Arts
Sunday, the day of New Year’s Eve, attendance at church was way down. There was always a bit of a fall-off after Christmas, but now it seemed to be more noticeable. Mark put it down to the strep throat that was going around. People were probably passing the contagion around in church. Mark tried to encourage people to stay home if they felt ill, but there were always some who were determined to come no matter how sick they felt. Charity came again, this time without her parents, and sat with Sandra during the service. She told Mark confidentially that she was really a “Cubs fan,” but that she liked his service better than the one at First Baptist, and this way her parents would maybe not worry about her so much. Mark thought that was probably only part of the explanation; the kid obviously wanted to spend time with Sandra. And, after all: who could blame her? That week, it seemed like half the town was down with the strep throat. Mark started calling it the super-strep—he’d been thinking of it as “Joni’s disease,” at first, but he didn’t want Joni to hear that. Some people got the super-strep, had a fever, and then got better after a week or two. But for other people, the fever seemed to last and last, regardless of what medication they took. And it wasn’t always the elderly and the infirm who got it the worst. There was an article in the local paper about the super-strep—how attendance at school was way down, and what people should do if they got a sore throat, and how busy the urgent care clinic was. But although everybody was talking about it, nobody seemed really alarmed. Every year it was something, wasn’t it? Remember that flu that went around two years ago—or was it three? The Rose Feather Circle was not so sanguine, however. And John Quick seemed so much more himself after Christmas that Mark and Sandra decided to open up to him about it and see what he might suggest. So, Tuesday morning, they sat John Quick down in their kitchen and poured out all their fears. They told him all they could remember about Joni’s illness in the fall—a strep infection that wouldn’t respond to antibiotics—and how she had recovered only with the help of a healing Circle. They told him all they could remember about Timi’s visions: the seven waves of winter weather, and the “sickness falls” and the “cold death” parts in particular. Sandra told him about the warning she had received from the Lady Corinne. Mark told him about the situation at the Veterans’ Home, and the death he had observed there. And they both described the rising number of people in town who were getting sick with a feverish sore throat, similar to what Joni had had. John listened, motionless, with his fingers steepled. When they had finished, he jumped up. “I left my bag by the door,” he said, and he went quickly to retrieve it. He came back, pulling out a pad and pencil, and proceeded to write some notes. While he wrote, he spoke; Sandra was impressed at how he seemed to be capable of speaking to them about one thing while writing about something else. “As a Wiccan,” he said, “—well, a sort of lapsed Wiccan—I accept, naturally, what you’ve told me about Timi’s divinations, and about Sandra’s communications from beyond the grave. Those things have made you watchful, which is good, but there isn’t enough medical detail in them to be of any immediate use.” Scribble, scribble, scribble. “As a doctor, I’ll tell you: I find what you’ve said about Joni’s illness disquieting. This is, like, every doctor’s nightmare: the possibility of another new, antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain that leaves us with no defense.” Scribble, scribble, scribble. “Of course, it’s just anecdotal, at the moment. It might be nothing new. There are all kinds of well-known things that might account for the length of Joni’s infection. The most common explanation in such cases is that the patient screwed it up: didn’t take the prescribed doses on the right schedule,