Mae blinked. "Oh. Well, yes, we're very proud of it," she managed. "I'm afraid you've arrived just as the day is ending, however."
"Oh, yes, I know, I know," he said, still grinning as he dropped her hand and did a full circle to take the room in yet again. "I just couldn't stay away until tomorrow. I had to see it for myself."
“Dr. Govindacharya,” she said cautiously, taking a step toward him. “I’m afraid there have been some developments that I need to bring you abreast of …”
“Who’s this, then?” came Mr. Reed’s voice, sudden and sharp at her elbow.
She turned to see him standing there, arms crossed and eyebrows raised as he beheld the new doctor.
“Just Ravi is fine,” the doctor said to her, turning back, still grinning with those sparkling white teeth. “Brilliant pronunciation, though.
“Oh, hello! You must be Dr. Bethel.”
Reed flashed him a humorless smile, his freckles stretching over his mouth. “I am not.”
“No?” said Ravi, holding his hand out anyhow. “Well, either way, it’s a pleasure. Ravi Govindacharya. I’ll be the new physician here.”
For a moment, Mae was concerned that Mr. Reed was not going to shake the other man’s hand. His eyes flicked down to it, blinking twice, and his smile dropped. But in the end he did step forward, reach out, and clasp it with a firm grip.
“Reed,” he said with one of those nods that was masculine shorthand for tentative acceptance. “I am part of the developments Miss Casper is alluding to.”
“If you’ll just allow me to close up,” she said, grimacing in what she hoped looked something like a polite smile. “We may converse further. Mr. Reed, could you clear the upstairs? Please?”
He glanced at her, a smirk ghosting over his mouth at that last, plaintive word. He turned without answering and took the stairs two at a time to do exactly that.
“He seems chatty,” Ravi observed. “Mind if I look around?”
“Be my guest. Just do not leave, please, until I’ve had a moment to speak with you,” Mae said, already stepping toward the infirmary to chase off the last of the evening’s visitors and lingering patients.
“I’ll just tidy as I go, shall I?” he asked no one in particular, already bending to grab a few discarded rags as he moved toward the procedure room, whistling to himself.
Mae returned from the infirmary to find the kits already at their sweeping, the hamper full, and Ravi at the washbasin with the metal utensils as Roland came down the stairs, looking just as surprised as she felt.
They had never closed this quickly. Not even when they’d been a tent.
“Ahem,” Mae said, glancing at Roland as he sent his two adult patrolmen outside to light the torches and do a round of the block. “We may speak now, I suppose.”
“Oh, all right,” said Ravi, glancing up as he dried the last of the instruments. “These children are very competent. They showed me where all the cleaning supplies are.”
“My kits,” Roland said, touching Winston’s head as he passed him.
Mae frowned, glancing at Winston and noting, silently, that he still hadn’t sprouted a single chicken pock.
“Kits,” Ravi repeated, “little foxlings, are they? Charming! Say, should I be concerned that you’ve got night watchmen at this clinic?”
“No,” said Roland.
“Yes,” said Mae with a sigh. “That is what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m afraid we’ve been the target of a bit of harassment of late. I should have written to warn you, but it only really kicked off in earnest a couple of weeks ago, and I suppose in my naiveoptimism, I had hoped it was nothing but a … well, a series of very similar flukes.”
“Oh? What sorts of flukes?” Ravi asked, setting down his cleaning and walking around the basin to lean against the table, bracing his hands backward against the edge. “Nothing violent, I hope?”
“Only to the pigs,” Winston provided helpfully.
“Winston,” Mae said wearily.
“Is that a euphemism, or …?”
“No, he is being literal,” Mae said, shooing him back to his sweeping. “Medical students have been dumping animal parts from dissection lessons on our doorstep for the last few nights. It is a sight more disgusting than the graffiti they left before, but it is cheaper to clean up, at the very least.”
