JANE Snake's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Jane pressed her palm to the old woman's forehead and felt the fever burning through skin like paper. The healer's breath came shallow and quick. Three days, maybe four, and she would be gone. With her would go forty years of knowledge about which roots stopped bleeding and which powders brought down fevers. The cottage smelled of dried herbs and wood smoke. Bundles hung from the rafters. Jars lined shelves that sagged under their weight. Outside, a work table sat beneath the eaves where the healer had mixed remedies in all weather for longer than Jane had been alive. On it now lay a leather-bound journal, its pages thick with notes and pressed samples. The old woman's hand shook as she pushed it toward Jane. "Take it." Her voice cracked. "Someone has to know." Jane opened the book. Inside were drawings of plants, measurements in careful script, warnings about which combinations would kill instead of cure. Blood spotted some of the pages from old work. This was the proof the council needed. One healer, no matter how skilled, would die and leave nothing behind. But a teaching hospital could turn this knowledge into something that outlasted all of them. Jane closed the book and met the old woman's eyes. The hospital wasn't a dream anymore. It was the only answer that mattered.