Ghosts of Graveyards Past (28 page)

Poring over her father's text books yielded nothing but sleepless nights. She found herself drafting letters to every apothecary within fifty miles, asking for news of a fever outbreak among their communities. It would be weeks before she got a response, if any ever did come, and by then it might be too late.

Whole towns had been wiped out from epidemics. She knew this from newspaper clippings in her father's old study, the stories sent to him by colleagues who witnessed such events. One place in Georgia had boasted more than a hundred in its population before a wave of cholera left just four families to rebuild the ruins.

Sylvan Spring had fifty households at best. How quickly disease might spread in such a place and what disaster it might leave in its wake, left her breathless with worry. Her medical supplies were limited, the shipment from Mobile perhaps a month from arriving. Alternative means would have to be found, the reason she took to the garden one morning, Granny Clare close to her side.

“For aiding the stomach,” the woman told her, piling sprigs of yarrow beside her on the ground. “Used by my mama in the old village for the babies' colic. More times than naught, it soothed their cries.”

“I will try it,” Mariah promised, binding the stems together with a piece of thread.

The gnarled hands searched the dirt for the right plants. The woman identified most through smell, occasionally touching a leaf to her tongue when doubtful. Her eyes bore a calm Mariah could only wonder at, the mind behind them as sharp as her own.

There were herbs for digestion and dysentery, for coughs and fevers.

Mariah gathered them all, pounding each beneath a mortar and pestle with a frantic rhythm that matched the pace of her thoughts. Funneled into paper packets, they served as teas for patients who could keep nothing else down. A few went into her pocket, slipped into her evening brew while the food on her plate went mostly untouched.

 

November 21
st
1862: Where a cure cannot be found, the means to comfort becomes key. That is what I tell myself as more cases began to slip beyond my influence. Some improve for reasons I cannot explain, while others given the same course of treatment take a violent turn for the worse. It is terrible to watch the suffering of those who are ill and know their fate depends on chance more than anything. I will not abandon my search for the cause of this outbreak and must hope there is strength enough left in me to find it.

 

“Are you all right, Miss Moore?”

Geneva Kendrick studied the doctor with concern from her seat on the parlor's worn settee. She had answered the door herself, well enough now to receive visitors in the parlor instead of her bed chamber. The fever had left her, and only a slight weariness haunted the youthful features to recall what had happened.

The patient did not see the same promise in Mariah's appearance, however. “You look so pale,” she told her. “Let me pour you another cup of tea. It has done me such good, especially the one made from ginger root.”

“I am fine,” Mariah assured her. Her voice wasn't very convincing, she knew, strained from the coughing that kept her awake at night. She was able to control it during the day, but the cold air in her bedroom made it impossible to fight the weakness dragging her down.

“You must take care of yourself,” the younger girl urged. “It does no good to tax your strength this way. Your friend spoke of it yesterday—how you rest but a few hours each day and seldom eat anything.”

“My friend.” Mariah's brow wrinkled, struggling to imagine who she meant. The only one she could think of was miles away on a battlefield, where letters came few and far between to those who waited at home.

“The blacksmith's daughter,” Geneva explained. “She came here yesterday to see how I did and to bring some of the tea from her grandmother's garden.”

“Miss Darrow has been a great help to me,” the doctor answered, realizing how true it was as she spoke. Nell's heart lent itself naturally to the task of healing, with patients trusting her more than they would an outsider, something Mariah was still considered to be, despite living among them for so long now.

“She spoke so hopefully of our predicament,” Geneva continued, “that I began to be hopeful myself. It was different from what everyone else says. About the curse, I mean.”

“What is it they say?” The words came out funny, slurred almost. She raised the cup to her mouth, attempting to disguise the sudden lapse.

Fortunately, the farmer's wife was more concerned with how to answer, her fingers playing nervously with one of the threads on her shawl. “It is idle talk,” she said, winding and unwinding the same thread as she continued, “They are saying—and I do not believe it—that the houses with the Celtic mark are ones belonging to people who will die of the fever. That the symbol is a—a kind of prophecy, placed there by a spirit...or devil...that brings the sickness.” She glanced down, cheeks coloring as she added, “That is why I have gotten better, they say. Because there was no mark put on our door that night.”

Mariah could not speak, mouth open from disbelief. The stories of washerwomen and plat-eyes seemed nothing compared to such cruel speculation. Those who believed in it might simply lose heart to fight the illness, sealing their own fate through superstition.

Geneva assured her, “I pay no mind to what they say. If anyone mentions it before me, I am quick to tell them that Miss Moore's skill is responsible for my being well again.”

“Thank you.” She set her tea cup back on the table, sloshing a little into the saucer. “I have been thinking,” she began, “that considering the circumstances—and how often we have spoken these past weeks—you might…well, you might call me Mariah. If you still wish it.”

The girl's eyes brightened with the suggestion. “Yes, of course.” With a surprised laugh, she added, “Mariah. It is a pretty name.”

“From my mother's aunt,” she remembered. “A midwife in their small community. So it was a fitting choice, in a way.”

“Doctoring seems to run in your blood.” Her young patient smiled. “My father was a clergyman, as was my grandfather. I should wish very much to have guidance from either of them now.” Her face grew wistful with the thought.

Mariah hesitated before she spoke. “My father—he left his wisdom to me in the form of text books and writings from his medical career. Your father, I am sure, would advise you to look to the same book he trained from as a clergyman.”
How can you say such a thing?
She scolded inwardly for recommending a path she had never followed herself.

It seemed to comfort the girl, though, her mood improving as she talked again of her family's livelihood, the church in Jefferson County she regarded as a second home.

When Mariah's tea had grown cold, she took up her bag for making another house call.

The Stroud residence had three members battling the disease inside its walls, one of them suffering from a high fever.

No tea was offered at this place, the mistress of the house far too frazzled. She did press a jar of preserves into her hand, saying, “For the herbs, and the liniment you gave me father last month. I've not forgotten it. You see, I had nothing to give in return at the time.”

Walking home, the sight of smoke climbing above the treetops told her that others continued to stoke the bonfires for purging the air. Bits of ash floated down, coating her hair and clothes as she tried to brush them away. Absorbed in this, she failed to notice the shape that loomed before her in the path.

Charley Hinkle's dog, its coat matted with burrs. She half-feared the animal sensed some predator lurking in the foliage around her, given the speed of its approach. But he passed her without a glance, bounding over the low wall that ran alongside the wooded burial ground.

Without slowing, the dog made its way to the north side of the yard, where mounded dirt showed the most recent burials from the plague. Lying beside one of only two headstones planted in the section, he crossed his paws and took up guard.

Mariah came beside him, knowing already what name would be inscribed on the tomb. Directly above, chiseled where none could miss seeing it, was a shape that made her throat tighten: the half-moon and broken arrow of the ancient Celts.

An omen of death for this community's ancestors, eerily precise in its predictions.

“This is not right,” she said, voice emerging shakily from her lips. “You deserve a better remembrance than this, Charley.”

The dog's ears pricked up at the sound of its former owner's name. Releasing a low whine, it nudged Mariah's hand in a plea for sympathy.

She stroked the fur, rough and tangled with no one to care if its burrs were removed anymore. “Poor Charley,” she murmured, still looking at the grave marker. “I am sorry—so sorry that I couldn't—” The rest of her apology was lost as coughing filled her lungs. Struggling for breath, she braced her hands against the stone, feeling its cold exterior. Her gaze landed hazily on the symbol carved along the top as panicked thoughts flew through her head. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of it while she gradually calmed again and waited for the moment to pass.

 

 

 

 

21

 

The envelope was postmarked November 8
th
, its return address from a hospital near Bridgeport.

Mariah tore the flap open, ignoring those who brushed past her to the post office door. A single sheet of stationary was tucked inside, its front and back filled with handwriting she knew as well as her own. The words, however, might as well have come from a stranger, her lips forming each one soundlessly only to part in shock the further she read.

 

My faith is gone
, Arthur confided at one point,
hidden from me in this madness that colors my every thought. Sleeping or waking, a field of death stretches always before me, the memory of smoke and blood and water. It is the water I wish to forget the most, along with the faces swallowed to its murky depths.

I can feel the river choking their lungs, the heavy weight dragging their chests. The doctors say it is because the injury has weakened my lungs, but I feel as if this sensation will never again leave me. Neither will the memory of seeing one I loved as a brother—one who did more for me than any real brother could have been expected to do—curled alongside the others at the bottom of that muddy grave.

His features, so admired by all who knew him in life, are swollen and mottled. By now, the decay of the grave is claiming him, beneath waves instead of earth. Eyes empty of their former depth stare at nothing, turned away even from the light above. What light is there for those of us who grieve here below?

The Scripture that used to give me comfort seems hollow now, and the promise of heavenly reunion no match for the pain I feel day after day in this wretched place. My one hope—the only reason I'm alive, perhaps—is the thought of seeing you again, Mariah. I will be with you soon as may be possible in this terrible world. I cling to the belief that this letter will not be long in preceding that happy moment, if there is any way that such happiness can be.

 

She stared at the lines, re-reading the final paragraphs as if seeking to erase the despair in them. One of her hands clutched the porch banister for support, the other trembling as it held the paper with its painful lines.

Arthur was wounded—dying for all she knew. Broken in body and soul, his one hope the possibility of coming back to her, to the life they knew in his boyhood home. A home he wouldn't recognize if he saw it now, smoke rising in clouds of gray, the doors and windows of its homesteads shut tight against the omen of death.

Would he be safe here? The risk of infection seemed greater even than that of a hospital ward. She wanted to warn him from it even as she wanted to care for him with her own two hands. She had saved his life once before, but the thought of facing such a task again amidst everything she was already struggling with seemed overwhelming.

Lost in thought, her feet moved without direction. The street was nearly deserted, the few people who passed her giving just a brief nod in greeting. Some glanced with curiosity at the piece of mail she held, but the fear of infection was too strong these days for anyone to linger in the street for gossip.

Up ahead, the sharp
ping!
of the blacksmith's hammer told her another headstone was being readied. She wondered how many would bear that awful mark still painted across the town's doorways in crimson hue. A children's prank turned almost to prophecy, the hands that placed it there no doubt shaking with fear somewhere by now, if not stilled by the same illness that took so many others.

A woman, gray-haired and heavyset, was drawing water from the well into wooden buckets. She cast a sideways glance as the doctor grew closer, a frown lining her aged features.

Mariah's steps wavered as she passed the aged figure, glancing back at the woman for reasons she couldn't explain. Cart wheels clattered from a nearby lane. She staggered to the side as the breeze from its motion fanned her skirt. Someone shouted at her—the blacksmith, possibly—but their voice was more like a pounding inside her head.

Dizzy, she continued on, hand reaching for a hitching post when she began to sway. Her fingers missed, barely scraping the wood surface as she lost her balance, hands pressing soft, cool earth as she fell helpless to the ground.

 



 

Someone was reading aloud from the Psalms. A voice thin and girlish, but not that of her mother's, as Mariah first imagined in her sleep-fogged state.

Instead, it was Nell Darrow who occupied the chair beside the doctor's bed. She stopped reading mid-Scripture as the figure before her began to stir. “Thank goodness,” she said. “I've been worried. Your color looks so poor, and you slept so restless, talking under your breath.”