Obstetrix(15)

My dad laughed and told me that if I would memorize my times tables, properly, by the end of third grade—which was coming right up, at that point—he would quit smoking for real. If I didn’t, he wanted me to stop nagging him.

I had my times tables memorized two weeks later. My dad let me throw away all his cigarettes, and after that, as far as I knew, he’d never touched them again.

And because I’d finally jumped through that memorization hoop I was able to get into the advanced math class the next year, which led to the advanced STEM-track classes, which ultimately got me into med school.

It was kind of ironic I’d been so worried about the cigarettes. Something like half his friends from his years in Vietnam had died of cancer, not from cigarettes but from Agent Orange exposure. Dad was doing fine.

At least, last I knew he was doing fine.

That was a stressful thought, not a comforting thought.

All my escape plans assumed I’d be able to get away without freezing to death. I might have to wait until the weather warmed up, months from now. And if I walk along the road they’ll find me, and if I walk through the woods I might never make it out of the woods …

I don’t need to figure all this out right now, I told myself, and tried to sink back into the memories of The Onyx Dagger again. I managed to get my mind out of the “but if I walk along the road they’ll find me, but if I walk through the woods I’ll get eaten by a bear” circle that felt like my brain was on one of those spinning playground merry-go-rounds we’d had back in the 1980s, but I didn’t get back to sleep.

In The Onyx Dagger, Princess Deirdre, among her many other adventures, is held prisoner for a while. It’s doubly tense, in the book, because her captors don’t know who she is; she’s traveling incognito with her friend Isabelle, still disguised as a boy. Isabelle is recognized and taken away (that’s when she gets hypnotized); Deirdre is kept with the common folk who’ve been taken prisoner. So she’s not as heavily guarded, but she’s also definitely viewed as disposable. She has to escape, knowing that if she’s caught, she’ll be killed out of hand.

When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, I replayed that scene in my head.

“As long as they haven’t cast us into chains yet, there’s still hope of escape,” Deirdre whispered to her fellow prisoners. “But escape we must. They’ll send us to the mines if we don’t.”

“At least we’ll be alive if we’re in the mines,” one of the men said, angrily.

“For a month or two, sure. Better to die fighting than die of the sulfur fumes.”

“We can probably get you away,” one of the other prisoners said. “You’re a young lad, your whole life ahead of you.”

Deirdre let that tempt her for a moment, then shook her head. What sort of princess—what sort of queen would she be if she allowed her people to save her, and not themselves? There must be a way.

There must be a way.



Outside, someone rang the dining hall bell. There was a way, in the book, but it involved a telepathic cat. I hadn’t even seen any regular cats here. I got up, dressed, and put my coat back on. I pulled the mattress back an inch and added a hash mark to my count of days. Then I went up to get breakfast.



* * *



“TODAY’S NOT A CLINIC day, just so you know,” Sarah told me as I got myself scrambled eggs and a bowl of oatmeal. “You’ll be staying up here after breakfast. Unless someone goes into labor, of course!”

“Or has some other health crisis?” I said. “I assume sometimes people get sick or injured?” Maybe they took those into town? But Sarah nodded enthusiastically.

“Last month, Sister Janet sprained her ankle. I used the ultrasound to make sure it wasn’t broken and wrapped it. It’ll be good to have a real doctor here.”

There was a lot that could go wrong if you had an obstetrician doing your orthopedics. But honestly, we were probably far enough from the nearest hospital that if you had a doctor close by, you’d want them to do what they could even if it was just keeping someone from bleeding out while you called for a medevac.

I wondered if they’d get a medevac if someone like Brother Ethan had an accident with some farm machinery, or if I’d be what he got, like Joy.

“Anyway,” Sarah said. “On Fridays, I help out in the kitchen and teach a fitness class.” She laid out a list that had definitely been laser printed, so one more reason to think there was a computer around here somewhere. It was a list of tasks. “Of the highlighted tasks, which do you think you might like to help out with?”

I picked up the list. My first thought was to wonder what they’d do if I said no. But if I wanted to lull them, even a little, I had to cooperate. Also, the best case if I refused was that they’d pack me off back to my cabin and leave me to die of boredom.

Also, maybe I could get out from Sarah’s supervision and try talking to some of the other women. See if anyone seemed like a good candidate for carrying a message.

I looked over the list. The cooking tasks were all highlighted, probably because Sarah could watch me herself. Most of the cleaning tasks weren’t, probably because I’d be unsupervised for long periods. Knitting, hand embroidery, and custom beading were not highlighted but had a circle around them and a question mark. “Custom beading?” I asked.