Tortus Bay

3.12: Onwards, Upwards

As night wore into dawn others showed up at Teresa's home, until they were virtually a party in her perpetually overburdened kitchen. Niles came around after waking to find himself alone in bed. Kara followed the same logic as Clair, only slightly delayed, and arrived after checking out all of Henry's other usual haunts. Sofia and Lola were even allowed to stay and watch, after being told to go to bed several times, on account of their mother's general level of distraction. She lit candles, and set them in a wide circle around the room. She pored over texts. She washed her hands.

In the meantime, the man of the hour sat silent on the dining table. Henry had his shirt off, and his bandages removed. It had been a while since he looked at his wound. At some point it had become his custom to change the dressing in the dark, or while he looked resolutely away. The black rot looked ever more like a bubbling tar spill, running from his shoulder all the way down his chest. Breathing burned. His vision swayed and faltered. But despite his sober mood and questionable health, the atmosphere in the kitchen was joyous. Kara and Niles chatted happily about plans for another art exhibit. Clair entertained the girls with inappropriately gory stories. Lola continually pitched the idea of breaking out a puzzle, but everyone artfully pretended not to hear.

Henry's nerves jangled like bolts in his stomach, making him queasy. He closed his eyes and tried to still himself. Tried to concentrate on something—anything—other than what was about to happen. All that came to him was that intrusive thought: he couldn't feel anything. There was no magic about them.

Eventually Teresa closed her notebook. "I am ready."

"Do you think it's going to work?" Henry asked.
"This will be my only time trying this particular spell. But I understand how it works."

"There's no magic." He didn't need to say the rest. By waiting too long, he had inadvertently chosen Emmaline's path. The wound would slowly eat through him, as perhaps she had always intended, and one day it would be his bones ambling down the village's terrified streets.

She smiled. "I'm not mending skin or setting bones, dear. I never did explain the details, did I? I'm attacking whatever wicked thing has nestled itself into your shoulder. And knowing Emmaline, I think it will not go without a fight. Now everybody stop talking, I need silence."

The background hum ceased. Nobody moved a muscle. Pale purple light, the first rays of a new day, illuminated the window—and Teresa began her spell. Her eyes drifted shut. She hummed something, a poem or a song, under her breath. Then with a deep exhale she placed her steady hands on Henry's shoulder, and for several long moments nothing happened. Clair cast a sideways glance at Kara. Lola looked away. Niles bit his lip.

Teresa's fingers shook, and glowed. Faintly at first, then brighter and brighter until they were like ten blinding headlights searing into his skin. Henry pulled away but she followed, knocking him flat on his back on the table to keep her hands in place over his wound. Steam, white and fluffy like dissipating snow, billowed from the rot. It filled the room in rolling waves, more foam now than snow, and extinguished all thirteen candles. The only light was that of her molten hands, battling against the occlusion of the mist they spewed. The only noise was screaming.

Henry shut his mouth to make it stop, but he was not the source. Teresa shouted like a wounded animal, or else like someone strangling a despised foe.

The door clattered open, and closed. Sofia and Lola had seen enough. Niles surged forward, unsure of what he was doing but committed at least to trying to help, but he faltered in amazement at the edge of the table. Where Teresa's hands passed over Henry's flesh, the rot shrank away. She started near his stomach, at the faintest edge, and worked upward. When she got to the shoulder, to the deep and long festering bullet hole, she cupped her hands and pressed.