“No! Nooo!” she cried. She wanted her father. Why wasn’t he there? “Noooo!”
Another nurse, a larger and much older woman, put two firm hands against Linley’s shoulders. She pressed down hard, trapping her. “Calm down! We do not want to hurt you. But if you don’t stop, we will have to sedate you.”
“No!”
A third woman came at her with a syringe. Something squirted out of the sharp end as she held it up to the light.
“No!”
The needle paused at the paper-thin skin of her arm. Linley jerked, trying to knock it away. She kicked, and screamed, and ground her teeth. Her hips arched off of the bed. She thrashed her head against the pillow until it made her dizzy.
Who were these women, and what were they trying to do to her?
The nurse jammed the needle into her arm, and Linley felt warmth spread all over her body. She stopped kicking. Stopped bucking. Stopped thrashing. Everything dipped and swayed. She licked her lips. They felt numb. She felt numb.
And then she faded away.
***
The next time she awoke, there was only one nurse by her bed. The nice nurse, not the one who tried to poison her. This woman looked kind, although Linley could not see her face behind the mask she wore.
“Welcome back.”
Linley blew out her breath, feeling groggy and nauseous. The nurse held a white metal basin up to her mouth, and Linley vomited.
“Where…am…I?”
“In a missionary hospital,” the nurse said. “In India.”
Linley licked her lips. “Where is the monastery?”
“I don’t know.”
She did not understand. “Where is my father?”
“In the north. I’ve heard the river is up. He probably can’t get across.”
“Then who brought me here?”
The nurse patted Linley’s head with a cool, damp flannel. “Your friends brought you here,” she explained. “They carried you from very far away, and it is nothing short of a miracle that you survived.”
“What was wrong with me?”
“Typhoid, I’m afraid.”
Linley blinked. Typhoid? Wasn’t that terribly deadly?
The nurse saw the fear slashed across her face. “You’ve come through the worst of it, praise the Lord,” she said. “Now you have only to rest and get your strength back.”
“Am…am I contagious? Is that why you all wear masks?”
“This is the contagious ward,” the nurse told her. “You must be kept separate so you don’t infect the other patients, but you won’t stay here forever. Soon the disease will pass out of your system and you’ll be free to come and go as you like.”
“I should like to visit my friends,” Linley said.
“They’ve been quarantined, too. Just as a precaution. And no one can come and go within the contagious ward without written permission from the doctor.”
“But they are well, aren’t they? I didn’t get them sick?”
The nurse laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “We expect each of you to make a full recovery.”
“What do you mean, a full recovery? What are they recovering from?”
“Oh, dear,” she said, rising from her chair and smoothing her white apron. “Now I’ve upset you.”
Linley struggled to sit up. “What happened to them? Are they hurt?”
“They’ll be fine.”
“No, you don’t understand!”
“Lower your voice or I will have to call the head nurse.”
Linley reached out and pulled on the woman’s sleeve. “Please. Tell me.”
“All you need to know is that they are fine. Your friends are resting and recovering just like you. And they’re anxious to see you get better.” The nurse removed Linley’s grip from her arm. “You don’t want to disappoint them do you?”
“No.”
She walked to the screened door of Linley’s sickroom. “If you’re feeling well enough to eat, I’ll bring you some soup. Would you like that?”
Linley did not care about any damned soup. Her friends risked their lives to save her, and she couldn’t rest knowing they were hurt or sick for her sake. And who was it who put their life on the line to help her—was it Archie and Reginald, or perhaps Schoville? Or, was it someone completely different?
“The men who brought me here,” she said, “Was one of them Lord Kyre?”
“Who?”
“Lord Kyre,” Linley repeated.
“I’m sorry. I am afraid there’s no one here by that name.”
***
Aside from the routine visits from the doctor and the nurses, Linley had very little to do to pass the time. She slept a lot, but there were only so many hours in a day one could waste like that. After a while, even sleeping grew boring.
The nurses suggested she pray, thanking God for delivering her through her trials and tribulations. And Linley did, for she was truly grateful, but her mind had always been one to fester without some form of activity or stimulation.