Chương 16: Black Mould - Twelve - Treatment for Some Ills

"Dada?" I whispered as I entered our home.

"Where were you?" Mom shrieked. I stood in the doorway, taking things in, unable to move. There was more blood in the house, splashed over the wooden boards of the floor and onto the table. My dad was sitting there, bent over his hand. It was bloody, covered in cloth that was already soaked through. He glanced my way, then smiled, but it never got past the strain in his eyes. He was hurting.

"What happened?" I asked. Did one of those weirdos out there attack my dad? Maybe he was carrying something and they came at him with a knife, or maybe it was an accident? Did… My mom reached out and pinched my ear to pull me into the house.

"Where, were, you?" she asked.

"Sweetie, it's okay," Dad said.

"No, it's not!" Mom screeched.

"Our child is supposed to be at home, not running off to… gah!" Mom let go of my ear, and I rubbed at it. That had hurt! But then I saw the tears staining her face and I dampened down my anger.

"Dada, are you okay?" I asked. A stupid question for someone bleeding so much. He nodded, but it was clear that he wasn't.

"I'll be just fine," he said.

"We're going to the clinic," Mom said. There was no give there. It was an order, and she wasn't going to take no for an answer. I think my dad saw as much, or he was too tired to argue, because he got to his feet, absently touched the table with his bandaged hand, then winced back from it as if he'd touched a hot stove.

"We don't have the money," he complained.

"Doctor Livalis is kind, he'll help us," Mom said. My dad didn't have the energy to argue, so we filed out of the house, Mom hovering around Dad, arms reaching up to him, then dropping back down as if she didn't know what to do with herself. I wasn't much better. Dad was hurt and… And I don't know why, but it felt like I never realised how much I loved my parents in this world. They were good people. Unfortunate and poor, but honest and kind.

Seeing Dad hurt was painful, and if it wasn't for the gnawing worry in my chest, I might have been tempted to allow myself to cry. We moved in a direction I'd never travelled before. Up two layers, through a tunnel between a bunch of smaller homes and then across a maze of catwalks heading roughly… north from our home. The city was truly a maze at times. Houses stacked atop each other like a jenga tower, all tin walls and reused containers with chimney pipes poking through them for the coal smoke to be carried off.

The clinic turned out to be an entire building set on one of the wider streets. It was accessible from one floor off the ground and was painted white, though the colour had turned to yellow with grime and time. Mom opened the door for Dad, and we shuffled into a waiting room where half a dozen people waited on stools and a few benches up against the walls. It stank of sweat and piss, and the air was a bit too warm. A counter split the room, with a grilled fence in front of it.

"We need help," Mom said as she walked over to the counter.

"My husband, he's hurt." The lady behind the counter looked up from some paperwork, then stood.

"What happened?"

"Got my hand caught," Dad said.

"You're still bleeding," the lady said. She stood, and I noticed that she was wearing an all-white outfit with a stitched symbol of a staff on one lapel. She put on a nurse's cap, then ran around her desk and through a door to reach my dad.

"Come, follow me. We're going to examination room two right away. We need to stop that bleeding and prevent any infections."

"We can pay," Mom said. I didn't notice her grabbing it back home, but she was clutching onto a small pouch now, one that jingled faintly. That had to be our entire life's savings right there.

"After treatment," the nurse said. I followed the adults into a little room off to one side. It had a cot with a thin mattress, a couple of stools, and a large cabinet with a lock on it to one side storing medication behind its glass doors. The nurse turned on a sink, and yellow-brown water flowed out for a moment before clearing up.

"Doctor Livalis will be here soon," the nurse said.

"In the meantime, let me see that wound. Come closer." Stolen novel; please report. I watched in detached fascination as the bandage over my dad's arm was removed. The bleeding sped up for a moment as his hand was revealed. It was broken, the entire palm bent in on itself. What were those called? Metacarpals? They weren't meant to be shaped like that, I knew. Three fingers were just… not there anymore. My dad's hand trembled as he stared, and then I noticed that I was trembling too.

Mom was crying, but they were small, tightly-controlled sniffles. The nurse was no-nonsense. She pulled my dad's hand forward, gently by the wrist, then carefully washed it off with a disinfectant that made the hairs in my nose sting just from the scent of it. My dad didn't comment. Then, with her eyes closed and a hand covering over my dad's, the nurse muttered some words under her breath and her hands started to glow very faintly.

White specks twinkled through the air, and just like that, the bleeding slowed and finally stopped.

"I can't do more than this," the nurse said.

"The doctor might not want everything closed up, in case your fingers can be reattached or regrown. Do you have…" Dad shook his head.

"The machine…"

"I understand. Please, sit back, wait here. I'll bring you some water to drink." It took a long five minutes for a man in a white doctor's coat to show up. He was middle-aged, with a bald spot atop his head, a second chin, and eyes that seemed to exude kindness and empathy.

"Hello, Roger," he said. It took me a moment to realise that was my dad's name. Of course his name wasn't Dada. That was… I was being silly.

"Let me see your hand while you tell me what happened." The doctor pulled up a stool next to the cot my dad sat on. I sat next to him, pressing into his side, giving him what comfort I could.

"It's the tri-baler. There's supposed to be a safety cowling, but they never installed it. I warned the floor manager again and again about it. My shirt… must have gotten caught in it, and then it pulled at my hand. If it wasn't for Larry shutting the whole thing down… Poor man. The manager was giving him an earful for shutting down the line until he saw all the blood. Took two guys to get my hand out, and…"

"That's a common story," Doctor Livalis said. He shook his head after looking at the hand, turning it this way and that.

"Roger, I'm not sure what to say, but there's not much I can do here. I can stitch this up well enough. It won't bleed. And I'll give you an ointment to prevent infection. Nothing expensive, don't worry. Stitches are just string, and the ointment's made local."

"But, my hand," my dad said.

"Unless you find a very good healing mage, or perhaps a potion, limb regrowth is…" he shook his head, and I got the message. It wasn't impossible. It was expensive. And expensive might as well be impossible for us.

"If you were more of a fighter, I'd say you might have a chance in the dungeons, but…"

"I'm not going to go off and die on my family with some delver crew," my dad said. He tried to ball his fists, then winced.

"The factory, they need me, so maybe they'll foot the bill." He didn't sound convinced at all. I knew my dad was a mechanic of some sort, but, well, I supposed that he wasn't the most important one on the site. How old was he? Looking up to his face, it took me a moment to realise that he was only just in his twenties. Mid-twenties at most. So young.

"I can still work," he said.

"When, when can I get back to work?"

"Ideally?" the doctor said.

"Give yourself a week or two. But, well."

"I'd be fired," Dad said.

"Larry was right, about the union thing, I should have…" The doctor glared.

"Don't go parading those sorts of ideas here. I don't need the wrong ears hearing and shutting down my clinic for spreading that kind of thing. Talk about it, but do so elsewhere."

"Right, thank you," Dad said. Mom muttered her thanks too, then stood up as the doctor left the room.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked. My dad found a smile for me, then reached over to pat my head, hesitated, then switched hands.

"I'll be fine, little mushroom."

"What's a dungeon?" I asked.

"Later," he said. I would be asking him later. My dad deserved better than this. So much better. And if this dungeon thing had what he needed, then maybe…