“This is my casebook,” I said, with a sense of satisfaction at its weight. “I write down the names of the people who come to me with medical difficulties, and describe each one’s condition, and then I put down what it was that I did or prescribed for them, and whether it worked or not.”
She eyed the book with respect—and interest.
“Do they always get better?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m afraid they don’t always—but very often they do. ‘I’m a doctor, not an escalator,’” I quoted, and laughed before remembering that it wasn’t Brianna I was talking to.
Fanny merely nodded seriously, evidently filing away this piece of information.
I coughed.
“Um. That was a quote from a, er, doctor friend of mine named McCoy. I think the general notion is that no matter how skilled a person might be, every skill has its limits and one is well advised to stick to what one’s good at.”
She nodded again, eyes still fixed in interest on the book.
“Do you … think I might read it?” she asked shyly. “Only a page or two,” she added hastily.
I hesitated for a moment, but then laid the book on the table, opened it, and paged through to the spot where I had made a note about using gallberry ointment for Lizzie Wemyss’s malaria, as I hadn’t any Jesuit bark. Fanny had heard me talk about the situation to Jamie, and Lizzie’s recurrent ague was common knowledge on the Ridge.
“Yes, you may—but only the pages before this marker.” I took a slim black crow’s feather from the jar of quills and laid it next to the book’s spine at Lizzie’s page.
“Patients are entitled to privacy,” I explained. “You oughtn’t to read about people that are our neighbors. But these earlier pages are about people I treated in other places and—mostly—a long time ago.”
“I prrromise,” she said, her earnestness giving emphasis to her r’s, and I smiled. I’d known Fanny for only a few months, but I’d never once known her to lie—about anything.
“I know,” I said. “You—”
“Ho there, Missus Fraser!” A distant shout from outside interrupted me and I glanced through the window, down at what was becoming a well-marked trail running from the creek to the house. I blinked, then looked again. I knew that tall, thin, shambling figure …
“John Quincy!” I said, and thrusting the casebook into Fanny’s surprised hands hurried outside to meet him.
“Mr. Myers!” I nearly threw my arms around him but was abruptly checked by the fact that he was carrying a large, battered straw basket in his arms, and was surrounded—well, quite covered, in fact—by a swarm of bees, these buzzing so loudly that I could barely make out what he was saying. He saw this and courteously leaned down toward me, bringing the bees into uncomfortably close proximity.
“Brought ye some bees, Missus!” he shouted over the rumbling thrum of his passengers.
“I see!” I hollered back. “How lovely!” Fuzzy striped bodies were bumping and waggling in a brownish carpet over the threadbare homespun of his coat, and streaks and grains of yellow pollen in his beard, this somewhat longer, grayer, and stragglier than when I had first met him on the streets of Wilmington, twelve years ago.
Bree and Rachel—with Oggy—had heard the noise and come from the kitchen. They were staring at Myers in fascination.
“My daughter!” I shouted, pointing and standing on tiptoe in hopes of reaching his ear—Myers stood a good six foot seven in his stocking feet, and towered even over Brianna. “And Rachel Murray—Young Ian’s wife!”
“Young Ian’s woman?” Myers’s smile, always sweet, if half toothless, widened into a delighted grin. “And his young’un, too, I expect? It’s a pleasure, ma’am, a real pleasure!” He reached out a long arm toward Rachel, who went pale at sight of the heaving mass of bees, but swallowed and edged close enough to take his proffered hand, holding Oggy as far behind her as she could with one hand. I hastily stepped aside and took the baby from her, and she took a long breath.
So did I. The noise was making my skin twitch, memories of the sounds I’d heard amongst the standing stones burrowing toward the surface.
“I’m pleased to meet thee, Friend Myers,” Rachel said, raising her voice. “Ian speaks of thee in the warmest terms!”
“Much obliged to him for his good opinion, Missus.” He shook her hand warmly, then turned to Bree, who anticipated him by reaching for his hand herself, a wary eye on the bees.