The days that followed held a strange, suspended quality– like the hush after a storm, when the air is still thick with what has passed but the sky is attempting clearness.
I continued treating the remaining patients with the blood-water method. Slower, quieter, without the dramatic glow that had lit up the lower corridors. The severe cases had all been addressed; what remained was cleanup, and cleanup I could manage.
My body recovered in increments. On the second day I could stand without swaying. By the third, I was carrying basins again, though Colby shadowed me with the vigilance of a small, disapproving physician.
"You're pushing yourself again," he would say, arms crossed, chin tilted up at me in a way that was so reminiscent of Meymey I almost forgot he was nine.
"I
