I wake in the middle of the night to a ringing phone, my mind hazy as I stir and open my eyes. Wrapped around me is a thin frame, long arms and legs twisted around my torso and a nose tucked up against my chin. A silky desire curls around me as my fingers run along the soft skin pressed to my chest, Anne's scent encouraging an inward battle. The phone rings again and I curse whoever is calling me, reluctantly disentangling myself and hushing the gravelly voice that moans at my loss of contact.
I pad through the room to the kitchen as lightly as I can, picking up the receiver and listening as Marcus Murphy yells panicked words into the line. I try to calm him, asking him to explain what's happening with as much detail as he can as I scribble into the notebook I keep on the side table. Beth is outside the house, screaming into the night. I can feel the blood curdling screams through the line and it makes my stomach swoop anxiously.
"I'm on my way Marcus, just keep calm," I instruct and hang up. I don't manage to be quiet as I burst back into my room, a bedraggled Anne sitting up abruptly as I rummage through my closet.
"What's wrong? What's going on?" She asks innocently, the prickle of fear evident as she watches me disrobe and pull on my clothes as quickly as I can. I can't find the brain space to answer her as I look around for my bag, desperate and with a one track mind. "Gilbert! Tell me what's happening!" She shouts, breaking me from my search and causing me to look at her with wide eyes. Her face is pale, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes as she watches me.
I remember then that this is her first time being woken by an emergency, her first time being dragged back to the world of the living with possibly someone's life on the line. My first time had been wholly disorienting and I wouldn't redo it for all the money in the world.
"It's alright - just a situation at the Murphy's. I'll be back as soon as I can, try to go back to sleep," I ramble as she watches me return to my search. I see the clasp of the bag under the bed and fall to my knees to retrieve it, pausing only to look up at her when she grabs my face in her hands.
"What do you need?" She asks after a moment, her touch calming me in ways I can't understand.
"I've got it under control, love. I promise," I reply hastily and drag her towards me for a brief kiss. I don't have time for it but I can't help it, my soul flying at the thought that she was ready to run with me and face whatever was happening head on. She watches me go with a stunned look on her face, her hair flying around her in a picture worth a thousand words.
I ride towards the Murphy's as quickly as I can, pushing my horse to its limits as we barrel across the properties that run between us. I hear Beth before I see her, her voice wearing thin as she cries out in the low morning light.
The sight I come upon strikes me down and I rear the horse back as I approach, dismounting and tying him off to the fence post. Dropping my bag on the ground I move towards her with open hands, repeating her name as calmly as I can. She wields a knife and lurches at me, her face darkened with a madness I can't explain.
"Beth - I need you to drop the knife," I soothe, stepping closer and watching her every flinch. She shakes her head and spins towards the house, shouting at her husband hoarsely.
"He's trying to kill me! He won't let me near him!" She screams and stumbles, her nightgown fluttering in the wind. Marcus watches us from the door to the house, the light behind him casting a shadow over his face as he holds a crying infant in his arms.
"I need you to put the knife down or I can't help you," I repeat lowly, stepping forward and then leaning back as she thrashes out at me. It's a near miss but it gives me the opportunity to knock her wrist and cause her hand to release the blade. All my medical training is for naught as I rely on my football days to tackle her to the ground.
She screams so loudly, so forcefully, that it's nearly deafening as she struggles against my hold.
"Beth - hey, it's okay," I mumble as I push her hands into the grass, trying to force her into submission. Marcus comes out of the house and stands on the edge of my vision, watching me struggle against his wife's chaotic movements. "In my bag - there's a bottle that has a large 'C' on it. Hold the cloth - are you listening to me?" I grunt and look angrily at the man, watching as he stands frozen. "Marcus! Follow my instructions!"
I explain in the easiest terms I can how to prepare a rag with chloroform, struggling all the while to keep Beth from breaking free as the man slowly kneels before us with the cloth. It only takes a second of the sweet smelling liquid held to her nose for her to stop fighting me, her body going limp as I pull the cloth away.
Marcus swears, picking up Harris and watching as I do an initial exam on his wife in the little light that early dawn provides me. There are no open wounds, no blood or signs of trauma at first. But then I see it, the bruises on her collar, the dark streaks along her arms that come from combat.
I hold my tongue as I carry Beth inside the house and set her safely on the bed, my care for her keeping my blood pumping calmly when all I really want to do is drag Marcus Murphy six feet under.
"What happened to her?" I ask after I've loosely bound her wrists to the bedposts. I know it's a horrible thing to do but I've no choice - not when she could wake and hurt someone or herself in her state of psychosis.
"What do you mean? She just went crazy! Grabbed the knife from the kitchen and started losing it!" Marcus replies angrily, ignoring the sound of his son who starts to cry behind him. I watch as the man paces across the room and back, stalking and grumbling about his wife and her unwillingness to be a normal human again.
"Could you go into town for me Marcus? I'll need tobacco from the shop to treat her," I lie, desperate to come up with any reason to get him out of the house. He looks at me oddly, as though he doesn't believe what I'm requesting, but then relents and begins packing his saddlebag for the trip. The stores aren't open yet so I know he'll be gone long enough, if I'm lucky.
When he's disappeared over the hill I take up the phone and call immediately into the town officer, requesting his emergency assistance. He promises to come by as soon as he's dressed and I return to the bedroom to find Beth stirring, her eyes fluttering as she begins to come out of her sedation.
"Beth - it's Doctor Blythe," I say steadily, brushing her hair back from her brow and helping ease her back into consciousness. She groans and I release her left hand so that she can vomit into the bucket I've brought, my hand circling on her back as she begins to cry.
"Where's he gone?" She sobs as she lays back on the bed, the light from the oil lamp highlighting the bruising under her eye.
"I've asked Office Barton to come over. I'm worried about you, Beth." My voice catches as she looks up at me with destruction in her gaze, her world crashing down around her as she cries through the realization.
"He doesn't know what he's doing. He's just angry that I'm not the same. Marcus doesn't mean to hurt me - you can't - you can't take him from me!" She groans and turns her head into her arm. I shift on the bed uneasily as she looks back up at me. "I won't survive without him, I won't…"
My heart breaks as this woman pleads with me to not report this, to pretend this never happened. I refuse to give in and when Officer Barton arrives on the doorstep I explain everything I've seen, everything I fear, and wait in the kitchen as he interviews Beth alone in the room.
"She won't file a report," Barton sighs as he returns a while later, looking at me with a steady gaze. I can tell he's seen this before, has been told the same story and been brushed off when he tried to help. "There's nothing I can do if she won't file."
I grip my hand tighter around my bag, looking between the door to the bedroom and the small crib beside me. Beth was choosing not to charge Marcus for the abuse he clearly laid upon her. The same abuse that drove her to scream in the yard with a knife. I close my eyes and breathe through the anger and frustration I feel as the other man heads towards the door.
"We don't live in a world where we can stop this, Doc," Barton says before stepping out into the cool morning air. I watch him go, waiting for Marcus to return from his fool's errand so that I can leave.
I've never felt more useless then when I close the door on the Murphy household, an angry man and a broken woman inside who is too afraid to leave. I return home dejected, at a loss and worried that the next call I receive will be the last from them. It haunts me along the way and when I stumble through the door to my home I'm exhausted, drained, and all I want is to be left alone.
But my bed is occupied when I arrive there and Anne has filled my empty space, her sleeping form coiled so tightly into herself that my chest aches with the sight of it. I remove my socks and shoes, stripping down to my trousers before crawling in behind her and staring up at the ceiling. With almost a sixth sense she turns in her sleep towards me, her soft touch sliding over my skin as she wraps an arm around my chest and drags me into her embrace. I go willingly, clutching her to me and finding solace in the beat of her heart against mine as defeated tears slip into my pillow.