The Grave Digger by Rebecca Bischoff

Author:Rebecca Bischoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2019-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

THE WOMAN LAUGHED. One of her canine teeth was missing. “I’ve never heard anyone say that before. Usually they say my daughter looks like me.”

Cap stared in shock. Jessamyn wasn’t an orphan?

“How do you know my daughter?” the woman asked, her pale face alight.

“School,” Cap replied, plucking at his collar.

“Oh, of course,” the woman said. The skin beneath the woman’s eyes was smudged purple. One eyelid was badly swollen and oozed a thick, yellow liquid. Cap winced at the sight of it.

“I didn’t know Jessamyn had a mother,” he said.

“Most people do not,” the woman said, looking away to a spot somewhere above Cap’s head. Her eyes were full of sadness. Cap backed up another step, while many new questions tumbled about in his head.

Someone knocked.

“Hide,” the woman whispered, nodding at the corner behind the door. Cap darted to the corner just in time for the wooden door to creak open and conceal him from sight.

Dr. Rusch swept in and deposited his bag on the table. Cap listened with a hand clapped over his mouth.

“And how are you, today, Tillie?” Dr. Rusch said. Bottles clinked as the man rummaged about in his bag.

“Well enough, thank you,” Tillie answered in a soft voice.

“Take this,” the doctor said, while pouring something into a cup.

“What is it?” Tillie asked.

The doctor didn’t answer. More bottles clinked together. Then Dr. Rusch cleared his throat. “Jessamyn is doing well,” he said, “but I must remind you not to see her. You don’t want her to catch your illness.”

“But—”

“I’ll return next week,” Doctor Rusch said, cutting her off. He began to sweep bottles back into his bag.

“But what of my eye, Doctor?” Tillie said.

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Rusch said. “Most interesting, I must say. Why, I was just looking at a similar case this morning. Fellow had a tumor the size of a swallow’s egg in his left eye. We were not able to remove it, I’m afraid. He died just before we could operate.”

Cap’s hands turned to ice. Mr. Johnson, the man he’d revived on the dissection table, was dead again. What had happened to him?

“Oh, the poor man,” Tillie murmured.

“Now, don’t you fret over it. I shall be able to study his tumor and perhaps it will be to your good.” The doctor moved toward the door. “I may learn what to do for others who suffer from similar conditions. We shall advance the great cause of science, that man and I!”

He swept from the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

Cap didn’t know what to say. He waited. Finally, Tillie glanced in his direction.

“You should go, young man. Careful no one sees you leave my room. It’s not proper for you to be here.”

The boy nodded. He cracked the door open to listen for any sound. There was none, so he whispered goodbye to Jessamyn’s mother and crept out into the now deserted corridor and down the stairs.

Cap made it to the cabbage-reeking kitchen. Finding it empty, he crouched by the fire. His head whirled.

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