone off base? He thought about his strange conversation with Iris Bailey, but he still couldn’t convince himself it was real. Or that it wasn’t. None of it made sense.

  “I can’t say, only that I had an intuition that it might be the case, and the feeling wouldn’t go away.” She shrugged. “Women sense these things. Not that it matters. Do you know how he died?”

  “It was an accident.” Chad wouldn’t tell her the authorities had ruled her father’s death a suicide. He’d never believed it was. Allen McPhee had developed a severe case of melancholia after his daughter was sent to Europe, but he was also a staunch Catholic and would never have risked Hell, no matter how bad he got. In fact, he had contacted Chad just before he died, but Chad hadn’t responded. He’d been too hurt and angry himself about what had happened, and he’d added the guilt over not responding to Allen to his growing pile.

  “As upset as I am, I do appreciate you being honest with me about this matter.”

  Chad recalled that she retreated into formality to cover up her feelings, but he didn’t challenge her. As much as he wanted to send her back to recover from the emotional shock of finding out about her father—and he wanted to talk to her more to discover what had prompted her “intuition” about it—they both had work to do. Plus, doing and caring for others had always been a balm to Claire.

  “We both have work to do here, so I won’t take any more of your time,” she continued. “Although I am curious—how’s Bryce?”

  “You’re his closest family here, so you can ask about him all you want. He’s hanging in there. Not out of the woods yet. I’m hoping we took the arm in time before the infection spread to his brain, lungs, or heart, but even if it didn’t, it had weakened him.”

  She nodded, and he could see her jaw was set against any more tears. God, he hoped Bryce didn’t die. He liked the boy, but he also didn’t want to break Claire’s heart further.

  “It might help for you to sit with him once you’re done with your patients. Assuming you’re up for any of it.”

  “I am.” She stood. “We should get started. That’s quite the pile of charts.” She took a step forward, but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ve had all night to deal with the news. I mean realization. It explains why I haven’t heard from him in so long, only my mother and aunt. I was suspicious, but I suppose I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it until now.”

  “And what made the difference?”

  “Seeing Bryce was part of it. It made me want to reconnect with my family before something else happened.”

  She was keeping something from him, and he didn’t like it, but he knew Claire—she’d share when she was ready.

  “Good, then let’s get started. We have a lot of patients to see.”

  * * * * *

  He wanted to comfort me, but he held back.

  Claire followed Radcliffe to the first ward, wondering at his impulse and the tight control that kept him from expressing any of his deep emotions. How was he simultaneously so fond of her but so frightened of her? It must have something to do with his own background—had he gotten in some sort of trouble for falling in love with a white woman? She blinked the ache from her right eyeball and doubted he’d tell her. He was a private man. A deep man, as Patrick O’Connell had said.

  He introduced her to a young man who reacted with suspicion. The soldier had been having headaches and doubled over in pain whenever he picked up a weapon. Claire understood the feeling.

  “Tell me about where you’re from,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m here to help you, as Doctor Radcliffe said, and it will be easier if I have a sense of who you are. Where did you grow up?”

  He reluctantly told her, and she sensed an undercurrent of despair, that he’d never see the place again. She continued to ask him questions, gently nudging him until his words flowed, and he was smiling at some sort of childhood memory he recounted, of a cow who kept escaping from the field they kept her in on his father’s farm in Missouri. At some point, Radcliffe left her to the conversation to see his own patients. After an hour, she excused herself.

  “Where are you going?” the boy asked. He blinked and frowned as though he woke from a pleasant dream.

  Claire put a hand on his arm. “Just keep thinking about the farm and that mischievous cow. I hav
e other patients to see, but I do want to hear the rest of the story.”

  “You’ll come back, right?”

  “Yes, I’ll return tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I do feel better.” He grinned. “I hadn’t thought about Old Bossy in a long time.”

  “I’m glad, and thank you for sharing the memory with me.” She squeezed his hand and stood. Radcliffe had disappeared, but he’d left the next chart for her. She found the soldier, a gaunt teenager named Sam who had stomach problems and couldn’t seem to keep most of what he ate down.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she told him, and again, she focused on happy times with him. When the nurses brought his clear broth for lunch, Claire stood and sent a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening that he would be able to eat.

  Her own stomach told her it was lunchtime, and she looked for either Beth or Radcliffe to go to the mess hall with her, or to see if she could bring something back for either of them. She found them standing by Bryce’s bedside. He was awake and greeted her with a wide smile.

  “Cousin Claire?” he asked then shot an anxious glance at Radcliffe. “I can talk to her, can’t I?”

  “Yes, just remember.”

  Bryce nodded, and Claire recalled his words from the day before. What was he not supposed to tell her? She didn’t want to distress him and impede his healing, so she asked, “How are you doing, Cousin?”

  “I’m sore.” He frowned at the place where his arm would be if it was still attached. “But I’m hurting in the arm that’s not there anymore. How strange.”

  “It’s been known to happen,” Radcliffe said. “Your nervous system has had several shocks and is confused, but it should be better soon. The wagon should be coming from town today, hopefully with more morphine. I’m sorry I can’t give you more, but we’re somehow down to emergency levels.”

  “That’s fine.” Bryce smiled up at Claire. “It’s so good to see you, Cousin. Tell me about your adventures in Europe.”

  “Claire needs to eat something,” Radcliffe told him and took Claire’s elbow gently but with a clear message—time to go. “She’ll be back later.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “I’ll bring you something to eat now that you’re awake,” Beth told Bryce. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Bryce said. “Goodbye, Cousin Claire.”

  “I’ll see you soon, Bryce,” she told him. Once she and Radcliffe had left the room, she said, “I could have stayed with him for a bit.”

  “You need to eat.” He released her arm, and she recognized he’d been guiding her like a lover would. The loss of his touch sent a needle of sadness into her heart.

  “I’m fine.” But her stomach growled, and she put a hand over it.

  “Your digestive tract disagrees.”

  “It’s never listened to me when I needed it to. What is Bryce not supposed to mention to me?”

  Radcliffe held the hospital door open for her. “I don’t want him activating one of your blocks and putting you out of commission for the rest of the day, so he is not to speak to you of anything that happened in the two years before your accident.”

  Claire’s eyebrows raised as her stomach sank, leaving her pulled in the middle. How would she ever discover what happened? “Two years? That’s a long time.”

  “Yes, I’m being cautious. Did you mean it when you said you wanted to know about your past?”

  “Yes, absolutely! I’m tired of living in a fog, wondering where certain feelings are coming from.”

  “Like what?”

  Now her cheeks heated—damn that redheaded fairness, he’d surely see—and she had to look away. “I can’t say. They get so jumbled up and confusing sometimes.”

  “You’re not a good coquette, Claire.”

  She stumbled when he said her name, but she held the blackness at bay with indignation. “How dare you?” she spat at him. “You can order me around in the hospital—you’re my medical chief, after all—but you can’t do so outside. My feelings are my own, and I’ll tell you when I’m damn good and ready. And you can’t dictate what my cousin and I can and can’t talk about!” She brushed past him and went into the mess hall ahead of him. He caught up to her in the line.

  “You’re not being reasonable,” he said. “You have to trust me that I only have your best interest at heart. And I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

  “I’m not some hysterical woman, Doctor Radcliffe.” She dared him to say her name again with a look. “Or can I call you Chadwick now?”

  Now the room spun, and she was grateful for his steadying hand on her back.

  “This. Doesn’t. Make. Sense,” she said, but she felt that she was spinning and dared not open her eyes.

  “Unfortunately it does.”

  He guided her out of the line and outside. The chill cleared some of her dizziness, and she opened her eyes to see she stood under the tree by the workshop. Patrick O’Connell was there. The world still spun, so she closed her eyes and concentrated on bringing the cold air into her lungs. With each breath, the pressure and buzzing in her ears lessened.

  “Is she all right?” O’Connell asked.

  “She’s being her feisty self,” Radcliffe said. “And she’s pushing the blocks, stubborn girl.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’ll stay with her if you want to get her something to eat.”

  “I’ll do that. Wait here with her.”

  “I already said I would. Now go. You’re not helping by being here.”

  Muttered curses faded with the crunch of footsteps along the gravel path, and Claire couldn’t help a small smile.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” O’Connell said so quietly she almost missed it. “Always good at pushing his buttons.”

  She didn’t respond, only hoped he would say more.

  What did he mean? Had she known Radcliffe before? And O’Connell? She’d thought he looked familiar.

  This time when memory tugged at her, she didn’t resist but allowed it to pull her mind into the past.

  Chapter Twenty

  Fort Daniels, 27 February 1871

  Chad returned to the mess hall and skipped the line to go straight to Helen Jones, the woman in charge, a light-skinned former plantation cook who had brought order and some elegance to the mess hall.

  “I need two meals to take away.” He thought about O’Connell. “Make that three.”

  “Yes, Doctor, although if you keep stretching yourself taking care of everyone else, you’re going to pay at some point.”

  “Oh, I’m already fully aware of that.”

  “But are you?” a voice behind him asked, and he turned to see Nanette. The frustrations of the morning and particularly the past ten minutes flared in his chest, and her eyes widened, but she stiffened her stance.

  “I am. And you have some explaining to do, Nurse. Why did you lie to me on Saturday about Perkins telling me to go rest?”

  “You were exhausted, and I didn’t want to have to deal with you as a patient. I was only looking out for you.”

  “And you put the rest of the patients in danger by stretching the hospital staff so thin. The next time you pull a stunt like that, you can find yourself a different base, assuming any of them will have you.”

  “You overestimate your influence, Doctor Radcliffe.” She studied her nails. “I’d be careful who I angered if I were you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Of course not. As I said, I’m just trying to look out for you. Oh, and I’d watch out for Doctor McPhee. She’s a sly one. She seems so compassionate, but she did leave Mrs. Soper and Major Longchamp in the General’s House to die when the shelling started.”

  “I doubt that. The entire base was in a panic.”

  “All the more reason she doesn’t belong h
ere. Notice how we didn’t get attacked until she arrived. Redheads are bad luck.” With those words, Nanette turned on her heel and melted into the crowd of soldiers, many of whom gave her lingering glances.

  You’re welcome to her, boys. That one’s a snake. He recognized the tactic, deflecting suspicion on to someone else. He still wondered where Nanette had been on Sunday. Perhaps she had taken a rest, but the hospital had been in an all-hands situation until the worst of the injuries could be stabilized. He also made a note to talk to Mrs. Soper as soon as she was able to handle a conversation. Perkins had been covering the women’s hospital, but he should pop over there and see how those patients were doing.

  But first he had to take care of Claire.

  Why had he said her name again? At least she’d fought against the block that made her want to pass out to stop…what? Remembering him, and then recalling the accident? They’d had plenty of good times before it happened.

  Two years’ worth.

  Had he somehow primed her and himself for his slip and her reaction to it?

  Chad thanked Helen for the wrapped sandwiches and went to find Claire and Patrick. She stared straight ahead.

  “Is she all right?”

  “She said to leave her alone for a minute, that she had something to remember.”

  “Something got through the blocks. How long has she been like this?”

  Patrick checked his pocket watch, a beat-up silver timepiece he’d had as long as Chad had known him. “About seven minutes.”

  “We’ll give her another few.” He looked around, relieved to see that no one but them sat in the clearing behind what was left of the workshop. No one skipped meals since the attack, and he was gratified at how the base pulled together during the uncertain time. He handed Patrick his sandwich, then sat on the other side of Claire and waited.

  * * * * *

  Vienna, 13 May 1870

  Claire left the library on a warm spring day after having finished her final paper, which was on curing diseases of the mind through sympathetic conversation. She would be presenting it to the class the following week, but all she needed to do was some minor tweaking.