Page 5 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“What does that mean?” asked Oatsie. “Speak clearly to the ignorant. Me.”

“He may be able to sit up, to use his hands, if his nerves are not shot to hell. He may be able to walk, in a fashion; that is unlikely, but as I say we aim for the stars. What is more troubling is the discharge from his membranes. The nose, most obviously, but the other orifices as well. Ears, eyes, anus, peni

s.”

“You’ve had a chance to do some initial work in the laboratory,” prompted the Superior Maunt.

“Indeed. Just a start. I’ve found nothing definitive, nothing I haven’t seen before, either in my station here at the mauntery or in my prior position as Matron’s Assistant at the Respite of Incurables in the Emerald City.”

Sister Doctor rolled her eyes. Sister Apothecaire never lost an opportunity to publish her credentials.

“Can you supply us with a hypothesis?” asked the Superior Maunt.

“It would be rash to do so.” Even sitting, Sister Apothecaire was shorter than her peers, so her sideways glance at her disapproving colleague required her to poke her chin up, which perhaps gave her a more combative expression than she intended. “Whoever he is, I do wonder if this lad was from high altitudes. The mucous seepage may be due to the systemic collapse of arterial function due to a sudden change in air pressure. I haven’t seen such a symptom before, but the Fallows are very low ground indeed compared to the highest peaks of the Great Kells.”

The way Sister Doctor murmured “mmmmm” made it plain to all what she thought of her colleague’s hypothesis. She straightened her spine as if to say, hurry up; her longer spine gave her height over her colleague, which she liked to use to advantage.

The Superior Maunt intervened. “Do you agree with Sister Doctor that death is imminent?”

Sister Apothecaire sniffed. The two didn’t like to agree on anything, but she couldn’t help it. She nodded her head. “There may be more to learn,” she added. “The longer he hangs on, the more chance I’ll have to study his nature.”

“You will study nothing in his nature that isn’t directly related to the easing of his afflictions,” said the Superior Maunt mildly.

“But Mother Maunt! It is in my charge as an apothecaire. The syndrome he dies from may afflict others in time, and this is an opportunity to learn. To turn our noses up at it is to discount revelation.”

“I have delivered my opinion on the matter, and I expect it to be observed. Now, to you both: Is there anything we can do for him that we are not doing?”

“Notify the next of kin,” said Sister Doctor.

The Superior Maunt nodded and rubbed her eyes. She lifted a saucer of tea to her lips now, and without hesitation the others did the same.

“I propose we get one of the sisters to play music for him, then,” she concluded. “If our only contribution is to ease his death, let us do what we can.”

“Preferably not the sister who was torturing the harp when we arrived yesterday,” muttered Oatsie Manglehand.

“Have you anything to add, Oatsie?” said the Superior Maunt. “I mean aside from your critique of musical performance?”

“Only this,” said the caravan guide. I won’t bother to apologize for contradicting them, she decided. “Sister Doctor proposes that the boy would have been set upon by brigands and left to die only shortly before we found him. But the terrain out there, my friends, is flat as a rolled-out tart crust.”

“I don’t follow,” said the Superior Maunt.

“The body had to have been lying there for longer than Sister Doctor suggests. I would have seen the marauders in retreat. There was no place for them to hide. There is no tree cover. You know how bright a night it was; I could see for miles.”

“Puzzling indeed.”

“Do you use magic in your ministrations?”

“Oatsie Manglehand,” said the Superior Maunt tiredly, “we are a sorority of unionist maunts. Such a question.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with old, bowed fingers. Over her venerable figure, Sister Doctor and Sister Apothecaire both nodded silently to Oatsie: Yes. We do. What little we’re capable of. When we need to.

The Superior Maunt continued. “Before resting for the night, I recalled his name. The boy was named Liir. He left the mauntery with Sister Saint Aelphaba—well, Elphaba, I suppose; she never professed her vows. Do you remember the boy at all, Sister Doctor?”

“I had just arrived about the time Elphaba was setting out,” said Sister Doctor. “I remember Elphaba Thropp a little. I didn’t care for her. Her moods and silences seemed hostile rather than holy. Of the many urchins who are abandoned around here, however, I remember even less. Children don’t interest me unless they are gravely ill. Was he gravely ill?”

“He is now,” said the Superior Maunt. “And somewhere, if his mind is still able to dream, he is still a child in there, I presume.”

“Very sentimental indeed, Mother Maunt,” said Sister Doctor.

“I do remember him, now you give his name,” said Oatsie Manglehand. “Not well, of course. In the better years I make three or four separate runs, and we’re talking twelve, fifteen, eighteen years ago? I have packed more than a few children onto heaps of worldly goods, and buried some by the side of the track as well. But he was a quiet lad, unsure of himself. He shadowed Elphaba as if she were his mother. Was she his mother?”

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