Chapter 32: The McCrossin Family’s Cough
THE pot man came very early the next morning to Soup Forest.
“Is something wrong?” asked Olivia after rushing to poke her head out of the kitchen.
Pot man came inside looking very flustered. “I’m sorry to bother you this early. Are you an apothecary?”
“I am. Well, I’ve been given permission by a royal apothecary to call myself one.”
“I hate to ask this of you, but could you come visit my house? My mother is struggling to breathe, but all the Marlowe doctors have given up hope and simply give her sleep medicine. I just want to ease her suffering. This probably isn’t enough information to explain to you, is it?”
“I’ll come right now. How exactly is she unwell? I’ll bring different medicines depending on the symptoms.”
Pot man rattled off his mother’s symptoms. While he did, Snow walked up to him, her tail held high, sniffed the leg of his trousers, then said, Ew. With nothing more, she went back to her bed. Rob knew not to come out at times like this since Olivia didn’t want him to startle the customers, but he was watching while wagging his tail. Dale hadn’t left the bed.
“My parents are living with me, currently. We recently moved here as my father was urged to consider a change of location to improve his condition. He’s improved significantly since the move, but my mother…”
“Right now, it’s just your mother who’s unwell?”
“Yes. She started complaining about her chest hurting sometime after we moved. This morning, she seems to be in quite some pain, saying she can’t breathe very well. My father’s looking after her right now.”
Olivia hurried upstairs as she listened.
“What’s wrong, Olivia?” asked Arthur.
“There’s a patient. I’m going to the Marlowe villas.”
“All right. I’ll meet up with you around the time you finish checking them out.”
Since Arthur worked in Marlowe, that would mean making him do two trips to the city and back in one day, but Olivia knew how much of a worrywart he was, so she just smiled and said, “Thank you.”
The pot man introduced himself as Wilson McCrossin. He looked to be around thirty, had cherry-brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a somewhat slim build.
They arrived at his home, and he showed Olivia to the room where his mother was sleeping, and her eyes went wide the moment she stepped in.
Bookcases covered every single inch of wall space, and each shelf was packed full of books. Books that couldn’t fit on the shelves were in piles that hid the floor from sight, leaving just a narrow path for people to get through.
Wilson didn’t even say, “I’m sorry for the mess,” or, “Watch your step,” which told Olivia this was a completely normal sight for his family.
He went to the bed and helped his mother sit up. She seemed to be breathing painfully.
“Hello, my name is Olivia. I’ve come to check up on you.”
“Thank you,” said the woman. Huh, a young woman. Can she handle this? The woman, who appeared to be in her fifties, whispered uneasily in her mind.
“First, I’d like to take a look at your chest,” said Olivia. She drew her cylindrical stethoscope from her satchel and warmed it in her hand. She opened the front of the woman’s nightgown and gently pressed the stethoscope to her chest. Olivia didn’t hear fluid, but the breathing sounded fast and painful.
“I’m going to put a damp cloth on your chest. It’ll be chilly at first, but it’ll warm up quickly,” said Olivia. She then asked Wilson for a bottle of hot water and applied an ointment to thin strips of gauze while he got that ready. The ointment was a mix of beeswax and medicinal herbs, softened with olive oil.
While she was doing that, she opened up her senses to catch what Wilson’s mother was feeling.
“That smells nice,” said the woman.
“It does, doesn’t it? I sometimes put it on my hands. It works great when your hands are all dry and cracked.”
“Is that so?” The woman also thought, It smells lovely. It makes me feel refreshed.
Based on what Olivia was hearing of her thoughts, she seemed to like the damp gauze. The air in the room was heavy, partially from the basin in front of the fire without a lid on it.
The piles of books on the floor also meant they likely weren’t properly cleaning the room. Olivia could see piles of dust. I wonder if it’s like that… she thought, casting her eyes casually about the room, wondering what she should do.
She’d once been to a patient who’d had the same symptoms. She tried all sorts of things, but the patient’s breathing never got better in the slightest. It was nearly a year before they realized the illness was being caused by black mold growing beneath the wallpaper in the room.
They eventually had to tear down all the wallpaper, dry out the room, then put up new wallpaper, though they ended up selling the house and moving in the end. They said that no matter what they did, they couldn’t stop the black mold from growing underneath the wallpaper or behind the bookcases.
I wonder if there’s black mold growing behind these bookcases, thought Olivia, but she didn’t know how to bring it up. The books belonged to Wilson’s father, and Olivia didn’t have to ask to know he loved them. Books were probably his entire life.
After thinking for a while, she came to the conclusion this woman likely wouldn’t last if she stayed in this environment.
“This gauze is very effective,” said the woman. “My breathing feels much better.”
“It does seem better. Do you think you could move now?” asked Olivia.
“Yes, I think I could.”
“I’d like to move you to a parlor or some other room. The air in here isn’t very good.”
“The air?” asked Wilson.
“Yes. If possible, I’d like your father to sleep in a different room, too.”
“All right. I suppose they can go to the guest room on the second floor,” said Wilson. He ended up carrying his mother on his back up to the room. His father walked up himself, a book in one hand. He didn’t seem to be in bad shape.