Three

Greymist Fair had an apothecary and several residents skilled in herbal medicines and basic first aid, but no trained doctors. Nor did any doctors visit regularly with the traveling merchants who came through. Doctor Death, therefore, made an impression as he swept through town. He stopped first at the inn to rent a room, and while there diagnosed one of the kindly old innkeepers with nearsightedness. Then he went to see Lord Greymist in his manor on the hill, and the lord paid him in gold coin to examine all his servants. By the time he had finished his rounds and was returning to the inn for dinner, most of the other villagers had gathered in the inn’s common room, waiting to see him.

He was busy, but for the first time in a very long time, he was not unhappy. None of the villagers were in immediate danger of dying, and so he didn’t see even the vision of Death for the next several days. The air was clear, the village beautiful, and he felt a strange sense of peace he’d never felt anywhere else.

On his third day in the village, he was eating his breakfast in the inn when a young woman approached him. Her hair was the color of dark wheat, loose around her face, and her eyes were round and gold, cat’s eyes. She regarded him warily, hands clasped in front of her as if she might need to raise them quickly.

“Are you the doctor?” she asked. He nodded because his mouth was full of porridge. “My name is Hilda,” she said. “If you would be willing, I have . . . a spot I’d like you to look at.” Her face turned tomato red, and she cut her eyes toward the staircase and the front door, though no one had come in. “In return, I could mend any clothing you have, or if you’ll be here for several more days, I could make you something new.”

She was very pretty, he thought, and he disliked that she looked so uncomfortable with what she was asking. He swallowed and said, “Of course. If it requires privacy, I could visit you in your home.”

Hilda nodded quickly. “Yes, thank you. I live in the cottage on the hill just behind the inn. Beneath the linden tree.”

She hurried away, around the staircase and out of the inn, and he stared after her. He hadn’t noticed a linden tree in the village.

After breakfast he had to make his first stop down by Grey Lake. The fisherman, Falk, had a bad cough, and his wife was worried it was something worse, but still Death did not appear, and the doctor prescribed fluids and bed rest and as many fruits and vegetables as they could afford to trade for in the village. The whole while he was there, he was thinking of Hilda with her gold cat eyes and her discomfort. Was she in pain? Did she need his help urgently and she hadn’t said so?

He hurried back to the village and went straight to the cottage behind the inn. It was there, on a hill, beneath a large and old linden tree, just as she’d said. He climbed the hill with long strides, but she had pulled the door open before he could reach the top.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, welcoming him inside. The cottage was full of tailor’s tools and a large loom. Hilda sat him down at the squat wooden table and closed the door behind him.

“If it was something urgent, I could have come sooner,” he began.

She shook her head. “No, no, not urgent. I—I mean, it’s not life-threatening, I just—oh, I can’t stand looking at it anymore!”

She thrust out her hand. He realized then that she hadn’t been holding her hands in front of her for protection; she’d been hiding one hand inside the other. Because there, on the knuckle of her left index finger, was a small, bulbous wart.

“Oh,” he said.

“I know it’s only a wart,” she said, looking at the ceiling, “but I work with my hands all day and I see it there constantly and it’s so—it’s so—oh, I just don’t like it!”

The doctor pressed his lips together to hold back his laughter. He normally didn’t find humor in his patients’ distress, but he was relieved it wasn’t anything more serious, and she herself was smiling even as she cringed away from her own hand.

“I am very sorry this has caused you so much upset,” he said, doing his best to keep his expression even, but seeing that sparkle of mirth in her eye and knowing she saw it in his, too, made it difficult. “I think I can help,” he finally said. “Do you have vinegar?”

She brought him vinegar and water. He mixed the two, then had her sit with him at the table and he held her hand while he applied the mixture on the wart and bandaged it.

“Do this every night,” he said, tying off the bandage, “and don’t forget the water. Never put the vinegar on by itself; it’ll burn you. The wart should fall off in about a week or so.”

“Thank you,” she said, relaxing a bit. “I feel very silly. I’m not usually so . . . excitable. I’m a very calm, dependable person.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Except with warts.”

“Mmm. Warts, spiders, and children.”

He frowned. “Warts and spiders I understand, but children?”

“I don’t know what to do with them. I get nervous.”

“Ah. Now that’s a sentiment I can share.”

She touched her hand, the bandage. Then she looked him once over. “The villagers have been calling you ‘Doctor Death.’ But that isn’t your real name, of course.”

“No. My name is Luther.”

“Luther,” she said. He liked the sound of it in her voice. He imagined she could make most things sound better just by being the one to say them. “How can I repay you?”

He wanted to say not to worry, that it hadn’t exactly been a difficult diagnosis or remedy and he’d been happy to do it, but he was a consummate professional, and he didn’t want her to take the gesture in a way that might make him seem otherwise.

“I’m afraid I don’t travel with much in the way of clothing,” he said, “but I have been meaning to purchase a new shirt. Something simple that won’t wear out quickly. If it wouldn’t be too much to ask.”

“Not at all.” She smiled. “I’ll just need to take some measurements.”

He stood in the middle of the small cottage while she measured his torso, shoulders, and arms. Hilda was by no means a small woman—she easily filled the cottage on her own—but the doctor had to duck to keep his head from hitting the beams. Hilda teased him about this, which he found he liked; people were usually too intimidated by him to tease him about anything. She touched him only lightly, fleeting brushes to prompt him to lift his arms, but even the lightest pressure seemed to leave a ghost imprint on his skin.

She told him she would have the shirt ready for him before he left town. That thought brought him down from the floating sense of contentment he’d felt since entering Greymist Fair, but he knew he had to go. He could feel Death growing impatient with his lingering, though he had stayed much longer in other places and Death had not minded. It didn’t make sense to the doctor: the people of Greymist Fair died like the people anywhere else, and Death still took them, but Death either would not or could not visit the village willingly.

Hilda met him at the inn on the day he was to depart and presented him with the new shirt. It was a deep black and fit him perfectly.

“I prefer bright colors myself,” she said, “but I thought you would appreciate black to go with all your black.”

He had been more surprised and pleased with the shirt than he had expected, and he was so busy thanking her he almost missed it when she said, “If you like it so much, come visit me next time you pass through. I’ll make you something else.”

The invitation was enough to send him on his way. The sooner he left, the sooner he could return. He knew he would; Greymist Fair had become the magnetic north of his mind, and his internal compass would swivel toward it no matter where he went. The villagers bid him to return soon, and he assured them he would.

Death greeted him in the forest.

“That place will capture you and never let you go,” said Death.

“That doesn’t seem like such a poor fate,” replied the doctor.

“I am not welcome there,” said Death. “The villagers are cruel.”

“They seemed lovely to me. Is that why you make the forest so dangerous for them? Because they don’t welcome you? What makes them different from anyone else who fears you?”

“This is my home,” Death said. “They are supposed to be my people.”

“Perhaps if you approached them as a friend rather than an enemy, they wouldn’t fear you so much.”

Death looked away.

“I didn’t know you could be so juvenile,” said the doctor, and continued down the road.

He came back as he promised he would. The villagers warmly welcomed him and sought his care for their injuries and sicknesses. There were rarely any mortal illnesses when he visited, though when there were, Death appeared at the end of the bed, almost spiteful. It was the only time Death appeared in the village.

But those brief times of sadness never tainted the relief the doctor felt when he returned to Greymist Fair. He had never settled anywhere in his life, but sometimes when he was in the village, he found himself slipping into a routine that would mean settling if he continued it long enough. The villagers, though wary of him, wanted him there and appreciated his services, and he wanted to be there and to serve.

But each time he told himself that this was the only reason he came back, he was lying. His first thought was always of Hilda. After he arrived, got his room at the inn, and took care of any urgent medical issues, he went to see her. She would make tea and fill him in on the goings-on of the village, and he would tell her about his travels. A year and a half after his first visit, he knew where everything was in her cottage and was able to make the tea himself while she took a break from her work and watched him. He would help her with anything she needed, whether that was an aching tooth or a hole in her roof, and in return she made him a new article of clothing, always black. After three years, she’d made him a shirt, pants, gloves, boots, a coat, and—as a joke that had Hilda rolling on the floor with laughter at the expression on his face—a pair of black undergarments.

She’d meant them as a joke, but they were still wildly more comfortable than any he’d worn before.

They had islands of days in a sea of months when he was away traveling, and yet their time together stood out so brightly in his mind, it eclipsed the time they spent apart. They were not doctor and patient; they were friends and more than friends, although he didn’t know how to broach that topic with her. How could he explain his relationship with Death to her? How could he be with anyone when Death was always there, calling Luther to their side?

None of that stopped him from thinking, each time he went away, about how he would feel if he returned to the village and discovered she had married. If she was happy, he would be happy for her, but he would also mourn for himself. What he had with her, he had with no one else. Not even Death.

Eight months had passed since Luther’s last visit, and he had timed his return to coincide with the winter. He had never minded the winter; it was Death’s season, and so it was his season. But it did make travel difficult, and he thought the weather might help him in his quest to stay longer than usual.

The village was preparing for the holiday festivities. The smaller evergreens from the edge of the forest had been cut and brought into homes to ward off darkness; evergreen garlands decorated eaves and windows, and evergreen wreaths hung from doors, fences, and the iron lampposts. Red bursts of holly and mistletoe highlighted doorframes and windowpanes. Handbells rang through the morning, and the smell of fresh gingerbread wafted from the bakery.

After settling in his room in the inn, the first thing the doctor did was ask after Hilda. She still lived in the cottage beneath the linden tree, and with some deft conversational maneuvering with the innkeepers, he found out she still lived there alone. He gathered a few bunches of holly with their bright red berries standing out against the snow, then a handful of snowdrops from around the side of the inn, where they grew in riots. He spent a moment arranging his little bouquet, then tied the red ribbon he’d brought from one of the great cities around the stems and finished it off with a bow.

He’d been practicing what he would say for months, and now, climbing the hill to her cottage, he disliked all of it. It all sounded rehearsed, wooden; he felt like a raggedy scarecrow with a bunch of weeds on his way to ask a beautiful maiden to consider him. Surely she had better prospects in the village. Someone good and respectable, who could settle with her and take care of her and who shared her understanding of the place they lived.

He could hear the clack of knitting needles and the crackle of fire on the other side of the door. She was in a good mood when she was knitting; knitting meant relaxing. The doctor breathed in, knocked three times, and waited. The clacking stopped. Soft footsteps approached the door. It swung open, letting out a puff of warm air.

There was a moment when her expression was open, blank, the moment before she recognized him. Watching the recognition hit her face was like watching the sun rise. Before he could say a word, her arms were around his neck, her body flush against his, the smell of dyes and wool heavy in his nose. They embraced tightly, teetering on the doorstep, until Hilda finally released him and took his face in her hands. Her smile was radiant. His hands settled on her waist, one still holding the bouquet.

“Where have you been?” she asked, straightening his hair with a flick of her fingers. “You were gone so long this time, I thought you weren’t coming back.”

His heart felt huge in his chest. He didn’t think he could speak without choking. So much of his focus was going toward not holding her too tightly, not crushing her against him and never letting go. He handed her the bouquet.

“I come back for you,” he said. “Always for you. You know that, don’t you?”

She lifted her eyes from the bouquet and met his. “I had hoped so.”

He was starving. For touch, for nearness, for warmth, for love. He wondered if she could see it in his face.

“Could we speak?” he asked. She stepped aside to let him into her cottage. She had changed nothing; she never did. The shutters were closed against the cold. She seemed to realize how hard he was trying to hold himself in place, because she only touched his sleeve lightly to urge him toward her little table. He didn’t sit; he didn’t think he could.

“You are the reason I come back here,” he said again. “I love this village and the people in it, but it’s you I think of when I’m gone, and it’s you I want to see first when I return. I wonder if you’re safe and happy. I wonder whether you found enough berries to make your favorite dye, or if your roof has started to leak again. I wonder if you have found someone who makes you happy. If you have decided to spend your life with them.

“But I have hesitated to tell you all of this. Not only because I didn’t want to burden you with it, but because my life is not my own. I already share it with another, and this other can be . . . jealous.”

She examined him closely, her eyes sharp, knowing. “Death,” she said.

He wasn’t surprised that she had guessed. It was in his name, after all. “Yes. Death is my parent, my sibling, my only friend. I am Death’s companion. I am afraid what would happen if—”

“I am not afraid,” Hilda said, resting her hand again on his cheek. Her palm was warm against his chilled skin. “I know Death, too. I visit Death often in the forest. I’m here to protect this village, so don’t you worry about the people here, or about me. I may fear warts, and spiders, and children, but I do not fear Death.”

The doctor was shaking, he wanted her so badly. “I can’t always be with you. I wouldn’t abandon my patients, and I must still spend time with Death. I can’t promise how long I’ll be gone. I can’t provide for you or protect you the way another would. Despite all that, you would still have me?”

Smiling, she kissed him, and put her arms around him, and held him tight.

“I have never felt this way for anyone else,” she said. “All the rest is detail.”