The Healer sees to Tybalt; she is swift and serious.
Viola watches in fascination as the old woman listens to Tybalt’s slight breathing, tugs up one eyelid, then the other, to peer into his sightless eyes. I too am amazed at the scope of her knowledge, the breadth of her compassion.
“Indeed, his body lives,” she pronounces gravely. “His lungs do inspire, his heart doth beat. The blood still runs warm in his veins.”
“’Tis possible to save him, then?”
The Healer glances at Viola. “Child, prithee, to the garden with thee, and bring me a swath of leafy greens, a stalk of fennel, and the spikey leaves of four dandelion weeds.”
Pleased, Viola helps herself to a splintered bushel basket and exits through the back door into the Healer’s garden.
“Fennel and dandelion?” I ask. “Ingredients for some manner of medicine?”
The Healer shakes her head. “Ingredients for some salad. The little girl requires her dinner.”
“And Tybalt?” I ask quietly. “What doth he require?”
She runs a leathery hand o’er Tybalt’s brow and answers, “A miracle.”
Rosaline arrives and confers with her mentor.
“So ’twas not Romeo’s blade that left good Tybalt in such condition?”
The Healer shakes her head, indicating the gash. “The cut yielded an inconsequential loss of blood.” She turns to me. “Thou sayst he fell?”
“Aye,” I confirm. “And hard.”
“Hard, indeed. For his skull suffered a most acute impact. The damage to his brain is complete and permanent.”
“I’d have thought our headstrong Tybalt’s skull too thick to incur such an injury.” Rosaline bites her lower lip searching for comprehension. “If his brain is ruined, how is it he continues to draw breath?”
“The brain is near as wondrous a mystery as the immortal soul,” the Healer explains. “E‘en when all capacity for thought has fled, nature and impulse can remain. Tybalt
is dead of mind, but his corporeal being still functions. He is here and gone at once, as though he is lost in the deepest of sleeps, a sleep from which he shall ne’er awaken.”
I clear my throat. “What, then, are we to do with him?” A chill creeps o‘er my flesh, as I consider our various courses. “We cannot bury him alive; ’twould be murder.”
“We shall do what we can to nurture what is left,” the Healer whispers, “while we wait for the Lord to collect him.”
“’Twill not be long, will it?” Rosaline asks in a whisper of her own.
“That is mostly up to God Almighty,” the Healer replies, “but partly up to Tybalt’s ghost. All depends upon how soon his spirit tires of this strange purgatory. His mind cannot choose, but his soul will decide when ’tis ready to drift away.”
I take Rosaline’s hand, kiss her cheek. “Mayhap his soul will discover something worthy for which to live.”
But from the Healer’s pitying expression I understand ’twould be much better were good Tybalt’s soul to find something else … something worth his death.