Page 90 of Malady

“The Longpace boy. He’d caught his palm on a rusty nail whilst helping his father mend their fence, and by the following morning his hand had swollen something dreadful. His mother was beside herself, poor woman, and there you were, telling him to stop crying and hold still.”

“That sounds like me.”

“Oh, it certainly does. You noticed how tight and shiny the skin had grown around the wound and decided that whatever was hurting his hand must be trapped beneath it. So you fetched a thorn from the hedge and cleaned it as best you could before making the tiniest little opening. Out came the most revolting mess! His mother nearly fainted, but you were delighted. Said his hand had been trying to push something out and you’d only helped it along.”

Despite myself, I manage a faint huff. “Christ, Mum. I could have made it worse.”

“You could have, pudding. And I gave you a proper telling-off for taking a thorn to another child’s hand without fetching a grown-up. But the swelling went down, and within a few days he could bend his fingers again. You hadn’t any medicines, Ophi. Not a single book to tell you what to do. You simply looked at what was wrong and thought about what might make it better.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I know, sweetheart. But I do. And that clever little girl is still in there, isn’t she? Even without her lovely shop. So come on, let’s take some of that pain away.”

“How?”

“Well, you’ll have to get up first, pudding.”

I groan. “Mum, we’ve been through this. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Come on, now. Up you get.”

I press my palms against the stone, but my arms shake so badly that I barely manage to lift my head.

“That’s it, darling. Get those elbows underneath you. There’s no hurry, but you’re not going to lie there all night feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m dying,” I remind her, rather breathlessly.

“And being a miserable little grump about it. Come on.”

I shove the damp hair out of my face with the backs of my hands, my numb fingertips catching uselessly against my forehead, and plant my elbows beneath me again. My shoulders tremble as I push, and something pulls horribly beneath my left arm, but this time I manage to drag myself a little higher before the pain makes me stop.

“There,” I pant. “Happy?”

“Very. Now, what have you got?”

“Two arms that are about to fall off.”

“Ophelia.”

I close my eyes. Right.

I shift my weight onto one elbow and stretch my other hand across the wet stone until it meets the wall. The mortar is crumbling between the blocks, leaving little pieces of grit beneath my nails, and I feel along the uneven joins, searching for anything sharp enough to be useful.

There must be something.

My hand slips into a shallow puddle of slimy, stagnant water, and I flinch as the freezing filth seeps between my fingers. As I pull away, my numb fingertips catch on something hard beneath the greasy silt. Metal. I dig around it and work it loose, lifting an old iron coffin nail with a crooked point and a square head half-eaten by rust.

“There we are,” Mum murmurs. “That’ll do, won’t it?”

“Christ, I hope not.”

I rub my thumb along the shank, feeling the crumbly flakes of rust slough away. The puddle is far too foul to rinse it in, and without so much as a clean scrap of linen or a flame to scorch the iron, I’ve no way of ridding it of whatever corruption might be clinging to it.

I turn the nail over, testing the tip. It’s blunt and rusted, but sharp enough to pierce rotten meat.

“I’m going to make myself worse,” I whisper.

“Perhaps, pudding. But you’re hurting something dreadful already, aren’t you?”