“Tell me, Bobby—have you ever heard of hookworms?”

He looked at me blankly.

“No, mum.”

“Mm. Would you hold this for me, please?” I put a folded square of gauze over the neck of a flask and handed him the bottle to hold while I poured the purple mixture into it.

“These fainting fits of yours,” I said, eyes on the stream. “How long have you had them?”

“Oh … six months, mebbe.”

“I see. Did you by chance notice any sort of irritation—itching, say? Or a rash? Happening maybe seven months ago? Most likely on your feet.”

He stared at me, soft blue eyes thunderstruck as though I had performed some feat of mind reading.

“Why, so I did have, mum. Last autumn, ’twas.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, then. I think, Bobby, that you may just possibly have a case of hookworms.”

He looked down at himself in horror.

“Where?”

“Inside.” I took the bottle from him and corked it. “Hookworms are parasites that burrow through the skin—most often through the soles of the feet—and then migrate through the body until they reach your intestines—your, um, innards,” I amended, seeing incomprehension cross his face. “The adult worms have nasty little hooked bills, like this”—I crooked my index finger in illustration—“and they pierce the intestinal lining and proceed to suck your blood. That’s why, if you have them, you feel very weak, and faint frequently.”

From the suddenly clammy look of him, I rather thought he was about to faint now, and guided him hastily to a stool, pushing his head down between his knees.

“I don’t know for sure that that’s the problem,” I told him, bending down to address him. “I was just looking at the slides of Lizzie’s blood, though, and thinking of parasites, and—well, it came to me suddenly that a diagnosis of hookworms would fit your symptoms rather well.”

“Oh?” he said faintly. The thick tail of wavy hair had fallen forward, leaving the back of his neck exposed, fair-skinned and childlike.

“How old are you, Bobby?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I had no idea.

“Twenty-three, mum,” he said. “Mum? I think I s’all have to puke.”

I snatched a bucket from the corner and got it to him just in time.

“Have I got rid of them?” he asked weakly, sitting up and wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he peered into the bucket. “I could do it more.”

“I’m afraid not,” I said sympathetically. “Assuming that you have got hookworms, they’re attached very firmly, and too far down for vomiting to dislodge them. The only way to be sure about it, though, is to look for the eggs they shed.”

Bobby eyed me apprehensively.

“It’s not exactly as I’m horrible shy, mum,” he said, shifting gingerly. “You know that. But Dr. Potts did give me great huge clysters of mustard water. Surely that would ha’ burnt they worms right out? If I was a worm, I s’ould let go and give up the ghost at once, did anyone souse me with mustard water.”

“Well, you would think so, wouldn’t you?” I said. “Unfortunately not. But I won’t give you an enema,” I assured him. “We need to see whether you truly do have the worms, to begin with, and if so, there’s a medicine I can mix up for you that will poison them directly.”

“Oh.” He looked a little happier at that. “How d’ye mean to see, then, mum?” He glanced narrowly at the counter, where the assortment of clamps and suture jars were still laid out.

“Couldn’t be simpler,” I assured him. “I do a process called fecal sedimentation to concentrate the stool, then look for the eggs under the microscope.”

He nodded, plainly not following. I smiled kindly at him.

“All you have to do, Bobby, is shit.”

His face was a study in doubt and apprehension.

“If it’s all the same to you, mum,” he said, “I think I’ll keep the worms.”

12



FURTHER MYSTERIES

OF SCIENCE

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, Roger MacKenzie came back from the cooper’s shop to discover his wife deep in contemplation of an object sitting on his dinner table.

“What is that? Some type of prehistoric Christmas tinned goods?” Roger extended a ginger forefinger toward a squat jar made of greenish glass and sealed with a cork, the latter covered with a stout layer of red wax. An amorphous chunk of something was visible inside, evidently submerged in liquid.

“Ho ho,” said his wife tolerantly, moving the jar out of his reach. “You think you’re being funny. It’s white phosphorus—a present from Lord John.”

He glanced at her; she was excited, the tip of her nose gone pink and bits of red hair pulled loose and waving in the breeze; like her father, she was inclined to run her hands through her hair when thinking.

“And you intend to do … what with it?” he asked, trying to keep any note of foreboding from his voice. He had the vaguest memories of hearing about the properties of phosphorus in his distant school days; he thought either it made you glow in the dark or it blew up. Neither prospect was reassuring.

“Wellll … make matches. Maybe.” Her upper teeth fastened momentarily in the flesh of her lower lip as she considered the jar. “I know how—in theory. But it might be a little tricky in practice.”

“Why is that?” he asked warily.

“Well, it bursts into flame if you expose it to air,” she explained. “That’s why it’s packed in water. Don’t touch, Jem! It’s poisonous.” Grabbing Jemmy round the middle, she pulled him down from the table, where he had been eyeing the jar with greedy curiosity.

“Oh, well, why worry about that? It will explode in his face before he has a chance to get it in his mouth.” Roger picked up the jar for safekeeping, holding it as though it might go off in his hands. He wanted to ask whether she were insane, but had been married long enough to know the price of injudicious rhetorical questions.

“Where d’ye mean to keep it?” He cast an eloquent glance round the confines of the cabin, which in terms of storage boasted a blanket chest, a small shelf for books and papers, another for comb, toothbrushes, and Brianna’s small cache of personal belongings, and a pie hutch. Jemmy had been able to open the pie hutch since the age of seven months or so.

“I’m thinking I’d better put it in Mama’s surgery,” she replied, keeping an absentminded grip on Jem, who was struggling with single-minded energy to get at the pretty thing. “Nobody touches anything in there.”

That was true enough; the people who were not afraid of Claire Fraser personally were generally terrified of the contents of her surgery, these featuring fearsomely painful-looking implements, mysterious murky brews, and vile-smelling medicines. In addition, the surgery had cupboards too high for even a determined climber like Jem to reach.

“Good idea,” Roger said, anxious to get the jar out of Jem’s vicinity. “I’ll take it up now, shall I?”

Before Brianna could answer, a knock came at the door, followed immediately by Jamie Fraser. Jem instantly ceased trying to get at the jar and instead flung himself on his grandfather with shrieks of joy.

“How is it, then, a bhailach?” Jamie inquired amiably, neatly turning Jem upside down and holding him by the ankles. “A word, Roger Mac?”

“Sure. Ye’ll sit, maybe?” He’d told Jamie earlier what he knew—lamentably little—regarding the role of the Cherokee in the upcoming Revolution. Had he come to inquire further? Reluctantly setting down the jar, Roger pulled out a stool and pushed it in his father-in-law’s direction. Jamie accepted it with a nod, dexterously transferring Jemmy to a position over one shoulder and sitting down.

Jemmy giggled madly, squirming until his grandfather slapped him lightly on the seat of his breeches, whereupon he subsided, hanging contentedly upside-down like a sloth, his bright hair spilling down the back of Jamie’s shirt.

“It’s this way, a charaid,” Jamie said. “I must be going in the morning to the Cherokee villages, and there is a thing I’d ask ye to do in my place.”