One breath. One act. One choice.
Do good. Stay clean. Hold steady.
The quill hovered over the parchment. With each stroke, I poured my thoughts into the words, shaping them to do my bidding:
“Fates, I call upon your age-old wisdom.
Take this mother’s pain over time.
Heal her hands slowly, and leave no scars.
As I command, so it goes.”
The ink settled into the fibers of the parchment, shimmering faintly before fading into an ordinary black scrawl. A shiver rolled down my spine, then spread outward like the warmth of a whiskey shot hitting the bloodstream. My legs trembled, but a deep sense of relief followed, thrumming through every nerve, softening the ache in my head. The magic had taken hold. I folded the parchment carefully, tucking it into my pocket.
Magic, especially this kind, wasn’t to be trusted loosely.
Turning back to the workbench, I found the children still stirring, their faces alight with concentration. The wooden spoon clinked rhythmically against the bowl.
“Good job,” I said, offering them a smile. “You’ve done well.” With gentle hands, I emptied the mixture into a small container and sealed it tightly, the scent of lavender lingeringin the air. I gathered a vial of alcohol, clean cloths, and a small tin of numbing powder, balancing them carefully in my arms as I approached the mother.
“Is there anyone at home who can help you care for the wounds and apply the lotion?” I asked, soaking a cloth in the alcohol. The liquid gleamed under the dim light, catching on the rough fibers. She shook her head, her gaze fixed on the floorboards.
“No,” she whispered. “My mother’s too old. And my husband…” Her voice cracked. “He died in a mining accident a few years ago.” Her words hit like a cold wind, sharp and sudden. I swallowed hard, the familiar ache of loss stirring deep in my chest. My father had been taken in the same way. The memory still pressed against the edges of my heart.
I measured the numbing powder, mixing it into a glass of water until the pale liquid swirled into an opaque mist. “Drink this,” I murmured. I lifted the glass to her lips as she downed the contents in a few determined gulps. The tension in her shoulders eased almost immediately, and the faint lines of pain softened around her eyes. I guided her hands gently onto a clean cloth spread across the table, the skin raw and angry.
“Stay still,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady.
Turning to the children, I beckoned them closer. “Come help me,” I offered with a reassuring nod. “We’ll take care of her together.” The children nodded eagerly.
“Tonight, I want you to help your mother and be gentle with her. Take one of these wipes and carefully dab it across your mother’s hands, exactly like that.” As I spoke, I was already disinfecting the burned skin. “It will sting a little, but you are not going to hurt your mother. When her handsare clean, I want you to help her open the container with the lotion and help her apply it. Do you think you can do that?”
The mother thanked me over and over again, promising me to come back with payment. I refused, but I was certain that one day she would return to settle her debt. What she didn’t know was that it was me who was settling a debt, one that I could never fully repay.
* * *
When they had left, it was already completely dark outside, my head throbbing again and the tiredness in my bones being almost too much to bear. For a second, I pondered lying down on the stretcher and not going home at all, but the promise of a cooked meal waiting for me at home made me get up and lock up the surgery.
The lamplighter had already made his rounds, leaving the streets bathed in the faint, flickering glow of the black lanterns. The soft light seemed to shiver in the cool night air, casting long shadows across the cobblestones.
I remembered my mother’s voice, warm and comforting, telling me stories of a time before the Gods had left our world. She spoke of glowing orbs that hovered above the streets, pulsing with vibrant hues. Blue, green, and red lights danced in the air like fireflies on a hot summer night. The warm light, she said, had swallowed the night whole, leaving only soft, golden shadows.
I wasn’t sure if she had truly believed these tales, or if she’d invented them to ease my fear of the dark as we had walked back home at night. But I liked imagining a world where light never fled, where the night couldn’t creep in and stealaway the warmth. The thought lingered in the back of my mind as the lantern’s light flickered again, casting a lonely glow along the street. It wasn’t the warmth of an orb, but it was enough.
By the time I reached home, a steady throb had settled in my temples, radiating down my neck in sharp pulses that made it feel like my skull might split. Each step was heavy, each breath a little harder to take. I eased the door open as quietly as I could, careful not to disturb the silence in case my mother had already fallen asleep. The dim light from the hearth spilled into the open kitchen and living area, casting soft, flickering shadows across the room. There, in her favorite armchair by the fire, was my mother. Her frail form was outlined by the warm glow, and the fire still crackled low, as though she had stayed up waiting for me, until exhaustion had finally claimed her. As I knelt down beside her, I removed my boots, the soft creak of the floorboards barely audible. Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She stirred, her eyes fluttering open, and a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“Long day at the surgery again, my dear?” My mother’s voice was soft.
I smiled, though my hands, clenched into tight fists, betrayed me. The pain in them was so intense that I could barely hold back a grimace as she took them in hers. The warmth of her hands only seemed to heighten the throb that pulsed through my fingers, and I quickly pulled them back.
I moved to the kitchen and turned on the tap, letting the cold water run over my hands. It did little to numb the sharp ache that was now pulling at the edges of my vision.
I tried to focus on something, anything, other than thepain.
“There’s soup on the stove and a chunk of bread in the basket,” my mother called from her chair, her voice light. The scent of the soup wafted toward me, and my stomach growled in response. I couldn’t help but smile; my mother had made my favorite, lentil soup. Somehow, she always knew when I was having a hard day.
I’d meant to go straight to bed, but the hunger gnawed at me, so I sat at the table beside her, pushing the thoughts of exhaustion aside, if only for a moment. I told her about the patients I’d seen that day, the usual gossip drifting through town. Nothing important, but she loved it, and I was happy to indulge her. Her eyes lit up as she listened.
