Infinite 01 - Infinite Sacrifice

barking dogs in tow. I pray the doctor is wrong.
    My mother comes to greet us upon entering. “I have had to eat dinner all alone tonight. Did you have plans elsewhere?”
    “I am sorry Jacquelyn. There was an unpleasant event I had to discuss with another surgeon.”
    She pulls her chin up. “That is fine. I was forced to amuse myself at the table.” She turns to me and kisses me on both cheeks. “Any news from the market?”
    I take her into the sitting room as Hadrian drifts into his library with one of his trunks, barking orders to the servants to close the windows on his way.
    “A plague ship came gliding in unmanned, the whole crew dead on deck.”
    Her amber eyes widen at this news. “It has come at last!” She pulls me down to the bench beside her. “I knew it would come to kill us all just as it has ravaged Paris! We could not hide on this island forever!” She begins biting her fingernails. “We have to leave like we did during the Great Famine.”
    “We will not have to leave. We will be fine here.” I hope I’ve stopped her before she begins lamenting yet again about the famine that happened thirty years ago.
    She shakes her head, and her golden hair spills around her shoulders. “You have never seen the horrors I have witnessed. Men, women, and children were dying by the hundreds! The London streets filled with beggars. Families couldn’t keep the water out of their houses. Rain was seeping through everywhere, the roofs, and the walls, under the door—”
    My thoughts drift to a seed stuck in my tooth since dinner. I try to dislodge it with my tongue as she rants on until she shakes me to pay attention.
    “Fires would not light, bread was molding, and crops were flattened by hail. Eighteen months of pouring rain! Even fine families like mine had trouble finding adequate food, as others were scavenging garbage—eating bird dung, pets, and even people!” She realizes how frantically her voice has risen and sits back in the chair, finishing in a hastened whisper, “It was terrible. I never want to witness such things again.”
    “That will not happen again.” She doesn’t even hear me in her tirade.
    “My father, very sensible man he was, took us and left. On our way out, we saw families: naked, skin and bones, on their hands and knees, eating grass like beasts! Many fields could not return to production for years, and some were ruined forever. I saw such horrors that I did not come back to London for many years, until your father brought me back.” She pulls my chin up for our eyes to meet. “We still have our manor in Windsor. You must speak to Hadrian about leaving at once before this spreads!”
    “Let us pray together now that this plague will not hit, and we will not have to go anywhere.”
    I help her onto her knees, shuffle beside her with our rosaries wrapped around our clasped hands, and we recant our Lady’s prayer.

Chapter 2
    The prayers went unanswered. Three days later, Hadrian receives word the mariners who ventured onto the plague ship are extremely ill. Hadrian is called to go look at them. Believing the plague is caused by infected air, he asks me for my sachet of rosemary. He calls two houses down for his apprentice to assist him. He is in such a hurry to leave, he forgets to kiss me before he steps out the door.
    “Good-bye!” I call after him, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.
    Mother and I busy ourselves making smelling apples from black pepper, red and white sandal, roses, camphor, and four parts of bol armeniac. Mother has been advised that holding one of these apples under your nose lends protection from disease. I take my smelling apple and go out to the courtyard behind our stone house. It is quiet and peaceful in the garden. Most of the flowers are past bloom and now giving way to autumn’s crisp slumber. I can faintly hear the hustle and bustle of Cheapside. I am not permitted out of the house unless Hadrian gives me permission, so this is my favorite spot to be alone. I sit there looking at my smelling apple, hoping it will keep me safe.
    Hadrian comes back looking worried. At supper, he tells us, “It most definitely is the Black Death. It has already spread to the mariner’s families, in only three days!”
    I can’t eat with this news. “Are they going to recover?”
    “One man is almost dead, the other two, I do not know.”
    “You did not touch them, did you?” Mother asks, her thin brows drawn together.
    “Of course not! I had my