Eutopia - A novel of terrible optimism

by David Nickle

  Jason stepped aside. “I’m here if you need it, Doctor.”

  Andrew smiled as he started across the room. “Someone raised you well,” he said, and pointed to a door at the far end of the room. “Fetch a lamp, then. We’ll check here.”

  The door led to the closest thing one could find to a cellar to this place. The nurses called it the root cellar, because it was cool and tight, and probably could keep a good store of potatoes and carrots until winter if that was what the place was for.

  But there wasn’t room in this cellar and anyway, the shelves here were full of things you wouldn’t want next to your supper.

  “What’s the smell in here?”

  “Formaldehyde,” said Andrew.

  “Smells like pickle juice,” said Jason.

  “You must be used to some awful pickles to say that,” said Andrew. “But it works the same as pickle juice—preserves things that left to themselves might rot away. Come on down, bring the candle.”

  Jason brought the candle down the steps. The space in here had been dug out of the ground and lined with fieldstone and timber. The ceiling was a low, whitewashed arch. Air circulation was bad in here, and the few times Andrew had been down before, he’d always had the uneasy sense that he was about to suffocate.

  “Sure are a lot of jars here,” said Jason.

  “This is where the hospital keeps its specimens,” said Andrew. “Someone’s foot gets amputated—we pull out some kidney stones—even if we cut out an appendix. It all goes here in a jar.”

  “Every time?”

  “Not every time.” Andrew squinted at a line of jars filled with stones of various sizes. Thin sheets of effluvia drifted in the yellowish liquid. “But when there’s something remarkable about it. Something worth writing down. Then yes, we keep it.”

  Jason looked hard at the jars. “Should be a lot of jars like that around here. They’re labelled and everything. What’re we looking for?”

  “Not kidney stones from M. Cunningham,” said Andrew.

  “Nor a testicle from L. Wharton,” said Jason. “A testicle! He can’t be too happy with how his life’s carrying on.”

  Andrew chuckled. “I remember that one. I think he’s happy enough these days. See how big it is?”

  Jason looked closer. “I thought that was just the magnifyin’ effect of the glass.”

  “Oh no. In fact, it looks like it has contracted since the surgery.”

  Jason whistled. “How’d a fellow walk, dragging something like that between his legs?”

  “I wondered that too. And so I removed it.”

  Jason was quiet a moment, considering this. He pulled the candle back.

  “What’s the matter, son? Too much for one night?”

  Jason didn’t answer, and when the candle drew farther away Andrew turned.

  “Jason? Are you all right?”

  The candle was glowing at the far end of the little cellar, making a silhouette of Jason, and illuminating a high shelf that was filled with big glass jars.

  “Doctor,” said Jason, “I think I found Maryanne Leonard. Or the rest of her. You need a hand coming over here?”

  §

  Andrew made it over on his own but Jason did most of the work moving the jars out into the autopsy where the light was better. There were eight of them that were labelled M. Leonard, and each one was big—a good half-gallon. Andrew was doing all right walking, but with one good arm and a limp, he was sure he’d drop every one of them. So Jason hauled them out and arranged them for inspection.

  The jars were all labelled with the name of the particular organ that was inside. It was a good thing—because whoever had removed them had done an inept job. The intestine and stomach were both badly perforated, one of the kidneys was almost liquefied, and the liver . . .

  Andrew leaned in close to examine the liver. Its surface looked as though someone had drawn a table fork across it—or in some spots, a spoon, scooping parts away like custard. Jason leaned in beside him.

  “What happened to that?” he asked. Andrew looked where he was pointing—into the jar that was labelled Uterus.

  At first, Andrew took it on faith that this was what he was looking at, because Maryanne Leonard’s uterus was a ruin. Andrew could see where the rip was, but there were also cuts, radiating out from it. Other parts had holes of a variety of sizes, like a slice of Swiss cheese. The fallopian tubes and ovaries were kinked and ragged, as though they’d been gnawed by rats.

  And there were . . . other things.

  They looked like tiny pustules, attached to the inner lining of the uterus. They were each perfectly round, whitish, not more than a sixteenth of an inch in diameter. There might have been hundreds.

  “Look at those.”

  “What are they?”

  “One way to find out,” said Andrew. “Let’s have a look. Could you unscrew the jar, Jason?”

  “This is going to smell worse.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Jason wrinkled his nose, took the jar in the crook of his elbow and twisted the top off.

  Andrew found a set of forceps and a steel tray, and when Jason set the jar back down he reached inside and carefully pulled the organ out.

  “A uterus. That’s the same as a womb.”

  “Very good.” Andrew unfolded it onto the tray as well as he could, using only his left hand. “Jason, could you bring a light near? Thank you.”

  Jason took the candle near and set it on the table beside the organ, while Andrew brought a magnifying glass to bear on the problem.

  “Tiny people did this,” said Jason.

  Andrew was only half-listening, so he nodded. He prodded the pustules with the end of a needle. They were attached all right—and they were hard.

  “Tiny people,” repeated Jason. “From the quarantine. That’s what I saw there—never seen anything like it before. But they had sharp teeth and I bet they did this. I know it.”

  At that, Andrew sat up and looked at Jason. “Jason,” he said levelly, “we don’t know anything. We’ve both seen things—and we’ve seen the same thing in one case. So it gives it some credence, this idea that some little cousin of Mister Juke did all this. But we don’t know. Not yet.” He sat back. “Unless, there’s some story about what happened in that quarantine you haven’t told me.”

  “Those things in there—they looked like folks. Small folks but that weren’t all. The one I saw up close had pretty sharp teeth and a hungry way about it. It went after my—” he hesitated, and reddened “—my privates. Think if it were smaller—younger—it couldn’t cut a hole in a woman’s insides? Chew it? Looking for food?”

  “That’s good, Jason. You are asking questions. And they’re good ones too.” Andrew looked back through the magnifying glass, focused it on a cluster of the pustules.

  “Thank you,” said Jason. “And what’re you going to do about those questions?”

  Andrew frowned. He focused in closer. They looked like nothing so much as a cluster of tiny fish eggs . . . roe.

  And they certainly could be. As he looked, he saw what appeared to be tiny fractures along the surface of the pustule—like veins, perhaps, but infinitely smaller. And there—he wondered—might that even be a shadow of a form inside?

  Andrew blinked and sat up, set the magnifying glass down.

  “Right now, we’re going to take some of these things . . .” He shook his head. “We’ll put them in a jar, and keep them to look at through a microscope tomorrow. And then we’re going to put things back, and we’re going to climb the stairs to my room.” Andrew drew a deep breath before continuing:

  “You’re going to stay there the night. By my own bedside. And I’ll make sure you don’t ever end up in that quarantine again.”

  Jason glared at him. “Are you putting me off?” he asked. Andrew started to answer, but the boy waved him down. “It don’t matter,” he said. “I owe you thanks for fixing my hand up and you’re right. I don’t think I can stay awake much longer
and you sure don’t look it. We ought to clean up this place and get rest.”

  “Rest is definitely what we both need right now,” said Andrew. He pushed himself up and winced, and looked at Jason. “A tiny person tried to bite your privates?” he asked.

  Jason nodded. “Let’s get to work,” he said.

  §

  Nurse Annie Rowe met them upstairs, and she was grateful to learn that Andrew and Jason had closed up the autopsy. “I am not squeamish but I have never seen a young lady—her remains—in such a state. What happened? Do you know?”

  “Better you ask Bergstrom,” said Jason before Andrew could shush him.

  “Better not to ask Dr. Bergstrom,” said Andrew and Annie nodded and said she understood all too well.

  “I don’t want to stir the hornet’s nest anymore. There will be enough trouble with this one out of quarantine,” said Annie.

  “Oh,” said Andrew, “there will be more than enough trouble, on more than one count there. Kings will fall. We will make sure of that.”

  Nurse Rowe smiled gently as she prepared to leave them. “Don’t exaggerate, now, Dr. Waggoner. Dr. Bergstrom will be in a state in the morning. But things will be fine by lunch again.”

  11 - Love Among the Feegers

  The two Feeger sisters waited through the night for Patricia. By the time she came back, Feeger men had joined them. Feeger men often tried to join them for the singing, or more to the point they tried to interrupt it, by grabbing at one or the other of them, or just staring at their nakedness with hungry enough eyes to put them off harmony. Patricia was the one with the knowhow to shoo them off. Now it fell to Lily, second eldest.

  So when El Feeger put his hand on her shoulder, Lily said: Scat! Which was the first thing you said when a Feeger took a liberty. El took his hand away but he didn’t move too far, nor take his dark eyes off her, nor lose that awful grin.

  That was fine for the moment but it would not last. Lily hummed a little prayer that the Old Man might release her big sister soon so she would not have to face El and others alone.

  The Old Man heard her prayer. Looking out on the lake, which was dimpled with slanted rays, Missy pointed out the little ripple in the waters, spreading like a line from a middle point. As it grew nearer, El’s gaze removed itself from his cousin’s behind and joined the rest of them watching at Patricia came back from her night with the Old Man.

  She was changed. Although she’d spent a night in water cold enough to paint a girl blue, her skin was ruddy and cheered. Was she any plumper? She soon would be, and that may have been why Lily thought she was now. But she smiled as she squinted against the sun at the family, and walked out of the lake.

  Missy ran up and threw her arms around her sister, who absently stroked her hair. The men, guessing what had come upon her, stepped back and fell to their knees.

  “Patricia,” whispered Lily. “You’re an—”

  “Oracle,” whispered Patricia, then, loud enough for everyone to hear: “I am all Oracular now, and I have words from Him in the Lake. So heed, and keep your hands off me ’n’ mine ’til I say.”

  She did not say anything else then. For the whole town had not gathered. So El went down to fetch some weave for his cousin, and they all wrapped her up in it, took her back down the ridge to the crèche where, Oracle or not, Patricia would be staying until the Old Man’s issue was done with her.

  §

  They drew straws that afternoon in the village. Lily was happy to see that it was not El who drew the short straw, but his younger brother Lothar. He was quiet and nice to girls, handsome enough, and Lily figured that he would not much harm her older sister when he laid table for her.

  As much as all the Feegers wanted to hear what their Oracle had to say, they knew that this ritual, of laying table, was important. An Oracle would only live short if she carried the issue without sustenance—the issue would turn to her, tear her out from the inside.

  So when the Old Man sent an Oracle back, someone had to lay table—fill her up with seed for the issue’s larder. To forestall bloodshed, for it was no chore offering this prize, the Feeger men-folk had long since drawn straws.

  Lothar drew the shorter straw only second up. He held it in front of him in wonder.

  “Old Man favours you,” said El, all trace of his smirk gone now.

  Lothar swallowed and said, “Oh,” and then on shaking legs he headed off to the crèche.

  Patricia waited, tucked well beneath the rock overhand. She was trembling, with the memory of the cold and a bit of a fever, but also with a bit of worry. Her memories of the night with the Old Man were not too clear, but happy. She’d given her Love and seemed to get as much back again. She knew how the Feeger men could be with her and her sisters. She thought about bruising and bleeding and being made to feel small again. She worried, like her sister, that it would be awful now.

  Then the door opened on the wooden front of the crèche, and in the noon-hour light she saw who it was. She smiled.

  “Lothar,” she said.

  “Huh,” said Lothar.

  “Glad it’s you,” she said. Lothar held his hands at his middle, and stumbled in. His trousers and shirt and boots were gone. “Close the door,” she said.

  Lothar nodded. He turned around and closed the door. Outside, there were sounds of disappointment. But the crèche was dark. Patricia shifted. She heard Lothar shuffling in the dark, moving around the crèche.

  “I’ll talk,” said Patricia, “so you c’n find me.”

  “Hum,” said Lothar.

  “It is going to be a good time for us,” said Patricia. “That is what the Old Man said.”

  Lothar stumbled, and there was a clattering sound.

  “You hit the table, now, didn’t you,” said Patricia. “You’re going the wrong way. You’re not scared, are you?”

  “Um,” said Lothar. “Um hum.”

  “Well don’t be. This will be—” she paused, looking for the right word “—not mean.”

  More stumbling, this time closer. Then Patricia felt the heat from Lothar’s flank, next to her. She pulled the furs aside, and she felt as he scrambled to get underneath with her.

  “You’re shaking,” she commented.

  “Um,” said Lothar.

  “Well I’ll calm you,” she said. She reached down and took hold of him. He was slick and warm down there, and he gasped as she pulled and worked him. “Now,” she said, “get ready. Babies are hungry. And they will need food for the long walk. So you go plant your seed, Lothar. Plant it for harvest.”

  “Long—” Lothar made a sound as she lifted her leg and guided him inside “—walk?”

  “That,” sang Patricia, “is how it is going to be.” She thrust down on him, and Lothar made a strangling sound at the base of his throat. “That—that’s the message. The Old Man’s sending us on a long walk. Down the mountains to that river place. To see about His son. Show the folk there how to treat him right.”

  Lothar took his breath in sharp, and whimpered, and she felt his release in her. She welcomed it, the way she’d welcomed the Old Man. It was more love for Him.

  She would need that love and more—because the Old Man had made it clear. There was heavy work ahead of them, if they were to do his bidding: find the Son, and make things right again. To do that, she would have to preach—preach to strangers, and make them see how the Son was their Father—make them raise up a Cathedral to him.

  And if she couldn’t convince them . . . if they turned from their calling?

  Either way, it would be heavy work.

  12 - Aunty’s Tears

  Jason sat up in bed and gingerly touched his sore, bandaged hand. Dr. Waggoner was still sleeping, so he was quiet as he got out of bed and padded to the window, looked out. It was early morning and he had a good view of Eliada. The hospital was on a rise, and looking down he could see the low wooden buildings spreading along two muddy roadways. People were up and getting set for work—a couple of wagons were load
ing sacks outside a store. Farther along, he could see gangs of men moving around the sawmill, a team of horses in their midst hauling a pile of logs up to a ramp on the mill’s edge. The two smokestacks at the far end of the mill building sent out a long white cloud of wood smoke. Muffled by distance and wooden walls, Jason was sure he could hear the chugging of a steam engine, the whine of saw-blades.

  He let the curtain fall, and stepped out the door, into the corridor and to a tall window at its end. This view was better. It gave him a look at the quarantine. In daylight.

  It was not as big as it’d seemed, but it was big enough, built a little better than you’d build a barn, but shaped like a horseshoe. It looked new. It was nestled right back against thick woods and its wooden walls were painted a deep green—as though it might blend in better that way. And there was one other thing about it that Jason noted especially.

  It looked like it would burn.

  Jason swallowed and leaned against the wall. Was that what he was thinking? Putting torch to the quarantine? Deliberately murdering whoever was in there? Or not caring who was in there and who was not, and doing it all the same?

  Last night, he might have done it. The same way he’d been thinking about picking up a gun and using it to shoot Dr. Bergstrom, he could easily have thought about putting torch to the quarantine. It was filled up with Devils after all.

  This morning, that urge was gone. Maybe Dr. Bergstrom’s poison had run its course—had made him mean for awhile, like too much liquor or Coca-Cola. Maybe . . .

  Jason drew a sharp breath then and forgot his musings, as a pair of figures emerged from the middle of the horseshoe. It was Aunt Germaine—and Dr. Bergstrom. They were talking to each other. But they did not seem angry—not like last night in his office, or at the quarantine. They seemed more like old friends now. As Jason watched, Aunt Germaine actually laughed at something the doctor said. Dr. Bergstrom did not seem as pleased. But he reached up and patted Aunt Germaine on the shoulder, and she did not flinch away from him.

  Jason pulled back from the window. The easy part of the morning was over now. The rest of the day, he figured, was going to be a hard fight and nothing better.