I opened my eyes.

It was no great shock, for the room was filled with twilight, still light, like being underwater, and I had no sense of disruption.

“O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou great Physician: Look with Thy gracious favor upon this Thy servant; give wisdom and discretion to those who minister to her in her sickness; bless all the means used for her recovery …”

The words flowed past me in a whispering stream, cool on my skin. There was a man before me, dark head bent over a book. The light in the room embraced him and he seemed part of it.

“Stretch forth Thy hand,” he whispered to the pages, in a voice that cracked and broke, “and according to Thy will, restore her to health and strength, that she may live to praise Thee for Thy goodness and Thy grace; to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen.”

“Roger?” I said, groping for his name. My own voice was hoarse from disuse; speaking was an intolerable effort.

His eyes were closed in prayer; they sprang open, unbelieving, and I thought how vivid they were, the green of wet serpentine and summer leaves.

“Claire?” His voice cracked like a teenaged boy’s, and he dropped the book.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the dreamlike sense of submergence threatening to engulf me again. “Am I?”



I COULD LIFT A HAND for a moment or two, but was too weak even to lift my head, let alone sit up. Roger helpfully dragged me semi-upright against piled pillows, and put his hand at the back of my head to prevent wobbling, holding a cup of water to my dry lips. It was the odd feel of his hand on the bare skin of my neck that began a dim process of realization. Then I felt the warmth of his hand, vivid and immediate, at the back of my head, and jerked like a gaffed salmon, sending the cup flying.

“What? What?” I spluttered, clutching my head, too shocked to formulate a complete sentence, and oblivious to the cold water soaking through the sheets. “WHAT?!”

Roger looked nearly as shocked as I felt. He swallowed, searching for words. “I … I … I thought you knew,” he stammered, voice breaking. “Didn’t you … ? I mean … I thought … look, it’ll grow!”

I could feel my mouth working, vainly trying different shapes that might approximate words, but there was no connection between tongue and brain—there was room for nothing but the realization that the accustomed soft, heavy weight of my hair was gone, replaced by a fuzz of bristles.

“Malva and Mrs. Bug cut it off, day before yesterday,” Roger said, all in a rush. “They—we weren’t here, Bree nor I, we wouldn’t have let them, of course we wouldn’t—but they thought it’s what you do for someone with a terrible fever, it is what people do now. Bree was furious with them, but they thought—they truly thought they were helping save your life—oh, God, Claire, don’t look like that, please!”

His face had disappeared in a starburst of light, a curtain of shimmering water suddenly coming down to protect me from the gaze of the world.

I wasn’t conscious of crying, at all. Grief simply burst from me, like wine spraying from a wineskin stabbed with a knife. Purple-red as bone marrow, splattering and dripping everywhere.

“I’ll fetch Jamie!” he croaked.

“NO!” I seized him by the sleeve, with more strength than I would have imagined I possessed. “God, no! I don’t want him to see me like this!”

His momentary silence told me, but I kept stubborn hold of his sleeve, unable to think how else to prevent the unthinkable. I blinked, water sliding over my face like a stream over rock, and Roger wavered once more into visibility, blurred around the edges.

“He’s … er … he’s seen you,” Roger said gruffly. He looked down, not wanting to meet my eyes. “It. Already. I mean—” He waved a hand vaguely in the vicinity of his own black locks. “He saw it.”

“He did?” This was nearly as much a shock as the initial discovery. “What—what did he say?”

He took a deep breath and looked back up, like someone fearing to see a Gorgon. Or the anti-Gorgon, I thought bitterly.

“He didn’t say anything,” Roger said quite gently, and put a hand on my arm. “He—he just cried.”

I was still crying, too, but in a more orthodox fashion now. Less of the gasping note. The sense of bone-deep cold had passed, and my limbs felt warm now, though I still felt a disconcertingly chilly breeze on my scalp. My heart was slowing again, and a faint sense that I was standing outside my body came over me.

Shock? I thought, dimly surprised as the word formed itself in my mind, rubbery and melting. I supposed that one could suffer true physical shock as the result of emotional wounds—of course one could, I knew that… .

“Claire!” I became aware that Roger was calling my name with increasing urgency, and shaking my arm. With immense effort, I brought my eyes to focus on him. He was looking truly alarmed, and I wondered, vaguely, whether I had started to die again. But no—it was too late for that.

“What?”

He sighed—with relief, I thought.

“You looked funny for a moment.” His voice was cracked and husky; he sounded as though it hurt him to talk. “I thought—d’ye want another drink of water?”

The suggestion seemed so incongruous that I nearly laughed. But I was terribly thirsty—and all at once, a cup of cold water seemed the most desirable thing in the world.

“Yes.” The tears continued to flow down my face, but now seemed almost soothing. I made no attempt to stop them—that seemed much too difficult—but blotted my face with a corner of the damp sheet.

It was beginning to dawn on me that I might not have made the wisest—or at least not the easiest—choice, when I decided not to die. Things outside the limits and concerns of my own body were starting to come back. Troubles, difficulties, dangers … sorrow. Dark, frightening things, like a swarm of bats. I didn’t want to look too closely at the images that lay in a disorderly pile at the bottom of my brain—things I had jettisoned in the struggle to stay afloat.

But if I had come back, I had come back to be what I was—and I was a doctor.

“The … sickness.” I blotted the last of the tears and let Roger wrap his hands around mine, helping me to hold the new cup. “Is it still—?”

“No.” He spoke gently, and guided the rim of the cup to my lips. What was it? I wondered vaguely. Water, but with something in it—mint and something stronger, more bitter … angelica?

“It’s stopped.” Roger held the cup, letting me sip slowly. “No one’s fallen sick in the last week.”

“A week?” I bobbled the cup, spilling a little down my chin. “How long have I—”

“Just about that.” He cleared his throat. Roger’s eyes were intent on the cup; he skimmed a thumb lightly along my chin, removing the drops I had spilled. “You were among the last to fall sick.”

I took a long breath, then drank a bit more. The liquid had a soft, sweet taste, too, floating over the bitter tang … honey. My mind located the word and I felt a sense of relief at having located this small missing piece of reality.

I knew from his manner that some of the sick had died, but asked no more for the moment. Deciding to live was one thing. Rejoining the world of the living was a struggle that would take strength I didn’t have right now. I had pulled up my roots, and lay like a wilted plant; sinking them back into the earth was beyond me for the moment.

The knowledge that people I knew—perhaps had loved—had died seemed an equal grief to the loss of my hair—and either was more than I could cope with.

I drank two further cups of honey-sweetened water, despite the underlying bitterness, then lay back with a sigh, my stomach feeling like a small, cold balloon.

“Ye want to take a bit of rest,” Roger advised me, putting down the cup on the table. “I’ll fetch Brianna, aye? But you sleep if ye want to.”

I hadn’t strength to nod, but managed a twitch of the lips that seemed to pass muster as a smile. I reached up a trembling hand and brushed it gingerly over the top of my shorn head. Roger flinched, very slightly.