Fennel Thistledown's Arc

Chapter 15 of 21

The next morning Oliver hauled water while Fennel waited for a patient to test him on. She did not have to wait long. A stranger stumbled up the path, a young man gray in the face. He shook and sweated at once. He gripped his belly and folded to his knees at the door. Oliver dropped his bucket and ran to him. "Get him inside," Fennel said. She rose from her chair, but her knees locked and stabbed. She could not cross the room, let alone kneel at a bedside. She gripped the table and stayed put. Oliver would have to do this alone, and she did not know the sickness. The gray skin, the shaking, the twisted belly. She had never seen these signs together in fifty years. Oliver laid the man on the cot. "What do I do?" His voice climbed. "I don't know this one either." "Feel his pulse first," Fennel said. "Always first." He pressed two fingers to the man's wrist. "Fast. Too fast." His hands began to shake, but he did not freeze. He leaned close and smelled the man's breath. He lifted an eyelid. He was working, not guessing wildly. Wheels creaked outside. A weathered wagon rolled into the yard, its shelves crammed with bundled herbs, dried stems swaying from its frame. Marisol Greenleaf climbed down. She had supplied Fennel through the coughing sickness, and she read a room in one glance. She stepped inside, looked at the gray man, and set her jaw. "River fever," Marisol said flat. "Drank bad water upstream. I've seen it three towns over." She did not soften it. "The belly and the shaking come together. Common name, ugly sickness." Fennel's chest eased. "What breaks it?" "Boiled water, salt, and a bitter root. I carry it." Marisol reached into her wagon and pulled a wrapped bundle. "Boy knows how to steep?" "Ask him," Fennel said. "He's the healer here." Marisol handed Oliver the root and said nothing else. She watched. Oliver looked at Fennel. Fennel did not move to help. "You have the pulse," she said. "You have the medicine. Steep it and dose him." Oliver's hands steadied. He shaved the root, boiled the water, stirred in salt. He tasted the brew himself before he gave it, the way she had taught. He raised the man's head and fed him slow spoonfuls. The shaking slowed. Color crept back into the gray face. By dusk the man slept, breathing even. Marisol packed her wagon. "He'll live. The boy did the work." She climbed up and was gone before Fennel could thank her. Oliver sat by the cot, worn and quiet. He had faced a sickness he did not know, kept his hands, and healed a man alone. Fennel watched from her chair, still unable to cross the room. Her knees would only get worse. But Oliver had done it without her hands. That changed everything. He was no longer a boy who baked bread. He was a healer she could trust to leave the room.