Aether Spirit

by Cecilia Dominic

  “And that’s why I want to do this! If I’d been allowed to heal in a place of comfort, not that horrible asylum, I might not have had to sacrifice my memories to my recovery. I lost more than you could ever know, more than I will ever know.”

  The chill returned to his demeanor, and although he hadn’t moved, she felt the change like a splash of cold water. “I wouldn’t make that assumption, Doctor McPhee.”

  “And I appreciate your concern, but I’m not going to hypnotize anyone. I’m going to use the techniques they’re developing in Vienna and demonstrate that they’re superior so that others won’t have the same problems I do.”

  “That’s a noble sentiment, but I still want to feel completely comfortable that my patients are safe. You have the general’s support, but I’m the chief of this hospital, and I won’t risk the men or boys under my care.”

  She stood. “If I don’t have your cooperation, I can go to another field hospital in another town. God knows there are enough of them. But I was sent here for a reason. I’ve done this before, and others are confident in my ability. Why aren’t you?” She turned to leave in a huff, but he darted around the desk and blocked her from leaving his office.

  “Let me ask you this, Claire.”

  Her given name on his tongue sent a lightning bolt of pain through her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

  “What the—? Oh, son of a…”

  He sounded like he spoke to her from the other side of a wall, but there was nothing between her and his strong arms. The layers of clothing didn’t keep her from noticing his lean, muscular body when he lifted her and cradled her head on his shoulder. Her head pounded a warning, and she moaned.

  “Oh, right, this isn’t going to help.” He carried her out of the office and called for a nurse. Claire was conscious of being laid on a stretcher and carried into the cool morning air. Her headache subsided, but the nausea remained, and there was a strange ache in her chest.

  “Why…?” An image flashed into her mind of the driver the night of the accident. It was just his silhouette, but the light caught the planes of his face for the barest instant. Blackness swallowed conscious thought before she could identify him.

  * * * * *

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  Chad turned to see Patrick approaching and stepped aside so his friend could see into the room in the women’s hospital ward. It was housed in a separate building, presumably because women needed to be away from men and their noises and smells to heal properly. Chad could see the reasoning behind the rules, but it tore him apart inside that he’d have to leave her to return to his own duties and patients.

  Since men greatly outnumbered the women on the base, and pregnant and nursing mothers and children were usually sent away from the border as a precaution, Claire was the only patient. Chad hovered in the doorway. He’d made sure she was stable but dared not stay too close to her.

  “She’s fine as far as I can tell.” Chad rubbed the back of his neck “I made a grave mistake. I slipped into our old pattern of discussing and said her name. It triggered this.” He indicated her supine form. Even asleep, her brows drew together in a frown.

  “Well, most women swoon when you say their names. It’s why you can’t get that glorified camp whore Nanette to leave you alone.” Patrick’s slipping out of his usual genial nature indicated the intensity of his concern.

  Chad frowned and tried to ignore the green snake of jealousy that curled in his gut. Claire and Patrick had been friendly but distant in the past, so it shouldn’t surprise him that she’d not reacted negatively to the Irishman. He should be glad they’d renewed their acquaintance even if she didn’t recognize it as a renewal. “I should reprimand you for that, but I don’t have any authority over the engineering corps.”

  “Yes, and we tinkerers are expected to have filthy mouths. We need to express ourselves when we hit a body part with something heavy or hot.”

  Chad moved aside so Patrick could see Claire. She lay on her side, her glasses on the small table beside the bed. When she’d fainted, they’d magnified the curve of her eyes and her long lashes against her cheeks.

  “See?” Chad said. “She’s sleeping peacefully. Her heart and lungs sound fine, but I wish I could see into her brain, find a gentle way to bring the memories back. Obviously me saying her given name was too much.”

  “You could if you would only get back to working with Eros.”

  “I have no way to tell what would happen if we use it with old traumas and suppressed memories. Amelie Lafitte was a different case, mostly mood with some psychosis.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have been a daft idiot. What were you thinking, using Claire’s given name?”

  Chad looked at his scuffed shoes, which he’d been meaning to have polished. He heard young Claire’s voice in his head.

  You can’t be a doctor with shoes like that. You need shiny shoes. They command respect.

  They’d been discussing their hopes and dreams for the future, as much good as that had done.

  He decided to answer the question, which was easier than facing his fears of making her worse rather than better if he tried to use the Eros Element device on her. “I was trying to get her attention and make her see her given mission, to get these boys in good enough shape to go back into combat, is not in their best interest, at least not the way she was going to do it. They need time to heal without outside interference.”

  “Like the interference she had?” Patrick asked. “Now who’s making comparisons that aren’t true?”

  “You might be correct.” Of course he was right. Patrick had the singular talent of making Chad see reason on the rare occasions his emotions muddled his thinking. “I’m upset because no one could help her like she truly needed, and they took her away from me before I could try.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  Chad had to smile. He could project confidence, but it was a rare occasion the Irishman’s feathers got ruffled. He should’ve become more suspicious in Paris when working with the Eros Element had caused both Patrick and Professor Edward Bailey to react in strange ways. But Chad had been too busy saving the people of Paris who had been abandoned by their unsympathetic and cowardly doctors. And then he’d left because his friends and then his own country needed him.

  A black worm of guilt joined and twined with the jealousy snake when he thought about how the Prussians had taken the city and then civil chaos broke out, killing more people than the Prussian shelling. Would he have been enough to make a difference? He’d never know.

  “Come on,” Patrick said. “Standing here isn’t going to help her, and I hate to say it, but you’re the last person she needs to see when she wakes.”

  Chad sagged against the door frame. The words made sense to Chad’s head, but not to his heart.

  “Let’s get lunch,” Patrick said and tugged him away from the door. “You didn’t eat breakfast, did you?”

  “No, too busy.”

  * * * * *

  Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, Summer 1865

  Claire first became aware of the light that changed in front of her eyelids, although they didn’t want to open. It was the kind of dim glow that comes with a foggy gray morning when one would rather stay abed until the smells of breakfast lured one downstairs like a persistent friend.

  Then there were the smells, definitely not breakfast. Dusty wood, wet wool, and the various odors of pomade, soap, cologne, and underneath it all, people. Many people. Men, to be exact, but a few women. A rhythmic susurrus resolved into spoken French floating upon a sea of murmuring and whispering. She’d taken French in school and even practiced it a little with a neighbor, but someone nearby spoke these words with the confidence and fluidity of a native speaker—and the authority of a lecturer—and she could only pick out the occasional word. By the time her mind translated something, the vo
ice had moved on to a different phrase, and she lost it.

  Only one word stood out and repeated: hystérie.

  A pressure on Claire’s forehead woke her completely, and sensations poured through her. A wave of concern roiling with curiosity gave way to triumph when she opened her eyes to the kind face of a bearded man. A spike of vindictiveness from somewhere behind him made her flinch away from him.

  “Do not worry, Mademoiselle, you are safe ’ere,” the man who leaned over her said in English. The light blobs in the shadows behind him became faces of a hundred men and women looking down on her, and she screamed. Two men held her by the arms as she twisted and tried to escape, and the searing pain from their grasps made her gasp in agony.

  “Don’t hold her like that, you idiots, remember she is injured, burned.”

  She didn’t understand the words so much as the emotions behind them, and she met his eyes, pleading, “S’il vous plaît, Monsieur, have them release me.”

  They did as he asked, and she pulled her arms to her chest and tried to curl away from the curious looks and the waves of feelings ranging from pity to lust. She only wore a nightdress and was covered by a sheet. Her hair hung loose and matted.

  Dear god, where was she? Her own emotions rose to block the others, and she sobbed and screamed, anything to make it all go away. The two men who had tried to hold her down wheeled her stretcher away, and once the darkness of a corridor enveloped her and blocked the sensations from the theatre, she calmed herself to try to hear what they said. She translated what she could.

  “Didn’t think he’d do it…”

  “Been in a coma for a month…”

  “Forgot about the burns…”

  “Should never doubt Charcot…”

  Charcot? Where am I? How did I get here? But she couldn’t get her mouth to form the words. All that happened when she did was a mewling sound, like a child.

  One of them patted her on the shoulder, and she twisted away from the condescension in his voice and touch. “Do not worry, Mademoiselle, we have worse hysterics than you.”

  The hallway ended in a bright ward, and a wave of confused and confusing feelings washed over Claire. She curled up tighter away from it all. Why did she experience all this?

  What had happened to bring her here? All she could remember was flying into space, her hands and chest and neck burning. And before that, only images that tumbled through her mind too fast for her to grasp of any of them.

  The two men lifted her onto a bed but thankfully kept the sheet wrapped around her. They disappeared, leaving her in a sea of disorientation. None of it made any sense. She knew she wasn’t from here—her mind wouldn’t tell her exactly where she did hail from—and that she didn’t speak the language natively, but she had learned some French along the way. Every time she thought she was close to a clue in her mind, it darted away more quickly than a rabbit into a hole.

  Finally, she fell back into an exhausted sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Distillery Hospital, 24 February 1871

  That afternoon, Chad saw patients and was pleased to see that the infection on Bryce’s arm had subsided with the poultice he’d had the nurses place on the wound.

  “Sometimes the country remedies work,” he said, and he didn’t bother to keep the relief out of his voice. “We won’t have to take this arm off today.”

  Bryce grinned and flexed his fingers, which were almost back to their normal sizes. “Thank you, Doctor. How is Claire?”

  Chad didn’t want to worry the boy—he knew all too well how mental stress could impact physical healing—but he didn’t want to lie, either. “She’s making some adjustments. Being here is hard for her.” He stood and closed the office door. “Can I ask you a few questions about her?”

  Bryce’s grin vanished. “I don’t know, Doctor Radcliffe. I promised—” He looked away and scratched his arm.

  Chad caught his hand. “Don’t do that, you’ll only make it worse. I don’t want to push you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with. God knows you get enough of that being in the army.”

  Bryce pulled his arm away with a furious expression too intense and regretful for his sixteen-year-old face. “It’s not that. I mean, yes, it is that I’ve had to do too many things, but no, I promised my mother…”

  Chad told his jaw to relax, but the string of tension from just behind his right ear down his neck and to his collarbone told him it was too late to try to keep the headache from coming. Apparently Claire wasn’t the only one who had that reaction to reminders from the past.

  “Your mother,” Chad said. “Yes, how is she? Living with Claire’s mother, I hear?”

  Bryce nodded and halted his hand before it found his elbow again. He scratched his stomach instead. “Yes, at least that’s how it was when I left. When Uncle Allen died, Aunt Melanie was lonely.”

  Chad stopped himself from saying something about how Eliza had swooped in to save the day but probably just to make sure Melanie wouldn’t keep him updated on Claire. Eliza had always hated him for his skin color, although Melanie and Allen had welcomed him as a possible son-in-law.

  “What did she make you promise her, and what did you end up with in return?”

  “She made me promise I wouldn’t ever tell you anything about Claire, what they did to her after the accident.”

  “Wait, what they did to her? What they?”

  Bryce shook his head. “I can’t tell you. She said she’d make it easier for me in the army, that she’d use her connections to get me a better placement.”

  “So you ended up here?” Chad gestured around. “This is one of the more active sites on the front.”

  “I couldn’t help where my general brought us.” He studied his arm.

  Chad shook his head to stop his thoughts from bouncing around. He didn’t know what to say. Eliza had lied to Bryce, of that he was certain. She had influence in Boston, yes, but not with the draft office or army, at least not as far as he knew. If that had been the case, she would have had Chad moved before he finished his education at Harvard, which the army had paid for. Or perhaps her influence only stretched so far.

  “Let me ask you this—do you love your cousin?”

  “Oh, yes! She was always my favorite. She’d never tease me with the others when they started singing the girly hair song.”

  “Girly hair song?”

  Bryce raised his good hand to his hair, which curled around his fingers, and sang softly in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice like a child’s, “Brycie curls, Brycie curls, he’s got hair, just like a girl’s!” He dropped his voice into its usual register. “I always hated it, but even though her brother would join in, Cousin Claire never did.”

  Chad remembered Claire’s brother Aidan. He’d always been distant but polite. Perhaps if Chad reached out to him, he’d get more information… But no. He had no doubt Eliza had Aidan in her power like she did Bryce. She could know someone’s weak spot within two seconds of meeting them. It seemed to annoy her that she couldn’t make Chad feel inferior. He couldn’t be angry at Aidan, though. He had arrived on the accident scene first and had helped them find Claire where she’d been thrown.

  “Then I’m going to ask you to consider helping me to help her. I want her to be restored to her former wholeness, at least as much as possible. I can’t say whether she’ll remember you or not, or if it will be painful for her to do so, so please try to stay away from her. She’s going to be doing some work here once she’s feeling better.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “She got a reminder from the past that was too much for her.”

  “What?” Now Bryce didn’t catch himself until his fingers curled too close to his arm for Chad’s comfort.

  “Someone said her given name. If you see her, call her Doctor McPhee, but please just try to stay away from her.” />
  “You can’t make me. It won’t hurt her to see me. I’m her cousin.”

  “You’re right, I can’t make you.” I can’t make anyone do any damn thing, not even myself. “But I can only caution you. Go slowly. And whatever you do, don’t mention to her that she and I were once a couple or that her father is dead. Melanie and your mother have kept that from her, and I can see why after talking to her. Someone installed a block around her being related to a tinkerer in Boston.”

  Bryce nodded. “I’ll be careful. And thanks for helping my arm.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll have the nurses put another poultice on it tonight, but in the meantime, let the wound breathe.”

  “And I’ll try to stay away from Claire, but it would be nice…” He trailed off, and Chad saw tears in the boy’s eyes for the first time, even since the wound that had led to the infection in the first place.

  “Thank you. I promise, I’ll let you know when it’s safe for you to speak to her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bryce left, and Chad sat back and ran a hand over his face. How on earth did he end up being so unfortunate that both Bryce and Clair landed at his fort? He sat up.

  What are the chances that we would all end up here? There are certainly enough places along the border…

  He would have to do some investigating to see exactly how they had all come to be there. Meanwhile, he had other young men to patch up.

  His next patient knocked on the door of the examining room, and he called out, “Enter!”

  * * * * *

  Claire opened her eyes to the waning light of the day. After the first dream of the accident, she’d been bothered by fragments of memories. The headache had subsided to a dull ache, and she groped for her glasses, relieved to find them nearby on a nightstand. They didn’t give much of a clue to her surroundings once she could see. She wasn’t in her room in the general’s house, but she wasn’t at Distillery Hospital, either.

  She closed her eyes against a wave of disorientation. It reminded her of what happened when she had first come aware in Paris, but at least this time she wasn’t the star of the stage in a medical observation theatre. And her memories were no less intact than previously. She knew better than to chase the memory of what had put her in a sleep state. Whatever it was, it was probably best avoided lest she black out again.