Chapter 12
Then
“Da, you have a visitor,” I said softly, peeking my head around the corner to where he laid on his bed. I hoped he couldn’t detect the nervousness in my voice. He turned his head, brows furrowed, shoulders jerking violently. “Can you come to the kitchen?” He didn’t answer, but I heard him stir as I walked to the front door.
“Thank you for coming, Solise,” I said to the healer that stood on our front steps, ushering her inside. She was a squat, a sturdy woman with silver hair pulled into a low bun, her deep brown face lined with years of mending the poor of Inkwell. She looked far too kind for this part of town. She nodded as she stepped inside.
My father rounded the corner, shakily stopping in his tracks, his eyes assessing who had arrived. The small woman in a black robe. The case she carried at her side. His daughter, hisonlydaughter, staring nervously back at him.
My mother, who had been sitting at the table, rose and rushed to his side, placing a calming hand on his arm. “My darling, Petra has arranged for a healer to see you.”
He was silent, his eyes flicking from me to the healer who began pulling vials from her bag and setting them in rows on the table. Solise paid no mind to the noticeably shaking man in the corner, humming quietly to herself despite the thick tension radiating off of my father. “W-Why?”
“We’d like to see if she can help you,” I said, my eyebrows raised, silently pleading that he would accept. “With your tremors.” I offered a small, innocent smile. Solise had already taken the silver for the visit. I couldn’t ask for it back if my father declined.
The silence continued save for Solise’s humming. He looked back and forth between me and my mother, then nodded slowly, stepping toward the table and lowering himself into one of the rickety chairs. Solise finished setting up, turning to face my father and pressing her hands together.
“Hello, Sarek. My name is Solise,” she said with a smile. Her presence was calming and warm, but there was something familiar about her face, something, when the candlelight hit just right, that set me the slightest bit on edge.
“I don’t m-mean to be r-rude, Solise,” was all he said. Was his voice shaking?
She waved a hand. “I understand your reluctance. Now, when did your tremors start?” she asked, her gaze traveling across his body.
My father looked to me, his face blank. I gave him an encouraging nod. “I always h-had shaky hands, even as a b-boy,” he choked out. I hadn’t heard him speak this much since Larka’s death. His voicewasshaking. I winced. “And when I w-was sixteen, they s-started getting w-worse.”
“And you’ve watched it worsen?” she asked, looking toward my mother.
My mother nodded. “Yes. We met at seventeen, and the shaking was noticeable, but nothing like it is today. And then…” She raised her palms to the ceiling. “It has kept him from work since the girls were young.” My father averted his eyes in shame. “He had been able to feed himself, clothe himself…until recently.”
Solise’s face turned pensive, sober. She moved toward him, picking up one of his arms from his lap, holding it in her hands as it jerked and spasmed. We were all quiet as her gaze ran up his arm to his shoulder as it slammed into the chair. Every few seconds the chair would screech an inch across the floor with the force of his movements.
“Did you ever have a fall, Sarek? Any kind of violent accident?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Any fights where you may have been knocked in the head?”
“No ma'am.”
“And your legs?”
“Still f-fine. I can walk on m-my own. It sometimes t-takes me longer-er, but no f-falls.” The way he ended the sentence made it sound like he was going to say “yet.” My heart began to fracture. It had felt sick, heavy before, but the sound of his voice, the sorrow in his words fragmented the very core of me.
A small smile lit Solise’s face. “Well, Sarek, I’m glad to hear that,” she said, her voice soothing. My father’s face softened ever so slightly. A little win. “Have you noticed that you’ve been forgetting things more often?”
My mother and I looked at each other, the same dread on our faces. “Nae,” my father answered.
“Yes,” my mother cut in. “He has been forgetting things.” The pain in her voice was palpable, unmistakable. My father cocked his head to her, confused.
“Nae,” my father repeated.
“It started small, maybe a year ago. Things like the names of old friends, street names across town and the like. I thought nothing of it. Then it got a bit more considerable. He forgot what the town was preparing for, why decorations were being placed and buildings fixed up. I had to remind him of Cindregala three or four times–”
“Nae!” my father spat.
“Aye, Sarek.” She nodded at him, her eyes wide with concern. I had no idea this had been occurring at the time. Had Larka known? “Then…”
“Then Cindregala,” Solise said so my mother didn’t have to, nodding, reading the pain on her face as she remembered the horror, the screams. Eserene as a whole may not have taken much pause when Larka died, but Inkwell remembered. Larka had been one of their own, even if they hadn’t known her. Though we didn’t know Solise before today, there was a certain level of understanding, almost an inherent friendship the people of Inkwell shared.