Doctor Silas Blackwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Doctor Silas Blackwell wanted to open the finest sanctuary in Willowmaw, a place where any farmer or beggar got the same care once saved for kings. He had the beds ready. Four of them stood against the wall, each with a folded blanket and a clean pillow. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling. A cart of tinctures and bandages waited beside them. All he lacked was a pair of hands that worked. His own would not. He set a threaded needle on the tray and tried to lift it. His fingers shook. The needle rolled off and fell to the floor. He had stitched wounds for forty years. Now he could not hold a needle steady enough to close a splinter cut. A girl waited on the first bed. Her arm bled through a rag her mother had tied. She watched Silas with wide eyes. Behind her, a boy coughed into his sleeve. Silas had told them he would help. He could not. The door opened. Doctor Cornelius Ashworth stepped in without knocking. Silas knew the beaked mask and the bag slung over one shoulder. They had trained under the same plagues, decades apart, and buried the same kinds of patients. Ashworth said nothing about the years between them. He never wasted words. "You called me," Ashworth said. He looked at the shaking needle on the floor. "I did." Silas hated the word as he spoke it. "I can plan the work. I cannot do it." Ashworth walked to the girl. He did not open his bag. He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hurt arm in both hands. He held it a moment without doing anything. The girl stopped crying. "Tell me the stitch," Ashworth said. Silas understood then. His hands were done, but his mind was not. He crossed to the cart. He named the thread, the depth, the count. Ashworth threaded the needle on the first try. His fingers moved slow and sure. He did the delicate work while Silas spoke each step. They closed the girl's arm in six stitches. She barely flinched. Then they turned to the coughing boy. Silas listened to the boy's chest and named the herb. Ashworth measured it and mixed the draught. Two patients treated. No shaking hands touched either one. When the last patient left, Silas sat down hard. "I thought the sanctuary died with my hands," he said. "Your hands are not the sanctuary," Ashworth said. "Your head is. I brought mine." They agreed then. Silas would examine and direct. Ashworth would do the cutting and stitching. The sanctuary could open. But two men could not treat a town. Word of the free clinic would spread by morning. By dusk tomorrow, a line would form at the door. Two pairs of trained hands would not be enough. Silas looked at the four beds and knew he needed more people, and fast.