Chapter 4
Another One of Your Plays

Thankfully, I recovered quickly. I had all my fingers and toes, and aside from some painful skin, I didn’t seem to be suffering any major after-effects of my little snow-bath. I must’ve been found close to the village and not long after I’d passed out. I spent a lot of my time leafing through the magazines that were actually pertinent. Sadly, most of them were completely useless to me. I got the feeling people here cared even less about the Dow Jones than I did. But there were a few that, now I had the light to read them in, seemed to be at least a little relevant. 

I also found out that what I had failed to identify in the dark was a tinderbox. Which would’ve made fire. I swear I didn’t imagine Pancakes laughing at me as I slapped myself in the face with the booklet that explained its use to me. But after only a couple of days, I was strong and fed enough to be up and about. Dressing myself in the wool clothes — I tried not to think about Octavia or her mother undressing me — I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do in thanks. I didn’t exactly have any money to pay the family that had taken me in, for the food, the care, or for taking Pancakes on his daily walk. The Witch’s bag was full of bottles and pouches, all neatly organised and labeled (if illegibly so), and not a single one had anything I could identify as currency. 

Several of them I’d considered giving to them, but I didn’t think they’d be particularly interested in a small box of mustard seeds or whatever cantaloupe mold was supposed to be. I was still studying the contents of the bag when Octavia came in and saw me sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Glad to see you’re up,” she said with a very genuine but somehow strained smile. I did my best to return it, but quickly stopped when I realised how awkward I properly looked. Come to think of it, I didn’t actually know what I looked like. I still had no real grasp on what my face looked like, but I could already feel facial hair growing in. It made an insufferable grating sound when I ran my thumb across it. Octavia wrung her hands together, and she moved her mouth a few times like she wanted to say something. The overall effect was of someone trying to keep a frog from escaping their mouth.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, cutting that particular knot for her. “Have I been here too long? I promise I’ll be gone soon if you can tell me which way to go…”

“That — That isn’t it, sir,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. It was weird to have a fully grown and clearly quite capable woman call me ‘Sir’. I’d always been a ‘Hey You There’ or the occasional ‘Mister’, but never a ‘Sir’.

“What’s up?” I asked as I stood up. She wrung her hands more. 

“Well, it’s father, y’see. He’s got a cut on his leg and it ‘ent healing properly. Since you’re a witch and all, I was wondering…” She bit her lip, and I realised that she was the one who felt like she wouldn’t be able to pay me. This was probably a terrible time to tell her I wasn’t the witch mentioned. The least I could do was try to help, right?

“You, uh, want me to have a look, yeah?” Octavia immediately grew beet red, then blushed. I frowned slightly. The ‘demure damsel’ wasn’t my favourite trope, but she seemed to hold me in some esteem now that I was dressed in my wool blacks again. “Lead the way,” I said, grabbing the bag and reaching into it, mentally running through everything I’d picked up the last day. It sounded like an infection, and other than “um, boil water I guess” I wasn’t sure what else I’d be able to contribute. And if it was broken, the best I could probably do was maybe make a splint and try not to throw up. 

Octavia’s face lit up and she spun on her heels, leading me out of the room. As she went ahead, I leafed quickly through the various wildlife survival magazines, although most of them had helpful advice like “call someone,” “bring your own first aid kit” and “get to your car.” She led me out of the room, which had been small and cozy, into a larger living room. It was all fairly well furnished, but I didn’t really know what I’d expected. Medieval farm equipment? Maybe a hole in the wall instead of a window? 

As we walked in, Pancakes got up off the floor and stretched lazily. He’d been sitting up in front of the fire there, presumably after having been let out for a bit, his legs tucked under him. He still needed to do his business, and I wasn’t going to hold the bedpan for him. He walked up to me and I scratched the top of his head. He gave me a soft “brrp”, and I was once again astounded by how large wolves were.

Another door, into what appeared to be a private bedroom, and a sleeping man. The window had been covered, presumably to allow the large man on the bed to sleep. And large he was. I had to take a second look. I used to think I was large, but this man could probably have tossed me one-handed without too much effort. He was a tree of a man. 

“Da,” Octavia said, “you awake?” With a groan, the figure on the bed sat up, and Octavia opened the curtains. 

“I’m awake, Vi,” he said, “though I’d much rather not be.” He  pushed himself backwards to lean against the headboard. Now that the morning light shone on him, it was easier to see his features. He had the kind of full beard moustaches wished they could grow up to be. “This your man?”

I’d expected Octavia to blush demurely again at the implications in that statement, but instead she shot her father the kind of glare usually only seen used by customer service employees. “No, Da, and you’ll be good to leave that be. But the Witch is here to have a look at your leg.” He started to grumble, but Octavia hurried over to him and poked his chest with a finger. “You’ve been in bed for three days, Da. If that doesn’t get any better, we’ll have to have old man Willie take your leg off.” Crossing his arms and sniffing loudly, the man sat back but said nothing. “Good man,” Octavia said. She looked at me. “Go ahead, sir. He’ll not complain.” She glared at her father again. “He better not.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, hurrying over. I didn’t want to risk Octavia’s wrath. I uncovered the indicated leg. It was bandaged quite well, although they were clearly already a bit bled through. “How long’s it been since that was put on?” I asked. 

“Ma put it on when she put me to bed,” the man grumbled. “You tellin’ me she did bad work, Witch man?” I shook my head vigorously. I had never applied a bandage in my life. 

“Not at all,” I said, “just that it needs refreshing.” 

“How do I help?” Octavia asked, standing next to me. The demure air was still gone, thankfully, eager more than anything. 

“Uh… can you go boil some water?” I asked with the straightest face I could manage. “And get some fresh bandages.” I started to undo the bandages a little awkwardly, and it was quite clear that this was not healing well. It reeked. I gritted my teeth and mentally went over everything I knew. Okay, so this was clearly infected. High school biology meant that this was… uh… bacterial, probably. “How’d you get the cut?”

“Pasture,” the man said. “Grazed a piece of kit David — the, uh, farmhand — had left lying around.” His tone told me David had probably gotten more than an earful, and it wouldn’t be his last. “No rust or anything, just well-used.”

Okay, so… bacterial infection. What did you need for bacterial infections? Well, clean bandages and sterile water, right? That’s what the boiling was for. And um… antibiotics? I obviously didn’t have any antibiotics. 

However, there was something. I went to my bag and rummaged through it. Not the survival guides, those were largely useless and assumed I had access to a pharmacy. But there had been a little ‘what to do in the post-apocalypse?’ There had been something there. “Penicillin!” I said out loud. The man in bed frowned at me. 

“No, it ain’t that high up my leg,” he said. Suddenly he looked worried. “I don’t think?” Barely resisting a chuckle, I shook my head. 

“No sir,” I said. “Pencillin’s medication.” The look of relief on his face was almost comical, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had no idea what I was doing. The article mostly outlined what I needed to make it myself, the mold that had been used, and how injecting yourself with homemade penicillin had a high chance of giving you an infection so bad you might as well start chopping limbs right off the bat. “Hold on,” I said to myself. The mold grew okay-ish on bread and vegetables, but especially on…

I dove back into the bag, retrieving various different bottles and flasks, until I found one I’d seen just a little bit before. Maybe this Witch had discovered what had taken my own country until the nineteenth century to figure out. Finding the right ceramic bottle, I held it up triumphantly. “Cantaloupe Mold Extract”. 

For a moment, I felt really, really good about myself, until I realised I had no idea what to do now. Going back to the booklet, I wondered if the witch had gone through the trouble of the entire distillation process, or if this was just… powdered mold. The distinction, according to the survival manual, would likely mean the difference between killing the man or saving his leg. I swallowed and undid the cork. There was a fine powder inside, and a very faint smell of alcohol. It stung my eyes and I pulled away slightly. Okay, that was a good sign. 

“You alright there, boy?” the man asked, and it was all I could do to flash him a reassuring smile. 

“Yes sir,” I said. “Just making sure I’ve got my, uh, amounts right. You don’t have a scale here, do you?” He shook his head. “Okay,” I mumbled. “All right.” Octavia walked back in with the fresh bindings and a steaming bowl of water. She put it down next to the bed, but I took her arm and nudged to the room next door. She frowned but followed me. “Look,” I said, trying to figure out how I was going to say this, “I’m still… a bit unwell from what happened in the snow. I can help, I think, but my memory is, um, not working like it should. I’m going to need your help with some things.” 

She gave me a weird look — and who could blame her — but she nodded, if a little hesitantly. “Will Da be okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said, holding up the box of mold extract. “We’re going to have to inject him, which I’ve n— I can’t for the life of me remember how to do. But if we do that…” I thought back to the magazine, “three times a day, he should come out fine.”

Octavia’s mouth moved as she repeated what I’d said to herself, and then she nodded. “Well, unless your memory comes to you while we work,” she said, “we’ll just have to do this together, aye?” She gave me a beaming smile that contained more confidence than I’d experienced in my life, cumulatively, and then went back into the room. I shook my head in disbelief and went in after her. 

Cleaning and dressing the wound was a disgusting task, but it wasn’t hard to get it right. Octavia dispatched of the old bindings, promising to burn them later, while I washed the leg mostly unsteadily. Finally, with her help, I figured out how to dissolve what I had to estimate was about two hundred milligrams. There was a very small measuring cup inside the bag, but the Witch’s handwriting was such a thin little scrawl I had to guess. 

Finally, I managed to not only find but operate the needle. 

“C’mon, Da,” Octavia said as her father squirmed and grimaced, “you’ve wrestled a bull, no little needle’s going to scare the likes of you.” More grumbling, more trying to keep a man twice my volume down, but eventually we got the needle into his arm. 

I was washing my hands in a washbasin outside, kind of enjoying the cold of it. Made the whole thing feel a little more clean, and after that, I didn’t know if my hands were ever going to feel clean again. Octavia joined me. 

“You did good,” I said, feeling like I had to say something. She gave me a smirk. 

“So did you,” she winked. “You looked like you were going to faint there, several times.” I bit my tongue. I’d hoped I’d put up a better front than that. “But Da’s asleep now, and I hope we can all rest easier for it.”

“Yeah,” I said and took a deep breath. We stood together in silence for a moment, until she gave me one of those looks, the ones I’d seen girls give me before. Not the really bad ones, but one of those that made me feel like she could look right through me. 

“What’s next for the Witch, sir?” she asked. And then, as if she could read my mind, “Any trouble remembering where you live?” I clenched my jaw and looked at her. I gave a short nod. “I’ll walk you there t’morrow, sir Witch,” she said. “I reckon it’ll be good to be out of the house.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She started to turn to go inside, and then paused. “What’s your name, sir?” I blinked. Was this a trick question? Did she know the Witch’s name? Was she trying to figure out if I wasn’t who she thought I was? Or was she genuinely interested? I couldn’t just give her my old name, regardless. 

“Just… just Witch is fine,” I said, and realised that I’d possibly never hear my old name again. There were worse things, all considered.

Elamimax

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