The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  She spent the next half an hour cleaning and bandaging lacerated hands and faces, removing splinters of wood from flesh and setting broken bones. Thankfully, many of the patients were unconscious for the procedures. As there were no disinfectants, Felicia relied on the foul-smelling ointments that the nurses provided. She balked momentarily at the idea of slathering the mysterious grayish substance on wounds, but again, it wasn’t as if she had a choice. These doctors and nurses, her colleagues, she reminded herself, were intelligent and their medicines were as good as she could hope for.

  Well, in time, perhaps she could learn to grow and use penicillin, develop anesthetics or work on gaining acceptance for germ theory. But those thoughts were for another day.

  She worked in the ward being used for men and boys. Female patients were through a door off the main hallway. A nurse held the men’s ward door and two more patients were carried in on what passed for stretchers, wooden planks with cut-out handholds. Four men carried an older man while a boy was carried by two, one at the head and the other at the foot. She caught a glimpse of the boy’s face. It was Henry.

  He was unconscious and blood covered half his face. Felicia felt her pulse quicken and reminded herself that head wounds tend to bleed copiously, even if they are not severe. She had to remain calm and remove emotion from her evaluation and treatment.

  The men moved the stretcher beside an empty bed and the nurses moved Henry off as gently as they could. Felicia had seen the stained wood of the stretchers before as patients had been removed, but Henry’s was especially filthy. The men took their stretcher away, and two of the other nurses went to tend the older man, leaving Felicia with one nurse and Henry.

  Felicia leaned over the boy, doing a quick examination before the doctor arrived. Blood flowed from his forehead, but slowly. His pulse was steady and strong. His breathing was regular. She didn’t have a flashlight, but as she lifted his eyelid, she was fairly sure his pupil contracted properly. His head wound was not too bad and might not even need stitches if they bandaged it well. Felicia hoped to God the poor child would not have to receive stitches without anesthesia. The boy’s thigh was still bleeding and the cloth of his trousers stuck to his leg.

  “We need to remove his clothing,” said Sister Perpetua. The sister had worked on a few patients with Felicia and she was both calm and competent. Felicia was developing a respect for her. Sister Perpetua was willing to listen to Felicia’s suggestions and give them thoughtful evaluation. She made decisions quickly and without fuss. And she had not given Felicia any grief about helping out once she saw that she was able and willing. Henry’s hat was long gone and Felicia worked at the buttons of his jacket and shirt.

  One of the paramedics entered with a violin. “He had this in his shirt,” he said. “We took it out, of course.”

  “Please put it on the table over there,” said Felicia, jerking her chin at an empty table. Henry would want his instrument later. The case had been backstage, most likely, but Felicia had watched Henry sprint from the stage, leaving the case behind. The bow seemed to be missing also.

  She unfastened Henry’s suspenders, or as these people called them, bracers. She managed to get his jacket and shirt off. No injuries to his torso. Good. No broken bones. Also good.

  “Now that’s a thing you don’t see every day,” said Sister Perpetua. She had removed Henry’s shoes and trousers. A folded sheet covered the boy to his knees, leaving the wound on his thigh exposed. His thin cotton underwear clung close to his body. “This is a girl.”

  Felicia took a second look. She didn’t need to remove the underwear to see that Henry was missing the necessary anatomy to be in the men’s ward.

  “We should move her next door,” said Sister Perpetua. “Her injuries can wait that long.”

  Felicia was about to protest, wanting Henry to be treated as quickly as possible. But Sister Perpetua was correct. The doctor would be busy for a while with more seriously injured patients. And Felicia could treat Henry herself if left alone for a bit. The sister pulled the sheet up to the girl’s neck and ordered her moved to the women’s ward.

  Fifteen minutes later, Henry, or whatever the child’s name was, gave a little sigh and her eyelids fluttered.

  “Don’t wake just yet,” whispered Felicia. “This is going to hurt.”

  She moved quickly, cleaning and binding the head wound and removing the small amount of wood that had lodged in the skin of Henry’s thigh. The thigh wound was not deep and Felicia didn’t have to dig much to get the wood splinters out. Henry’s bed sat next to the window, and Felicia moved aside to get as much light on the wound as possible. Once it was cleaned as best she could, she bandaged it. She would have to remove the bandage for the doctor to examine the injury, but for now, it would do.

  The girl stirred and mumbled something. Then she breathed a heavy sigh and turned her face toward the light. She looked very young and small.

  “Who are you, little one? And why were you running?” Felicia whispered.

  No other patients arrived, and though she could do no more today, Felicia did not wish to leave. The sisters tidied up and some left for the evening. Felicia located Sister Clare, a tall, sturdy woman who worked in the men’s ward.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help?” she asked.

  Sister Clare looked her over, taking in her splattered apron and dress. Felicia imagined that her hair and face looked just as bad. “We can always use someone to roll bandages,” the sister said. She took Felicia to the supply room and showed her the bags of loose cotton cloth.

  “Have you heard anything else about the explosion?” Felicia asked.

  “Much of what I’ve heard is conflicting,” said the sister, pulling a bag of cotton strips from the shelf and handing it to Felicia. “But everyone is in agreement that someone set explosives somewhere near the stage. But no one understands why anyone would want to harm the players. Some of them were children.”

  Felicia had an idea of who would do it. The stage had been sponsored by the Mississippi Cotton Collective and The Southern Cargo and Trade Company. The stage itself and the Delphia Queen were the two most potent symbols of Southern economic power and ingenuity at the Steamboat Festival.

  “Did the Delphia Queen catch fire? I heard yelling that the engines were overheating,” Felicia said.

  “One of the other sisters heard that the crew was able to cool the ship in time. They cancelled the river cruise for all the ships after the explosion, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” Felicia said. She glanced over the shelves until she found the rows of rolled bandages. She grabbed a roll. Sister Clare gave her an inquiring look. “As an example,” Felicia said. “So I can make sure I roll them perfectly.” She couldn’t very well tell the sister that she had never rolled a cloth bandage in her life.

  Felicia removed her filthy apron and tossed it into a soiled laundry bin. She took the bag of bandages to Henry’s bedside and pulled a chair into the patch of sunlight. After examining the rolled bandage, she was fairly sure she could do a decent job if she concentrated. She began to roll.

  She wondered if the commotion about the overheating engine on the Delphia Queen had somehow been planned to drive people toward the stage. Around twenty people had been injured, and it was fortunate that none had died. Would the krewe or the politicians use this as an example of Northern aggression? Could the North convincingly be blamed? With the death of Buchannan on top of the attack at the Steamboat Festival, the South would feel under attack.

  Henry regained consciousness a few times, drank a little water and then fell back asleep. At four o’clock in the afternoon, Felicia heard Seamus’s voice in the hall. She had not seen him since shortly after the explosion when they split up to assist people. A sister Felicia had not seen before pushed open the door to the women’s ward. She had a firm set to her mouth and
had the look of someone in an argument.

  “The girl is in here, I assure you,” the sister said.

  Seamus caught sight of Felicia and strode across the ward, sweeping past the sister with a muttered apology.

  “I regret that I could not be here sooner,” he said. “I was stuck at the police station with Mr. Grey. They wanted to ask about the blasted riverboat. I got here as soon as I could get away.”

  He stopped when he was close enough to get a good look at Henry.

  “She’s going to be fine,” said Felicia. “The bandage on her head will come off in a day or so, and her thigh has a cut, but not a bad one. She regained consciousness and is now just asleep.” The child didn’t look too bad, all things considered. “Oh, and it turns out she’s a girl.”

  “Henry is a girl?” he said it slowly, as if trying out the idea.

  “She’s going to be fine,” said Felicia.

  “Mr. Grey told me that he got Henry over to the ambulances but they had to keep making return trips to get all the patients to the hospital. He’s going to be all right, you said?”

  “She. And yes. No permanent damage. Though she might have a good scar on her leg.”

  He stayed with Felicia for a few more minutes and made her assure him that she would be home before dark. She was also to tell the sisters that Seamus would be back in the morning and would bring the girl home, if she was well enough. The door swung shut behind him, and the room felt quiet and still. The man was a walking whirlwind.

  Felicia looked down the length of Henry’s body. The sheet rose in two peaks where the girl’s feet were and Felicia moved down to look. She glanced up. The only other nurse was on her way out of the ward. Felicia lifted the sheet.

  Henry’s feet were the right length for a girl of her size. But a thick thumb, or more accurately, a big toe, emerged from the inner ball of her foot. The four other toes were slightly too long, about the length of an infant’s fingers. That big toe though, it looked so strange. The whole upper part of the foot was large and almost hand like. But from the arch to the heel, it looked just like Felicia’s own foot. The top of the foot was smooth and hairless.

  Felicia had seen people with birth defects, and had never felt revulsion. Sometimes she felt pity for the difficulties the person faced. Sometimes she felt a deep dissatisfaction and helplessness in the face of suffering. But she had never felt disgust. She felt none now, only fascination. How had she not seen anyone else’s feet today? It appeared to be standard medical practice to cover patients with a sheet, and when she thought about it, she realized that she had not treated anyone below the knee. Or perhaps she had not been paying close attention.

  She stroked the sole of the foot with the back of her fingers and then gingerly touched the big toe. She wanted to see how the joints moved. How much range of motion did the digit have? Could Henry pick up objects with her toes? She smiled at the thought of these proper Victorians in their fancy dresses or top hats walking around with apelike feet in their big, boxy shoes.

  The big toe twitched, and before Felicia could pull away, Henry’s warm toes curled around her hand. Felicia looked up to find Henry watching her.

  Chapter 23

  Later, when Hazel tried to recall her stay at the hospital, she remembered little. She recalled talking to Miss Sanchez, answering questions, but she couldn’t remember everything she said or what was asked. Miss Sanchez knew she was a girl, and once Hazel took in her hospital gown and her place in the women’s ward, there was no sense in denying it. She remembered telling Miss Sanchez her name, and something else that was a secret, but it was so hard to think straight and to keep her eyes open. Everything seemed far away, as if she was looking at the world through a sheet of fine mesh and listening through wads of cotton.

  She drifted in and out of sleep, noting that a sister in a nurse’s apron checked on her periodically and made her drink something bitter.

  “Where is Miss Sanchez?” Hazel asked after forcing herself to drain the glass.

  “She had to go home. But she told me that once you’re well, you’ll go back home to her and the Professor.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you mean, love?”

  “What happened to me?”

  “Miss Sanchez told you, but I suppose you don’t remember, do you? The stage at the Steamboat Festival exploded. You were hurt, but not too badly.”

  Hazel found that once she was sitting up, her head felt clearer. The nurse checked on other patients and left. A doctor came to examine Hazel and told her that she could go home soon. There was nothing more they could do for her, and Miss Sanchez could change her bandages at home. They needed to free up beds, so those healthy enough to leave would have to do so.

  Hazel wondered what time it was. There were no clocks in the ward. The nurse was gone, and she was surrounded by sleeping women. The one closest to her had both arms in splints. Yes, she had been fortunate not to be so badly hurt. Aside from the thick grogginess in her head and the tenderness in her thigh, she felt well enough. She experimented with standing, then walking, and after walking back and forth across the ward a few times, she felt she had regained her balance and mental clarity. Then, she grew restless.

  When the nurse returned, Hazel was standing near the window, looking down on the street below.

  “We found this for you,” said the sister. She carried a cotton dress in an ugly yellow and orange floral pattern. She also held a pair of shoes, bloomers and stockings.

  “What time is it?” Hazel asked.

  “Eight o’clock at night.” The sister set the clothing on Hazel’s bed.

  “Can I go home now?”

  “The doctor said you were well enough, though he thought you’d be here until morning. But someone is here for you now.”

  Hazel smiled. Miss Sanchez must have come back. She pulled on the dress, bloomers and stockings. “Is Miss Sanchez outside?”

  “No, sweetheart. It’s your uncle. He was so worried about you.”

  The last remnants of grogginess in her head cleared in an instant and the ache in her thigh vanished. “Uncle Seamus?” she asked, holding very still, like a rabbit frozen. The title of “uncle” sounded so strange. But perhaps the Professor had told the sisters that they were related so he could take her home. Maybe.

  “Must be,” said the sister.

  That answer wasn’t good enough. Hazel glanced at her violin on the bedside table. The bow and the case were gone, she noted. She looked out the window. She was on the second story of the building, so she couldn’t very well leap from the window. The only exit was through the door to the hallway.

  “Sister, is it the man who came to see me before?” asked Hazel.

  “I just came on shift a bit ago. But I would assume so.”

  “The Irishman? He’s tall and thin with dark hair that sticks up.”

  “No, that’s not him,” said the sister. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “No. I don’t think I am. I can’t go with that man. He’s not my uncle. My uncle is the tall man.”

  “Now, Hazel. He is Andrew Dubois. Same last name as yours, and I can see the family resemblance just by looking at you. He says you’re a runaway and a troubled young girl. Now get your shoes on.”

  “I think I need to stay an extra night. I’m feeling dizzy.” Hazel leaned heavily on the bed and blinked hard. She rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand.

  “Now, that’s about enough of that,” said the sister. “Your uncle said he and your aunt are worried sick about you and want you to come home immediately. There’s no need for you to stay here.” The sister knelt and slipped on Hazel’s left shoe while Hazel dilly-dallied over the right one. The sister gave her a once-over look. Hazel knew that her hair was too short to ever look becoming on a girl, and the dress was a size too l
arge. It hung on her skinny frame like a sack.

  “You look fine,” said the sister, as if hearing her thoughts. “Now come along.”

  Hazel had a moment to grab her violin before the sister pulled her through the women’s ward doors, into the hallway and down the stairs. Uncle Andrew leaned against the wall, staring straight ahead. He turned slowly to take her in.

  “There you are, angel,” he said, moving toward them. “Ready to go home?”

  Hazel turned to the sister in one last attempt. She grabbed the sister’s wrist and looked up into her face. The woman was young, only in her twenties, and had round cheeks and a kind look about her. She had not raised her voice when Hazel had tried to avoid leaving. Maybe there was hope.

  “Please don’t make me go,” pleaded Hazel. “Call the Professor.”

  “What Professor?”

  “Seamus Connor. He’s my uncle. He’s the one who I am supposed to go home with.”

  At her uncle’s raised eyebrow, she realized her grave mistake. She had just told him the name of the person who had given her sanctuary. She looked at him then, meeting his eyes, and in them she saw nothing. No malice, no anger, just nothing. He had an expression of mild curiosity, but nothing more.

  “Stop that, you’re hurting me,” said the sister, prying Hazel’s hand from her arm. She had been digging her fingers in hard without realizing it.

  “He killed my dog. My dog Mandy. He just killed her dead.” She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t. No one would believe her. Looking at her uncle’s concerned and hurt expression, for an instant, she herself wondered if any of it had happened.

  “Sister, her dog was old and in pain,” said her uncle. “I put the poor animal out of its misery. And Hazel here blamed me for the dog’s death. You know how it is with children and animals.”