“Why are you still awake and reading, Camellia?” Henry MacPherson asked his daughter as he shuffled past her. “You’re going to tire your eyes out.”
“And you’re going to tire your lungs, walking around like that. Get back to bed.” The daughter was twenty-one years old, fresh out of University, but she spoke with authority befitting a woman twice her age, or at least so she’d been told.
He placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “You should sleep.”
Camellia knew that her father only ever wanted the best for her, but now was not the time for his beloved and well-meaning interference. “I can’t stop. I found this book in the University’s library, and—”
Henry slowly made his way around the living room sofa so that he stood in front of her, the television flickering in the background. The news was running, Richard Baker giving a reminder of how as of one week ago Britain had officially stopped food rationing. It was the last broadcast of the night.
Camellia wasn’t paying attention to it, though. She had flicked it on as background noise, just as she would the radio. Unlike most people, she preferred a little noise in the background when she read. She found that it helped her focus. Her dear departed mother, Anne, had been the same way, and probably was where she picked up the habit.
She felt it as her father peeked over her book, trying to read it upside down, and sighed. “Another medical botany book, is it? Cammie, my love, you aren’t a nurse. Let the doctors do their jobs.”
“The doctors arenae doing their jobs, Dad,” Camellia replied. When she glanced up at him, she hoped he didn’t notice what she had been doing in the bathroom mirror an hour ago: that her eyes were red and circled with dark bruise-like indications of her tiredness. They made her big brown eyes, the eyes she’d inherited from her mother, look dark as pitch.
Not that he looked any better. Henry put on a brave face, but Camellia could see her father’s deterioration every day. His once bright auburn hair that he had passed on to her had turned dull, the streaks of gray more prominent than they had ever been. His eyes were permanently sunken, his cheeks gaunt, his posture stooped. There was a rasp to his voice there had never been before.
“Arenae?” he repeated with a small smile, wincing as he spoke. He kept his hands steady, but Camellia knew that his chest was paining him again, no matter how much he probably hoped she couldn’t see. “Have all your elocution lessons been for nothing? Remember, Mum wanted you to learn to talk politely.”
“Theyaren’tdoing their jobs, then,” Camellia corrected with a tired sigh. Her gaze returned to her book, and, though she didn’t want to be impolite to her father, she made it very clear that she was ready to become absorbed once again.
And honestly, who wouldn’t be? The book was a faithfully reprinted manuscript from some time in the seventeenth century, illuminated, hand-written, and almost lost. Even if it wasn’t for the fact she was sure it contained the cure to her father’s ills, she would have been lost in it.
Henry reached out and placed a finger under her chin, gently pushing upward so that she had to look at him again. “They’re trying their best, poppet,” he told her softly. “But you need to rest. How can I get better when I’m worried about you? You need to stop fretting about your old dad so much.”
Camellia smiled faintly at him. “I’ll stop worrying when you’re well. Until then, goodnight, Dad. Please get some sleep; you know the doctors say you need to not be up and wandering around.”
With that, she returned to her book, and a sigh from her father let her know that he knew he was defeated. Hewasexhausted, even if he tried to deny it. And so, with one last concerned look at his precious child, he turned and trudged along the hallway toward his bedroom. Camellia didn’t start reading again until she heard his bedroom door close behind him.
Sleep, Dad. I’m going to fix this.
At first, they’d thought it a cancer, but all the best doctors had confirmed that, though they didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Henry’s lungs, it wasn’t that. When they’d first heard that, it seemed like a blessing that her father wasn’t ill with the same disease that had prematurely stolen her mother away, but as it turned out, it was a curse. The thing was thatnobodycould tell exactly what his illness really was.
Camellia had taken him to every doctor available, even traveling to England and Wales and a few doctors overseas for help, but nobody had any answers. His symptoms were too varied. One day it was a fever, the next a hacking cough, the next a loss of taste and smell. Some days were better than others; days like today he could walk around, but other days he was barely lucid. His chest rattled with borrowed breath, borrowed time.
But it wasn’t over. Not if Camellia could help it. Perhaps, though, she could rest her eyes for just one moment—
* * *
Camellia only slept for an hour, startled awake by the familiar dream. She scowled, rubbing her eyes. Shehadproven that officer wrong—not only securing her degree but becoming one of the youngest women accepted into the Botanical Society and securing a job at the Gardens. But still, to this day, it bothered her.
Brushing the thought aside, she reached for the book again. The sun was filtering through the window and she was about to give up hope when she found it—at last, what she’d been looking for.
‘The Lady suffered terribly from a weakness of the lungs, and it seemed like she hadn’t a hope remaining to her. But then, when all hope was lost, a miracle happened. The wild black cherries which so eased her cough were mixed into a potion with four of the rarest ingredients, and soon she was cured.’
She stared at the page, barely able to believe what she was reading. It seemed too perfect, and yet—
Camellia flipped through the pages a little impatiently, hoping to find some more information. Unfortunately, there was nothing.
Breathe. First things first.
Wild black cherries were rare, the kind of plant that couldn’t be cultivated without ruining their effect. She could go to gather them, but they certainly didn’t grow anywhere near her. They were a Highland plant, the kind that grew around the broad lochs of the upper country. Camellia remembered being very small and traveling north with her mother.
“Where are we, Mum?” she’d asked, staring out at the stunning loch before her, transfixed on how the setting sun shone and sparkled on the water.
“This is Loch Morag, pet,” her mother had replied. “Look, see the plant life that grows around here? Your grandmother used to bring me here, and her grandmother before her. You’d be surprised at what you can find.”
It was a fond memory, one which brought bittersweet tears to Camellia’s eyes. It had been so long since she’d seen her mother. She’d only been eight years old the day that cancer had won its grim battle and she’d returned from school to learn it had taken her mother away forever.