I sighed. “Let’s look on the bright side. At least we’ll have some help keeping an eye on them.”
Matthew had consumed a full glass of wine by this point and was beginning to look less dazed.
“It’s true that Corra was quick to defend you if you were in danger,” Matthew said.
“And she was even quicker to come to my aid if I needed help or a bit of a magical boost,” I said, taking his hand in mine.
“Don’t you think it’s fascinating,” Agatha said, “that the power you possess comes with its own safety monitor? And in the form of a mythological creature, no less.”
“I’ve always wondered how weavers discovered they were different if there weren’t other weavers around to help them, and how they approached the problem of creating spells instead of just learning to work them the traditional way by studying grimoires and the practices of other witches,” Sarah said. “Now I know.”
“Dad had a heron,” I reminded her. “When I saw him in the past, I never thought to ask him how old he was when Bennu showed up.”
“It seems to me that familiars are a little like an inoculation,” Marcus said. “A bit of magic that prevents greater harm. Makes perfect sense.”
“Does it?” I was so used to thinking of Corra in bicycle terms that it was difficult to switch to a different metaphor.
“I think so. A familiar is like a childhood vaccine,” Marcus said. “With all this talk of 1775, I’ve been thinking a lot about inoculation. Apart from the war, it was the main topic of conversation in the colonies. Remembering Bunker Hill brought it all back to me.”
“Until the Declaration of Independence was signed, surely.” I felt on familiar historical footing now. “That had to have upstaged medicine.”
“No such luck, Professor Bishop.” Marcus laughed. “Do you know what they were celebrating in Boston on the fourth day of July in 1776? Not something happening in faraway Philadelphia, I can tell you that. The talk of the town—and the whole colony—was the Massachusetts legislature’s decision to lift the ban on smallpox inoculations.”
Even today, there was no effective treatment for this terrible disease. Once contracted, it was highly contagious and potentially fatal. The infection led to a high fever and pus-filled blisters that left disfiguring scars. Matthew had made sure I was vaccinated against it before we timewalked. I remembered the single blister that had erupted at the vaccination site. I would carry the mark for the rest of my days.
“We were more terrified of that silent killer than all the British guns,” Marcus continued. “There were rumors of infected blankets and sick people deliberately left behind when the British withdrew from Boston. Your ancestor Sarah Bishop warned me that surgeons were going to be as necessary as soldiers if we wanted to win the war. She was right.”
“So you trained to become a surgeon after Bunker Hill?” I asked.
“No. First I went home and faced my father,” Marcus said. “Then winter came, and with it there was a lull in the fighting. When the battles resumed in the summer, and soldiers gathered together again from all over the colonies, the number of smallpox cases rose until we were on the brink of an epidemic.
“We had nothing in our medicine chests that could fight it, and only one hope of surviving it,” Marcus continued.
He turned his left palm heavenward, revealing a round, white scar with a dimpled center on the underside of his forearm.
“We deliberately gave ourselves a mild case of smallpox to make us immune. It would be almost certain death if we contracted the disease through incidental exposure,” he explained. “Our independence from the king might have been celebrated in Philadelphia, but in Massachusetts we were simply glad to finally have a fighting chance at survival.”
Massachusetts Historical Society, Mercy Otis Warren Papers Letter from Hannah Winthrop to Mercy Otis Cambridge, Massachusetts
8 July 1776
（EXCERPT FROM PAGE 2） The reigning Subject is the Small Pox. Boston has given up its Fears of an invasion & is busily employd in communicating the Infection. Straw beds & cribs are daily carted into the Town. That ever prevailing Passion of following the Fashion is as Predominant at this time as ever.
Men Women & children eagerly Crouding to innoculate is I think as modish, as running away from the Troops of a barbarous George was the last Year.
But ah my Friend I have not mentioned the Loss I have met with which lies near my heart the death of my dear Friend the good Madam Hancock, A powerfull attachment to this life broken off, you who knew her worth can Lament with me her departure. Ah the incertainty of all Terristrial happiness. Mr Winthrop joyns me Sincere regards to Coll Warren & you, he hopes we shall be favord with his company with you & your son.