Jan Burke - Eighteen

“You’ll not touch her!” my father cried.

Winston smiled, and turned to the others. “Light the fire.”

“By God, Winston-”

“Oh, indeed, I’ll not touch your vampire wife. You must be the one.” He handed my father a long knife.

My father stared at it.

“Get on with it, man!” Winston ordered.

“John,” my father said, anguished, “leave us. Go home. It was wrong of me to bring you here-”

“I’ll not leave you, Father.”

He shook his head, but turned back to the open coffin. He set the knife aside, and with trembling fingers, tenderly moved her burial gown down from her neck. I heard him sob, then saw him lift the knife. He cut a gash in her chest.

“The heart, the heart!” Winston said eagerly.

Father’s face seemed to turn to stone-cold and gray. He pried the wound open, then took the knife and cut away her heart. Bloody fluid ran from the wound onto her dress.

“You see! She’s the one, she’s the vampire!”

As from a distance, I heard the other men gasp, and saw their quick gestures-signs against evil.

“Put it in the fire, Arden!” Winston directed.

“No!” I said weakly, but Father walked toward the blaze. He let the heart drop from his fingers; the fire hissed and sparked as it fell into the center of the flames.

Father walked back to mother’s coffin, placed the lid on it, and began to hammer it shut. I picked up one of the other hammers-tears blinding me, I worked at his side. Without speaking, several men did the same for the other coffins. Each coffin was slowly lowered back into its grave, and in silence we began to cover them again-but Father buried mother’s coffin alone, refusing the others’ help with a steely look in his eyes.

I saw Winston warming his hands over the fire. He caught me looking at him and smiled. “You should thank me. I’ve saved your life this day, John.”

Before the others could stop me, I slammed my fist into his jaw.

My father led me away from them, and with Isaac we made our way back home. All the way down the lane, I could not help but be troubled over what I had seen, and wondered at it. That my mother could be a vampire, I did not for a moment believe. I knew there must be a rational, scientific explanation for the blood that had been in my mother’s heart. I swore to myself that I would study anatomy and medicine-yes, and vampires, too-and learn all I could about consumption and its causes.

When we returned to the house, Noah held Nathan’s body in his arms.

My medical schooling was the best in New England. The Boston area had many fine schools, and Springhaven University was among them. Springhaven was the choice of my godfather, as it was his alma mater, and he was a respected alumnus and benefactor.

Medical school was not easy for me. The work itself was not difficult, though much harder than my earlier schooling, to be sure. I took to the reading, lectures, and discussions with great interest, but it was the hustle and bustle of Boston that caused me discomfort. The size of the city, its noises and smells, always left me ill at ease. Although I loved the work, I was homesick.

Early on, I learned that there had been nothing unusual about the appearance of my mother’s body, given the conditions of her burial-the coldness of the ground, the brief length of time she had been buried. The heart is a pump, my anatomy instructor said, and at death, blood and other fluids often settle there and in the chest cavity after the heart ceases beating.

My professors called consumption by another name-tuberculosis, or TB. Tuberculosis was not an enigma to these men of science. Over forty years before my brother’s death, sanitariums were being established in Europe, and TB patients were living longer lives. But of all the discoveries that had been made about the disease, perhaps the most exciting had come in 1882, when Robert Koch identified its true cause-Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Koch’s discovery proved that TB was transmitted from a consumptive to a healthy person through bacteria contained in the consumptive’s cough-not by vampires.

Although saddened that my knowledge had come too late to save my family, I had no difficulty accepting these new discoveries. But educating the public, whether the poor of Boston or the farmers of Carrick Hollow, was a challenge. I determined to practice medicine in Carrick Hollow upon graduation, to do my best to counter the superstitious remedies that offered no real hope to its inhabitants.

I visited one of my chief correspondents and supporters soon after my return-old Dr. Ashford received me gladly, and we talked at length about the medical histories of families in the area and exchanged information on the latest medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. We also discussed my schooling and how much medical education had changed since he had taken the title “doctor.”

“The War of the Rebellion was where I learned medicine,” he said. “We learned on our feet, not from the books. I haven’t had much of a head for the science of it-just tried to do what worked.” He paused, then added, “Remember, John, that folks here are quite independent, even when it comes to medicine. They take care of their own problems, using the same remedies their grandparents used. It’s hard to fight their traditions.”

“I suspect that will be the hardest part of my job,” I replied. “I have confidence that I can do some good here, if my neighbors will only accept me.”

“You’ve always had both the mind and the manner for medicine,” he said. “You’ll do well in Carrick Hollow. It’s time they had a doctor as fine as yourself.”

As it happened, the residents of the village took me in with open arms, proud of my accomplishments, and glad to have a physician so nearby. Several of them helped me to convert a building formerly used by a lawyer into a small clinic, which had the advantage of living quarters on the upper story.

I had the good fortune to be of some help to my first patients, and soon others were ready to follow my medical advice and help me to establish my practice. I fell easily into life in Carrick Hollow, surrounded by the sense of community I so missed in Boston.

Only one problem continued to trouble me-my father’s state of mind.

Father had never fully recovered from the deaths in our family, especially not from the loss of my mother. Noah had been greatly relieved when I told him that I meant to set up my practice in the village. “Perhaps you will be able to cheer him,” he said. “He has not been the same since-since the day Nathan died.”

But although he was always kind to me in those months, my father never smiled, and seldom spoke. His sleep was often disturbed by nightmares, and if not for our constant coaxing, he would not have eaten enough to keep his strength up. He worked hard, but the joy he had once taken in his labors was gone. There was a lost look in his eyes, and the smallest happiness seemed beyond his reach. It was as if, on that long ago day at the cemetery, his own heart had fallen on those flames, and turned to ashes with my mother’s.

His lifelessness was a condition found in others in Carrick Hollow-in Isaac Gardner, in Mr. Robinson, and in others who had performed Winston’s brutal ritual. Bitterly I reflected that nothing in my medical training would cure these men. I vowed that no one in Carrick Hollow would ever be forced to endure that ritual again.

Soon after I had opened my office, I was given an opportunity to make good on that vow. I was visited by Jacob Wilcox, a middle-aged man just returned to Carrick Hollow from factory work in Fall River. His rumbling cough was a tell-tale sign of tuberculosis, but my examination revealed that the disease was in its early stages.