I can’t watch it. I can’t watch Felicity being so calm and Percy’s body wrenching and distorted, and me sitting on the ground feeling so goddamn helpless.
It seems like it lasts forever, as though we’ve spent days here, waiting, spectators to what I’m certain is Percy dying slowly in intense agony. His breathing sounds labored and gravelly, and his lips are tinged faintly blue. When Felicity tips him farther on his side, spittle pinked with blood froths at the corner of his mouth. “He’s coming out of it,” she says quietly. She has one hand hovering near the back of his head, as a cushion between his arched neck and the iron tent stakes.
Percy’s body gives a final pull, knees coiling up to his chest; then he vomits. Felicity keeps a good hold on him so that when his muscles loosen, he stays on his side. His eyes are still closed.
Wake up, Perce, I think. Come on, wake up and be alive and be all right. Please be all right.
“We need to get him somewhere close by,” Felicity says, brushing his hair away from where it’s stuck to his lips with a soft touch. That’s either too subtle or I’m not thinking straight, because she looks over at me and snaps, “If you want to help, now would be the time for that.”
I stagger to my feet, so shaky I nearly keel straight back over, and stumble down the path between the tents. I don’t know where to go—there’s nothing nearby but the fair stands, and the highwaymen are probably still prowling, searching for us.
I look down into the slat of sea visible between the planks, just as an orange bobs past, its rind slick and glittering with beads of seawater.
I sprint back the way I went before, shouldering through the crowds all stopped and staring up at the fireworks, until I find the apothecary’s stand again. He’s stepped out from under its awning and is watching the show too, but he turns when he sees me coming. “You return.”
“My friend needs help,” I blurt.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Can you help him?”
“In what way?”
“You’re a doctor.”
“I’m an apothecary.”
“But you know . . . You can . . .” I’m so winded I can hardly get words out. My chest feels corked. “Please, I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”
The apothecary is sizing me up, all the mirth gone from his face. “I think you’re trouble.”
“We’re not trouble, we’re in trouble,” I say. “We’re travelers and we’ve nowhere to go and he needs help and . . . Please, he’s had some kind of fit and he was shaking and he won’t wake and I don’t know what’s wrong. Please.”
My voice gets properly pitchy on that last bit, which must make me sound sufficiently pathetic, or at least sincere, for he takes me by the elbow and says, “Show me where he is.”
I nearly throw my arms around him for that.
I want to run, but the apothecary seems insistent on a brisk walk and I’m forced to match it or else lose him in the crowd. As we clamber through the people with their faces turned to the sky, he asks me to recount what happened, and I give him a tongue-tied version that brings the panic in me back up to a boil. I’m such a wreck I can hardly remember where I’ve come from. All the tents look the same. I’m about to tell him I’m afraid I won’t be able to find Percy and Felicity again when I spot her silhouette, black against the brackish canvas. “Here,” I say, and I lead him between the tents. Another firework pops over our heads.
Percy’s still insensible, but he’s starting to stir. Felicity’s kneeling over him, one of his hands in hers, speaking to him though he doesn’t seem to hear. A watery ribbon of blood and spittle slips from the corner of his mouth and down his cheek. Felicity pulls her sleeve over her thumb and wipes it away. She looks up as we approach, casting a wary eye at the stranger.
“He’s an apothecary,” I explain. “He can help.”
The apothecary doesn’t say a word to Felicity as she shuffles out of his way and he adopts her place, taking Percy’s face in his hands and peering at it, then checking his pulse, then his eyes and inside his mouth. He too swipes his thumb at the blood.
“He’s bleeding,” I murmur, not realizing I’ve spoken aloud until Felicity replies, “He bit his tongue, that’s all.”
The apothecary takes a waxed envelope of smelling salts from the pocket of his coat and slips his finger under the flap, all the while speaking to Percy in a language I don’t recognize. His voice is very gentle. “Obre els ulls. Has passat una nit difícil, veritat? Em pots mirar? Mira’m. Look at me.”
Percy opens his eyes, and I let go a sigh of relief, even though it seems to take him a tremendous effort. His gaze is a long way off from us.
“Molt bé, molt bé,” the apothecary murmurs. “Do you know where you are?” Percy blinks twice, slowly, then his eyes slide closed again and his head tips sideways. The apothecary catches it before his face smacks the ground. “He needs rest.”
“We’ve nowhere to go,” Felicity replies.
“I have a boat moored in the canal where you may bring him. I’ll see what more can be done for him there.”
I nod, waiting for someone to do something useful, until Felicity snaps at me, “He’s not going to walk it off, Monty. You have to carry him.”
“Oh. Right.” The apothecary slides out of the way, and I hoist Percy over my shoulder. My feet stumble for purchase on the ground and I almost fall, but Felicity pushes me straight, and we follow the apothecary between the tents.
Beyond the pier, our guide leads us, sure-footed, down a thin, sandy path past the sailing ships and along the riverbank, until we reach a tar-caked dock where a fleet of brightly painted canal boats are moored, neat as harpsichord keys. My arms are starting to shake. My whole body feels like it’s shaking, inside and out.
The apothecary jumps aboard one of the boats, taking up a lantern from the prow before he grabs me by the arm and hauls me after him. Felicity follows with a light step.
The canal boat has a narrow deck with a covered cabin in the center, and I follow him into it. It’s a trick maneuvering both Percy and I through the small door without knocking either of us out cold, and once we’re inside, my head nearly brushes the ceiling. The apothecary leads me to a built-in box bed covered in pieced quilts and a handful of thin pillows. Hanging earthenware lanterns decorate the walls in diamond shards of light that bob and sway as the boat bounces in the water. “Here.” The apothecary pulls back the blankets on the bed, and I ease Percy down onto it.
I didn’t realize he had woken, but he grabs onto me, like he thinks he’s falling. “Monty!”