Force of Attraction

Chapter 2.5

When the sun is properly risen, I begin my rounds for the day. The werewolves aren’t expected until nightfall. Half the brews are still warm as they clank in my basket. I have a long list in my head of all my patients, but I’m only hitting half the list this morning—the people who are too weak, wounded, or ill to make it to the town hall later. I’ll make the rest of my deliveries when the recipients are conveniently all in one place.

Hopefully, by then, I’ll have had enough time to finish their various medications. First up is Mark, a fisherman who has been laid up for two weeks following a spearfishing incident. Usually, a wound like this would’ve healed with just a wash in the waters of the Gateway River. But it’s still angry and red, dripping with pus. Today he runs a fever as well.

After that is Sal. His daughter caught a chill this winter that just won’t abate.

Then Drizella—her monthly bleed is agonizing, this month particularly so.

Then Dan, who can’t seem to find the strength to get out of bed and attend to his duties as the town carpenter.

On and on I go from door to door, checking in and making sure they have what they need or, at the very least, the best I can give them. It doesn’t feel like enough. Each one seems worse than the last as if their illnesses are clinging to them for the express purpose of making a mockery of everything I’m trying to do.

I became an herbalist to help people. But in the year I’ve been in Capton since finishing my studies at the academy, things have only become worse. They tell me that I’m doing a good job, that the problems lie with the lack of a Human Queen. But I can’t help wondering if I couldn’t be doing something more.

Kindly Mr. Abbot is the last on my list for the morning. Thankfully, he’s doing all right still. I doubt I could keep my composure if he wasn’t. “Come in, come in.” He waves me inside with small, trembling motions of his weathered hand.

“Mr. Abbot, I’m afraid I can’t stay today. But I brought your tea so you can brew—”

“I’ve already put the kettle on.” He shuffles about the kitchen.

“The tea never tastes the same when I brew it.”

“I’m sure it does.” Yet I’m putting my mostly empty basket down on his counter anyway.

“It doesn’t work as well,” he insists, per usual.

“I think you just like having company.” I smile and set to work as he eases himself into a chair at his table.

“Can you blame an old man?”

“No.” Mr. Abbot isn’t the first person to claim they can’t replicate my brews, salves, and poultices at home—even when I sell them the exact herbs and give them detailed instructions. I suspect it’s because of my supernatural kettle.

The Keepers say a bit of the werewolf’s wild magic lives in the things they make using it. If that’s true, then maybe part of my skills are because of the necklace John gave me. No matter what the reason, I’m glad my gifts can be of service. If my hands must be the ones to make the brews to have them work, then so be it. Yet another reason why I must stay in Capton.

“The town is so busy today.” Mr. Abbot looks out the large front window of his home. He lives down by the docks, not far from the large square where town halls are held.

“The werewolves are coming,” I remind him.

“Ah, right.”

“You should stay home, you don’t need that kind of excitement,” I encourage.

“If ordered by my healer, I suppose I must.” A frown crosses his lips before he brings the mug I hand him to his mouth. His eyes seem to be staring at a distant memory. “They’ll take another young woman, won’t they?”

“Unfortunately.” I run my finger along the top edge of my mug, thinking of the conversation at the breakfast table. “Yet none of the women of Capton have displayed any magic tendencies.”

I was selected for the group of ten females that are to present themselves for the taking in the town hall but I was certain they couldn't take me.

“The Keepers are usually watching closely for any signs,” I remember when John was assigned to me for three years —fifteen through my eighteenth birthday. He and my parents kept an eye on everything I did whenever I was in Capton. John even came to Lanton a few times to observe me. My mother once even suspected that my herbology and cooking gifts were magical manifestations. But John assured her it was just good training at the academy.

“They still do.” I take a sip. “But they haven’t found anyone who might be the Human Queen.”

He sighs. “This whole business is a wound that never heals.” “What is?” I think he’s talking about the treaty. I’m wrong.

“Losing your family to the werewolves. They take a daughter, a sister, forever.”

“Any living Human Queen can return to Capton every midsummer,” I needlessly remind him. He’s lived in this town far longer than I. Mr. Abbot is pushing one hundred and twenty.

“They never make it back alive; Alice didn’t .” Alice… That was the name of the last Human Queen. Surely, it couldn’t just be coincidence…

“Who’s Alice?”

He turns his milky eyes toward me. “My sister. And before you ask, yes, she was.”

“Your sister was the last Human Queen?” I ask anyway. He nods in affirmation. How did I never know this? Why was it never taught or mentioned? Mr. Abbot has been coming into my shop every other day for a year now. I was making him broth and potions long before I had any formal training.

“I had no idea,” I say, feeling somewhat guilty.

“One thing you will soon learn is that the name of the female quickly disappears off the tongues of the people. Whoever leaves will be forgotten as ever being a part of this town. She will become the ‘Human Queen’ for stories and nothing more.” I shudder.

We learn about the Human Queens in grade school. Even before then, there’s not a resident of Capton who doesn’t know the stories. Seeing the female leave is a rite of passage for a generation. And it isn’t until this conversation— until the last Human Queen becomes someone more than just an idea to me.

“I think people do it, consciously or not, out of kindness,” Mr. Abbot continues with a weary smile. “As if, by saying her name less, it will hurt less that she is gone. As if a person can be expunged so neatly from a family and community.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I whisper.

“Keeping the peace between worlds is an ugly business.” His hand shakes as he raises his cup back to his mouth to take a timid sip. When he brings it back to the saucer, however, his movements are much smoother. I’m relieved to see the draught is having the intended effects.

“Did you meet with her after she was gone?” I ask, genuinely curious. I try and imagine him with a Human Queen, sitting at this same scuffed and scratched table as we are now.

“No, but we spoke with letters.”

“Can letters cross the Gateway?” A thousand questions burn my tongue as they swirl in the scalding tea.

“No, but the werewolves can. They brought the messages to the temple, usually when they came for last rites or to trade with the Keepers.”

“What did she say it was like beyond the Gateway?”

“Not much.” He shook his head. “Alice said that her role as queen was different. She wrote about the different tests she partakes in and the consequence for failing the test was death while the reward for passing the tests was to exist, sitting on a throne. She really didn't explain much because she didn’t understand their rules per say plus she didn't make it through the last test.” he said while I stared into my teacup with the last statement made.

The werewolves will come and they will take a woman from her family and home to fulfill a treaty that they could just as easily call off. What is the point of the deal the werewolves struck if all they wanted was a puppet? Why take one of us at all? For fun? To remind us we are nothing, my mind answers. They hold all the power. What the werewolves want, we are here to give them. I’m sure they would tell us to be grateful that all they take is a woman every year. That it is a kindness.

My stomach turns molten and I have to leave or risk saying something that would upset the kind old man.