Page 79 of Stay Buried

I felt everyone’s eyes on us: my aunt and uncle, David and Mercy, Chauncey and the boys.

“I’m sure you have all you need for the trip,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

“Give me a hug for luck,” Pearl said, and I embraced her, felt my lover’s familiar arms wrap around my waist. I worried that it was for the last time, but pushed the thought away. It seemed too cruel, having to say good-bye to her with everyone watching. Having to pretend I was just saying good-bye to a good friend and not the human being I loved most in this world; my other half, my beautiful wicked fox. I longed to kiss her one last time but knew it was impossible. I was a tempest of nerves, frustration, heartbreak, and fury, but I did my best to keep any trace of these feelings from showing on my face.

I felt Pearl’s hand slip into the pocket of my wool coat, for just a second. She drew back.

“Let’s be off then,” she said, looking away, putting on her best brave smile.

Uncle Thomas and Aunt Margaret were holding hands, whispering to each other.

“Come here and give me a hug for luck too, Frances,” Aunt Margaret said. I threw my arms around my aunt, clinging tightly to her, wanting to sob like a little child, but holding it back.

A good doctor, my uncle always told me, knows how to put his emotions into a little box when there’s work to be done.

“I love you,” Margaret said, putting her gloved hands on my face. “I love you like you’re my own daughter. And I will not sleep easy again until you and your uncle are back with me.”

I hugged my aunt tighter. At last, when I could form the words, I said, “We’ll come to you as quickly as we can.”

Aunt Margaret kissed my cheek, we all said our final good-byes, and the party of seven trudged down Main Street, Chauncey in the lead, packing down the trail the others followed.

Uncle Thomas and I stood in the street in front of the Banks home. Neither of us spoke or moved, only watched as the group got farther and farther away, until the street bent to the west, and they were out of sight.

At last, Uncle Thomas spoke. “Let’s make some coffee and oatmeal, then go on our rounds, Frankie. We’ve got a lot of patients to visit today.”

WHEN WE RETURNEDhome, I took off my coat, carefully pulling out the folded piece of paper Pearl had slipped me. My uncle went to gather supplies from the office. I went into the kitchen, feeling Aunt Margaret’s absence acutely. I added wood to the stove, got down a pan and poured in oatmeal and water, filled the coffeepot, and put both pots on to heat.

Then I stood by the window and opened the note from Pearl.

My Darling,

If you miss me while I’m gone, go to our secret place.I’ll be there, waiting for you each afternoon in our dream house full of dust and cobwebs. You may not be able to see me, but you’ll feel me.

The real, solid me will be waiting for you in Amsterdale. Then we shall board a train and go and find our real dream house. Go and make a new life together, the world be damned.

Yours, forever and always,

P

As my uncle came into the kitchen, I slid the note into my pocket, and blinked back the tears stinging my eyes.

We ate breakfast in silence, and went out to do rounds, stopping at house after house where people had either taken ill or gone missing. The platters of offerings left on stoops, the bundles of herbs hung in windows, the symbols painted on doors made Boone’s Ferry—the only home I’d ever known—feel unsettling, unholy.

Some people, the frail and elderly, seemed to succumb to the sickness, too weak to wander. They spoke like madmen, but lay coughing, suffocating in their own secretions, finally slipping out of consciousness until the lack of oxygen killed them. Uncle Thomas and I gave morphine to ease their suffering, but there was little else we could do. With the help of family, we often bound the sick and mad to their beds. In some cases, distraught husbands, wives, and children refused. Uncle Thomas sedated those who were wild, thrashing, lashing out against us. But soon, I knew, we would run out of what little sedatives we had left. And each time I helped Uncle Thomas restrain one of the afflicted, I knew it was only a matter of time until one or both of us were bitten.

It was far worse than the horrors of the influenza outbreak last fall, which, I must admit, pushed us to our very limits in every way. How, I wondered, could we possibly find our way through this?

Sometimes I wish I were a person of faith—that I had some god or deity to pray to and seek comfort from. I heard my uncle pray sometimes. I was never sure if it was for Margaret’s benefit, or if he truly believed. Over and over, I found myself asking the same question I had asked during the flu outbreak as I watched men, women, and children drowning in their own secretions: If there was a God, how could he do this to us? What cruelty was in his heart?

When Uncle Thomas and I returned home from our rounds, it was nearly noon already and we found Bert Osbourne waiting on the doorstep.

“It’s Clarice,” he said. He looked pale and shaken. “They’ve found her. Out in the woods near where the river bends.”

“Is she alive?” I asked.

“I can’t say,” he told us. “They were carrying her toward the church.”

My heart sank like a great lead ball in my chest. If she’d been alive, if there had been any chance of saving her, they would have carried her to us. Bringing her to the church meant only one thing.