Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and Follow the story so far! Special thanks to CompositionC, Voldemort's Spawn, Lucy36, DarkNightsAndPrettyStars, Magicstrikes, Channyfaith, Aelan Greenleaf, Kawoosh, Elliesmeow, .dalliance, coloradoandcolorado1, Calicar, IvPayne, SexyKnickers,Ssmill, aye2skeye, Francesca Wayland, Lono, PhoenixCrystal, Saoirse09, and Adi Who is Also Mou for their very kind reviews!
As for the rating, it's T for now. I don't know if that will change. If it does, you'll get plenty of notice, or I could always post an M chapter separately to retain the rating on this story. We'll see how it goes.
Molly awoke snuggled under several blankets on the narrow cot at Grandmother's small cottage, wearing only her underthings. After a moment's disorientation, she recalled the older woman nagging her out of her wet and muddied clothes as she related her frightening journey through the woods. Gran had clucked and fretted about the wolves, and set to scrubbing Molly's belongings and soaking her scarlet cloak in the wash tub. She gave Grandmother only the bare bones of her harrowing story, unsure of how to explain the encounter with the second wolf by the stream. The contents of the basket were amazingly not ruined, though the roasted chicken had fallen to pieces.
"Never mind that, dearie, it'll make for a lovely stew. And the remedies are sorely needed." Gran had frowned slightly as she ran her fingers over the unusual design Soo Lin had painted on the pots. "Haven't seen these in years. Strange woman, that potter."
"What do you mean?" Molly was sleepy and nodding off on the cot by that time, the rush of energy from the chase having burned off and left her exhausted.
"The hex." She tipped the painted side of the medicine pot toward Molly. "They were popular when I was a girl, though the star inside the circle usually only had five or six points. Eight is a bit much, eh? Good for warding off the plague and other evils," Gran said thoughtfully.
She wrinkled her nose and added, "Superstitious nonsense, of course. If you want to keep the evils out, there's nothing like a good sage burning."
"That's true." The flickering fire from the hearth and familiar smell of the cottage lulled Molly and she felt herself drifting off. "Is the peppermint oil alright? Your hip…"
"Oh it's atrocious as ever but I'll use the oil on the patients, they need it more. Besides, the new healer we've just got from the North prepares an herbal concoction, and it works just as well. He's been a great help to the Colony. I'll introduce you to him to tomorrow."
Grandmother leaned over her and kissed her forehead. She was reassuringly the same as ever to Molly, her greying brown hair tucked under a white cap and a warm smile on her face. She snuffed the candle by the bed and bid goodnight. "Sleep long and well. There's much to be done. The Falling has brought us twelve more souls since you visited last."
Molly tugged on the sleeves of the undersized old dress borrowed from Grandmother while her own clothes dried on the rope. Her cloak on the clothesline flapped against itself in the strong autumn wind, the bloody red contrasting the dying golden grasses beyond the yard. She crossed the field between the cottage and the fence, grateful for the sunny morning. The breezes were strong but her face was warm and cheeks rosy as she neared the caves.
A short ashen-haired man stood near the entranceway, arguing with a youngling who held onto an armful of orange ivy defiantly.
"Don't care, it's mine!" the boy shouted as Molly drew close.
"But if you're eating it, it could be what's making you ill," the tired-looking man replied. He ran a hand through his short greying hair, and his jaw clenched in frustration.
"I don't eat them, I'm not stupid. I just like to look at them. Hey Molly! Mum, the good healer's here. Come out!" the boy shouted into the cave. He waved and jogged toward her as Molly opened the gate while trying not to jostle her basket. She'd emptied it of everything but the necessary treatment for the ill.
"Did you bring any grapes this time?" the boy asked hopefully. His wide grin and freckles softened the harsh effects of the disease on his face, but the rashes and the beginning of infection on one boil still pained her to see. Peter had been living at the Colony for six months, and the Falling had settled into his body comfortably, taking him into the middle stage where recovery was unlikely. The middle stage could last as long as two years with the rot coming toward the end of the period, but after that paralysis and death came quickly.
"I'm sorry, Peter, I didn't. It was a poor growing season this year. I do have a letter from your aunt. Is your mum feeling well today?"
Peter shrugged. "She fell when she tried to get up so she's staying on the blankets. I'll bring her the letter. She'll be right grateful for a bit of gossip." Molly drew the folded letter from her basket and he snatched it from her gleefully.
"Do you suppose I could have a word with your mum, if I go into the cave?" the unfamiliar man interrupted. Peter gave him a filthy look and ran for the caves, brandishing the letter.
"Apologies, miss, I'm a healer, but it seems the residents don't care for new faces."
Molly frowned, but then her face cleared. "Oh you're the one Grandmother mentioned! I'm sorry, I had a strange night and I'm not as quick as usual. I'm Molly Hooper." She set down her basket and extended her hand.
"John Watson." He smiled, and his tired face transformed into a much younger one. His eyes were a brilliant dark blue, and the lines around his mouth and eyes show good humor. His handshake was firm and the palms callused.
A hard worker, Molly thought to herself, not the sort of healer to delegate the treatment to apprentices. So many healers sat back and collected piles of coin while never touching a sick person, but John Watson was clothed in plain trousers and a worn tunic. His only adornment was the silver ring on his left hand.
"Are you staying long, Mister Watson?"
"John, please. And yes, for the foreseeable future. I was helping a colony back home, and trying to see if I could learn more about the cause. Thought some people were beginning to improve, but after a second wave of lung sickness this summer…Well, there wasn't much point in staying anymore."
She understood. Once their bodies were weakened by the Falling, all sorts of infection preyed on the afflicted, and a simple summer cold was often fatal. A dedicated healer like John would only have abandoned the colony up north for one reason: they were all dead.
"Is that why you wanted to speak with Peter's mum? We've searched long and hard to find a cause for the disease, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason, other than those living in the village center itself are more likely to contract it. Like Peter and his mother- she ran the tavern with her husband. He passed on two months ago, after the rot took hold in his leg." Molly dug through the basket, looking for the other letters while she searched her brain. "Good hygiene doesn't improve one's chances, and the food doesn't seem to be a factor. Grandmother and I have searched and read what we could, but we've found nothing."
As Molly and the new healer walked slowly down to the caves, a dozen hooded and robed figures emerged from the darkness.
"In the village itself? That's interesting." He scratched his ear, and glanced at the shuffling patients. "I hadn't noticed that up north. I would still like to speak with everyone though. I really thought I was making progress before they…" John trailed off, his eyes haunted for a moment, before being distracted by the approaching people.
"We can't change the past, but we can keep searching for answers," Molly said gently, squeezing his arm. "Let's get to work, shall we?"
In the darkness of the cave, he waited and watched. The brown robe he wore was loose on his lean body and the hood covered most of his face. The cowl was a style favored by the victims of the Falling, who couldn't bear snug clothing on their inflamed and sometimes decaying skin. It suited his purposes as well- it was a garment easy to slip in and out of quickly and it disguised his preternatural grace. Though he could affect the gravelly voice and stooped posture of a sick man, his unmarked porcelain skin and healthy muscles would expose him as a fraud.
He had gathered all he could on this visit from the caves and the shacks that sheltered the victims. He'd have liked to get a urine sample from one of them at each stage of the illness to study, but humans were embarrassed by their body functions. It would draw too much attention if he asked for some of their fluids. He might be able to follow an individual when they took themselves off to a private spot to relieve themself, but that was still risky and he'd rather not have samples contaminated by the dirt. It was a frustrating obstacle, but he would have to proceed with the information he'd collected so far.
He'd intended to just spend an hour or two at the Colony before sneaking out under the broken portion of the fence that surrounded the voluntary quarantine land. But as he stepped away from the cluster of patients, the woman came and her scent flowed into the cave and his nostrils as strongly as if she were in his arms.
He watched the woman join the patients that were still able to walk. They formed a line in front of her, and waited patiently for remedies and potions to ease their pain. The new healer, the male, was assessed and discarded as mildly interesting but not a threat.
The plain green gown the brown-haired female wore was clearly not her own, he noted, with the sleeves ending two and a half inches above her delicate wrists and the skirt hem only halfway down her calves. He stroked his bottom lip in thought. She seemed unaware of the picture she presented, in a dress too tight and showing too much skin for a grown woman. She moved with precision and practicality, completely lacking seductiveness.
And yet he remembered the way her legs had looked last night, with her pale skin exposed in the moonlight, the skirt tossed above her knees invitingly, her bare flesh framed by the crimson cloak. His fingers tightened into fists as he recalled the scent of her, lying in the dirt, smelling of garden soil and herbs, fresh-picked apples, meat and smoke and woman, yes, underneath all those fascinating odors was pure woman vulnerable on her back before him. Once the shock of her appearance by the stream had fallen away, he'd been seized by the urge to shift back into human form. He drew close to her where she'd fallen, and if he'd had an ounce less of self-control, he'd have been human again, licking a hot stripe from the back of her knee, up her inner thigh, and-
The hooded man cut into his palms with his fingernails, digging until he bled and refocused on the scene before him.
The intriguing spread of the Falling and its stubborn recurrence was why he was there, not some healing woman and the mindless Pull that his kind were subjected to-
No not that, he cut himself off. It's not the Pull. It's just a scent. A good scent, but all scents fade. And you are not an animal, no matter what shape you take.
He moved forward until the bright sunlight warmed his mouth and nose. His eyes were completely masked by the hood and so he directed himself to the line of patients using his other senses. The healers applied ointments and offered advice, quickly and compassionately. The male was generous with the joking flirtation, and had the previously distrustful Peter laughing with him after he told a rather raunchy joke about a bull mistaken for a dairy cow by a blind man.
Smart, he considered. More than I realized. A boy who grew up in a tavern will trust the honestly ribald fellow over the polite fool he was pretending to be before.
The last woman in line for the male healer- John, his name was- smiled shyly beneath her blue cowl, and it was illuminating. In seconds, he understood everything he needed to know about the weary healer from the North, with his lovingly maintained ring and determination to learn more about the disease.
The woman (Molly, his mind insisted, they called her Molly) worked in a much quieter manner. Her brown eyes remained focused on each patient, and only after she was done smoothing on balm would she inquire after their mother or offer gossip from the village. As she soothed each symptom with the remedies from her basket, her scent changed slightly. Notes of lavender, and peppermint, and aloe found their way into the bouquet of her. It was almost overwhelming for his hypersensitive nose.
He shook his head to clear the odors from his nostrils.
"Are you alright?" Her voice was light and mellow. Her gently curving smile turned to him now.
He nodded and stepped forward.
"Mind if I have a sit-down on the grass? My back's aching." Molly dropped onto the ground by her basket without waiting for an answer, tucking the skirt beneath her as best she could manage.
He shrugged and knelt.
"I don't think we've met- have you joined the Colony just in the last month?" Molly asked, shifting in the brown grass. She threaded her hands in the plants idly. It was easy to forget in the changing season, when the sun shone on them, but she felt the coming freeze in the hardness of the soil beneath the grass she sat on.
The tall man in the dark cowl nodded again, and Molly frowned. She tried to find a polite way to ask him if the Falling had taken his tongue already.
Before she could speak again, the man cleared his throat and a few rough words tumbled out.
"Yes. New. 'Pologies." The speech was rounded like a local's accent, but there was a touch of strangeness there, as though he had spent much of his life elsewhere. Seeming to sense Molly's curiosity, the man bent his head forward, covering the full mouth she had briefly spied.
The fingers of his white hands were interlaced, and Molly realized they were beautifully untouched by the illness, the skin creamy and the digits elegant.
What a shame, she thought with a pang. They should be plucking a harp or curving around a paint brush like Soo Lin's. But they would likely rot within a year if he already needed to cover his body so completely.
She pushed aside the familiar sadness.
"What can I do for you, sir? Have you noticed any new red patches, any pus? Have you experienced any convulsions? Have any of your muscles failed?" He shook his hooded head at every inquiry.
Molly twisted her mouth in thought. "Well…what can I do to ease your pain then? Do any of your body parts pain you?"
He hesitated, and then lifted his right hand, palm up, to her. Molly cradled his hand between hers gently, examining the clean skin and rubbing her thumb over his fingertips.
"Can you feel this, in each finger? Some find their blood circulation becomes poor, and you may feel a tingling or a burning sort of pain. Can you feel this?" He nodded as she poked and rubbed each digit in turn. When she finished, she released him only to find her hand caught up in both of his.
He raised her fingers to his mouth, and she saw his lips again, set in a crooked smile. He pressed his mouth to her soft palm, and inhaled.
"Thank you, Molly. I am well." His voice was clearer now, and deep. There was a musical rhythm to his intonation, and she had the sudden desire to push the cowl hood from his head to know what sort of man this was. "Hands tell a story. So many lines and cuts for a young female. Pale ring of skin around your finger. Your husband, he's been gone four or five years. But you didn't remove your wedding band until the last year. Interesting."
He dropped her hand and stood quickly. Molly flushed and looked left at John to see if he had observed the exchange. He was in conversation with his final patient, a blue-hooded woman who was also unknown to her.
When Molly looked back to where the tall man had been standing, he was gone.
