The Seam Sorceress

Old Superstition, part 1.

True to his namesake, Dr. Crabbe kept a tough and cussed shell about him, but once it was cracked, there was nothing more than a soft core underneath, delicate and soft as lace. It was an aspect of the doctor relatively unknown by the people of Coleville, who usually associated him with a terse and unforgiving bedside manner, but as the years went on—and Mama got sicker and sicker—Tilly had gotten to know both sides of Dr. Crabbe, and was pretty fond of him as a result.

"Hardly know what you expect me to do," he grumbled, spinning keys on a ring. Even after a night's rest, Tilly had arrived just before his leisurely nine o'clock opening. "I've given her laudanum and she refuses to take it, stubborn mule she is."

"The medicine just covers up the problem. It don't make it go away." As the door cracked open, she slid in-between the doctor and his well-appointed waiting room, blocking his path. "She lost her leg last night. Please. Just one house call."

"You don't have the money."

"No, no, this time I do, swear to it—" Tilly scrambled to pull out a fistful of bills and coins to show him. "Sprout's prize money from the fair."

"Well, then, the judges finally came to their senses about Howden? Color me shocked." His heavy eyebrows raised, giving a rare glimpse at his eyes, deep green like Tilly's favorite pond to skip rocks on. Ancient hands closed around hers as he pushed the money away. "Allow me to rephrase: You may have the payment, but I won't take it from you. I'm afraid I can no longer treat your mother."

His words left her breathless, leaning against the open door as though it were a raft cast out on stormy waters. The doctor's cane tapped a familiar rhythm as he passed. She lurched after him. "But—but you're a doctor! You can't just deny treatment—"

"I most assuredly can. I'll have you know I've been 'booked' the last three times Howden's shrew of a wife has come under the weather." Leather squeaked as the doctor sat down in his upholstered seat and hooked the handle of his cane over the edge of his desk. "I can't, in good conscience, accept payment for treating a disease that has no known cure."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Tilly sank down into the chair opposite him. "You're a learned-type person, you went to school—"

"That's true, I did, but in university they taught me about illness that befall humans, which your mother most assuredly isn't." He lifted a hand to her. "The samples we've taken shown no signs of necrosis. No improvement with regular administrations of sodium glucosulfone. I'm out of options. It's clearly a fey-borne disease, and those just aren't well-documented."

Tilly took a shuddering sigh. She pulled her kerchief down over her eyes. "Please. I think she's dying."

"I know she is," he said solemnly, hands folded over his desk. "She has been for a long time. I can send you home with prayers and more laudanum, Tillomena, but there's no magic cure for your mother."

"Not here, anyway," she muttered.

"Keep her leg clean. If she's truly bedbound, now, make sure that she's turned every few hours," he said. "The last thing she needs to contend with is a case of bed sores."

Tilly was about to thank the doctor when the door to his office swung open. The MacGregors shuffled in, talking so quickly that Tilly could barely parse the conversation through their thick accents. She stood to allow the very pregnant Mrs. MacGregor to take her seat.

"Ach, thank you, child," Mrs. MacGregor puffed, red-faced and sweaty, both hands braced against her belly as she collapsed into the offered chair. She was so swollen that even her prized costume ring—a trio of faux sapphire, diamond, and pearl—had been abandoned, too small for her plump sausage fingers. "It gets harder every day, I swear to it."