My son’s awake! Henry’s healthy and his fever is gone! Dr. Mercer really
has done a miracle. It took a few days since he was treated, but he’s fine and
so are Dr. Whale and Mr. Campbell.
Previously, I’d allowed the doctor to come to my house to see my tree.
He paced around it, examined the leaves and felt the ground with latex gloves
covering his hands. After about an hour of this, he took some of my apples,
leaves and scraped off a small piece of the trunk. Then he went back to the
hospital. He didn’t speak to me again for four very long days.
He called me before I’d left for work and I was at the hospital in
minutes. Dr. Mercer brought me into his lab. It was actually Dr. Whale’s lab,
but it was the best lab with the best equipment. And since Dr. Whale was unable
to use it, it made sense to everyone on the hospital staff that he should. The
doctor took me over to a microscope and had me look into it. I saw hundreds of
little spider-like creatures. He said this was a very small slice of an apple
from my tree, and there were probably millions of them on all of my apples. I
had to take a step back.
“So I gave my son waking fever?”
“Not intentionally.” He sat back on a metal stool at the other end of
the counter.
“But he’s eaten apples from my tree before. How come he didn’t get sick
then?”
“I don’t know. If I had more time to study this, I may be able to find
out why, but right now my job is to make your son and the other two men well.”
It was still upsetting. How could I not have known? Intentional or not,
it really was my fault Henry was hospitalized. Kurt probably had waking fever
before I turned him into Mr. Campbell. Probably after I had him over for dinner
all those years ago; he just wasn’t showing symptoms when I put the stasis
charm on him. That also meant that Owen may have contracted the fever as well.
A pang of guilt hit me and I wondered if he was even still alive.
“But I’ve never heard of this tree causing it back home.”
“Oh, you’re not from here?”
“Well—technically, I’m—Portuguese.” That was far away. I was sure he
hadn’t been there. “My family moved here when I was very little. They—brought the
tree here.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like waking fever occurring in Portugal.”
“We were from a very small village. Hardly anyone’s heard of it—most
Portuguese don’t know it’s there.”
“Eu nao acredito em voce.” Bluff called.
“Enough about me.” My dodge made him smile.
“It’s possible that the organism that causes waking fever came from
other sources, but perhaps when your family left Portugal, the organisms
attached themselves to the apples of the tree. But I discovered the organisms
aren’t on the leaves at all.” He rose from his stool and walked over with a
glass dropper. “Look what happens when I add liquid from the leaves in with the
apple.”
He held the dropper over the slide and squeezed twice. When I looked
into the microscope again, the little spiders wiggled and shrank away to
nothing.
“Come with me.” He grabbed a syringe and headed straight for Henry’s
room. He was faster than me, and I didn’t even have a chance to voice my
concern before he walked up to Henry’s bed and stuck the syringe in his arm.
The potion was gone from the syringe in a second.
“How do you know it will work on people?!”
“It does.”
“Then why didn’t you try it on Mr. Campbell or Dr. Whale first?”
“I did.” He held a gloved hand to the door. “Go and check on Dr. Whale.”
I didn’t want to leave my son, but Dr. Mercer led me to the room next
door. He let me enter first. Dr. Whale was sitting up in his bed, calmly
sipping a large plastic cup of water through a straw and watching Good Morning,
Storybrooke on the TV on the wall in front of him. My gasp and cry of joy
interrupted Dr. Whale from his sipping and pulled him away from his straw.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever heard a woman be so happy to see me.” Dr.
Whale sat his cup down. “Good morning, Mayor Mills.”
“Good morning.” I couldn’t stop smiling or crying. “I’m just so happy,
because if you’re healed, then my son will be too!”
“That is good news.” He looked past me. “Who is my mysterious healer?”
“May I introduce you to Dr. Mercer?” I held out my hands as Dr. Mercer
stepped forward.
Dr. Whale’s eyes grew wide, and I thought I detected Dr. Mercer pulling
back. But then Dr. Whale’s surprised face eased into a smile and he held out
his hand.
“Pleased to meet you, doctor. Thank you for saving our lives.”
This seemed to put Dr. Mercer at ease again, and the two shook hands.
There was some small talk between the two about how Dr. Mercer figured it out
before he left to get some sleep. Dr. Whale stopped me before I could leave as
well.
“How did you find him?”
“On the internet.” I wiped my tears away with the heel of my hand and
they finally stayed away. “Well, Kathryn did. It’s lucky we caught him. He was
just returning from another country for a symposium in Boston. For a moment I
thought you knew him.”
“I do. Not personally, but I’ve also read about him on the internet.
Although I think not the same article Kathryn did. I can’t stress this enough,
but he should leave as soon as possible. Or better, get the sheriff and have
him questioned.”
“Why?”
“There’s a reason he flew in from another country. He’s not allowed to
practice here. His methods are shady, at best. He’s brilliant but
careless. He was stripped of his
doctorate here in the U.S., but that doesn’t stop him from practicing in other
countries that might look away from that sort of thing. It’s true that he has
saved many lives, but a great many more are usually lost before he’s through.”
“If he’s so terrible, how come he hasn’t been caught?”
“There’s never been any conclusive evidence that he’s caused the death
of so many people. But I would be worried about the lives of the people in this
town.”
“Do you think Henry’s in trouble?” I turned to go kill him.
“No—“ Dr. Whale reached out his hand to stop me. “If I’m all right,
Henry should be too. But my guess is he won’t be staying much longer. You need
to do something.”
He was right, and I already know
what I want to do.
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