I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

38 Cal

Reuben pointed to an open door at the back of the room. Cal went towards it, cradling Emiliana’s body close to his own, to keep her hanging legs from bumping on the cabinets or knocking Reuben’s myriad glass bottles from the tables. Behind him, Reuben was thanking the matron and politely sending her away.

“She’s in the hands of the saints, now.”

Her reply did not reach Cal, for it was muddled by Minnie. “There’s no future for us,” she insisted as he side-stepped through the narrow doorway.

It was another room painted in white. Two square windows set high in the wall let in a cold gray light. There was a single long table in the center of the room, covered with a white sheet. Cal lay Emiliana down as he had found on her on the bench, stretched out on her back.

“You think you know what’s best for me, but it’s really what’s best for you,” said Minnie.

“Reuben,” Cal called, but the white-haired man was already at his shoulder.

“Mister Delanton,” he said soothingly. He had a wooden stool in his hands, and he set it on the floor. “Sit down. Tell me.”

“I found her by the canal,” Cal said. He sat down on the small stool and curled his feet around its legs. “The Darl.”

Beside him Minnie, looked contemplatively into the middle distance. “The railroad is the future. It will change everything.”

Cal dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his palms against his eyes until the darkness behinds his lids dissolved into a kaleidescope pattern of blue yellow. “She’s going to fall off the bridge,” he mumbled, “and split her skull.” He shivered; his damp shirt was cold beneath his wet coat.

“If you come visit me,” Minnie was saying, “I’ll be so rich and fancy that you’ll have to buy a new suit of clothes just to walk down the street I live on.”

Reuben put his hand on Cal’s shoulder. Cal could feel the man’s warmth, like a warm poultice to soothe a swollen toothache. “There’s nothing we can do for Minnie now. But let’s not give up hope on Emmy Jane just yet.”

Cal lifted his head and wiped his face on his sleeve. Helen would not have approved. “Emmy Jane,” he repeated. That was the name she had come with, from Ibai. Emmy Jane.

“Did you give her the medicine?”

“Yes,” Cal said. “She took it, just as you said. That day and the next day. Luessa said so.”

Reuben lifted his hand from Cal and turned to the still form on the table. He lifted one of Emmy Jane’s wrists and felt for her pulse. Several long moments passed while Cal fixed his attention on Reuben and tried to ignore Minnie. Reuben would do something. Reuben fixed things.

But Reuben could not fix Minnie, could not stop her from always nipping at Cal’s heels.

Reuben gave a single definitive shake of his head and set Emmy Jane’s hand down, arranging her arm beside her torso. Next he moved up to her head, pressing a few fingers briefly against the side of her throat. He set his thumb on the line of her jaw and turned her brown face first to one side and then to the other. Then he pulled down on her chin to open her mouth. “Look here,” he said.

Cal stood to look over his shoulder, down at the girl’s tongue. It was stained a deep blue, as if she had bitten down on the nib of an ink pen.

”Poison,” Reuben said. He sighed deeply. “I did not see her, and my medicine could not heal all of her hurts.”

Cal sat down heavily on the stool again. “No,no, no. She was happy.”

“Was she?” Reuben said. “Or did she just hide her pains from you until it was too late for you to guess at them?”