7. All Who Heal Are Not Whole

All Souls’ Hospital, with its iconic steeple, had once been a church, before the Cataclysm. In the months following that horror, many new sects had arisen, and a few old ones had either splintered into quarreling schisms or disintegrated like their cathedrals in the blasted cities. The hospital’s staff, a mix of secular doctors with nuns of the Order of the Oncoming Storm as attendants, seemed to Holly to create an odd air of estrangement from the world outside. Stepping into the quiet anteroom, she was struck at once by the indifference of the staff to her presence. True, she was greatly reduced in social standing after paying her brother’s debts had erased the last of the family funds; but even so, a gentlelady entering a public building in her finest black dress with sable trim should have immediately telegraphed Society to everyone. Holly stood uncertainly for several minutes, but none of the men in long coats stopped to acknowledge her. Finally, she summoned up all the poise she had been trained to project, and approached one of the nuns. “I beg your pardon, Sister, but I am looking for a particular doctor whom I believe works here.”

The nun’s dark eyes regarded her impassively from the eyeholes of her mask. She made no reply. Nonplussed, Holly tried again. “I must speak with Dr Vonken. Is he available?”

The nun’s voice was flat, hoarse, and curt: “He is not here.”

Holly tried not to recoil, though that voice coming from what she had assumed was a woman behind the swirling metal inlays of the mask produced very disagreeable shivers down her back. “I’m sorry, he gave me reason to believe he –“

The nun spoke again, again sounding as though her throat had been ripped open and stitched roughly closed. “Doc-tor Von-ken does not work here on Fri-days.”

Holly managed a nod, and the nun immediately shifted her attention to a doorway through which other sisters came and went, spines hunched, hands buried in the folds of their ragged grey habits. As the sister resumed whatever errand she’d been pursuing, Holly thought, No, wait! I must find him; I must have answers. However, as she started after the nun, a passing doctor stepped in her way. Surprised, Holly drew herself up, holding her shoulders stiffly. The man’s white coat marked him as one of the hospital’s physicians, but Holly didn’t know enough about the stylized metal flower on his collar to guess what his area of expertise might be.

“You won’t get any answers out of them,” the doctor said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the nuns silently creeping past. He was broad of stature, with an equally broad belly beneath his white tunic. Rust-colored stains on his sleeves and midriff echoed the bright color of his thick beard. His eyes traveled down to Holly’s corseted bosom, lingering there.

Holly raised her voice, feeling sacrilegious about doing so in a place which had at least been holy ground in a past life. “It is imperative that I speak with Dr Vonken. Do you know where I can find him?”

The bearded doctor lifted his gaze to her face, his own puzzled. “Why, Madame? You don’t appear to me to require...augmentation.”

Heat spread across Holly’s cheeks. “I...I...Dr Vonken performed surgery on my late brother, Mikael. Mikael Autumnson.” As she fumbled for an excuse which would sound more urgent than giving the man back his cane, she saw a crafty expression suffusing the doctor’s face, giving him an even seedier aspect than when he’d assumed her a young widow moments before.

“My condolences, Miss Autumnson,” he murmured. He gave her an oily smile. “Are you here to lay claim to his prosthesis, then?”

Holly struggled to maintain her calm composure, anger rising. “I beg your pardon?”

“As a trophy. A memorial. Lots of families do, you know. Mount the leg or arm or whatever over the mantel.” The doctor moved closer, and Holly resisted the impulse to take a step back. Instead, she focused a glare right into his eyes. He checked his advance, reconsidering. “Well, if you’ve come to petition Vonken for your brother’s arm, it won’t work. He’s probably already dismantled it in his tinker’s workshop.” The man’s tone turned contemptuous. “He fights every claim on one of his mechanical chunks of armor. Man’s got no sense of patriotism. You know, if you want to petition the City Council for the right to keep your brother’s...arm, wasn’t it?...I could...advocate for you.”

Repulsed, Holly tightened her cloak over her shoulders. “That won’t be necessary, doctor. Can you tell me where I shall find Dr Vonken?”

“He’s one of those Pre-churched types,” the bearded doctor said, a frown creasing his deep brow. “Doesn’t work Fridays. Spends his mornings down Wharfside, probably picking out his next experimental urchin. Claims he’s ‘treating’ them. Personally...” The doctor glanced back at the nuns, who paid him no attention whatsoever, before leaning toward Holly to add, “I think he has a taste for the little ladies of the wharf. If he wasn’t so celebrated for his damned Dust-crafting gadgetry, he’d never be allowed to work here, you know. Pre-churched, Coldsparking freak!”

Holly drew back in distaste. “We could...draw up the petition in my office, if you wish,” the leering man continued. “It so happens I have an hour at leisure just now...”

“No thank you,” Holly snapped. “Good day, doctor.”

“Quinby,” the man supplied, even as Holly turned to go. “Dr Quinby, Miss Autumnson. Will Quinby. I, ah, regret I don’t recall your Christian name.” She looked back, and he offered a smile. It reeked of salaciousness to her.

“Good,” she said, and left.

*****

Wharfside: even the name of Concordia’s poorest district was apt to bring delicate shudders from most of Holly’s peers. When the Ladies’ Auxiliary Club, comprised of women from all the best families in the city, ventured down to that shabby neighborhood to give out donated coats or food to fulfill their vow of charity, they did so en masse and with a burly male escort or three. The warehouses and crab-canning plants crowded cheek to jowl at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, and the air reeked of offal and dying sea-creatures. Holly paused once, surprised to see young children wading in the stinking water below a floodbreak; the sight of one of them pulling a battered tin to shore with a hooked stick made her realize that as wearying as her diminished fortunes felt, others would regard what she had as the height of luxury. Sobered, she continued down to the docks.

Where to even begin looking for Dr Vonken? She trod delicately on the slippery boards, trying to ignore the stares of the boatmen and lounging fishers by the skips and coastal trawlers tied to the lower pier. Somebody whistled behind her, and she blushed, but kept walking, head high. She wished she’d thought to bring her brother’s Indian knife. She had Vonken’s cane, but wasn’t sure how much strength she could put behind a swing if directly threatened. She wished she’d asked someone to accompany her...but whom could she trust with this sort of a mission? Almost everyone she knew, from her neighbor Chadwick Atherton to her father’s old friend Bartemus Flint, was in some way attached to the Northern Pacific Company. She shook her head as she walked. Is this to be my life now? Wondering evermore whom I can trust? Damn you, Vonken. You brought this nonsense into my life, and I still don’t even know what it’s all about! What could Mikael have found that others would want to kill for – that Henry Villard, of all people, would kill for? If your tale is even to be believed! Uneasily, she remembered the letter Vonken had shown her. That had absolutely been Mikael’s handwriting. If Mikael trusted Vonken with whatever secret he had, why send something to me and not him? Why involve me, even indirectly, and say nothing of it to me? Perhaps Mikael had writ to her, but his missive was lost, waylaid like the Courier which found Vonken had been? Holly frowned, then stopped, startled, as a young man clad in musty trousers and a striped vest stepped in her path.

“Why the sad face, girly?” he asked. “You lose somethin’?”

Holly took a step back, intending to choose another direction, but the young man moved with her to block her exit. “What’sa matter? Aw, all in black, your husband die or somethin’?” He pulled a mock-pout, and Holly noticed the scabs on his face. “Well, you know what they say, the grog’s the cure for all your woes! How’s about you come have a cup with me?” He gestured to a ramshackle tavern fronting the docks, a few paces away. From his miasmic breath, Holly surmised he’d already had quite a bit of grog for this hour of the morning.

“No thank you,” she said stiffly, and tried to turn away, but the young sailor countered again. “Let me pass, sir.”

He laughed. “Oh, it’s sir now is it? Hey Folly, you hear that?”

A beefy man also in a striped vest, though unbuttoned to reveal more of his hairy chest than could ever be thought seemly, grunted assent. He didn’t seem likely to rise from his sprawl on a pile of empty crab-traps, and he held a half-full brown bottle close to his belly. He squinted at Holly. “What you doin’ down here, Mrs Widow? Manny, leave her be,” he chided the younger sailor, who scowled.

Holly decided not to bother mentioning she’d never been married. “Sir, I am looking for a surgeon, Dr Darius Vonken. I was told he could be found in Wharfside today.” She did her best not to acknowledge the scabby young man still eyeing her, from her delicate veil to the black lace hem of her dress, as though she was some sort of foreigner.

Corpulent Folly scratched his stomach, eyes still narrowed against the light grey sky. “You come down here to find a doctor? Lady, you lost your noodles?”

“Whyn’t you come inside, and we’ll ask if anyone seen your doctor,” young Manny wheedled, reaching for Holly’s sleeve. She twitched it out of his reach.

“Manny, don’t be botherin’ the uppity folk. You want the Watch to come whip you?” Folly grunted, and Manny subsided, glaring. The older sailor gestured along the docks. “Lady, you shouldn’t of come here alone all gussied up like that. You won’t get ten steps further afore some a’ the boys pay even worse attention to ya than lil’ Manny here. Whyn’t you go on home.”

Unwilling to be shooed like a stray mongrel, Holly stared down at him as she’d seen her father’s friend Flint do to his staff. “I thank you for your concern, Mister Folly, but I really must find Dr Vonken. Have you perhaps seen him? He is a foot or so taller than myself, has dark reddish-brown hair and a full moustache; he perhaps carries this cane...” Both men glanced at the silver-tipped cane, and she realized it had been a mistake to point it out. The metal, if pried from the stick, could keep both of them in strong drink for a month. She clutched it tighter. “Never mind. Good day, sirs.” She turned again and began to walk away, relieved that the pushy young sailor didn’t insert himself in her path again, but Folly called after her.

“Never seen him, but if you want a charity doc, you best see ‘em at the clinic, three streets east. Next to Rumbaker’s.” Holly paused to nod her thanks, and shot a wary look at Manny, but despite his obvious surliness, he stayed by his friend on the dock. Holly left the immediate stench of the rivers behind, walking in the center of the street as there didn’t seem to be any sidewalks, and the gutters were both matted full of filth. She saw children running past, barefoot despite the chill, kicking an empty crab tin.

How can anyone live in these conditions? Do their fathers not have employment? Do their mothers not worry what diseases surely travel in these streets? A clanking sound behind her made her turn, and she almost squeaked in fear: a tall, chicken-legged construct belching black smoke nearly stepped on her! She scooted almost into the gutter to get out of its way, and saw the tattered banner in black and cyan trailing from its tail. NORTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY WAREHOUSE PATROL was stenciled on its side and back. As she tried to regain her composure, she heard jeering and thunks of rock on metal; the urchins hurled broken cobbles at the construct, then ran giggling into a nearby alley. The lurching iron thing never stopped, its driver no doubt used to this sort of harassment, impervious to any interruption of his patrol schedule. She watched it disappear around the next street-corner, where an enormous building of rough-welded steel and lead proclaimed itself CONCORDIA COLUMBIA FISHERY.

If the patrol had taken any notice of Holly, she couldn’t tell. The near-miss had seemed more indifferent to her safety than deliberately trying to harm her. More and more, she doubted the wisdom of this venture, but as long as she was here, she might as well continue. Her awareness of all the unfamiliar activity around her heightened. She checked the placards on each squat warehouse she passed, noting that a number of them had the words NORTHERN PACIFIC or CONCORDIA emblazoned in their names; she hadn’t stopped to consider before just what percentage of the industry in the city was owned or controlled by Henry Villard’s company. A few buildings did advertise themselves as separate by mere dint of the omission of those words, and after another block of walking, Holly decided to inquire the exact whereabouts of this clinic or of whatever “Rumbaker’s” turned out to be. Feeling that an independent business might be more prudent for this purpose than anything owned, even indirectly, by Villard, she approached the open carriage-doors of one such warehouse. I hope all this caution proves to be needless, but still...

“The clinic? Sure,” said the foreman, seated behind a battered wooden desk just inside the warehouse. He didn’t remove the cigar from his mouth as he spoke; Holly found herself actually thankful for the smoke he breathed in her direction, as it momentarily masked the permeating smell of fish. “Keep goin’ up this street another block, then turn left an’ head toward the Columbia. Clinic’s just before you reach the river.” He puffed thoughtfully as Holly thanked him, then asked, “Why you headin’ there, ma’am? Some kinda charity mission?”

“Yes,” Holly lied, realizing such a story would have been much more sensible to begin with. “The...the Hillside Association was thinking of contributing to the medical needs of...of this district. I have come to assess what is needed.”

The foreman snorted a laugh. “Down here? Everything, ma’am. They need everything. They only got a couple doctors who’ll even set foot outta their swell home districts, much less proper rooms to heal the sick. I don’t guess there’s many anymore that take the Good Book’s advice on things like that, though.” He gave Holly an appreciative look, his eyes warm, even kind. “Good for you, ma’am. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your help.”

Embarrassed, Holly merely nodded, and set off briskly in the direction the foreman had said. She’d given to charity often enough, of course; as a member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Club of the Greater Concordia Assistance League, she had tithed regularly, but with little thought as to what exactly her monies paid for beyond the vague words “food” and “clothing.” As she walked, she considered the plight of those who had to live in this horrible neighborhood, where one never escaped the stench of the processing plants or the sewer chutes into the rivers, where all the homes she passed when she turned onto a narrower street could only be termed shanties or shacks, if that. She’d never been here. As an unmarried woman, traveling alone, it was completely unheard-of for her to even be here. Certainly Mikael would have been horrified...

But you went off into locales far more dangerous than this, she thought, slowing to watch a tiny girl sitting in a dirt yard before a shack with no window-coverings save tacked-up rags. The girl played silently with a headless wooden doll, and stared at Holly as she passed. Holly smiled at the girl, but no answering smile lifted the soot-stained cheeks. A skinny matron with a kerchief tied over her hair came to the doorway, giving Holly a suspicious glare, and Holly picked up her pace. She wished she hadn’t worn something so conspicuously wealthy...but mourning custom proscribed all black for months to come, and she only had three outfits of that hue, the others also in silk or satin. How could she explain to these people that she was fallen in status, in fortune? The monthly stipend the Northen Pacific Company was to pay her for Mikael’s death was probably more than what many of these people made in a year, and she never wanted for food or creature comforts. Unhappy and ashamed, Holly quickened her steps, wanting nothing more than to find Vonken and somehow force him to make sense of Mikael’s death. Perhaps I could indeed give something to this clinic, some small contribution? Even a few dollars surely would help some of these unlucky souls...if it is a real medical facility. She thought about Dr Quinby’s contempt for Dr Vonken. What if it’s not a clinic at all? What if it’s some sort of...of brothel, or worse? Surely there must be some reason why that doctor didn’t believe Vonken was truly doing good deeds here.

She wondered at Quinby’s use of the insult “Pre-churched.” She’d heard it whispered once, when Mrs Goldmann had applied to join the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Some members had voted against the newcomer, Holly knew, as she’d been one of the two ladies asked to tally the votes. When she’d brought up the curious antipathy later to Mikael, he’d snorted, and scoffed: “I guess some of your peers still blame the Jews for the Cataclysm, Holls. Don’t pay any attention to them.”

“It seems to me that everyone blamed everyone else,” Holly had replied, affronted. She rather liked the soft-spoken, unassuming woman who asked them all to call her Becca, even if her husband’s fortune had been made buying up several of the failed long-distance messenger services and turning a profit by staffing them with Courier constructs instead of humans.

Mikael chuckled. He was older than Holly by five years, and better able to remember the time immediately following the Cataclysm. “More or less. Did you know there was a sect calling themselves the Branch Malingerers, who believed the only way to atone for the sin which must have caused the destruction was by killing themselves?” At Holly’s shocked look, her brother had laughed. “Good thing they didn’t last long...”

Many religions were shattered; many new ones arose. Holly knew little about the pre-Christian Biblical faith, only that they had denied Christ as Saviour; but what difference did that make now? The Cataclysm hadn’t spared anyone, smiting people of all faiths and races and nations, as far as was known. She decided she wasn’t going to let Dr Quinby’s prejudices affect her dealings with Dr Vonken. Besides, her quarrel with him had nothing to do with religion, so whatever his faith prompted him to do was of no concern to her...unless it somehow prevented him from explaining to her why people were fighting over some “element” from the blasted Wastelands of the Interior. She scowled, seeing a tiny whitewashed building up ahead. A placard swung above the door, bearing the red shield emblem recognized throughout Columbia Pacifica as the sign for a hospital. It was overshadowed by a four-story factory with bright red letters painted between the second and third stories: RUMBAKER’S FINE GLUES AND CRUSTACEAN PRODUCTS.

All right, Doctor, Holly thought grimly, I’m not leaving until you explain to me why you felt it necessary to trap me in my own house. Then you can tell me what it is my brother died to procure, and why it’s so damned important.

Fully immersed in her thoughts, still walking down the center of the filthy street as it was by far the cleanest option, she roused at the unfamiliar sound of clacking, rattling things as she passed the glue factory. Turning her head, she nearly stumbled, eyes widening: a horde of black deep-sea Pacifica crabs hurtled out of a second-floor window. Shouts and an alarm bell clamored after them. Far from appearing damaged at the tumble, the crabs clicked their enormous claws and cast about with long eyestalks as if looking for someone upon which to unleash their anger at having almost been dismembered and processed. Holly froze. She’d never seen one of these alive. She suddenly realized that the stuffed specimens at the Museum didn’t fully convey how alien they were...how large, when they stood on their rickety ten legs to their full height. Several of them were taller than she was. As one, the skittering, clackety mass of them turned toward Holly...and with high-pitched screeches, rushed at her! Nothing at the Museum had suggested how fast the monsters were...