Amelia woke to the phone buzzing against the pillow.

She patted around until she found it, lifting it up until the screen’s light shone way too bright for this early in the morning.

She covered her eyes and gave herself a moment. Then looked again through narrowed lids, lowering her screen brightness to its lowest setting.

After another moment or two… maybe three, she squinted to see the offending message, which turned out to be two messages. The most recent from Dr. Merryweather,

Breakfast? I know a place that should still be open. Good coffee.

And one from Dr. Caulfield, timestamped 5:12 AM. almost hours ago.

Amelia’s own message sat above it—the one she’d sent at three in the morning, before the part of her brain that handled professional communication had woken up.

How long have you known Elijah Merriweather—and do you actually trust him?

Caulfield’s reply was longer than expected:

Not so early here, Dr. Everett. I have known Dr. Merriweather about six years. He approached me through a colleague at the Pasteur Institute regarding historical pathogen research. I was skeptical—I’m always skeptical of the private sector, but his foundation’s resources checked out, his methodology was sound, and his knowledge of viral epidemiology was extraordinary for someone without a formal medical background.

Trust is a strong word, I can say that I trust his commitment to this work. I trust that he wants the same outcome we do. And I trust that he’s carried something for a very long time that he doesn’t talk about, and that it drives everything he does.

He’s not an easy man to know. He withholds. But in six years he has never once lied to me about anything that mattered, not medically. I can’t say the same about most of my colleagues.

Amelia read the message three times. Caulfield had answered the question she’d asked. And some she had not on top of that.

He’s carried something for a very long time.

She picked up the phone and typed reply to Elijah: Where?

His reply came in under thirty seconds.

Tina’s Café. Around nine? They have good coffee.

Twenty past eight. Less than an hour.

Amelia typed: Fine.

Before she hit send, she changed it to: Yes.

She set the phone face-down on the nightstand and laid still, her pulse doing its new trick—concentrating low in her throat, a thickening she could feel when she swallowed. Morning light filtered through the curtains. The world was becoming more vivid. She saw tiny particles of dust and skin cells floating through the air. Every crack and fiber of the leather chair she had spent way too much time in lately. Things in the microscopic realm she shouldn’t be able to register at this distance, let alone in this detail.

The shower couldn’t find a temperature. Too hot, then too cold, then too hot again. She stood under the water with her palms flat against the tile, watching steam curl over her forearms, watching the overhead light break through water droplets.

She’d lost weight. She could see it when she wiped the mirror—the sharpening along her jaw, collarbones more prominent than a week ago. Nothing dramatic. Not yet. But her body was clearly overextended.

Watching her own fingers tremble and catch on the buttons of her shirt, for the first time she realized she might be about to die.

She was thirty-one years old, she wasn’t ready to die. She had work to finish. Letters and journals to study. A genetic test pending at a lab forty minutes away. Most importantly, she did not want to die.

She finished the buttons.

Three new WHO alerts on her phone since the shower. She didn’t open them—she didn’t have time.

She grabbed her sunglasses and bag and headed out the door.

-

Tina’s Café had one barista working. Mask up, she wiped down tables that would stay empty. Two of the four overhead lights were off. The dimness was a mercy—even with sunglasses on.

Eli had occupied the corner booth again. Back to the wall. One paper cup and a regular cup of coffee on the table.

“You came,” he said.

“You said good coffee.” She slid in across from him. The paper cup he pushed over was warm in her hands, and it felt right—one of the few temperatures her body still agreed with.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Not much change. I’m documenting.” She took a sip. Dark, no sugar. He’d remembered. “Dr. Thanakit said to log everything. I’m logging.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

The barista’s cloth moved in circles across a table near the window. Outside, a delivery truck idled at the curb.

“The results should be back tomorrow,” Eli said. “Maybe the day after. The lab is running behind—they’ve got samples stacked from Boston.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to say anything other than ‘I know’?”

She looked at him over the rim of her cup. Grey henley, sleeves pushed to the elbows. He looked different this morning. Looser, yet tired, something she hadn’t seen on him before.

“I read everything again last night,” she said. “James Merriweather’s notes. All of them. But I believe there’s more of his papers out there somewhere. Do you know of any journals dated after March ‘62?”

His face didn’t change, but his attention did. “Not that I am aware of,” he lied as if it were second nature to him–which it had become. “And did you glean any new information?”

“I believe he documented Eleanor’s condition as if he knew exactly what was happening to her.” She set her cup down. “He wasn’t discovering her symptoms. He was confirming them. There’s a difference, and it’s in the sentence structure.”

Eli said nothing. His fingers rested on the table.

“I read correspondence for a living,” she said. “I know what discovery looks like in a letter—the hedging, the questions a writer asks themselves on the page, the places where they’re working through something new. Merriweather’s notes don’t do that. His clinical vocabulary is fully formed from page one. He already had the framework. He was filling in a case.”

“Eleanor’s case.”

“Eleanor’s case.” She held his gaze. “He knew what was going to happen to her. Maybe not the timeline. Maybe not the exact progression. But the mechanism—he understood it before it began.”

The café was quiet enough to hear the espresso machine ticking as it cooled. Elijah’s coffee sat untouched. He looked at it, then past it.

“My brother died when I was younger,” he said.

Amelia waited.

“I was old enough to understand what was happening. Not old enough to do anything about it.” His hand moved to his coffee cup, wrapped around it, but he didn’t lift it. “He was the good one. The one people wanted to be around. He could walk into a room and everyone in it felt like he was who they were waiting for.”

He paused, a tightening in his jaw.

“He got sick. In the way where you watch someone you know become someone you don’t, where the disease takes the person before it takes the body. And the people who should have helped—the ones who had the knowledge, who understood what was happening—they didn’t act. They documented. They observed. They kept their distance and waited.” His knuckles were white around the cup. “They let their caution cost him his life.”

Amelia didn’t move.

“I’ve spent a long time making sure something like that doesn’t happen again. To anyone. That’s the direction I pushed my family’s foundation since I took over. That’s what all our research is for. That’s what all of this is.” He gestured between them. “I know I haven’t told you everything, and that’s making it harder to trust me, and accept help from me. But I am asking you to trust me anyway.”

She watched his face. Looked for the tells—the micro-expressions that could give away a performance where a constructed story wobbles under pressure. She’d made a career out of reading dead men’s letters looking for the gaps.

She couldn’t find the gaps here.

“James Merriweather was a complex man,” Eli said quietly. “He made mistakes. But he’s not all there is to the family name. What I’ve spent my time on — what the Foundation has become — that’s not about vindicating him. It’s about making sure what happened to my brother never happens to anyone else.”

It didn’t answer her questions. It didn’t explain the gaps in his knowledge, the way he arrived at conclusions three steps ahead of her, the things he seemed to know before she told him.

But at least he wasn’t defending James. He was claiming distance from him.

“I’m not going to stop asking questions,” she said.

“I know.” A half-motion at the corner of his mouth. “That’s why I picked you.”

“You didn’t pick me. A lawyer called me about a house.”

“Amelia.”

“What?”

“Eat something.” He pushed a brown paper bag across the table. Inside: a scone, warm, wrapped in wax paper. The acrid smell of cranberry and orange. “You need to eat something. Your hands were shaking when you picked up that cup.”

She looked at the scone. Looked at him.

“It’s not hunger,” she said.

She unwrapped it and broke off a piece anyway. It tasted like nothing at first—the same flat blankness that had been ruining food for days. Then, underneath, sweetness. Faint, but there. She chased the flavour.

She ate the whole thing without speaking. He looked out the window while she did, watching the street, the delivery truck pulling away from the curb. She was grateful he didn’t watch her eat.

She wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A silence. Different from the one before. Less guarded. Neither of them tried to fill it as she drank the rest of her coffee.

Eli could hold a silence longer than anyone she’d met. She often worked alone, so she relished the silence. It was nice sitting with someone without feeling the need for noise

But she had something she needed said, before she left.

“When the results come in,” she started. “I want to be there. Not to be told afterward, or be given a summarized version. I need to see them for myself.”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

“Great.” She got up, “I’ll see you then. Thank you for the coffee and scone.”

“You are welcome,” he smiled and nodded.

When she got back to the room, she lowered the blinds fully. The archival box sat on the desk where she’d left it. The faded blue of the ribbon tying the majority of Thomas’s letters almost invisible in the dimness.

She tapped the wood.

Eleanor had been twenty-three. Writing about her death, in a locked room, documenting her own change. Trusting in James Merriweather because he was the only one who understood what was happening to her. Because he was the only one there.

Amelia opened her laptop. The WHO dashboard loaded slowly. Edinburgh: 5,112 confirmed. Two hundred and sixty-five overnight. Leeds and Manchester still climbing. A new cluster in Oslo.

She closed the dashboard and magnified her symptom log.

May 5, 2025. 10:47 AM.

Photophobia persistent, worsening. Scotopic adaptation now exceeds functional threshold—can read document text in near-total darkness. Fine motor tremor, intermittent. Appetite suppression continues. Managed one scone at breakfast—first significant food intake in approximately 36 hours. Taste perception altered: baseline flat affect with intermittent recognition of sweet/salt. Weight loss estimated 4–5 lbs since onset. Temperature dysregulation ongoing. Energy pattern unchanged: peak alertness 11 PM–3 AM.

Her cursor blinked at the end of the notation.

Emotional state: complicated.

She deleted that. Typed it again. Then deleted it again.

She looked at the box again. Thomas’ letters.

She’d put everything back, but at the bottom of the box, still unbound, were the ones she hadn’t touched yet: letters from late 1862. She’d been so absorbed in James’s documentation she hadn’t gotten to them.

Her cursor blinked at the end of the symptom log entry.

Eleanor had trusted James Merriweather. She had died in a locked room and woken up different, and Merriweather had been standing there when she opened her eyes.

Amelia was not Eleanor. And this was not 1862. She had contracts and lawyers and friends and colleagues. She was not alone. She was not trapped.

Still, she was sitting in a dark room, getting sicker and sicker, trusting a Merriweather to stand beside her.

As an historian, she appreciated the irony.

-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025-26 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

The call came at 5:17. Eli was still at his desk, the journal still open, his own handwriting staring at him across centuries.

“Eleanor.” The name he did not use in front of anyone else. “It’s early, even for you.”

“She texted me. Fifteen minutes ago. From her personal number, not through the Foundation channels.”

Eli sat forward. “What did she say?”

“She asked how long I’ve known you. And whether I actually trust you.” She paused before she addressed him by the name she first met him as. “James, if she’s texting me at 5 o’clock in the morning, that means she was up all night thinking about it.”

Her utterance of his name sounded more like chastisement than affection.

“How do you know that she has been up all night?” He sat back in his chair.

“Because she’s still alive. She’s not like us, James. She needs sleep.” He could hear Eleanor take a deep breath and exhale—something she did to accentuate her point—not because she had to. “I know it has been hundreds of years since you’ve needed sleep, but you have to try to remember what it was like. I don’t know what you did, or said, but she still doesn’t trust you and it’s eating at her.”

“I’m not sure—” She cut him off.

“She’s running on instinct while struggling to sleep—and she has an immune system that’s rewriting her circadian architecture.” Another pause. “I know you know what that phase feels like. So do I.”

He did. The weeks when the body abandons its old rhythms and the mind follows—sharpening in the dark hours, growing suspicious of everything it trusted in the light. He had watched it happen dozens of times. He had lived it once. Eleanor had lived it once. And now it was Amelia’s turn, alone in a hotel room, with his notes from another era three feet from her head.

“Exactly,” he said. “That is what I was going to point out before you cut me off. She’s at a state where her lack of sleep doesn’t mean she’s stressed out over anything.”

“Yes, but—” This time Eli cut her off.

“She’s been reading James’s notes—all of them.” he stressed. “That’s what she told me yesterday. She said he wasn’t discovering Eleanor’s symptoms, he was confirming them.”

Silence on the line. He could hear the faint tick of a clock in whatever room she occupied in Geneva.

“She’s right,” Eleanor said.

“I know she’s right.”

“Then you know what comes next.”

He sighed, “It’s not the notes. It’s me she’s reading.”

Silence on Eleanor’s end.

“She told me about a man she worked with. Senior faculty. He took her research, published it as his own, completely cut her off.” He paused. “She said she finds it hard to trust people now. Men.”

“And she sees it in you.”

“She probably does.” He set the journal down. “The Foundation’s connections, the laboratory staffed, the access I had prepared before she ever arrived. Very high handed. Very controlling, as you would say.”

“Just you being you.”

He didn’t answer.

“James.” Eleanor said his name the way she used it when she wanted him to hear himself.

He heard Eleanor shift. The slight creak of leather, the settling of weight. She had always thought with her body, adjusting position when her mind changed direction.

“You’re doing what you always do,” she said. “You know that.”

He didn’t respond.

“Finding someone brilliant. Making yourself indispensable. Deciding what’s best for them before they’ve had the chance to decide for themselves.” Her voice was not angry—yet he could hear how displeased she was with him. “I’m telling you, it won’t work the same way twice.”

The words landed where she meant them to. He let them.

“Her symptoms are progressing,” he said. “The adaptation rate doesn’t match the typical exposure timeline.”

“I know. I’ve been reviewing Thanakit’s preliminary data. Her metabolic markers are—unusual.”

“I have seen. Unusual is an understatement.”

“Fine. Unprecedented. In living subjects, at least.” The professional tone returned, but the edge beneath it stayed. “I need more samples. Bloodwork at forty-eight-hour intervals minimum. Tissue cultures if we can get them. And I need her to understand what the monitoring is for—not some vague wellness check, actual pathogen tracking. If she starts refusing access because she doesn’t trust you—”

“She won’t refuse you.”

“She might refuse what comes through you. Everything comes through you right now. If she doesn’t trust you, then the whole channel closes.” She takes a breath. “And then it’s not just you who loses out—I lose the most significant case I’ve seen since my own, and she loses the only thing that might keep her alive.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. He knew exactly what she wanted him to do, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“Give her something real. She’ll see through anything else—she is a smart woman. If you try to manage her with empty half-truths, she’ll know.” Eleanor’s voice dropped. “You have to actually give something up. And Eli, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“When you talk with her about the—her progression, her symptoms, the anomalies in her data—you cannot sound the way you used to.”

He shifted in his seat. “Meaning?”

“Typically you sound like a man describing a subject, not a person. I need you to use her name, like you’ve done in this conversation. Talk with her, not to her. Did you realize, you haven’t referred to her as ‘the subject’ once this whole time.”

“I don’t—”

“You do. Please, James, think before you speak. Be careful what you say. For her sake—and yours.”

“I understand,” understanding crept into his voice.

“Good luck.”

The line went silent. He hung up and set the phone beside one of his journals.

Give Amelia something real.

He thought about his brother.

Not the version he would tell Amelia. The real one. Dougal was the one who had saved him over 700 years ago from the people of his village before they had a chance to burn him alive. Eli was unable to return the favor. Dougal died like so many others during the Great Pestilence.

That grief was what he’d use.

Eli sat back down and began to construct his story.

This time he was going to tell her the truth. Just not all of it, and not in its original shape.

His brother was real, his loss, the grief, was real. That would be enough to carry the rest.

A small lie, the pain of his brother’s passing as the catalyst for his own behavior.

He wrote down the beats and rehearsed them until they sounded real. Because Amelia’s case could be the key to all he had pursued since he lost Catriona, he needed her to believe him.

Still, some part of him wanted to skip the performance entirely. Something in him wanted to tell Amelia the truth about everything. The whole unedited truth, offered without calculation, without knowing what she would do with it.

He couldn’t. wouldn’t. But the want was there.

Once he felt his performance would pass Amelia’s scrutiny, he picked up his phone and sent her a text.

-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025-26 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

The Merriweather Medical Research Foundation was quiet at two in the morning. Not exactly silent—the climate systems hummed behind the walls, cycling filtered air through corridors built to preserve things that should not have survived as long as they had—but quiet in the way of a building with no one else in it.

Elijah Merriweather sat alone in his private office on the basement level, behind the biometric lock that responded only to him, looking at his own handwriting on a centuries old document.

The journal lay open under a reading lamp turned low. He did not truly need the light. Had not for ages, really. But the habit persisted—one of dozens of small performances he maintained even when alone, always conscious that he might be observed.

It was fortunate that he did not leave quite all of his research with Eleanor, before being forced to go into hiding after the Civil War.
Amelia had found enough of James’s notes in the house to be dangerous—the clinical observations, the documentation of Eleanor’s decline. If Eleanor had the later journals as well, the ones that followed her transformation, there would be no ruse left to maintain.

And, he had to admit, Eleanor had been careful—in her own way. Or perhaps simply unwilling to keep a record of the worst of what he had done. Either way, what Amelia had was incomplete.

What sat on this desk was not.

-

March 29, 1862.
18 AD

I had not anticipated this degree of resistance.

The others, without exception, accepted the reality of feeding within hours of the first hunger. Their moral reservations crumbling under the power of instinct.

Subject E.C. is markedly different. After the first instance of violence, she has been refusing to consume any kind of nourishment. Her superior intellectual faculties show no sign of impairment. They remain remarkably intact despite the deprivation. She is starving herself through sheer force of will.

This level of control is truly extraordinary.

It’s possible that the longtime exposure prior to her death preserved her more intimate self—even during the most primal stages of the transformation.

If so, this would have significant implications on my future research.

As fascinating as her behavior is to observe, It also poses a very immediate problem. I can confidently say that her rational coherence has been deteriorating. It is my theory that, If she persists in her convictions, there will be a decay of faculties.

I understand her scruple, she fears that by accepting sustenance, it will become of her what did of the other survivors—ravenous, unthinking, changed beings.

I fear she will become lost entirely—the deterioration, should it continue, admitting of no recovery.

There is no concrete proof of this, of course, and yet I am hesitant to pursue that line of research. If I were proven right it would be… It would be a considerable waste of a remarkable intellect.

-

Another page.

The paper tugged at his fingertips with the slow decay of decades.

-

April 3, 1862.
23 AD

Subject E.C. fed today.
Her hands trembled throughout. She did not speak to me afterward.

The examination of her mental faculties which I administered this evening. Verbal faculty: unimpaired. Geometric reasoning: exceeding the faculty as measured during fever. She is, if anything, sharper than before her stubborn refusal to eat. Her body required the feeding. Her mind, it appears, persisted without it longer than I would have believed possible.

I had expected her to be rational about this. I know her to be rational. What I did not account for is that rationality, in her case, includes a moral framework rigid enough to override self-preservation. She would rather have destroyed herself than accept what she has become.

I find this fascinating.

-

He paused on that entry, reread it.

-

I find this fascinating.

-

-

Fascinating.

He remembered writing that sentence. The pen had moved without hesitation—the observation was genuine, cleanly felt, unapologetic.

She had refused to eat for weeks. She had nearly ruined the very thing that made him excited to study her in the first place—her mind.

Without the faculty intact, she would have been indistinguishable from the others. Most died in the fever. Those who didn’t emerged into something he could only describe as a vacancy—the body continuing, the hunger present, the mind evacuated. Appetite wearing the shape of a person. In seven hundred years, the third outcome had been rare enough to count.

Eleanor had woken angry and entirely herself.

That was the difference. Not that she survived—he had seen survival before. It was that he understood, for the first time, why. The priming had held her higher faculties long enough for the rest of her to adapt around them, before hunger could collapse everything into instinct. She had given him a mechanism. A direction.

What came after Eleanor was entirely a different kind of work.

He was finding it more difficult to imagine Amelia in those terms—as an experiment awaiting an outcome. The categories kept slipping.

Today, as his own words stared at him from the past, he thought of a similar mind, a similar brilliance, and he realized he’d not be able to write about Amelia, as he did about Eleanor.

To think about Amelia as he had thought about Eleanor.

Eleanor Caldwell had been a subject. Followed, nurtured, coveted. A problem to be solved. As a fascinating deviation from the expected pattern. There was no pity in his words for what she was going through. None of the approximation of human warmth he sometimes performed for the benefit of others.

It was the pure, uncomplicated fascination of a scientist watching something he had never seen before.

He had tried to write about Amelia in that way in his private notes recently—the clinical language, the measured observations, the careful distance. And the distance kept slipping. Her name kept replacing “the subject.” Her symptoms kept becoming “how she’s feeling.”

He kept noticing things that had no research value at all—the way she held her coffee cup with both hands because of the temperature shifts she was surely experiencing by now, the way she tilted her head when she was listening, weighting his truths in her mind. Working through him as he was working through her.

Eleanor had remarked upon it.

You sound different when you talk about Amelia. She’d said.
He had not asked what she meant.

He wondered if she was right as he continued to flip through his journal. The following pages were denser. Feeding schedules. Regular light tolerance tests at twelve-hour intervals. Examination of mental faculties—recolleciton of language, perception of distance and relation, a trial of logical faculty of his own devising.

Eleanor’s performance had climbed consistently through the first month after she started accepting food. Her mind sharpened as her body changed, following the pattern he had observed again and again over the centuries.

Faster and deeper than even his own had been

He closed the journal and placed both hands flat on the desk.

It was a sturdy piece. He had built it himself shortly before the Revolutionary War when he was known as Dr. William Merriweather. The grain dark with age and oil.

Everything lasted, in his world. Everything except the people.

Something about Eleanor’s transformation had awakened him to his own journey throughout the years.

A man born in a Scotland village in 1306, years before Pestilence swept the country killing him amongst many others. Before his own confused and hungry awakening. His own, and none other’s.

Back when he was known as Angus Merriweather.

He’d barely escaped being burned alive then, and only thanks to his brother’s intervention.

He had died so many times after that one. Drowned, burned, and even succumbed to plague—again. Each death allowing him to become someone new. Miles. Robert. Samuel. Rory. Peter.

So many different lives. But only one had truly left a mark on him after the first one—somewhen back in the 1600s.

He was known as Francis the Brute then. A title given to him after the English had killed the love of his life—Catriona. After he had exacted his vengeance.

Catriona. Whose name meant pure in a language he was forgetting how to speak.

He had loved her in a way that his science could never explain. Kept loving her In a way he couldn’t explain. She made him a better man, and he wanted to be that man again.

Every fiber in his being missed the way she looked at him. She saw the man hiding within the monster. Under that gaze, for the first time in centuries, he had felt like Angus once more.

He wanted to feel that way again, and he knew he needed her for that. To this day, he hadn’t figured it out how.

More than three centuries spent trying to understand why the affliction gave some immortality yet killed others, so that he could go back and do it right.

The only problem was that the affliction moved in cycles. Decades of silence, then sudden emergence—following wars, famine, poverty. Always where the bodies were dense and the oversight thin.

Lucky for him humanity had provided, again and again in the past.

When the Edinburgh cluster broke, he had been waiting a while.

He had grown comfortable in being Elijah, which was dangerous. Comfort led to exposure. Exposure led to questions he could not answer without dismantling everything.

And Amelia.

The gap between James Merriweather and Elijah Merriweather was a century and a half of intervening “ancestors”—the fiction that kept the family legacy plausible, that let him operate the Foundation in his own name while pointing to the founder as a long-dead forebear.

The fiction held because no one had ever examined James’s handwriting and Elijah’s in the same room, under the same light, with the trained eye of a woman who studied dead men’s letters for a living.

Amelia could be doing exactly that in her hotel room. She did not merely read documents. She studied the person behind the pen. She found the seams between what someone wanted to say and what they meant. She had told him so herself, in the truck, as calmly as describing a hobby.

The question was not whether she would figure it out. It was when. And what he could do, if anything, to slow her down.

And yet, the risk of being finally exposed offered a thrill in itself.

His phone vibrated at 5:17 AM. Not a text. A call.

He looked at the screen. The name read Dr. E. Caulfield but the contact photo was one he had taken himself, decades ago, in a garden in Zurich. He answered on the second ring.

“We need to talk.”

Her voice. Even after all these years he imagined he could hear the echo of the woman who had awakened in a makeshift morgue in Richmond. The accent had changed—educated now, continental, layered with six languages and a career’s worth of authority—but the cadence beneath had not.

Eleanor spoke the way she had always spoken.

-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025-26 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

May 4, 2025
Fredericksburg, Virginia

I am Eleanor Caldwell.

I am twenty-three years old.

I am promised to Thomas Everett.

Dear God, let me remember. Let me remain myself.

I must—

A long drag across the page, ink thickening where Eleanor’s hand had finally stopped moving.

Amelia closed the journal.

She’d been awake since two. No nightmares, no sudden noise from the street. Just the slow, grinding awareness that her body had made a decision without consulting her. Her eyes had opened in the dark and her mind was already running, the way it had been doing for the past week: sharpest precisely when she least needed it to be.

She’d lain there for maybe twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, feeling the familiar warmth start building in her blood — that wrong-hour metabolism she was logging now, the way her energy climbed reliably between eleven PM and three AM like something in her had recalibrated its circadian rhythm and not bothered to tell the rest of her.
She’d tried to slow her breathing. Had tried not to think about James Merriweather’s notes sitting three feet away on the desk.

At two-thirty she gave up.

The journal had been in its archival sleeve since she’d photographed it two nights ago. She’d been careful. Cotton gloves, acid-free polyester, proper storage away from the window. She’d been telling herself she wasn’t ready to read it all the way through. That she needed to establish the full context first. That professional historians don’t read primary sources at midnight in a hotel room because they can’t sleep.

She’d gone straight through it in under two hours, never mind the pictures she had taken.

The kettle was one of those cheap cylindrical units bolted to the bathroom counter, the kind that took forever and sounded like it was considering giving up entirely. She filled it from the tap and stood in the doorway while it worked, not turning on the bathroom light. She didn’t need it. The streetlamp outside threw a thin orange line under the curtain edge, and it was more than enough.

That was new too. Or newer. She’d been noticing it these past few days — the way her eyes adjusted faster than they should, pulling detail out of low light before her brain had consciously registered that she was looking at anything.

She should be logging this, she knew.

Dr. Thanakit had told her to document symptoms carefully. Dr. Caulfield had said the same. She’d been putting it off, the same way she used to put off making a doctor’s appointment, half hoping that it will get better by itself, half dreading it will not.

She got her phone off the desk and opened a new note.

Symptom log. May 4, 2025. 3:04 AM.

She paused. When had it actually started? She’d told Dr.Thanakit ten days ago, but was that right?

She thought back further. The drive down from Boston — she’d been tired, but that was twelve hours in a car. The first days at the house, craving coffee more than food. She’d assumed travel. Then the hotel room, the blackout curtains. She’d assumed the headaches were dehydration.

Onset unclear. Possible early fatigue 3-4 weeks prior, attributed to travel stress. First distinct symptom: photophobia, approximately April 25. Progressive.

She stared at the screen. Three weeks. Maybe more.

Scotopic sensitivity: increased. Functional at approximately 1/10 normal illumination. Standing in dark bathroom, streetlamp sufficient. Duration: at least 4 days.

Clinical language. It helped.

The kettle clicked off. She poured the water over the single-serve bag she’d been rationing and carried the cup back to the desk.

The room was quiet in the particular way of 3 AM in a mid-range hotel — the HVAC cycling off, the ice machine two doors down gone still for the night, no traffic. Quiet enough that she could hear the slight give of the floorboard under the desk chair, the cotton gloves sliding against mylar as she opened the archival box.

She spread everything out in front of her.

Thomas’s first letter in April of ‘61, then Eleanor’s reply, then the months of correspondence that had wound through the whole first year of the war. She’d been living inside this timeline for weeks. She knew which letters came next before she picked them up.

She laid Thomas’s April letters on the left side. April 17th, the one he might never have sent. April 22nd, Eleanor’s response. She smoothed the mylar sleeve flat with two fingers.

Your observation regarding our Methodist Church’s division as a harbinger of national fracture struck me deeply.

Forty-seven words to say: I’ve been thinking about what you wrote.

Another paragraph and a half of scripture and sermon citations to say: I’ll find ways to keep writing to you even if they stop our letters.

And somewhere in the middle of all that careful, coded language — I find comfort in imagining you facing eastward in your own morning devotions, the same light touching both our faces — a woman writing to a man she loved.

Amelia had read that sentence maybe eighty times over the past weeks. She always slowed down for it.

Marcus used to say she communicated like she was submitting a grant proposal, economical, dry, functional. He hadn’t been wrong. They’d said everything clearly between them, honest and transparent all the way to the end.

It hadn’t helped.

She picked up Eleanor’s winter letters next. November, December, the careful domestic reports that had nothing domestic in them — descriptions of ward rounds that were really descriptions of something she was watching change in herself, observations about light sensitivity and altered appetite framed as medical curiosity about her patients.
She’d been writing to Thomas about her own symptoms without knowing it. Had been sending him the documentation of her own unraveling, postmarked with love, signed with her full name.

I find myself noting with scientific interest the ways in which prolonged exposure to suffering changes one’s perceptions.

Amelia set that one down gently.

Then James Merriweather’s notes.

She didn’t like these. She’d held them twice before and neither time had been comfortable, and she understood now that her discomfort wasn’t squeamishness about the content — she’d read worse in medical archives, had spent a career elbow-deep in mortality records. But this.
This detachment, this handwriting: controlled, meticulous, giving nothing away. Pages documenting the end of Eleanor’s life with the steady penmanship of a man who had chosen documentation over feeling, or had perhaps turned documentation into feeling.

I should send the nurses to wash Miss Caldwell’s body and prepare it for the family’s viewing.

The room will need airing out.

She’d died then, in 1862.

She’d sold a house in Richmond in 1867.

Amelia worked through the rest of the spring letters, the summer letters, the autumn. She’d read all of these before, but handling them now, in the darkness, with Eleanor’s final journal entry still clear in her mind —

Her thoughts turned to Dr. Caulfield question in the lab.

Eli. She had called him.

Six years of collaboration by Caulfield’s account, the easy familiarity of Eli? Through the speakers, the softness of it. The way she’d read his silence about the test result from across an ocean.

What are you seeing? Not ‘Are you seeing something?’.

He withheld things. Amelia knew this. He’d said so himself, essentially, in the truck. I’m not telling you everything. Even then. And she’d accepted it. She had trusted him.

Eleanor had trusted James Merriweather completely.

Amelia looked at the documents spread across the coverlet. James’s notes face-down at the bottom. Thomas’s on the left, Eleanor’s on the right. She’d put them in order without thinking about it.

She opened the laptop around four-fifteen. Another hot drink to warm her hands.

The WHO briefing was six hours old. Edinburgh cluster: 4,847 confirmed, 1,103 suspected. Secondary clusters in Leeds, Manchester, Dublin. A conference transmission event in Lyon — seventeen researchers, nine countries, two days in the same room in April. Cambridge had shuttered two departments. The Sorbonne, thirty days.

She found a preprint from Imperial College, not yet reviewed, flagged with the standard caveats. Someone had tried to model transmission vectors. She recognized the shape of the graph without needing to read the axis labels. She’d seen that curve before, in different handwriting, about different diseases, in different wars. The shape didn’t change. Only the dates.

She closed the laptop.

Outside, sometime around five, the streetlamp cut off.

She hadn’t been watching for it, but she felt it — the slight shift in the room, the thin orange line under the curtain vanishing. The darkness wasn’t darker exactly. But it had a different quality. More absolute. She sat with it for a moment.

The sky outside the curtain gap had gone from black to something that wasn’t quite grey yet. The hour between. Her mother used to call it the dog watch — the hour when the night had given up and the day hadn’t started. She’d always hated being awake for it as a child. Too late to go back to sleep, too early to get up and start the day.

She gathered the documents carefully.. James’s notes went back first. Then Eleanor’s letters and journals in sequence. Then Thomas’s. She tied the faded blue ribbon back around his bundle, 160 years old, and still holding strong.

She put everything back in the box. Closed the lid.

Her shoulders ached. Her eyes felt granular behind the lids from too many hours in low light. She was cold again — the warmth that had kept her up had receded sometime in the last hour, quietly, without her really noticing.

She pulled back the coverlet and lay down without undressing. She pulled her phone off the nightstand and opened Caulfield’s contact. Looked at it for a moment.

Then she typed: Dr. Caulfield — sorry for the early hour. I need to ask you something outside the research context. How long have you known Elijah Merriweather — and do you actually trust him?

She read it twice. Deleted actually. Put it back. Sent it before the part of her brain that handled professional communication could wake up and object.

The message showed delivered.

She set the phone face-down on the pillow beside her.

She didn’t realize she’d slept until the buzzing started.

Her hand found the phone without her being fully there yet. Her thumb unlocked the screen.

She looked at the notification expecting Caulfield’s name. It was Elijah’s instead.

Breakfast? I know a place that should still be open. Good coffee.

We should talk before your results come in.

Through the curtain gap, the light had gone from grey to pale gold.

The chat with Dr. Caulfield mocked her from the screen.

She set the phone face-down on the pillow and turned her back on it, determined to catch another hour or two of sleep.

-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025-26 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Nothing.

Void absolute. The space where being itself ceases and all that remains is—

Nothing.

Yet a fragment persisted. A spark refusing dissolution.

No thought. No identity, no memory, no understanding of self or circumstance. Only existence stripped to its barest essence. A point of being suspended in darkness so complete that darkness itself seemed inadequate description.

Time held no meaning in this state. Seconds might have been centuries. Hours might have been heartbeats. All measure dissolved in the absolute.

But gradually—so gradually the change might have occupied moments or months—that spark began gathering other sparks unto itself. Fragments collecting, patterns forming where none had existed. Structure emerging from chaos.

Tissue that had ceased all function began—through mechanisms no natural philosophy could explain—to rebuild itself. Changed at the most fundamental level.

Memory flickered. Not as narrative or sequence. Just flashes:

Auburn hair across a pillow. Canvas screens in gaslight. Iron taste coating the tongue. Hands restraining. Voices urgent. Pain.

So much pain..

The darkness remained absolute. But within it, something gathered itself toward becoming.

At the periphery of this void—if such a place existed where nothing was—there came the first sensation beyond mere existence.

Scent.

Pure information, flooding whatsoever remained of awareness. Rich. Copper. Salt. Iron.

Life.

That smell pulled at the gathering fragments as lodestone pulls at iron. Drew consciousness toward coherence with mounting urgency. The reconstruction accelerated, driven by scent as plants grow toward sunlight.

More emerged from darkness:

Sweat. Soap. Wool. Lamp oil. Carbolic solution.

Fear.

Each thread pulling awareness back from the void. Each adding substance to the gathering whole.

I perceive scent. Therefore something remains to perceive. Therefore I persist in some form.

But identity had not yet returned. There was scent. There was darkness. Time passed, impossible to measure.

Sound came next. First felt rather than heard—vibrations through whatsoever lay beneath. Footsteps distant. Voices muffled. Floorboards creaking. A door closing somewhere within the building.

I perceive sound. Therefore I exist in relation to other things that move and speak.

The reconstruction continued. Accelerating as though the framework, once established, could be more rapidly completed. Tissue that had died now replaced by tissue functioning differently.

And still that scent. Blood. Growing stronger. Pulling with mounting urgency at the gathering consciousness.

Hunger.

Fundamental, cellular, the hunger pulled. And consciousness followed its demand.

Somewhere nearby, church bells struck nine. The vibration traveled through brick and timber and reached what had been Eleanor Caldwell’s corpse, laid out in the side room these twelve hours past.

Deep within that corpse, in tissue that had been dead since before dawn, a heart that had ceased beating suddenly contracted. Once. Weakly. Barely a spasm.

Then again. Stronger.

Blood that had begun separating and settling moved sluggishly through vessels that should have not maintained integrity past death. The blood carried no oxygen. It moved through a system that violated every principle of natural philosophy. But it moved nonetheless.

Another heartbeat. Another.

A body that had been cooling began—by infinitesimal degrees—to warm.

In the darkness behind closed lids, consciousness gathered like storm clouds forming. No longer fragments. No longer scattered sparks. Whole now. Aware. Driven by that overwhelming, undeniable hunger.

Yet still unthinking. Still without name or identity or history. Only:

Hunger. Darkness. Waiting.

The body lay immobile beneath its shroud. Canvas pulled over the face just so. Arms crossed upon the chest. The attitude of death maintained according to custom.

The hunger grew.

Through canvas, through closed lids, some awareness of light and shadow began registering. Passing heat. Movement.

Footsteps approached. Light. Quick. Hesitant.

A young woman’s voice, scarce above whisper: “Lord have mercy, they have just left her here with that man. Both of them covered like yesterday’s laundry awaiting the wash.”

The footsteps came nearer. Stopped beside the cot where Eleanor’s shrouded form lay.

“All those fine dresses and fancy notions, and here she lies. Dead as any field hand, and not a soul staying vigil.”

Bitterness carried clearly in that voice. Resentment. Envy. Something darker still.

“Well now. What she does not require any longer, others might put to better purpose.”

Fabric rustled. Fingers—warm, alive, trembling—touched the edge of the shroud.

Every sense focused upon those fingers with sudden, terrible precision. The warmth of blood flowing beneath skin. The rhythmic pulse at the wrist. The scent—oh, the scent—of life so near, so accessible, calling to the hunger with overwhelming intensity.

The fingers gripped canvas, began pulling it back from the face.

That awareness—that gathering, hunger-driven consciousness—calculated with pure predatory precision:

Wait. Not yet. Wait. Wait.

The young woman muttered as she worked: “Dr. Merriweather keeps such careful watch usually. But not this morning, is it? Off making arrangements while these two lie here unguarded.” She pulled harder at the canvas. “Pretty she was, before the fever took her. Well-connected too—doctor’s daughter from one of the good families. Never did a full day’s work, I’d wager, not like the rest of us—always special duties, private consultations with the doctor. And here she lies now.”

The resentment in her voice was palpable. Envy mixed with satisfaction at Eleanor’s fall.

“Let us see what pretty Miss Eleanor Caldwell wore when death came calling. Might be something worth salvaging before they plant her in the dirt. That brooch mayhap, or the fancy bracelet. Must have been worth something, and it is not like she has use for them now.”

She pulled the shroud entirely away from Eleanor’s face. Leaned closer to examine what lay beneath.

Reached down to touch Eleanor’s wrists, checking for anything that might possess value.

Leaned too far. Overbalanced. Caught herself with one hand upon the cot’s edge and the other still tangled in Eleanor’s dress.

Now.

Eleanor’s eyes snapped open.

The young woman had time for one sharp inhalation. Not even a proper scream. Just that sudden intake of shock and terror as she registered that the corpse beneath her hands was not a corpse at all.

Eleanor moved with speed no human frame should possess. She rose, one hand seizing the woman’s hand—the one still roaming for treasures—with strength that shattered bone instantly. The other catching the back of the woman’s head and pulling her down, pulling that screaming mouth close, that living, bleeding throat within reach.

The woman tried pulling away. Tried screaming. But Eleanor’s grip was iron absolute and the movement concluded almost before it commenced.

The scream died as Eleanor’s teeth found the jugular and bit down with force that would have horrified any conscious version of herself. Impossible for any normal human jaw. But Eleanor was not conscious. Was not normal. Was not human any longer in conventional sense.

She was hunger. And hunger fed.

The blood sprayed hot and alive in her mouth. The meat rich and thick, as she ate with desperate, mindless intensity, holding the struggling form against her with inhuman strength, feeling the frantic heartbeat hammering against her chest as the woman thrashed and weakened and finally went still. Her life drained away with each swallow.

Eleanor fed. And as she did, something changed.

The mindless hunger began receding. Pure instinct driving her from death into this terrible awareness started yielding to something more complex. More horrifying.

Memory. Identity. Self.

Oh Providence. Oh merciful God. What am I doing?

Eleanor’s eyes—which had been clouded, unfocused, purely predatory—suddenly cleared. Widened. Registered the woman lying limp in her arms, the blood upon her mouth and hands, the torn flesh at the throat where her teeth had—

No. No. This cannot be. This is not—

She released her grip as though burned. The woman—Anne Crawford, some distant part of Eleanor’s returning consciousness recognized her, a young volunteer from the wards—slumped sideways, fell against the cot, then slid to the floor with a soft impact.

Still breathing. Barely. The pulse at her throat fluttered weakly beneath torn skin.

I have killed her. Dear God in Heaven, I have—

Anne’s chest rose. Fell. Rose again more shallowly.

Eleanor scrambled backward on the cot until her spine met the wall, staring at her hands. Blood upon her fingers. Blood beneath her nails. Blood upon the canvas shroud, upon her dress, upon everything.

The taste in her mouth. Rich. Satisfying. Her body singing with sudden vitality and strength and—

I desire more.

The horror of that realization—the terrible, undeniable truth of it—crashed through her returning consciousness in a sensual wave.

I desire more.

Anne’s hand spasmed weakly toward her throat. Her eyes fluttered but did not open. Blood pooled beneath her on the floor, spreading slowly across the boards.

Too much blood. Too much damage.

Eleanor stared. The hunger remained present. Quieter now but persistent. And some new portion of her—some predatory thing wearing her identity like borrowed garments—considered finishing what she had commenced. Considered taking just slightly more. Considered—

Footsteps in the corridor beyond the canvas partition. Multiple sets. Voices.

Dr. Merriweather’s distinctive cadence: “This way, Mr. Talbot. I appreciate your promptness in this matter.”

Another voice, deeper: “No trouble at all, Doctor. Unfortunate business, losing two in one night. But the good Lord calls us each in His time.”

“Indeed. Though our volunteer’s death grieves me particularly. Such promise. Such dedication to the work.”

The footsteps approached. The canvas screen that separated this space from the corridor shifted slightly as someone brushed against it.

Eleanor froze. Every sense focused upon those approaching steps with desperate intensity. Anne lay dying—perhaps already dead—upon the floor between Eleanor and the canvas partition. Blood everywhere. Eleanor’s dress soaked with it. Her hands. Her mouth.

No explanation possible. No excuse conceivable.

She was discovered. Exposed. Monstrous.

The canvas screen began to part.

Dr. Merriweather entered first, still speaking over his shoulder to the undertaker behind him. “—grateful for your discretion in this matter, Mr. Talbot. The girl’s family will appreciate—”

He stopped.

His eyes found Eleanor first—sitting upright upon the cot, shroud fallen away, blood upon her mouth and hands and dress. Alive. Conscious. Staring at him with an expression of absolute horror.

Then his gaze dropped to the form upon the floor. The spreading pool of blood. The torn throat. The chest that no longer rose.

For one long moment, James Merriweather simply stared. His face passing from shock to genuine surprise at finding her conscious and aware rather than dead or mindless. Then calculation overtook his expression with almost frightening speed.

His hand shot up, gesturing sharply for silence. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible: “Do not move. Do not speak.”

Behind him, the undertaker’s heavier tread approached the partition. “Doctor? Is something—”

James moved with sudden, decisive speed. He stepped fully into the partitioned area, letting the canvas fall closed behind him, leaving just enough gap for his voice to carry. “Mr. Talbot, forgive me. I find I require a moment to... to compose myself before we proceed. Perhaps you and your assistant might wait in my office? I keep a bottle of decent whiskey in the lower drawer for... difficult cases. Please, help yourselves. I shall join you momentarily.”

“Of course, Doctor. Of course.” The undertaker’s footsteps retreated. “Take all the time you require, sir. I understand entirely.”

James waited until the footsteps faded entirely. Then he secured the canvas partition and turned to Eleanor, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Can you stand?”

Eleanor stared at him. Her mouth worked but no sound emerged initially. Finally: “I... I killed her. I murdered—”

“Can you stand?” he repeated, more insistently. “We have perhaps five minutes. Can. You. Stand?”

The command in his voice penetrated her shock. Eleanor nodded once. Pushed herself upright. Her legs trembled but held.

“Good.” James moved to Anne’s body, knelt, checked for pulse. Found none. His expression flickered briefly into satisfaction, then he continued with clinical efficiency. “You are going to do exactly as I instruct. Do you understand?”

“She is dead. I—”

“She came here to rob you,” James said flatly, slipping something from Anne’s hand and beginning to unfasten her dress. “Her death is unfortunate. You were not conscious. You were not in control. The transformation drives pure instinct in its first moments.” He worked quickly, removing Anne’s outer dress, her apron. “Now. Do you understand what must happen?”

Eleanor stared at him. At Anne’s body. At her own blood-soaked dress.

Understanding penetrated the horror.

“You mean for me to exchange garments with her.”

“Precisely. There is nothing to be done for her. This body becomes our dead volunteer. You become Anne Crawford for the day.” James held out Anne’s dress. “The undertaker knows I summoned him for two bodies. He will collect two bodies.”

“This is monstrous—”

“Listen to me.” James’s eyes met hers with terrible intensity. “Nobody witnessed Eleanor Caldwell’s death except myself. As far as anybody will know Eleanor Caldwell survived and is now home, recovering. People forget. Hospital rumors are notoriously unreliable. Volunteers come and go. But this body—” He gestured to Anne’s corpse. “This body requires explanation. Help me lift her.”

Eleanor looked at her blood-stained hands. Thought of Thomas. Of her father. Of Sarah and little Charles waiting for news.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered.

“Remove your dress. Quickly.”

Eleanor’s hands moved to her buttons with shaking fingers. The dress was soaked with blood, stiff with it, difficult to manipulate. James helped her with the fastenings, his movements swift and professional, his eyes averted from her undergarments with punctilious propriety despite the circumstances.

“Your petticoats as well,” he said.

They worked in silence, exchanging garments between living woman and corpse with horrible efficiency. Anne’s dress hung loose on Eleanor’s frame—the girl had been more substantially built—but James cinched the apron tighter to compensate.

“The blood upon your face and hands,” he said, producing a handkerchief. “Let me—”

He stepped closer, and Eleanor’s enhanced senses registered his scent with overwhelming clarity. Soap. Wool. The faint metallic tang of old blood on his clothes from other patients. And beneath it all—a slow pulse. Warmth.

She went rigid.

“Be still.” His voice was barely audible as he wiped her face with methodical care. “I know what you are feeling. You must learn to control that instinct, or it will destroy you.”

His matter-of-fact tone penetrated her horror. He knew what she had become. Knew what the hunger was.

He was not surprised.

The realization unsettled her. When he had entered and found her conscious, blood-covered, with a body at her feet—he had not reacted with shock or disgust. No fear or condemnation. Only surprise at finding her awake at all.

He expected this. He knew this would happen.

“Your hands.” He cleaned her fingers one by one, removing the evidence from beneath her nails.

Eleanor’s mind reeled even as she stood docile beneath his ministrations. The Matthews attack. The fever. The isolation. James’s careful monitoring. The iron test months ago.

I should be dead.

“There.” James stepped back, examining his work. “You appear appropriately plain now. Just another volunteer.”

Eleanor stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. The questions were too large, too terrible to voice. What happened to me? What have you done? What am I? Did you know I would kill her?

“Eleanor,” James said, his voice dropping to barely audible whisper. “I will leave you now, and return with Talbot and his assistant to collect the bodies. You will stand quietly in that corner. Keep your head bowed. Your hands folded. Say nothing. Do nothing. To them, you are invisible. Do you understand?”

Eleanor managed a single nod.

“Good. After they depart, you remain here. This evening, after full dark, I shall return. Bring you to Sarah’s house where you will be safe. Where I can teach you what you must learn to survive.” His eyes held hers with terrible intensity. “Can you wait here alone? Can you remain still and silent until I return?”

The hunger coiled beneath her ribs, and with it anger. Anne’s blood still coated her tongue with its richness. James’s warmth so close, his pulse visible at his throat—

What have you done to me?

“Yes,” she whispered.

—

Footsteps approached from the corridor. Talbot’s voice, slightly unsteady from whiskey: “That was most appreciated, Doctor. Shall we proceed?”

James moved to the partition’s opening. “Indeed. Two for collection, as discussed.”

Eleanor kept her eyes down as they worked. The assistant lifted Matthews first, maneuvering the stiffened body onto the stretcher with practiced efficiency. Then Talbot moved to Anne’s corpse, grunting slightly as he lifted the dead weight.

And they were gone. Footsteps receding down the corridor. Voices fading.

The canvas fell closed.

Eleanor sat in the dim partition, wearing a dead woman’s clothes, tasting blood on her tongue, waiting for darkness.

Waiting for answers she was not certain she wished to hear.

to be continued…

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

March 30, 1862

It has oft been said that God shall not burden His children beyond what they may endure. Though many quote this as Scripture’s promise, I find upon examination that the Apostle Paul speaks of temptation rather than suffering in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” Would that His mercy extended equally to grief? Today I find myself wishing with every fiber of my wretched being that such promise extended to all manner of suffering, for I have received word that has shattered whatever remained of my faltering spirit.

My beloved Eleanor lies critically wounded. One of the afflicted patients at the hospital—those cursed souls I have witnessed in their terrible transformation—attacked her whilst she performed her merciful duties. Sarah’s letter reached me this morning through the quartermaster’s bag—three weeks delayed by the chaos of our travels. My hands trembled so violently I could scarce make out her words. Sarah received notice from Dr. Merriweather himself. As I read the news from Sarah, the letter trembled in my hands. The words blurring through tears I could not contain.

The trials visited upon my family may exceed what strength this poor vessel retains. First my father, called to his eternal rest whilst I remained unable to attend his final hours. Now Eleanor—my light, my hope, the very reason I resolved to survive this unholy war—lies between this world and the next.

I turned to Scripture as I have always done, seeking solace in the familiar passages that have sustained me through countless nights of doubt. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 4 came first to mind: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” How many times have I offered these words to grieving soldiers? How many letters have I penned to bereaved mothers and widows, inscribing this very promise as balm for their wounded hearts?

I confess here what shames me utterly: I cannot find comfort in these holy words. They ring hollow in my ears, empty vessels where once they carried the weight of divine truth. I have counseled so many suffering souls with these Scriptures, assured them of God’s faithfulness, of His tender mercies that endure forever. Now I feel myself the fool—a blind guide leading others toward a light I can no longer perceive.

I fear He has forsaken me entirely.

I have ushered countless soldiers toward their salvation, kneeling beside them as their life’s blood seeped into Virginia soil, whispering promises of heavenly reunion. I have written to families beyond counting, informing them of losses no words can adequately convey, always including those blessed assurances from Scripture. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” The ink has scarce dried on dozens of such letters bearing my hand.

And now I discover I believed not what I preached.

I want to cry out to the heavens, to demand of the Almighty why He would permit such cruelty. Why take a soul so pure, so devoted to His service? Eleanor, who nursed my father through his final months with such tender devotion. Eleanor, who ministered to wounded soldiers regardless of the uniform they wore. Eleanor, whose faith remained steadfast even as mine crumbled beneath the weight of witnessed horrors. Why, Lord? Why would You allow one of Your most faithful servants to be struck down whilst performing the very works of mercy You commanded?

The silence that answers my desperate prayers grows more terrible with each passing hour.

I confess I know not whether I can survive without her. The future I had envisioned—our reunion when this war concludes, the vows we planned to exchange, the life we would build together in service to God and one another—all of it now hangs suspended over an abyss of uncertainty.

Worse still, I confess what damns me further: I am not certain I wish to survive without her.

After the attack upon the road, when those afflicted creatures fell upon my escort and I stood alone facing death, I discovered within myself a desperate will to live. For her. Only for her. If she is taken from me, what purpose remains in this mortal existence? What calling could compel me to continue when the very light that guided my path has been extinguished?

God forgive me these thoughts. I know they constitute grievous sin—to question His providence, to doubt His goodness, to contemplate the surrender of the life He granted me. Yet I cannot purge them from my heart, try as I might through prayer and supplication.

May the Lord, in His infinite wisdom beyond all human understanding, preserve my Eleanor and restore her to health. You raised Lazarus from death itself—surely You can deliver her from this affliction before it consumes her. Grant her strength to endure. Let her suffering be brief.

And if she is taken from me—grant me grace to bear what I cannot now conceive bearing.

I am afraid. Mortally afraid. Not of death, but of this life without her in it.

Entry concludes

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

[A number of pages heavily damaged—ink blotted, paper crumpled and torn, precede the following notes]

Eleanor Caldwell died at 5:43 on the afternoon of March 11th.

-

The Matthews incident occurred on the evening of March 9th. She was alone with him when he broke the four-man restraints, subjecting her to a violent assault. A sudden and overwhelming exposure to the affliction ravaging him, rather than the controlled progression I had calculated. Within eight hours her fever had spiked, and again by morning.

The pattern was immediately clear.

I have documented this cascade in every failed subject—once the crisis begins, systemic collapse proceeds along the same terrible trajectory.

Her progression lasted three days, longer than I would have imagined, but hopelessly fatal. I will reconstruct the clinical sequence as precisely as memory allows.

During that first night, the temperature climbed to 105, reaching 106 by dawn. Violent emesis began—bile at first, then blood as the gastric lining deteriorated. Profuse diaphoresis persisted despite increasing pallor, the body attempting simultaneously to burn out the morb and conserve what vitality remained.

Futile efforts.

By evening the tremors had escalated to full convulsions. Petechiae spread from the bite site in that distinctive radiating pattern to her whole torso.

By the time night fell again, hemorrhagic manifestations had begun. Epistaxis first, then gingival bleeding. The blood ran dark and would not coagulate properly. The nurses worked in rotating shifts—none could tolerate more than an hour in that room. They handled her with the particular caution one reserves for the manifestly dying. The smell alone would have confirmed their assessment: corrupting flesh beneath fevered skin.

Through the following day, consciousness was lost entirely. Her respiratory rate averaging perhaps twenty breaths per minute, but shallow—insufficient to sustain life much longer. The cardiac rhythm grew irregular, pulse thready and weak.

By late afternoon of March 11th, her heart simply ceased. Respiration moments after. She showed no response to any stimulation following.1

The staff believes I maintained constant vigil throughout her decline. They observed my presence at irregular intervals and constructed their narrative accordingly. In truth, I came and went as circumstances demanded. They saw what they expected: a dedicated physician, a family friend, attending a promising young volunteer in her final hours.

I was simply too angry to maintain the usual pretense. The carefully constructed comportment of the concerned doctor, the measured responses, the appropriate expressions of professional regret—I had no capacity for any of it.

Better to let them interpret my absence of affect as stoic dedication than to risk revealing what actually burned beneath.

Their assumptions have served me well enough. My reputation within the hospital has, if anything, been enhanced by this incident. The staff speaks of my tireless efforts, my refusal to abandon a difficult case, my commitment to documenting even terminal progression for the advancement of medical knowledge.

I could barely contain my fury.

Three years of cultivation, destroyed in three days.

I arranged Eleanor’s proximity to the Everett patriarch in early 1859. That placement alone required months of careful work—building the father’s trust, nurturing her interest in the family, establishing the medical pretext, ensuring she would be the natural choice when nursing care became necessary. Nearly three years of sustained low-level exposure, during which I monitored her adaptation with meticulous attention while she remained entirely ignorant of her significance.

My controlled progression theory demanded this extended timeline. Every other attempt in the past decades had employed acute and overwhelming exposure—the contagion delivered to naive subjects. They all died, some in days, others in hours, but the mortality rate remained universal regardless.

Eleanor was meant to prove the alternative approach. Prolonged exposure would prime the constitution for controlled adaptation rather than overwhelming it with sudden assault. The recent laboratory test confirmed the approach was sound—her blood showed alterations exceeding anything I had previously documented, yet her mental faculties remained not just intact but enhanced.

I had calculated eighteen additional months of carefully managed contact in the fever ward. Progressive exposure to increasingly severe cases, building systematically on the foundation established through the Everett patriarch. The endpoint—whether controlled transformation or complete resistance to the affliction—would have definitively proved my theory

Lt. Matthews destroyed it all in a single moment of uncontrolled violence.

The error compounds itself. This is not merely the loss of one particular subject, but the waste of the arrangement that made her possible. Three years cannot be quickly recovered. The convergence of factors that made Miss Caldwell the perfect subject required years to construct and may not arise again within any useful timeframe.

I will have to conduct another iron test on the remaining female volunteers within the week. Nothing that will raise questions. If any show the blood alterations that indicate early adaptation, I can begin the cultivation process again.

I have little hope of finding another suitable candidate. And this war may not last that long. My access to concentrated afflicted populations depends entirely on the continuation of hostilities and the medical chaos they generate.

If peace comes, if normal civil order reasserts itself, if the fever cases diminish or disperse—the framework I have built here collapses. Richmond has provided ideal conditions these past years, but I know very well these conditions will persist indefinitely.

I must consider whether to remain here hoping for another suitable subject, or to move to a different city where epidemic conditions might offer fresh opportunities. Philadelphia, perhaps. Or back to New Orleans if the yellow fever season proves severe.

There was one element of Eleanor’s case that differed from all previous subjects.

During the final delirium, she described visions with unusual specificity. Most subjects in terminal fever exhibit standard hallucinations—fragmentary, disorganized, containing nothing that extends beyond their own limited experience. Her visions were of a different quality entirely.

She spoke of cities burning with elaborate detail. Atlanta consumed in flame. Charleston reduced to ashes. Richmond besieged. All described as though she witnessed them directly, yet these are events that have not occurred and may never occur.

Then the visions shifted to landscapes foreign to her. Stone cottages with thatched roofs. Mist-covered hills. Rain falling on heather. The smell of peat fires. The sound of distant pipes.

She spoke for hours, until her voice broke. Not of Virginia, but of places I recognized from long ago.

And a name I would not expect to hear on the lips of the living.

Cat.

Decades, and no other subject has displayed this specific phenomenon. Terminal delirium typically contains only fragments drawn from the subject’s own experience, their own memories distorted by fever.

Eleanor Caldwell saw something else.

The orderlies leave my office this very moment, after reporting finding Matthews corpse during the morning rounds. Dead in his restraints during the night, or in the early morning.

One does not hesitate with a mad dog.

I have sent for the undertaker. He will need to make arrangements for both of them. And I should send the nurses to wash Miss Caldwell’s body and prepare it for the family’s viewing.

The room will need airing out.

to be continued…

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Previous page torn, ink heavily blotted

My hands shake so violently I can scarce control this pen. The letters waver and blur before my eyes, though whether from trembling or tears I cannot determine. I write by candlelight in Dr. Merriweather’s private office, where he has confined me for my own safety and that of others. What I must record defies comprehension. Yet the scientific mind within me demands documentation even as terror threatens to overwhelm all rational thought.

I was attacked.

The words appear almost absurd written thus. Some melodramatic fiction rather than fact. Yet their truth is undeniable. Private Matthews broke free of his restraints and attacked me with violence I could never have anticipated despite all my careful observations.

Let me attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events with such accuracy as my disordered mind permits.

The attack occurred perhaps ninety minutes past. Time has grown strange and elastic in ways I cannot fully articulate. I had completed my evening rounds and prepared to depart for Sarah’s house. The church bells had tolled eleven. Most patients slept or rested quietly in their partitions. The night orderly, having arrived to assume his watch duties, was making his own initial rounds in the main ward sections.

I should have waited to walk through with him. Dr. Merriweather had warned me explicitly never to approach Matthews without another staff member present. Yet I had also promised to follow protocol absolutely, and protocol dictated a final check of all severe cases before departing the ward.

One final check.

Dear God, how those words mock me now.

I approached Matthews’s isolation partition in the far corner of the fever ward. The double canvas screens that separated his space from the general ward hung still in the factory’s motionless air. No sounds emerged from within. No moaning, no restless movement against restraints. Perfect silence.

The quiet should have warned me. The other afflicted patients never achieve such stillness. They thrash and mutter through fevered sleep, their bodies in constant agitation. Matthews’s silence suggested either improvement or some change I had not previously documented.

Curiosity overcame caution. I parted the canvas screen and stepped inside his partition.

He appeared to sleep. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and regular. The restraints across his chest, wrists, and ankles remained properly secured, or so they appeared in the dim gaslight. I noted these observations with satisfaction, already composing the entry I would make in my documentation. “Subject achieved restful sleep on third evening of isolation. Possible indication of fever breaking.”

I moved closer to check his pulse.

The restraint across his chest had loosened. I could see the buckle mechanism had worked partially free, perhaps from his earlier struggles against the leather. A simple adjustment would secure it properly. I reached out to tighten the strap.

My fingers had scarce touched the leather when—

The movement was so rapid I cannot reconstruct the sequence with accuracy. One moment the restraints appeared secure. The next, his hand had closed around my wrist with strength that ought to be impossible for a man in such weakened condition. The grip was iron itself, crushing, inexorable. He jerked me downward with such force that I felt something tear in my shoulder even before his other arm—somehow free of its binding, though I know not how—seized me and pulled me closer still.

I tried to scream. Managed only a strangled gasp before his hand covered my mouth, pressing so hard against my jaw that I tasted blood where my teeth cut into my inner cheek.

His face was inches from mine. His eyes wide open now, fixed on me with terrible focus. No human recognition remained. Only hunger. Vast and bottomless and utterly without mercy.

Then he bit me.

Pain.

Such an inadequate word for the sensation of human teeth tearing through fabric and flesh both. The sound—dear God, the sound will haunt me until my dying day. Wet and tearing and utterly savage. His teeth struck my brooch first—the one Thomas gave me before departing. The choker ribbon tore under the force of the attack, the brooch falling away and clattering onto the floor. Without its protection, his teeth found my flesh directly, sinking deep into the muscle at the base of my neck.

I tried to scream again. His hand still covered my mouth, muffling the sound to nothing. The agony was immediate and overwhelming. White-hot fire radiating from the wound site through my entire body. Each attempt to struggle drove his teeth deeper, his jaw working with terrible purpose.

His throat moved. Swallowing.

No.

I cannot write that. Cannot acknowledge what my senses perceived in that moment. Cannot admit that I felt—

The orderlies came then. Thank Providence they came. The moments before their arrival stretched into eternities of agony and terror. His jaws remained locked at the base of my neck as I struggled, each movement driving them deeper. His hand crushed my jaw.

I heard shouting. Footsteps pounding across the factory floor. The canvas screens torn aside. Then hands grasping Matthews, pulling at him. Four men straining to break his hold.

He would not release me.

They struck him. Wrestled him. Used their combined strength against his fevered frame. Still he would not release his grip, his jaw locked with inhuman determination. I felt the tissue tearing further as they pulled us apart, felt warm blood streaming down my chest and soaking through my dress.

Finally they broke his grip. I collapsed to the floor, my hand instinctively clutching at the wound. Blood pulsed between my fingers with each beat of my heart. The edges of the torn flesh felt ragged, irregular. I pressed harder, trying to staunch the flow, but the bleeding continued with alarming rapidity.

They struggled to restrain him as he snarled and snapped, his face covered in my blood. Strings of it dripped from his chin. His eyes remained vacant, consciousness utterly absent, only that terrible hunger animating his actions.

I had seen that expression before. Documented it in my notes. “Subject displays no recognition of surroundings or persons. Actions driven entirely by physiological compulsion.”

Now I was the subject of that compulsion. My blood stained his mouth.

My detached observation felt obscene in the circumstances, yet I could not prevent my mind from cataloging details. Even as I bled upon the factory floor, even as orderlies fought to control my attacker, some part of my consciousness continued its work, unbidden.

The wound measured approximately four inches in length—a ragged crescent positioned at the base of my neck, perhaps two inches above my collarbone, the juncture where neck meets shoulder. The brooch had redirected the bite lower than his initial angle. Depth significant—I could feel the damage extending through several tissue layers. The bleeding remained profuse though mercifully not arterial. Pain severe but bearable, given the circumstances.

“Miss Caldwell!”

Dr. Merriweather’s voice cut through the chaos. I looked up to see him rushing through the partitions, his face terrible with fury. When he reached my side and saw the wound, saw the extent of damage Matthews’s attack had inflicted, rage transformed his features into something I had never witnessed.

“Get him to isolation!” he roared at the orderlies. “Chain him! Iron restraints this time! If he breaks free again, I will put a bullet through his skull myself!”

The violence of his words shocked me almost as much as the attack itself. Dr. Merriweather, always so controlled, so measured, now shaking with wrath that seemed directed as much at himself as at Matthews.

He turned to me, and the fury drained away, replaced by something worse. Anguish. “Miss Caldwell.” Clearly trying to attract my attention. “Eleanor. Can you hear me?”

“The bleeding is substantial but manageable,” I heard myself say, as though discussing some stranger’s injury rather than my own. “The tissue damage extends approximately four inches at the base of the neck. Depth difficult to assess given current hemorrhaging, but I believe the subcutaneous layer compromised, while deeper structures remain intact. The choker prevented direct access to the major vessels.”

My voice sounded remarkably steady. Clinical. Detached.

He stared at me for a long moment. Horror showed plain on his face. Despair so profound it aged him by years. And beneath both, something that might have been terrible confirmation.

“The wound must be treated immediately,” he said, his voice rigidly controlled. “Can you walk to my office?”

“Yes.” The word emerged steadier than I felt. “I can walk.”

Only then did I notice the night orderly standing frozen nearby, his face white with shock. And beyond him, Mrs. Coleman emerging from one of the general ward partitions, drawn by the commotion. Her eyes widened as she took in my bloodied state.

Heat flooded my face despite the circumstances. Here I stood, dress torn and soaked with blood, alone with men in the midnight hours. No chaperone. No propriety. The scandal would be absolute.

Yet even as mortification pierced through shock, pragmatism asserted itself. I was bleeding from a savage wound inflicted by a fevered patient. Social convention mattered less than survival. Mrs. Coleman’s opinion of my reputation paled beside the necessity of immediate medical treatment.

“Mrs. Coleman,” Dr. Merriweather said with sharp authority, “you will speak of this attack to no one outside hospital staff. Miss Caldwell was injured in the performance of her duties. That is all anyone needs to know.”

She nodded mutely, still staring.

“Now return to your patients.” His tone brooked no argument. “There is nothing you can do here.”

She fled.

The journey across the factory floor seemed endless. Each step sent fresh pain lancing through my shoulder and neck. I could feel warm blood still seeping from the wound despite the makeshift pressure bandage one of the orderlies had tied in place. The gaslight seemed unnaturally bright, each flame distinct and sharp-edged in ways that made my eyes water.

Dr. Merriweather maintained a supporting hand under my uninjured arm, his touch proper but his face grim. Behind us, I heard Matthews being dragged away, still fighting his captors despite their superior numbers. The sounds of that struggle echoed through the factory’s vast heights.

His private office felt smaller than it usually did. He seated me in the chair beside his desk, then moved quickly to gather supplies. Carbolic acid for disinfection. Clean linen for bandaging. The cauterizing iron, already heating in the small brazier he kept for sterilizing instruments.

“I must examine the wound properly,” he said, his back still to me. “With your permission, I need to... you must remove the upper portion of your dress.”

More heat flooded my face. A gentleman physician examining an unmarried woman’s unclothed shoulder violated every social propriety. Yet necessity overrode convention.

“Of course,” I managed. “Do whatever is medically necessary.”

I reached behind to unfasten the buttons running down the back of my bodice. My right arm would not cooperate fully—the torn muscle made reaching difficult and sent fresh pain through the injury. I managed perhaps three buttons before my fingers began to tremble too violently to continue.

“I cannot—” My voice broke despite my efforts at composure. “The buttons. I cannot reach them properly.”

He turned then, and I saw his face had gone very pale. “Of course. Forgive me. I should have realized.”

He moved behind me, his hands steady as he worked the remaining buttons free. His touch remained absolutely clinical, yet I felt my face burning hotter with each fastening that gave way. The bodice loosened, allowing me to slide my right arm free of the sleeve. The fabric stuck to the wound, dried blood making the separation agonizing. When it finally pulled away, fresh bleeding began anew.

Dr. Merriweather came around to face me again, his eyes fixing on the injury itself rather than my state of undress. Some small part of me felt grateful for his professionalism even as I sat there in nothing but my bloodstained chemise and the loosened dress gathered at my waist.

The wound looked worse exposed to lamplight. A ragged crescent of torn tissue positioned low on my neck, perhaps two inches above my collarbone. Blood still welled from the deepest portions. Around the wound’s edges, I could see the clear impressions of individual teeth.

“Your necklace,” Dr. Merriweather said quietly, examining the injury. “It redirected his bite downward. If he had achieved his initial angle...” He did not finish the sentence.

We both understood. If Matthews had bitten higher on my neck, he would have found the great vessels. I would have bled to death before help arrived.

“Where is it?” I asked. “The brooch. It fell during the attack.”

“I have it here.” He produced the small piece from his pocket. The glass face appeared intact despite the violence, though the ribbon choker had torn completely. “I retrieved it from the floor. The metal frame is bent where his teeth struck it.”

I reached for it with my left hand, my fingers closing around the familiar shape. “Keep this close,” Thomas had said.

“Tom… Thomas should have this returned to him. Whatever becomes of me.”

Dr. Merriweather’s hands stilled in their preparation of the carbolic solution. “Eleanor—”

“He should have it,” I insisted. “Promise me you will see it reaches him. Regardless of what becomes of me.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “I promise.”

He began cleaning the area with carbolic solution. The chemical sting barely registered against the deeper agony of damaged tissue. His hands were steady as he worked, but I could see the tension in his jaw, the muscle jumping beneath the skin.

“This will be painful,” he said, reaching for the cauterizing iron. Its tip glowed orange-red in the brazier’s heat. “I can offer laudanum—”

“No.” I shook my head. “I must remain alert. Must observe my own responses. This represents an unprecedented opportunity for medical documentation. Whatever the outcome, my impressions of the progression could prove valuable to future practitioners. Could help others. Could constitute a real contribution to medical knowledge.”

His expression grew very still. “Eleanor. You need not—”

“I must.” My voice steadied with conviction. “You said my observations were valuable. That my documentation might advance understanding of these afflictions. If I am to be exposed, at least let that exposure serve some useful purpose. Let me document the process from the perspective of the afflicted themselves. Such an account has never been recorded.”

He studied my face for a long moment. Then nodded, accepting my determination if not approving it. “Very well. But if the pain becomes unbearable—”

“Then I shall inform you.” I gripped the arms of the chair, bracing myself. “Please, proceed.”

The cauterizing iron descended toward torn flesh. I fixed my eyes on the wall beyond Dr. Merriweather’s shoulder, counting breaths, preparing for what would come.

The pain transcended anything I had previously experienced. Fire seared through muscle and nerve both, burning away blood and infection and living tissue in one terrible instant. The smell—charred meat and carbolic and something acrid I could not name—sent bile rising in my throat.

I grabbed the wadded fabric of my ruined dress and bit down hard on the blood-stiffened cloth. The scream that tore from my throat became muffled against the fabric. My vision tunneled to a small point of light surrounded by darkness. Sweat broke across my forehead, my back, soaking through what remained of my chemise.

“Breathe,” Dr. Merriweather commanded. “Child, breathe.”

I could not respond. Could only draw desperate, shuddering gasps through my nose while my teeth remained locked on the fabric. My entire body shook violently. Nausea rolled through me in waves.

He paused, the iron still glowing in his hand. “Can you continue?”

I managed a jerky nod, unable to release the dress from my mouth. Unable to speak. I raised one trembling hand and motioned forward. Continue. I would endure this. I must.

The second application of the iron made my vision go completely black for several seconds. I heard myself making sounds—animal sounds, wordless and terrible—muffled by the cloth between my teeth. My hands gripped the chair arms so tightly I felt the wood creak. Sweat poured down my face, my neck, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone.

“Two more,” Dr. Merriweather said quietly. “You’re doing remarkably well. Two more and it’s finished.”

The third cauterization. The fourth. Each one an eternity of fire. By the final application I could no longer sit upright without his steadying hand on my uninjured shoulder. The dress fell from my mouth, too saturated with saliva and blood from where I had bitten through my own lip despite the fabric barrier.

When he finally set aside the iron, I sagged forward, nearly tumbling from the chair. He caught me, holding me steady while my body convulsed with delayed shock. I retched once, twice, but my empty stomach produced nothing but bile that burned my throat.

“Finished,” he said gently. “It’s finished now. We are done.”

I could not speak. Could only tremble and gasp and press my good hand against my mouth, fighting the nausea that threatened to overwhelm me entirely. Sweat drenched my chemise. My hair clung to my face and neck in wet strands.

He applied the bandages while I sat there shaking, unable to assist or even hold myself fully upright. His hands remained steady while mine would not stop trembling.

“You did well,” he said quietly, securing the final bandage. “That would have broken most people.”

I still could not speak. Could only nod weakly, my breath still coming in shudders.

Mrs. Coleman appeared shortly after with clean clothing—a simple house dress and fresh undergarments she had gathered from the nurses’ stores. She kept her eyes averted as she set the bundle on the chair, her face pale. Dr. Merriweather thanked her quietly and sent her away before she could speak.

He stepped outside while I changed with fumbling, painful movements. My own dress lay in a blood-soaked heap on the floor, ruined beyond salvaging. The chemise was equally destroyed.

I managed the fresh garments with difficulty, my right arm nearly useless. The house dress fastened in front, thank Providence. Small mercies amid catastrophe.

When Dr. Merriweather returned, he gestured to a narrow cot against the far wall. “You will remain here. The door will be locked from outside. The windows are already covered. I will bring candles and water.”

“I understand.” I did understand. Quarantine. Containment. Protection for those who remained uninfected. “What message shall be sent to Sarah?”

His hesitation spoke volumes. “What would you have me tell her?”

“That I have been exposed to the fever.” The lie came easily, born of necessity. “That I must remain isolated until the danger of contagion passes. That she should not visit or attempt communication. That I am well cared for and she need not worry.”

“She will worry regardless.”

“Better worried than infected.” I met his eyes. “You know what may become of me, Dr. Merriweather. What likely will become of me. Sarah and little Charles must be protected from that.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “I will send word at first light.”

He moved toward the door, then paused with his hand on the latch. “Eleanor... I am sorry. More sorry than you can possibly comprehend. I should never have allowed you near Matthews. Should have insisted on stricter measures. This is my failure, not yours. My pride in your abilities blinded me to the danger. I am responsible for what has befallen you.”

The words held such genuine anguish that tears pricked my eyes for the first time since the attack.

“You trained me well,” I said softly. “Too well, perhaps. My own curiosity and pride led me into danger, not your instruction. I chose to approach Matthews alone. I chose to ignore your warnings. The fault is mine.”

His expression suggested he did not believe me. But he said nothing more, only stepped through the door and locked it behind him with that terrible final click.

And I was alone.

-

I am alone still, writing these words by candlelight in the small hours of morning. Dawn cannot be far off. I hear the city beginning to stir beyond the covered windows. Cart wheels on distant cobblestones. Early merchants opening their shops. The hospital itself remains mostly quiet, though I hear occasional footsteps in the corridor outside.

Sleep proved impossible despite my exhaustion. The wound throbs with each heartbeat, a constant reminder of what has occurred. My mind races too quickly for rest, cataloging sensations and symptoms with the same compulsion that has driven my medical documentation these past weeks.

I should feel fevered by now. Should feel the heat rising in my blood. Yet I feel no fever. Only the wound’s pain and a bone-deep weariness that might be shock or blood loss or simple exhaustion.

But speculation serves no purpose. I must document what occurs, not what I fear might occur.

-

I attempted sleep as dawn broke. Exhaustion finally overcame pain and anxiety, though I woke several times from dreams I could not remember, drenched in cold sweat.

The orderly brought breakfast perhaps two hours past dawn. Weak tea and toast. The sight of food produced only nausea—not hunger, something closer to revulsion. I managed three sips of tea before setting it aside. Henderson refused all food by his second morning post-exposure.

I do not wish to think about Henderson. About what he became.

-

The fever began near midday.

I felt it first as unusual warmth spreading through my chest, then radiating outward into my limbs. Not unpleasant, initially. Almost soothing after hours of pain and cold shock. But the warmth built steadily, degree by degree, until I recognized it for what it was.

Dr. Merriweather examined me when I called for him, pressing his hand against my forehead, my neck, checking my pulse with grave concentration.

“One hundred and two degrees,” he said quietly. “It has commenced.”

“How long?” The question emerged before I could stop it. “How long do I have? Will I retain my mind, or will I become as they are?”

He settled into the chair beside my cot, his expression carefully neutral. “The progression varies, you know that as well as I do. Furthermore, you have been exposed for weeks. Your body may have adapted in ways that offer protection. Or the sustained exposure may have made you more vulnerable. I simply do not know.”

His pause stretched too long before he continued. “You have observed how the few who survive this affliction emerge profoundly changed from it. Even if consciousness persists, you will not be as you were. Or...” He stopped.

“Or I’ll be dead.” I finished the thought he could not voice. “I’ll survive and lose myself, or ‘ll lose myself and I will die.”

“Yes.” The word emerged barely above a whisper.

We sat in silence for a long moment. Outside, I could hear normal hospital sounds. Footsteps. Voices. The continuing business of caring for those who might yet be saved. Inside this locked room, we confronted possibilities neither of us wished to name.

“I want you to document everything,” I said finally. “Everything that occurs. Even after I lose the ability to document myself. Promise me you will maintain detailed observations of the complete progression.”

“Eleanor—”

“Promise me.” My voice steadied with conviction. “If I am to suffer this, at least let my suffering serve some purpose. Let the observations be thorough, accurate, useful to future medical understanding. Let something good emerge from this horror.”

His expression held such sorrow that fresh tears spilled down my cheeks despite my efforts at composure.

“I promise,” he said quietly. “I will document everything. Your observations and my own. A complete medical record from both perspectives.”

“Thank you.” I wiped at my eyes with trembling hands. “Now…There are letters I must write. Instructions I must leave. While I still possess the clarity to do so.”

He provided fresh paper and ink without question. “What do you need?”

“Letters to Thomas, to Sarah, to Papa.” The list formed as I spoke it. “Explanations and farewells in case the outcome proves fatal. Instructions regarding my personal effects. And...” I hesitated, then continued. “Again, a request that you send Thomas Everett the brooch with a lock of my hair added to his own beneath the glass. So he will have something of us both. So he will know we were together at the end, in some fashion.”

Dr. Merriweather’s hands tightened on the papers he held. “I will see it done. All of it. You have my word.”

“Then I shall begin.” I accepted the writing materials, arranging them on the small table beside my cot. “How long do I have before the fever worsens?”

“Hours, perhaps. Maybe longer given your unique circumstances.” He stood, preparing to depart. “Call if you feel your condition suddenly worsening. I will check on you regularly.”

After he left, I sat for a long moment staring at the blank paper. How does one write farewell letters when the outcome remains uncertain? How do I explain to Thomas what has occurred without revealing the full horror? How do I release him from our understanding without crushing him with despair?

The fever builds as I struggle with these questions. I can feel the heat mounting in my blood, my thoughts beginning to scatter like leaves in the wind. I must write quickly. Must set my affairs in order before coherence fails entirely.

But the words will not come. My hand shakes too violently. My vision blurs. The fever climbs higher with each passing moment.

Perhaps later. Perhaps when the heat subsides enough for clarity to return.

If clarity returns at all.

-

Evening

The fever burns. I write in fragments between waves of heat that rob me of rational thought. Dr. Merriweather checks frequently, bringing water I can barely swallow. He brought a lamp and left it for me on his desk, it pains my eyes now.

I think I asked him again. The question that haunts me through fever dreams. “Will I retain my mind?”

I think he told me, again, there might be a chance.

Or it might not.

The fever climbs. My thoughts fragment. I can feel my grip on self loosening degree by degree.

I am Eleanor Caldwell.

I am twenty-three years old.

I am promised to Thomas Everett.

Dear God, let me remember. Let me remain myself.

I must—

Entry becomes increasingly illegible—final words trail into incomprehensible scrawl

to be continued…

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

By nine, the ward has settled into its evening rhythm. Most severe cases receive their sunset doses of iron tonic between seven and eight o’clock, a schedule we have found reduces overnight disturbances. I completed those rounds an hour ago, administering medicine to twelve patients in rapid succession. Henderson sleeps fitfully tonight, his fever diminished somewhat by today’s treatments. Morrison accepts water with trembling hands, his appetite still absent but the violent nausea finally subsiding. The efficiency of my movements surprised even myself—I scarcely needed to pause between patients, my hands moving through the necessary preparations with speed that suggested long practice rather than mere weeks of experience.

“You move as though you’ve been doing this for years,” Nurse Williams remarked, watching me prepare Private Morrison’s dose while simultaneously checking Private Henderson’s pulse and noting the time on my pocket watch.

“The routine has become second nature,” I replied, though her observation pleased me. To achieve such competence in mere weeks speaks to dedication and natural aptitude both.

Only one matter troubles my otherwise satisfactory progress. A new patient arrived this afternoon, transferred from a field hospital with documentation describing him as “extraordinarily dangerous” and “requiring armed restraint.” Private Matthews. The orderlies who transported him spoke in subdued tones about violence at the field hospital, though details remained vague, especially in front of the young nurses.

Dr. Merriweather examined the documentation with grave expression, then turned to assign Matthews’s care. I stepped forward before he could speak.

“I should observe this case,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite trepidation fluttering in my breast. “The severity presents valuable opportunity for systematic study.”

He regarded me with that penetrating look I have come to recognize—concern for my safety wrestling with respect for my capabilities. “Eleanor, this patient is extraordinarily dangerous. The field hospital specifically warned against approaching him without proper restraint measures in place.”

“You have trained me for precisely such cases,” I said. The words emerged with more confidence than I felt. “My observations of progressive stages have been thorough. I am prepared.”

The silence stretched between us. Other volunteers had paused in their duties, watching this exchange with undisguised interest. Mary Catherine’s expression held something between horror and vindication, as though my volunteering for dangerous duty confirmed her low opinion of my judgment.

“Very well,” Dr. Merriweather said finally. “You will follow protocol absolutely. No deviations, regardless of what scientific curiosity might suggest.”

“Of course.” Relief and anticipation mingled in my chest. To observe such an advanced case—the documentation possibilities alone justify any risk.

Matthews occupies the isolation partition in the far corner of our fever ward—a space separated by double canvas screens to contain the most dangerous cases. He lies restrained with leather straps across chest, wrists, and ankles. I approached his space during evening rounds, maintaining the careful distance proper caution requires. His eyes tracked my movement with unsettling focus. Not the vacant stare I have observed in other afflicted patients. Something more aware. Calculating.

“Private Matthews,” I said gently, noting his responses in my mental catalog for later transcription. “I am Miss Caldwell. I shall be assisting with your care.”

No verbal response. His eyes remained fixed on my face, pupils widely dilated despite the low gaslight. The restraints creaked as tension passed through his frame, muscles flexing against the leather bindings.

I checked the security of the straps—all tight, all properly buckled. His pulse, when I pressed fingers against his wrist, hammered with alarming rapidity. Nearly one hundred and forty beats per minute, I estimated. Fever had flushed his skin, though he showed none of the typical signs of fluid deficiency. Indeed, he appeared almost robust, as though the fever energized rather than depleted him.

“You must take your iron tonic,” I said, reaching for the dose I had prepared. “It will ease your symptoms.”

For the first time, he spoke. A single word, barely audible: “No.”

The clarity of it startled me. Other afflicted patients lose coherent speech within days of fever onset. Matthews had been symptomatic for nearly a week according to his documentation, yet retained sufficient reasoning powers for refusal.

“The medicine will help,” I persisted. “I have seen it provide relief to many patients with symptoms similar to yours.”

His eyes narrowed. “You smell different.”

The observation froze me in place. “I beg your pardon?”

“Different from the others. You smell...” He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. “...familiar.”

Unease rippled through me. This degree of awareness surpassed anything I had previously documented. I made a mental note to inform Dr. Merriweather immediately after completing rounds.

“I shall return with your evening dose,” I said, maintaining professional composure despite my discomfort. “Please try to rest.”

His gaze followed me as I departed, intensity undiminished even when I moved beyond his sight line. I felt his attention as tangible weight upon my shoulders, as though his awareness extended beyond normal sensory limitations.

The sensation troubled me sufficiently that I sought Dr. Merriweather in his office immediately after completing the remaining evening rounds.

“Matthews displayed unusual lucidity,” I reported. “He spoke coherently, recognized my presence as distinct from other staff, and made observations about...” I hesitated, uncertain how to phrase the peculiarity without sounding absurd. “...about my scent.”

Dr. Merriweather’s expression grew very still. “What precisely did he say?”

“That I smell different from the others. Familiar.” The words sounded foolish spoken aloud. “I suspect fever has heightened his sense of smell, creating false impressions of familiarity where none exist.”

“Perhaps.” But his tone suggested he found my explanation insufficient. “Eleanor, I want you to exercise extreme caution with Matthews. More so than with any previous patient.”

“He is properly restrained—”

“Restraints have failed before.” His voice held a sharp edge I had not previously heard. “With patients in advanced stages, normal physical constraints no longer apply. Strength increases. Awareness heightens. They become capable of things that should prove impossible.”

“You believe Matthews could escape his restraints?”

“I believe,” he said carefully, “that Matthews represents the most dangerous case this ward has yet encountered. Your usual confidence serves you well with ordinary patients. With him, it could prove fatal.”

The warning should have frightened me. Instead, I felt that familiar surge of scientific fascination. A patient so advanced he could potentially overcome physical restraint? The observations I could gather from such a case would prove invaluable.

“I shall maintain appropriate caution,” I assured him. “But I would very much appreciate the opportunity to continue observing his progression.”

Dr. Merriweather studied me for a long moment. “Your dedication to research sometimes concerns me, Eleanor. There exists a point where scholarly interest crosses into recklessness.”

“I am aware of the risks—”

“Are you?” He moved closer, his expression intent. “You have worked here forty days. Documented dozens of cases. Developed theories about progression and treatment. But you have never witnessed what I have witnessed. Never seen what these afflicted patients become when restraints fail and hunger overcomes all remaining humanity.”

The intensity of his words gave me pause. “What have you witnessed?”

“Things I would prefer you never experience firsthand.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, the gesture almost paternal. “Promise me you will not approach Matthews without another staff member present. Promise me you will trust my judgment when I say certain risks exceed any potential research value.”

I wanted to argue. Wanted to insist that proper scientific observation required accepting calculated risks. But the gravity in his expression stopped me.

“I promise,” I said, though the words felt constrictive.

“Good.” His hand dropped away. “Now go home. You have been here since before dawn. Even your remarkable constitution requires rest.”

I gathered my things, preparing to depart for Sarah’s house. The church bells tolled ten as I crossed the factory floor, my footsteps echoing in the vast space. Most patients had settled for the night, their breathing creating a rhythmic chorus of inhalations and exhalations that I could distinguish individually despite the canvas partitions separating them. Henderson’s labored breathing from his partition near the south wall. Morrison’s quieter respiration from the eastern section.

Matthews remained wakeful. I heard him shifting against his restraints, the leather creaking with each movement. Heard his breathing—deeper than the others, more controlled. Heard him whisper something too low for ordinary hearing to detect.

Yet I heard it.

“Tomorrow.”

Just that single word. Tomorrow.

I should have reported this to Dr. Merriweather. Should have documented the observation immediately in my notes. Instead, I found myself hurrying toward the exit, suddenly eager to escape Matthews’s unsettling awareness.

The night air struck cold against my face after the ward’s stifling atmosphere. I drew deep breaths, trying to shake the unease that had settled in my chest. Tomorrow I would maintain proper distance from Matthews. Would follow Dr. Merriweather’s protocols without deviation. Would remember that research value never justifies endangering one’s safety.

Tomorrow I would exercise appropriate caution.

Tonight, walking through Richmond’s dark streets toward Sarah’s house, I could still feel Matthews’s gaze upon me. Could still hear that whispered word echoing in my thoughts.

Tomorrow.

The moon hung above the city in a slender crescent, its weak light barely illuminating my path. I walked quickly, eager to reach the safety of familiar walls and Sarah’s comfortable presence.

Behind me, the hospital’s hulking silhouette dominated the skyline, windows glowing with lamplight from the wards where volunteers kept overnight watch. Somewhere in those partitioned spaces, Matthews lay restrained, counting hours until tomorrow.

Whatever tomorrow might bring.

I cannot explain the foreboding that grips me as I write these final words. Surely mere nervousness about a challenging case, amplified by Dr. Merriweather’s unusual warnings. Tomorrow I shall laugh at tonight’s unease, shall document Matthews’s case with the same scientific detachment I apply to all my observations.

Tomorrow.

The word seems to echo in my mind with each stroke of this pen.

Tomorrow I shall prove myself worthy of Dr. Merriweather’s trust. Shall demonstrate that my dedication to research does not preclude appropriate caution. Shall observe Matthews with professional distance while maintaining every safety protocol.

Tomorrow.

The bells toll eleven. My hand aches from writing, and Sarah surely wonders at my late return. I should conclude this entry, retire to my room, attempt to sleep despite the strange energy that continues to course through my veins.

Tomorrow begins in seven hours. I shall face it with the same confidence that has served me throughout these past forty days.

The candle burns low. Time to extinguish it and seek my bed.

Tomorrow.

to be continued…

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

This marks my fortieth day working in the fever ward proper. The number pleases me—a full accounting of weeks spent in what Dr. Merriweather terms “the most demanding arena of modern medical practice.”
Where other volunteers recoil from the severity of symptoms these patients exhibit, I find myself increasingly drawn to systematic observation of their condition.

Mrs. Patterson positively blanched this morning when Dr. Merriweather assigned me to Private Henderson’s continued care. “That man grows worse daily, Eleanor,” she whispered with evident distress. “The fever has him completely. He barely recognizes human speech.”

Yet when I approached his bedside with the prepared iron tonic, Henderson’s eyes tracked my movement with remarkable clarity.
His hand, when I took it to check his pulse, grasped mine with strength his wasted frame ought not possess. He accepted the medicine with desperate eagerness, as though his body recognized some essential need his fevered mind could not articulate.

I have documented seventeen distinct symptoms during my evening rounds, each meticulously recorded for Dr. Merriweather’s review.
The progression patterns fascinate me—the way light sensitivity develops precisely forty-eight hours after initial fever spike, the manner in which appetite transforms from diminished to violently repulsed, the peculiar eagerness with which patients consume the iron tonic whilst rejecting all other nourishment.

My observations have proven sufficiently valuable that Dr. Merriweather now consults them when determining treatment protocols. Yesterday he showed me my notes on Private Morrison’s case, annotated in his own hand with remarks about “exceptional attention to detail” and “observations that exceeded my own initial assessment.”
Such recognition from a physician of his caliber fills me with profound gratification.

The other volunteers regard me differently now. Some with resentment—Mary Catherine no longer speaks to me except when duty demands it. Others with a species of fearful admiration—Nurse Williams often asks my opinion on cases before seeking Dr. Merriweather’s guidance, as though I possessed some particular insight into these mysterious afflictions.

Perhaps I do.

I certainly feel drawn to understand them in ways that surpass ordinary medical curiosity. When I examine a patient in the grips of fever, documenting the pallor of their skin or the dilation of their pupils, I experience a sensation difficult to articulate. Not merely scientific interest, though that remains paramount. Something deeper.
An instinctive recognition, as though I perceive patterns invisible to others.Dr. Merriweather has remarked upon this ability. “You possess an intuition for these cases,” he told me last week. “An almost preternatural sense of when a patient’s condition will worsen.”
I confess the observation pleased me, though “preternatural” strikes me as rather dramatic language for what surely constitutes careful observation combined with detailed record-keeping.

Still, I cannot deny the accuracy of his assessment. I do seem to know, often hours before visible symptoms manifest, when a patient approaches crisis. Yesterday I insisted Dr. Merriweather examine Private Henderson despite the man showing no outward signs of distress. Within three hours, Henderson’s fever had spiked alarmingly, validating my concern.
The doctor’s expression when he returned from that examination held unmistakable satisfaction, as though my diagnostic instincts had proven some hypothesis he had long entertained about my abilities.

The work itself has become the center of my existence. I arrive early each morning and remain often until midnight, documenting cases with such thoroughness that Dr. Merriweather jests I shall write the definitive medical text on fever afflictions. The thought does not displease me. To contribute genuine knowledge to medical science—what nobler purpose could my life serve?

Sarah worries about the hours I keep. “You’ll exhaust yourself,” she said at breakfast this morning, noting the shadows beneath my eyes. Yet I feel anything but exhausted. Rather the opposite.
My constitutional vigor increases daily. I require less sleep than formerly, wake more refreshed, move through my duties with energy that astonishes even myself.

“The work agrees with you,” Dr. Merriweather observed yesterday, watching me complete rounds that would leave other volunteers trembling with fatigue. I had just finished tending to eight severe cases in succession, yet felt I could easily manage eight more.

“I find it tremendously stimulating,” I confessed. “The more challenging the case, the more engaged my faculties become.”

His smile held that same quality of warm approval I have come to treasure—the recognition of a mentor who takes genuine pride in his student’s progress. “Your father would be proud of the medical practitioner you are becoming.”

The comparison to Papa moves me profoundly. Though I possess none of his formal training, these months have taught me more than any classroom instruction could provide. I understand fevers, delirium, the progression of infectious miasmas through direct observation and careful documentation. My education may be unconventional, but its applications surpass what most university-trained physicians ever encounter.
The fever ward itself has become familiar territory—a dedicated section of the factory floor funded by Father’s benefactors and separated from the general hospital by heavy canvas curtains. Within our section, lighter canvas partitions divide patient spaces.
I navigate between these hanging screens with ease, recognize each patient by their breathing patterns alone, can identify which orderly approaches by the sound of their footsteps on the factory floor. The space has transformed from frightening vastness to intimate workspace where I move with confidence born of experience.

Some of the most severe cases occupy partitions farthest from the main entrance—isolated due to the violent nature of their symptoms. Other volunteers refuse to approach these patients without armed escort, yet I tend them twice daily without incident. They respond to my voice, I have noted, with a degree of calm they show no other person. When I speak gently while administering medicine, the terrible tension in their frames eases. Their eyes, though clouded with fever, fix upon my face with something approaching recognition.

“You have an effect on them,” Dr. Merriweather remarked when he observed this phenomenon. “The severe cases seem responsive to you where they show others only aggression. Even Henderson, who barely survived that terrible attack weeks ago, calms under your ministrations.”

“Perhaps they sense my lack of fear,” I suggested, though I confess uncertainty about this explanation.

“Perhaps they sense something else entirely.” His expression grew thoughtful, the way it always does when he considers medical mysteries. “Your constitution may produce some subtle influence that calms their agitation.”

The notion intrigued me, and I have begun documenting patient responses to various volunteers. The patterns I am discovering prove fascinating. Where Mrs. Patterson’s presence increases patient distress—elevated heart rates, visible anxiety, sometimes violent outbursts—my approach produces the opposite effect. Heart rates steady. Breathing calms. Even the most agitated patients grow quiescent under my care.

I mentioned these observations to Dr. Merriweather during this afternoon’s consultation. He listened with such intense focus that I grew self-conscious, wondering if my theories sounded foolish to his educated ear.

“Not foolish at all,” he said when I finished. “Your observations align with certain hypotheses I have been developing. The affliction may respond to constitutional factors we do not yet understand. Your particular physiology might produce calming influences on afflicted patients.”

“You mean my presence itself provides therapeutic benefit?”

“Precisely. Though the mechanism remains unclear.” He paused, studying me with that penetrating gaze I have come to expect during our more theoretical discussions. “Eleanor, how do you feel when treating the most severe cases? Physically, I mean. Do you experience any unusual sensations?”

I considered the question carefully, examining my own responses with the same analytical attention I apply to patient observation.
“I feel... energized,” I admitted. “The more severe the case, the more vital I become. My senses sharpen. My thinking clarifies. I perceive details I might otherwise miss.”

“Interesting.” He made a note in his ever-present journal. “And this vitality—does it fade when you leave the ward?”

“Somewhat. Though less than formerly. I used to feel quite depleted after a long shift. Now the energy sustains itself for hours afterward.”

“Remarkable.” Another note, his pen moving with swift precision. “Your body has adapted to the environment in beneficial ways. The sustained exposure has strengthened rather than weakened your constitution.”

The explanation satisfied me, though I confess some part of my mind questions whether “adaptation” fully accounts for the changes I have noticed. The heightened senses. The reduced need for sleep. The way sounds and scents have grown more distinct, as though a veil has lifted from my perceptions.

Even now, writing by candlelight in Dr. Merriweather’s office—he has granted me use of this private space for completing my documentation—I perceive details that should escape notice. The individual wax drips on the candle holder. The grain pattern in the wooden desk. The faint scent of carbolic acid lingering from this afternoon’s wound cleaning, though the solution was applied three rooms distant.

I hear conversations from the main ward with startling clarity. Nurse Williams discussing ration distribution with an orderly. Private Henderson’s labored breathing from his partition near the south wall. The scurry of rats in the factory’s upper galleries, their tiny claws scratching against wooden beams.

No. That cannot be accurate. The upper galleries stand fifty feet above us, and rats make very little sound. Surely I imagine this enhanced perception, attributing to literal hearing what must constitute educated guess based on knowledge of the building’s infestation problems.

Yet I hear them distinctly. Four rats, I would judge from the pattern of sounds. One larger, three smaller. Moving along the eastern beam toward the nest they have established in the far corner.

Dr. Merriweather would find this observation fascinating, I suspect. Or concerning. I am uncertain which. Perhaps I shall mention it during tomorrow’s consultation, framed as speculation rather than certainty.

He values my analytical thinking, but I would not wish him to question my soundness of mind.

to be continued…

© 2025-26 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia

March 10, 1862

I write this now with trembling hand, scarce hours after.

Our regiment’s winter quarters shall soon be abandoned as we prepare to march. With this knowledge weighing upon me, I resolved to visit the hospitals one final time before we depart—to offer what spiritual comfort my failing ministry might yet provide to those departing this mortal coil. I confess I have felt increasingly isolated from my own regiment these past weeks, the men regarding me with uncertainty since my wound marring my visage has progressed. It is only among the dying that I find any purpose remaining, any sense that my broken ministry might yet serve the Lord’s design.

The morning visit to St. Elizabeths proceeded as such visits to the hospitals have come to pass—too many suffering souls, too few hands to ease their passage. Yet as our small party traveled the road back toward camp, we encountered a scene that has shaken the very foundations of my understanding.

They emerged from the tree line like apparitions given flesh—five soldiers in tattered Union blue, their movements unnatural and jerking. At first I thought them to be merely wounded men, wandering confused from some nearby field hospital. But as they drew closer, I beheld something that defied all natural law. Their eyes held no spark of human consciousness, their mouths worked ceaselessly as though chewing upon some invisible sustenance, and the sounds that issued from their throats belonged to no creature fashioned in God’s image.

“Chaplain, behind us!” Sergeant Morrison commanded, he and Private Collins forming a barrier between myself and these approaching horrors. What followed shall haunt me beyond my final breath.

The afflicted fell upon us with unholy fury. No musket fire deterred them, no wounds slowed their advance. I watched in mounting terror as Sergeant Morrison’s rifle ball struck one creature square in the chest—a wound that should have felled any man instantly—yet it continued forward as though the Lord’s mercy of death had been denied it.

“They don’t die!” Collins screamed. “Lord Almighty, they don’t die!”

The struggle became chaos itself. My brave escorts fought with desperate courage, discovering through terrible trial that only complete destruction of the skull would halt these possessed forms. One by one, my protectors fell—not killed outright, but seized upon and bitten with savage intensity. Morrison went down beneath two of the creatures, his final cry a prayer for his mother.

Then I stood alone, facing the final afflicted soldier, weaponless and paralyzed by the magnitude of what I witnessed.

I confess here my utter failure of faith in that moment. A true man of God would have stood firm, would have called upon the Lord’s power with unwavering certainty. Instead, I scrambled like a frightened child for the sword fallen from Morrison’s grip, my hands trembling so violently I could scarce maintain my hold upon it.

The possessed soldier lunged toward me with unnatural speed. I held the blade before me and closed my eyes—not in prayer, but in pure animal terror. God forgive me, I turned my face away from death like a coward. Committing my soul to my Maker while my trembling hands yet held the sword before me.

I felt the weapon gain terrible weight as the creature impaled itself upon the blade, driving it deep through its own chest. Still it came forward, forcing itself down the length of steel toward me, its teeth snapping mere inches from my face. The stench of corruption overwhelmed my senses—not the clean smell of fresh death, but something ancient and putrid beyond description.

Through my horror, reason yet perceived what my failed exorcism attempts should have revealed: it is not the heart that sustains them. Whatever animates these cursed forms dwells elsewhere.

I forced the thing backward with my boots, withdrawing the blade from its chest. As it staggered toward me again, I swung with all the strength my terror provided, severing its head from its shoulders. Only then—only when that final connection was broken—did the body collapse.

I lay upon the blood-soaked ground, my chest heaving, surrounded by the torn bodies of brave men who died protecting a chaplain too weak in faith to save them. The tears came then—great wracking sobs that shook my entire frame. I wept for Morrison and Collins, for the creature I had destroyed, for my own cowardice, for this whole damned war that has unleashed such horrors upon God’s creation.

Yet amidst my grief and shame, a revelation seized me with startling clarity: I want to live.

Despite all my previous meditations on welcoming death, on joining my father in Glory, on finding rest from this vale of tears—when death’s reality confronted me, every fiber of my being cried out for life. Not for abstract continued existence, but for her. To see Eleanor’s face once more. To feel her hand in mine. To speak words of love that war has kept trapped within my heart.

In that moment of absolute terror and violent struggle, the truth became undeniable: I must survive this war. Whatever horrors yet await, whatever demons—literal or spiritual—bar my path, I must endure. For unfinished business remains in this world, and chief among that business is the woman whose love sustains me.

May God grant me the strength and courage I so clearly lack. May He forgive my weakness and my doubt. And may He preserve me through whatever darkness yet approaches, that I might live to hold my beloved once more.

After what I witnessed, the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds has collapsed entirely. I no longer know what manner of chaplain I have become, or what service I might yet render to souls—living or damned—who cross my path.

God help us all.

© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia

March 8, 1862

The fever cases seems to multiply with each hospital visit I make. The physicians call it camp fever at first, but then—they fall silent. They exchange glances. “It transforms into something altogether different,” one surgeon told me yesterday, his voice low. “It is as though the devil himself takes residence within them.”

The afflicted become violent beyond all reason. They attack their own comrades—men who shared their tents, their rations, their prayers. Today a young private dragged me by the sleeve to his friend’s bedside, desperation plain in his eyes. “Please, Chaplain, cast out the demon that possesses him!”

The afflicted soldier had bitten him. Taken flesh from his arm with his teeth.

I have witnessed much horror in this war, but this—this defies comprehension. This is not of God. Cannot be of God. The darkness I sense in these men feels ancient and malevolent, yet when I invoked the Holy Spirit in fervent prayer, when I called upon the Lord’s power to cast out the demon, nothing changed. The afflicted man continued to thrash and bite, his eyes empty of all human recognition.

Wesley taught that through faith united with God’s grace, demons may be expelled. Here then is the measure of my failing faith. I was not strong enough. I could not muster sufficient spiritual authority to save Private Roberts. This is why Scripture commands us to wear the full armor of God—to remain ever vigilant. For we know not when we shall be called upon to stand firm against the powers of darkness.

I needed the Lord’s strength more than ever today, and I found myself wanting.

Four men held Private Roberts down while I prayed. I asked them to join their voices with mine, hoping that our combined spiritual strength might overcome the darkness. Five Christians united in prayer, calling upon the Almighty’s power. Yet still the demon would not release him.

Private Roberts remains alive in the flesh, but the man he was seems utterly consumed. Though we prayed with all the faith we could summon, though we invoked every promise of Scripture, he continued wanting to snap his teeth at anyone who approaches, making sounds no human throat ought produce.

God forgive me. I failed that boy today.

What manner of affliction resists the power of Christ’s name? What evil proves stronger than united Christian prayer?

I have no answers. Only questions that multiply like shadows as night falls.

© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

March 6, 1862

My dearest Eleanor,

I pray this letter finds you in continued good health, though I confess the weight of winter has pressed heavily upon my spirit. Winter’s harshness deepens with the knowledge that mere miles separate us, when in better times I might have passed these cold months in the warmth of your presence. Your recent correspondence arrived as a beacon of divine light piercing the gathering darkness that has threatened to overwhelm my soul. Through your words, I felt the Lord’s comfort reaching across the battle lines that divide us, reminding me that even in this season of tribulation, His mercies remain new each morning.

I find that this conflict has claimed far more than my father’s earthly form—though that loss weighs heavily enough upon my heart. The Charles we both held dear, the brother whose merry disposition could lighten even the gravest circumstances, appears to have been consumed by the very darkness that Scripture warns dwells in the hearts of men given over to violence and hatred.

I cling to hope that this transformation proves temporary, that the brother I knew yet lives beneath the hardened exterior war has forged. Yet I too have witnessed such horrors as might alter even the strongest constitution, and I fear his restoration may require both considerable time and divine intervention.

As I continue my study of Holy Scripture in preparation for the sermons I deliver to our regiment, one particular passage has fixed itself within my thoughts with uncommon persistence.

The Apostle John, in his Revelation, chapter twenty-one, verse four, promises us that God “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

How fervently I await that blessed day when the Lord shall fulfill this sacred promise! When this mortal coil, so weighted with suffering and separation, shall be exchanged for that eternal dwelling place where neither armies nor ideologies may divide those whom God has joined together in affection.

What strikes me most profoundly in your letters is the steadfast hopefulness that permeates your words, despite the trials you have endured.

I know my father’s passing has grieved you deeply—perhaps nearly as deeply as it has wounded my own heart. You nursed him with such devotion these many months, witnessing his gradual decline with the clear eyes of one trained in medical observation, yet maintaining throughout a tenderness that transcended mere clinical duty.

Moreover, in your hospital work, you must daily confront the same terrible scenes that haunt my own ministry—young men whose lives drain away despite all efforts to preserve them, physicians laboring heroically against wounds that defy earthly remedy, families receiving news that shatters their carefully constructed worlds.

To maintain faith and hope amid such relentless confrontation with mortality requires a strength of spirit that few possess. Yet maintain it you do, with a grace that continues to humble and quicken my spirit.

Your ability to persevere in hope while surrounded by death’s dominion stands as testimony to a faith more robust than my own.

Though I minister to these suffering souls daily, I confess there are moments when my own hope falters, when the weight of accumulated sorrows threatens to extinguish the light of faith within my breast. In such dark hours, the memory of your unwavering trust in Providence serves to rekindle my flagging spirits.

I find myself in a state of perpetual gratitude to the Almighty for the providential circumstances that brought you into my life. Your beauty, which dwells not merely in feature but in spirit—continues to sustain me through trials I could never have imagined when we first spoke beneath that white oak tree in Richmond. The kindness you show to all within your sphere, regardless of their station or allegiance, reflects the love of Christ in its purest form. Your faith, tested as it has been by loss and suffering, yet remains unshaken—a lighthouse whose steady beam guides me through the tempestuous seas of doubt and despair.

Though miles and armies stand between us, though death surrounds us on every side, though the future remains shrouded in uncertainty, I remain steadfast in my devotion to you and in my faith that our Heavenly Father, who has sustained us thus far, shall see us safely through to that blessed day of reunion.

Mindful of these blessings, with such earnestness my heart can compass, I implore you to continue to exercise proper caution in your hospital work. I know not how my soul should endure such grievous loss as to have you removed from this earthly sphere.

With unwavering devotion and the blessed hope of reunion,

Thomas

© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia
March 3, 1862

Today a letter from Charles was placed in my hands, and having read it, I almost wish it had not come.

Though my heart rejoices to learn he yet lives, the temper of his words wounds me deeply. It has thus become apparent, on either side of this conflict men have begun to reckon the other as heathen.

Others thus speak; yet that my own brother should, I never expected. It stands against all that Father taught us, and against the Gospel of our Lord, who bids us love our neighbor.

Yet I must remember how hard it is to comprehend what the eyes behold amid smoke and blood. In boyhood Charles possessed a merry talent for enlargement: a modest catch became, in his telling, a river monstrosity.

I do not doubt he has seen frightful things, but I suspect the monsters he names be smaller than terror and confusion made it seem.

I would not wish horrors, great or small, upon any man—least of all upon my brother—yet I know how the eye, overborne with fear, may mislead the heart upon the field.

O Lord, grant that this war may soon find its end, and that my dear brother’s heart may be softened again.-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Unknown Location
February 28, 1862

My dear brother,

News has reached me of our father’s passing. It grieves me deeply that neither of us could attend him in his final hours. I remain grateful that both Sarah and Eleanor were present to provide him comfort.

Sarah writes that Eleanor and Father grew remarkably close during his decline. In this, at least, we were blessed by the devoted women in our lives.

When first this conflict commenced, there existed a certain civility even amid the brutality of warfare. That civility, I fear, has now vanished entirely. I have witnessed acts most unholy—beheadings and other atrocities that defy Christian understanding. Most recently, I observed Northern soldiers displaying pure savagery, tearing apart Confederate men with their bare hands. One soldier I witnessed dismembering a fallen man with his very teeth.

I know very well you are a man of God, yet I must confess my growing bewilderment at your continued support of the Union cause. This troubled me little at the war’s commencement, but having now witnessed firsthand what manner of enemy we face—I can describe it only as pure savagery devoid of divine grace.

Brother, I implore you to reconsider your position. These men have abandoned God’s mercy and deserve none of their own. The evil I have beheld with mine own eyes has earned them whatever divine wrath our Lord sees fit to deliver.

I know you devoted much prayer and contemplation to your decision to serve as chaplain in this war. Yet I urge you most earnestly to reconsider this choice. Return home and minister to the flock that remains deserving of your spiritual guidance.

Until we meet again know that, above all, I do miss my little brother.

Charles

-

to be continued…

Subscribe now

© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia
February 24, 1862

I have struggled to put pen to paper since I received word of father’s passing, and even now my hand trembles as I struggle to put my thoughts in order.

The pain in my face has grown unbearable again, despite Dr. Jenkins’s assurances that the healing proceeds well. However, far more troubling than the physical pain is that I continue to see things that cannot be there.

Yesterday while visiting the hospital at Georgetown, I witnessed Sergeant Sullivan stopping in the doorway of the fever ward—the same Sergeant Sullivan whose funeral rites I performed not but a day prior. He regarded me with an expression of such anger. I called out to him, only to have him vanish like morning mist. The orderly who rushed to my side insisted no one had been standing there, that the doorway remained empty save for shadows cast by the afternoon light.

Are these visions I have been seeing signs of divine revelation, or merely the fractured perceptions of a mind overwhelmed by suffering? I have searched Scripture for guidance, turning to the prophets who witnessed spirits and angels, yet I find no comfort in their examples. My visions feel not of God. There was an evil in them. I cannot say how I know this, but there was no goodness in what I saw.

I confess here what I dare not speak aloud to any living soul—there are moments when I question whether continuing this mortal life serves any purpose. The pain never fully subsides; it merely ebbs like a tide before crashing anew against the shores of my endurance. I understand why some wounded men choose to step into eternity rather than endure another dawn of suffering.

God forgive me these thoughts. Grant me strength to resist such darkness.

The whispers have begun as well, though these I suspect are real rather than phantoms of my fevered mind. I catch fragments of conversation that cease when I approach—the chaplain’s affliction, his strange behaviors, his fitness for duty. The men still show me respect, but I sense their uncertainty, their questions about whether my wounds have left me capable of providing the spiritual guidance they require.

God called me to tend His flock in their darkest hours. If I retreat from that calling now, what manner of servant does that make me? What worth remains in a minister who abandons the suffering because their pain proves too heavy to witness? What would Eleanor think of me?

She is the light steering me away from sinking into despair as I journey through these dangerous waters of thought. I must hold on for her.

Tomorrow I will try again to fulfill my duties with competence and grace. Tonight I can only endure.

May God grant me wisdom to discern truth from fever-dream, and strength to continue when all strength seems exhausted.

The boundary between waking and sleeping grows ever thinner.

Entry concludes with several lines scratched out, illegible

-

to be continued…

© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

May 3, 2025 – Merriweather Medical Research Foundation, Virginia

The doors slid shut behind them with a muted whoosh. Amelia stood in the lobby taking it in—warm wood paneling, abstract art, interior windows revealing long laboratories that belonged in major research hospitals. Electron microscopes. Genetic sequencers. Equipment worth millions.

Amelia shivered.

Not a historical society. Not even close.

“Dr. Merriweather, sir.” The receptionist handed Elijah a tablet. “Dr. Thanakit is ready for you in Lab 3. Dr. Caulfield is expecting your call.”

They walked through corridors lined with more equipment, then took a lift to a basement floor. Amelia’s pulse quickened. She was really doing this.

Elijah swiped his keycard at a door marked “Lab 3 - Authorized Personnel Only.” Inside, a woman in a lab coat looked up from a workstation.

“Dr. Merriweather. And, this must be Dr. Everett.” She extended a hand. “Dr. Suda Thanakit, Clinical Pathology.How are you feeling about this? I’ve been ready since Elijah called the other day.”

Amelia smiled at the woman’s energy “Thank you for accommodating us on short notice,” she said.

“Are you joking? The chance to analyze specimens like these?” Dr. Thanakit gestured at Amelia’s research bag. “I’ve been excited since I saw the preliminary photos. But before I get carried away, I need to understand your current condition. Dr. Merriweather mentioned you have been showing symptoms already, but I’d like to hear directly from you.”

Amelia sat at the workstation Dr. Thanakit indicated. “Yes. It started about ten days ago. Fatigue at first—I thought it was travel stress. Then photophobia, severe enough now that I’m keeping my hotel room in complete darkness. Changes in taste and smell—most food feels wrong now, almost repulsive. Thankfully, coffee is still good.”

Dr. Thanakit made notes on her tablet. “Any fever? Night sweats?”

“No fever. Some sensitivity to the mid-to-lower temperature—I feel cold when I shouldn’t.”

“Sleep disturbances?”

“Difficulty getting to sleep at night. More alert after dark.”

Dr. Thanakit nodded, still typing. “And you’ve been handling the historical materials you found in the hidden room extensively? Letters, documents, biological specimens?”

“Yes. Well, no. For about two weeks I have been handling papers and objects from the estate, preserved but not hidden. More recently the papers from the room. Not so much the jewelry and the other specimens.”

“Alright.” Dr. Thanakit set down the tablet. “Let’s get your baseline readings then. I’ll need to draw blood for a full panel—pathogen screening, metabolic markers, genetic analysis. The genetic sequencing will take about forty-eight hours, but we can knock off some preliminary tests today.”

Amelia rolled up her sleeve. The needle pinch barely registered. She watched her blood fill vial after vial. Dark red, ordinary-looking. Nothing to suggest what might be growing inside.

Elijah had positioned himself at an adjacent workstation, his attention ostensibly on the monitors in front of him. But she felt the weight of his stare on her, when she wasn’t looking.

“Perfect,” Dr. Thanakit said, sealing the last vial. “These will take about twenty minutes to process for the preliminary screening. Meanwhile, let me get Dr. Caulfield on the line.”

She took out her phone and started a call, putting it on speaker.

“Dr. Thanakit. Elijah. Dr. Everett—good to continue our conversation.” The voice came out tinny from the speakers, but Amelia recognized Dr. Caulfield’s cultured tone. “I’ve been eager to discuss the specimens since we last spoke.”

“Dr. Caulfield,” Amelia said. “Thank you for making time for this.”

“Of course. The preliminary data Elijah sent is remarkable. I’ve reviewed the photos he took—the specimens’ integrity is extraordinary, for historical material.” Papers rustled. “If it holds up under analysis, we may be able to determine if this is the same pathogen we’re seeing in Europe. And if it is—if there’s evidence of how this woman’s body responded to infection—that could be invaluable.”

“Eleanor Caldwell survived,” Elijah interjected. “Based on Dr. Everett’s research, Eleanor was infected during the war but lived well past it. We found a documented property sale in her own name dated 1867, years after the reported infection.”

A pause. “A survivor,” Dr. Caulfield said, her interest sharpening. “And you think these biological samples have been taken during the infection period. That would be... extraordinary.”

“I haven’t found any mention of the jewelry piece in the documents I already went through, which cover up to early 1862. It is possible that this was a gift made later. If that was the case, what would that tell us?” Amelia asked.

“Well, if the samples are in fact from an individual suffering from a chronic infection, and well enough preserved, we could establish the presence of metabolic markers determined by the exposure to the agent, or even genetic factors tied to the immune response, anything that explains survival.” Dr. Caulfield’s excitement was palpable. “Considering the high mortality rate we are observing in the European outbreak, understanding who survives, and how, could save thousands of lives. If we can isolate protective factors—”

Dr Caulfield kept speaking, but Amelia was not listening anymore. This wasn’t just about understanding the past. It wasn’t even about saving her own life. Well, not that alone. It was about finding a cure for people that were not even infected yet. Potentially.

Eleanor would have loved that.

“I’m going to start the chemical analysis,” Dr. Thanakit said, carefully removing Eleanor’s hair samples from the mourning brooch. “It’ll take approximately two hours. Dr. Caulfield, I’ll send you data as it comes in. We can reconvene when we have results.”

“Perfect. Dr. Everett—I look forward to discussing your findings. If the agent is the same, or very similar, the outbreak patterns you’ve experienced firsthand may help us understand transmission vectors.” The line went quiet for a moment. “And Dr. Everett? Keep documenting your symptoms carefully. They may be crucial data.”

The call ended.

The lab settled into focused work. Dr. Thanakit moved between equipment with measured efficiency. On a screen, Amelia could see Eleanor’s hair samples how they appeared under the microscope, their cellular structure impossibly intact for something so old.

Her phone buzzed. Her lawyer.

“I need to take this,” she said, stepping into the hallway.

The call was brief. The contracts were solid, protective of her interests. Equal partnership, full credit for any publications, right to terminate at any time. Her lawyer approved with minor notes.

“Sign them,” Amelia said looking back toward the others, a mere formality at this point. “I’m in.”

When she returned, Elijah looked up. “Everything okay?”

“My lawyer. Everything is signed.”

Something flickered in his expression. Relief mixed with something else. “No going back now.”

“No going back.”

The afternoon stretched into careful analysis. Amelia tried to read, to distract herself, but kept watching the equipment. Watching data scroll across screens in patterns she couldn’t quite follow. Watching Elijah, who’d positioned himself where he could monitor both the test results and her, his attention divided but intense.

It was late afternoon when Dr. Thanakit straightened from a monitor. “Oh. Oh, this is remarkable.” She reached for her tablet. “I need to call Dr. Caulfield back.”

Amelia’s pulse kicked up. “What is it?”

“Just—let me get her on the line first, so I can get through this just the once.”

The phone reconnected. “Dr. Caulfield? You need to see this. I sent you the prelim.”

“Just tell me what you found, I can’t look right now.”

“Chemical analysis of the hair samples shows mineral compounds throughout the matrix. Protein traces suggesting significantly altered metabolism. And chemical signatures I’ve never encountered in specimens so old.” Dr. Thanakit pulled up images on a shared screen, sending them digitally. “Her body wasn’t just breaking down under the infection. It was processing something, adapting to something maybe, if I have to be completely honest, it doesn’t look… normal.”

“Send me the full data set when you have it,” Dr. Caulfield said, voice sharp with interest. “These metabolic markers—are they consistent with active infection or post-infection adaptation?”

“Active adaptation during infection,” Dr. Thanakit said. “The markers suggest her body was responding to the pathogen in real-time when this hair grew.”

“Incredible.” Dr. Caulfield paused. “And the pathogen signature itself?”

“I’ll need more analysis to confirm, but the chemical markers are consistent with what we’re seeing in the European cases. Not identical—there are differences—but similar enough to suggest a related strain.”

“So it is the same family of pathogens,” Elijah said quietly. “Just separated by an ocean, and who knows how many years.”

“Dr. Thanakit,” Dr. Caulfield continued, “what about Dr. Everett’s preliminary screening?”

“Just finished processing.” Dr. Thanakit moved to another workstation, pulling up results. “There are signs of an infection–pathogen still unidentified, but they are mild, nothing to justify her symptoms. Dr. Caulfild—” She paused. “There’s something unusual in the metabolic markers. Similar to what we’re seeing in the samples, but... different.”

“Different how?” Amelia asked, unable to keep silent anymore.

“I’m not sure yet. There is a last test that we can perform today, it will give us a quick visual indication of the actual damage sustained by your cells.” Dr. Thanakit explained, turning to speak to her directly “It’s a chemical reaction that detects iron compounds released by damaged blood cells. A bit old fashioned, as far as lab tests go, actually, but still useful in this case.”

Amelia watched Dr. Thanakit measure drops of her blood into a glass dish. Add clear solution from a brown bottle.

“The darker the blue color, the more severe the cellular damage.” Dr. Thanakit continued, “Your labs came out inconclusive, the white are a bit raised, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be caused by a seasonal cold. Nothing like we are seeing with this new ‘Academic Flu’.”

“So I might actually be… fine?”

Elijah had moved closer. Not hovering, but near enough that she could feel his heat against her back.

Add a drop of acid.

The reaction was immediate.

Blue bloomed through the solution. Not pale—she’d read about pale results in James’s notes.

But not dark either. Not the black-blue of the dying soldier. Not the black-blue Eleanor’s blood had actually shown, before James switched the samples.

Somewhere in between.

“Well,” Amelia said, voice steadier than she felt, “not fine, then.”

Elijah stared at the result. His expression shifted—confusion, then calculation, then something sharper. Like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit where it should.

Dr. Thanakit was frowning. “The color is unusual. Given the symptoms and the timeline you described—ten days of progression, the severe photophobia, taste changes—I would expect a very dark result if you were progressing rapidly toward crisis.” She looked at the dish again. “This shade...”

“What does that mean?” Amelia asked.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Thanakit admitted. “I’ve never seen this particular pattern before. Dr. Caulfield?”

“Eli?” Dr. Caulfield’s voice, soft through the speakers. “ What are you seeing?”

Elijah was still staring at that medium blue like it was speaking a language only he understood. “Constitutional factors,” he said slowly. “It has to be constitutional factors affecting iron release despite the active infection.”

“Possibly.” But Dr. Caulfield didn’t sound convinced. “The genetic analysis will tell us more. If there are protective genetic markers, metabolic adaptations we haven’t identified—”

“In two days,” Amelia said. The blue solution sat on the counter, already beginning to settle. “We’ll know in two days.”

“Until then, document your symptoms. Try to rest. And Dr. Everett—” Dr. Caulfield paused. “Try not to worry. We’ll find answers.”

The call disconnected.

Amelia gathered her things slowly. Dr. Thanakit was photographing the blue solution from multiple angles, preparing slides for archival.

“Thank you,” Amelia said. “For everything.”

“We’ll call you as soon as we have results,” Dr. Thanakit replied. She glanced at Elijah, something unspoken passing between them.

The walk back to the truck was quiet. Too quiet. Elijah’s hand came up unconsciously to guide her around a curb, dropped away when he realized what he was doing.

“What are you thinking?” Amelia asked as they reached the parking lot.

He stared at the facility for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was distant. Calculating. “The progression rate doesn’t match the test result. Infected but not advancing rapidly. Like something’s... interfering with the normal course.”

“Interfering how?”

“That’s what I don’t know yet.” He unlocked the truck. But his hand shook slightly on the key.

Amelia climbed into the passenger seat. Through the tinted windows, she could see Elijah hesitating, sending a couple of texts in rapid succession. And she remembered that look between Dr. Thanakit and Elijah.

She remembered the softness in Dr. Caulfield’s voice at the end: “Eli. What are you seeing?”

Like she knew him well enough to read his silences across thousands of miles.

The truck engine started. Elijah backed out carefully, his movements controlled. But she caught his eyes, checking on her.

Protective.When he thought she wasn’t looking.

They drove in silence. That blue shade suffusing Amelia’s mind—not pale, not dark, somewhere in the terrible, uncertain space between.

And Elijah’s questions stayed too. About progression rates. About interference. About something he was figuring out but not sharing yet.

The afternoon light was fading, and she was starting to feel hungry—she always did as evening approached. It was still manageable, but maybe he’d know about a good place to stop at, along the way.

A good, open place.

She watched the trees blur past and wondered what the genetic analysis would reveal.

Two days.

She could survive two days.

She hoped.

-

to be continued…

© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

May 3, 2025

The truck smelled like leather and something herbal—expensive soap, maybe. Amelia settled into the passenger seat, grateful for the tinted windows that turned the aggressive spring sunlight into something tolerable. Her fingertips tingled against the door handle. Everything felt too intense lately.

They drove through Fredericksburg’s historic district in silence. Past Civil War monuments and battlefield markers that had suddenly acquired uncomfortable relevance. Through the tinted glass, the morning looked muted and peaceful.

Once they hit the highway, Elijah’s posture changed. His hands tightened on the wheel. Relaxed. Tightened again.

“There’s something I should tell you,” he said finally. “Before we get there.”

Amelia turned to study his profile. “Okay.”

“The research—why this matters so much to me.” He flexed his fingers against the wheel. “It’s personal.”

“Beyond the family connection?”

“Related to it, but more...” His jaw clenched. “Immediate.”

The countryside rolled past. Dogwood blossoms against dark pine. Fields of wildflowers. Beautiful in a way that made her chest ache, partly from enhanced vision making every detail hyperreal, partly from the growing certainty she might not see many more springs.

She waited.

“I lost someone once,” he said. The words came out careful, practiced but still painful. “To something very much like what you’re experiencing now.”

The rawness in his voice was unmistakable. Too genuine to be fabricated.

“Recently?” she asked gently.

“Years ago. But the circumstances were similar—symptoms that started as fatigue and light sensitivity, progressed to more severe manifestations.” His voice dropped. “I was young then. Inexperienced. I didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late.”

Whatever else he might be hiding, this grief was real.

“What happened to her?”

“She died.” The words fell like stones. “The condition progressed faster than anyone anticipated. By the time I understood what we were dealing with, she was beyond any treatment.”

Amelia felt something shift in her chest. “I’m sorry. That must have been devastating.”

“I became obsessed.” His voice gained strength, moving from raw loss to familiar territory. “Understanding what had happened to her. Whether there were historical precedents, cases where people survived. Which eventually led me back to my family history. To the accusations against James Merriweather.”

The landscape was getting more rural now. Farmland replacing suburbs. Amelia found herself noticing details in bark patterns and leaf formations that would have been invisible to her days ago.

“What was her name?” she asked.

“Catriona.” The name emerged like a prayer. Soft and weighted with years of grief. “Scottish heritage, like mine. Beautiful and brilliant, with a mind that could grasp complex concepts faster than anyone I’d ever encountered.” His smile was bitter. “She would have loved this kind of medical mystery. Would have thrown herself into it with complete passion.”

“She was a researcher too?”

“She could have been anything she wanted to be.” The regret was thick in his voice. “Medical research, theoretical physics, comparative literature—she had that kind of rare intellect. But we never got the chance to find out.”

They drove in silence for several miles. Amelia reassessed him—the grief felt too raw to be fabricated. But she noticed he hadn’t said exactly when this happened. “Years ago” could mean five years or fifty, for all she knew.

“Is that why you’re so determined to help me?” she asked. “Because you see parallels between our situations?”

“Partly.” He glanced at her. “But it’s more than that now. Your mind—the way you approach these puzzles, connect patterns across centuries—it’s remarkable. You remind me of her.”

The admission hung between them, charged.

“That’s dangerous territory,” Amelia said carefully. “Mixing personal feelings with medical research.”

“I know. But I can’t seem to help it.” His smile was self-deprecating. “Probably not what you want to hear from someone you’re supposed to trust.”

“Actually, it’s reassuring.” She surprised herself. “It means you have personal investment in keeping me alive, not just documenting what happens to me.”

“There’s no scenario where you don’t survive this,” Elijah said with sudden intensity. “Whatever Eleanor’s case can teach us, whatever resources I can access—you’re not going to end up like Catriona.”

The fierce protectiveness surprised her. “You sound very certain for someone who admits he couldn’t save her.”

“Because I’m not that inexperienced young man anymore. Because we have modern medical knowledge. Because Eleanor proved survival is possible.” His hands shifted on the wheel. “And because I’m not losing someone else if I can prevent it.”

His determination should have been comforting.

“What if Eleanor’s survival was pure luck?” she asked. “Genetic predisposition, environmental factors that don’t exist anymore?”

“Then we find another way.”

They drove for a few minutes. Trees thickening on both sides of the road.

“I lost someone too,” Amelia said quietly.

Elijah glanced over, surprised.

“Not…not like that.” She demurred, “My ex-husband.” She looked out the window, not at him. “He’s not dead. He said I was married to my work, not to him. That I cared more about dead people’s diseases than our actual life together.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was right.” A bitter laugh. “When he started threatening to leave, I thought if I just worked harder, proved my worth, made some breakthrough—if I could show him all that work would pay off.” She stopped. “Turns out you can’t save a marriage by doubling down on what’s killing it.”

The confession surprised her. She hadn’t talked about this with anyone.

“So I focused on my career,” she continued. “There was this colleague—Dr. Whitmore. Senior researcher, well-respected. He asked me to collaborate on a paper about historical disease transmission patterns in military conflicts. I was thrilled. Finally, someone taking my work seriously.”

Her hands clenched in her lap.

“I did most of the research. Months of work, hundreds of hours in archives, developed the core methodology. We were supposed to co-author.” Her voice went hard. “He published it under his name alone. Took full credit. By the time I found out, it was already in press.”

“Oh, Amelia—”

“I had no proof. No paper trail showing my contributions. Just emails that could be interpreted either way.” The anger flared fresh. “And he was established faculty. I was just an assistant professor. Who were they going to believe?”

She could feel Elijah watching her.

“So now I have nobody to go home to, my department thinks I’m trying to claim credit for someone else’s work, and nobody wants to collaborate with me.” She finally looked at him. “I’m professionally radioactive. And I… I actually find it hard to trust people now. To work with anyone.”

The vulnerability of the admission hung between them.

“We’re working together,” Elijah said quietly. “Right now. You and me.”

She studied his face. The grief he’d shared about Catriona felt real. The way he’d admitted his motives weren’t entirely pure—that was honest, at least. And she’d already sent the contracts to her lawyer, already agreed to the partnership at the café. But this felt different. Deeper.

“You can trust me, Amelia.”

The tension stretched between them. The truck cab suddenly felt very small, intimate.

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Okay. Then there’s something you should know. About what I actually found in those documents.”

Elijah pulled off onto a smaller road, then into a small turnoff. He killed the engine.

“Tell me,” he said.

She pulled out her phone, scrolling to photos she’d taken of the documents.

“Your ancestor was experimenting on Eleanor,” Amelia said flatly. “From the beginning. The whole thing was orchestrated.”

“That’s not—”

“Let me finish.” Her voice had an edge now. “Thomas Everett’s father died in January 1862. Eleanor, already betrothed to Thomas, had been caring for him for three years. She was grieving, vulnerable, questioning her purpose. And James Merriweather swooped in like some benevolent mentor.”

She showed him the photo of Eleanor’s journal entry.

“He positioned himself as a father figure. Told her he saw her potential, that she had a scientific mind. Offered her a position as his ‘research assistant’ in the new fever ward.” Amelia’s anger was building. “The fever ward—that’s what they called the isolation units for the most severe cases. The patients nobody else could safely treat. She trusted him completely. Thought he was recognizing her brilliance.”

“Maybe he was—”

“He was using her.” The words came out sharp. “In January, he did this iron test. It detects infection—the darker the reaction, the more severe the exposure. Eleanor’s blood went dark. Black-blue, like a patient who’d been directly attacked.”

Elijah’s hands tightened on the wheel.

“But he switched the samples.” Amelia’s voice shook with fury. “Showed her a pale test from someone else. Told her she was healthy, cleared for duty. Then deliberately sent her into the fever ward to work with the most severe cases.”

“He was testing a theory—”

“He was experimenting on an unknowing subject!” Amelia turned in her seat to face him fully. “She had no idea she was infected. No idea he was documenting her like a lab specimen while pretending to mentor her. She wrote in her journal about how grateful she was for his recognition, how honored she felt—” Her voice cracked. “And the whole time, he was watching to see what would happen to her.”

Elijah’s jaw was tight. “The priming exposure from caring for Thomas’s father—that’s what saved her. He was trying to understand if controlled progression could—”

“Without her consent!” Amelia’s hands were shaking. “He knew caring for Mr. Everett had exposed her gradually over years. He theorized it would create immunity instead of killing her. So he tested it. On her. Without telling her what he was doing.”

“He was trying to save lives—”

“By lying to a young woman who trusted him completely.” Amelia felt the parallels too keenly. Another man exploiting a woman’s work, another betrayal dressed up as collaboration. “She documented her own symptoms thinking she was doing scientific research. She had no idea she WAS the research.”

Silence filled the truck.

“You’re right,” Elijah said finally. Quietly.

Amelia blinked. She’d been prepared for more argument.

“The ethics are...” He ran a hand through his hair. “Questionable at best. By modern standards, it’s unforgivable. Even by the standards of his time, the deception...” He looked at her. “But she survived, Amelia. Whatever he did, however wrong it was—she lived.”

“That doesn’t excuse it.”

“No. It doesn’t.” His voice was tired. “I’ve spent years trying to understand him. To figure out if he was a monster or a visionary or both. The accusations after the war—human experimentation, unethical practices—I wanted to clear his name. But maybe...” He stopped. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve to have his name cleared.”

The honesty surprised her.

“Eleanor was a victim,” Amelia said more gently. “Not a collaborator. She trusted the wrong person and got used for his research.”

“I know.” Elijah looked out the windshield. “And now you’re wondering how much I’m not telling you.”

“Are you? Holding information from me?” She hated how her voice sounded. Small. Paranoid. Pathetic.”The Foundation, the laboratory, Dr. Caulfield—it’s all very convenient. Like it was ready and waiting.”

“It was.” He turned to face her. “I’ve been trying to access that house for years. The family documents we have at the Foundation are incomplete—James’s research notes have gaps, missing sections. When you inherited the property and came down here, I knew it would be my chance to find more. To find answers.” He paused. “So yes, when we found Eleanor’s specimens, I had resources ready. But that doesn’t mean I’m using you.”

“Just that you’re not telling me everything.”

“No.” His honesty surprised her. “I’m not.”

Amelia wanted to be angry. But she also knew her instincts were damaged. After Whitmore, she saw betrayal everywhere. Maybe Elijah was hiding things. Maybe he had his own agenda. But he wasn’t lying about her being sick. And he wasn’t pretending the laboratory didn’t exist.

“At least you’re not lying to me,” she said.

“I’m trying not to.” His voice was rough. “Even when it would be easier.”

They sat in the quiet truck, trees surrounding them on all sides.

“The knowledge he gained,” Amelia said slowly. “From experimenting on Eleanor. It’s unethical. But it might be the only thing that saves my life.”

“Yes.”

“So what do we do with that?”

“I don’t know.” Elijah’s hands rested on the wheel, still and heavy. “Use it? Acknowledge where it came from? Try to make something good come from something terrible?”

Amelia thought about Eleanor—brilliant, naive, trusting. Manipulated by a man she saw as a mentor. Documented like a lab specimen while thinking she was his protégé.

“She survived though,” Amelia said. “Whatever he did to her, she lived. She sold property in her own name in 1867. She had agency afterward.”

“She did.”

“And the preserved hair samples—those were intentional. She kept them for a reason.” Amelia looked at the research bag at her feet. “Maybe so someone else could benefit from what she went through.”

“Maybe.”

Elijah started the engine again, pulling back onto the road. Through the trees ahead, Amelia could see glass and steel. Modern architecture completely out of place in the forest.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“The Foundation research facility. Yes.”

“Started by James?”

“Funded by him initially. My family’s expanded it over the generations.” The building grew larger as they approached. “It’s where we can actually analyze the specimens properly. Where Dr. Caulfield’s team is standing by.”

Amelia took a deep breath. “I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“No lies. Ever. No letting me think I’m the researcher when I’m actually the research subject.” Her voice was steel. “And if we publish anything from this—when we publish—my name goes on it. Equal credit. Not buried in the acknowledgments, not a footnote. Partnership.”

The word hung between them. Partnership. What she’d thought she had with Whitmore.

“I need to know I can trust someone again,” she said more quietly. “I need this not to be another mistake.”

“I promise.” He met her eyes. “Whatever we find, you’ll know everything. The good, the bad, and the terrifying. And anything that comes from this research—we publish together, or we don’t publish at all.”

“Even if you think I can’t handle it?”

“Even then.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He pulled into the parking lot. The building loomed ahead—clean lines, tinted windows, serious money and serious science.

“For what it’s worth,” Elijah said quietly as he killed the engine, “I think she would have forgiven him eventually. Eleanor. Once she understood why he did it.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No. But sometimes people forgive what isn’t forgivable because they understand the desperation behind it.”

Amelia thought about that. About Catriona dying. About James watching countless patients die from this condition. About Elijah spending years obsessed with understanding why.

Desperation made people do terrible things.

Amelia grabbed her research bag and opened the door. Cool air rushed in, carrying the smell of pine.

“Let’s go see if your ancestor’s unethical research can save my life,” she said.

Elijah came around the truck. They stood together in the parking lot, looking up at the facility.

“Together,” he said.

“Together.”

They walked toward the entrance. Two people who’d confessed their isolation, their grief, their desperation. Who’d decided to trust each other despite every red flag. The contracts might be with her lawyer, but this—this was the real agreement.

The doors slid open as they approached.

-

to be continued…

© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Monday May the 5th, Fredericksburg Virginia

The hotel room existed in perpetual twilight. Amelia had stuffed towels along the blackout curtains’ edges, but Virginia’s spring dawn still found ways to seep through—thin lines of light that felt like needles against her retinas. She fumbled for her phone in the artificial darkness, each notification chime reverberating through her skull like a struck bell.

Johns Hopkins Medical suspends all in-person research activities.

European death toll from “Academic Flu” reaches triple digits.

CDC establishes Academic Pathogen Task Force. Dr. Elise Caulfield named international coordinator.

The screen’s blue glow made her temples throb, but she couldn’t look away from Dr. Caulfield’s name. The letters seemed to pulse with her heartbeat. Yesterday she’d been an overlooked assistant professor whose department chair barely returned her calls. Now she was collaborating with the international coordinator of a pandemic task force. The progression felt surreal, like watching someone else’s life unfold in fast-forward.

Her phone vibrated against her palm, the sensation oddly amplified. Elijah: Coffee at Princess Anne? Have those documents ready. Can you stay until one?

She typed back with fingers that felt hypersensitive to the phone’s texture: Twenty-five minutes.

The walk down Princess Anne Street felt like navigating an obstacle course. Even through dark sunglasses, the overcast morning seemed too bright, each storefront window reflecting light that made her squint. She passed a coffee shop with a hastily taped sign: “Temporarily Closed - Staff Illness.” The sight of empty businesses was becoming common, evidence of how the pandemic was creeping into even small communities like silent flood water.

The café Eli had chosen occupied the ground floor of a converted 19th-century building, its weathered brick facade and tall windows speaking of Confederate money and antebellum prosperity. Amelia pushed through the heavy wooden door, grateful for the dim interior lighting. The familiar aroma of coffee beans mixed with something else—the sharp scent of disinfectant that had become ubiquitous over the past months.

The barista, a young woman with tired eyes and a mask pulled down around her chin, looked up from wiping down empty tables with methodical precision.

“We’re staying open until one today,” she said apologetically, her voice carrying the particular exhaustion of someone doing three people’s jobs. “Half my staff called in sick.”

Amelia spotted Elijah in a corner booth, positioned with his back to the wall and a clear view of both entrances—a habit she was beginning to notice. He stood as she approached, already holding two paper cups that steamed in the cool air.

“Got these just in time,” he said, offering her one of the cups. His eyes moved over her face with clinical assessment, taking in details she wished weren’t so obvious. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks.” Amelia accepted the coffee, wrapping her fingers around the cup’s warmth. The heat felt good against skin that seemed perpetually cold despite the mild weather. “You really know how to make a girl feel better.”

“I mean it.” His voice dropped to the intimate register of someone accustomed to having sensitive conversations in public spaces. “When did you last eat something?”

She tried to remember. Time had become fluid over the past few days, marked more by the rhythm of her symptoms than by meals or sleep. Yesterday? The day before? Food had started tasting like ash, and the thought of most meals made her stomach clench with something that wasn’t quite nausea. “I’ve been busy reading.”

“Reading what, exactly?” His eyes sharpened with interest. “What did you find in Eleanor’s papers? I hope you took precautions if you started going through the documents we found in the hidden room.”

Amelia slid into the booth across from him, feeling the worn leather against her back. Through the window beside their table, she could see the quiet morning street, people going about their normal routines while the world shifted around them in ways they couldn’t yet perceive. The normalcy felt fragile, like glass about to shatter.

She hesitated, her fingers tightening around the coffee cup. The research notes she’d found were damning—detailed clinical observations of a young woman who didn’t realize she was being systematically studied, tested, transformed. But something in Eli’s expectant expression, the way he leaned forward with barely contained eagerness, made her cautious about revealing everything at once.

“Eleanor was getting sicker through the winter of 1861,” she said carefully, watching steam rise from her coffee in delicate spirals. The warmth felt good on her face, though even that gentle heat seemed more intense than it should. “Progressive symptoms that match the current outbreak patterns.”

“Go on.” Elijah’s fingers drummed silently against the table’s scarred wooden surface. She noticed his hands seemed unusually tense.

“But by late winter, the notes suggest her condition was... stabilizing.” She chose her words with the precision of someone walking through a minefield. “As though she was adapting rather than dying. The documentation becomes more detailed, more clinical. Someone was watching her very carefully.”

Something flickered across Elijah’s expression—she couldn’t quite read what, but his attention sharpened noticeably. “You don’t have to spare my feelings,” he said quietly. “You found Dr. James Merriweather’s notes, didn’t you?”

She felt pieces clicking into place, but also a new wariness. “How did you—”

“I knew it was a possibility. They worked together during the war—Eleanor is mentioned in some of his journals from that time. Family heirlooms.” His voice carried sudden weight. “That’s why this case matters so much to me personally. He was accused of human experimentation, unethical medical practices.”

“You want to clear his name.”

His hands tightened around his coffee cup, knuckles going white. “Yes, I want to clear his name. My name,” he said fiercely. “It’s time.”

He took a steadying breath and reached for the leather portfolio that had been resting beside his coffee, his movements deliberate and careful. The portfolio opened to reveal thick, expensive contracts with multiple signatures and official seals. “I’ve prepared comprehensive research agreements while I check the archives for something—you’ve given me an idea about Eleanor Caldwell.”

Amelia picked up the top contract, scanning the detailed legal language. Intellectual property clauses, medical monitoring protocols, liability waivers that covered scenarios she wouldn’t have thought to anticipate. It was almost as if someone had been preparing for exactly this situation.

“This is incredibly detailed,” she said, a chill of unease settling in her stomach. “When did you have this prepared?”

“The foundation keeps template agreements for various research scenarios,” Elijah replied, but she noticed he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Historical disease research often involves sensitive materials and complex collaborations.”

He pulled out his phone and began navigating what looked like sophisticated databases with practiced efficiency. Watching his fingers move across the screen with such familiarity, she realized she’d never actually asked about the details of his job—what exactly did a “historical preservation society” do, and what resources did they have access to?

“Let me search for Eleanor’s post-war records while we talk,” he said, fingers moving across the screen. “This might take a few minutes.”

Amelia sipped her coffee gratefully, the warmth helping to ease the persistent headache that had been plaguing her for days. The caffeine seemed to sharpen her focus slightly, pushing back against the fog that had been clouding her thoughts. Across from her, Elijah’s fingers moved steadily across his phone screen, his expression concentrated as he navigated through whatever databases he was accessing.

The quiet sounds of the café—soft conversation from other patrons, the barista’s methodical cleaning—created a strangely peaceful backdrop while Elijah worked. Through the window, Amelia watched the few people going about their morning routines on what should have been a busy mid-morning street. The sparse foot traffic was another reminder of how the pandemic was quietly emptying even small towns like Fredericksburg.

Elijah hm-med at his phone, his eyebrows rising.

“What?” Amelia demanded.

“This is interesting.” He looked up, his expression appearing genuinely intrigued. “Property records show Eleanor Chaldwell sold her father’s house in Richmond in 1867. The deed transfer is in her own name, with her signature.”

Amelia stared at him. “Five years after she was supposedly dying? She was well enough to handle property transactions?”

“More than well enough. The sale price suggests she negotiated a good deal too.” His voice carried growing excitement. “If Eleanor was conducting business independently in 1867, then whatever was happening to her in 1862 wasn’t fatal. She not only survived but recovered enough to manage her own affairs.”

“Which means the medical documentation I found might actually show a successful treatment,” Amelia said, her pulse quickening despite her exhaustion. “And if we have tissue samples from that period, we could analyze her actual health at the cellular level.”

“Exactly. If Eleanor recovered from something that matches the current outbreak symptoms, then the protocols in those research notes could be the key to understanding survival factors rather than just documenting failures.” He gestured to the contracts spread across the table, tapping a specific section with his finger. “Which is why Dr. Caulfield expressed such immediate interest when I reached out about your findings. Complete intellectual property protections, comprehensive medical monitoring protocols, full laboratory access through the research foundation.”

“And my role would be?”

“Lead researcher on the historical analysis. Your medical background makes you uniquely qualified.” He paused, and she noticed how easily he slipped into clinical terminology. “Plus, Dr. Caulfield wants to monitor anyone who’s had extensive exposure to potentially contaminated materials.”

His clinical terminology from someone who claimed to be a historian sent another chill through her. “You think I’m infected.”

“You don’t?” His voice carried genuine concern. “Amelia, you’re a doctor—surely you recognize the symptoms.”

“Aren’t you worried about yourself?” she shot back. “You’ve been handling the same materials, spending time with me. If I’m potentially infected, what about you?”

Elijah’s expression grew carefully neutral. “I haven’t handled anything directly, and our contact has been… minimal.” he pursed his lips, lost in thought “Besides, I have always had a remarkably strong constitution—and I haven’t shown any symptoms... at least, so far.”

Something about his attitude felt off, but Amelia looked down at the contract, her growing unease warring with desperate hope. Everything about this situation felt orchestrated, but her symptoms were worsening whether she acknowledged them or not.

“I want my lawyer in Boston to review these before I sign anything,” she said finally. “Can you send digital copies?”

“Of course.” His fingers were already moving across his phone screen. “Give me the address—I’ll have them sent within the hour.”

“And I want complete documentation of every test,” she continued. “Direct consultation with Dr. Caulfield before we proceed.”

“She’s expecting your call this afternoon,” he said, as if that explained how a small-town historian had immediate access to international pandemic coordinators.

Amelia nodded, though the pieces of this puzzle were creating a picture she didn’t like. “I’m doing this because Eleanor’s case might help current patients. And because I may not have much choice about my own condition.”

“Then we both have something to prove,” Elijah said quietly. “That James was trying to save people, not harm them. And that whatever he learned can still save lives today.”

“All right,” she said finally. “I’ll have my lawyer review these this afternoon, and if everything checks out...”

“Actually, the laboratory is ready whenever you are,” Elijah said, standing and gathering the contracts. “We can start with basic blood work today, and tissue analysis of the samples we found whenever you get their call.”

She nodded, surprised by the relief she felt at making the decision. “Let’s go see what we’re really dealing with.”

Outside, they walked toward his truck parked across the street. The spring morning felt oppressive despite the cloud cover, and Amelia found herself grateful for the vehicle’s tinted windows.

“Ready?” Elijah asked, his hand on the door handle.

Amelia looked back at the quiet café, the peaceful street, the normal world she might be leaving behind. “As ready as someone can be for discovering they might be dying from some mysterious disease.”

“You’re not dying,” Elijah said with sudden intensity. “Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out. We know there are survivors, Eleanor amongst them apparently, so you can’t give up on yourself without even trying.”

She wished she could share his certainty. But as they climbed into the truck and drove toward answers she wasn’t sure she wanted, she couldn’t shake the feeling that survival itself might have a more flexible meaning than she’d ever imagined.

to be continued…

© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.

Near Hall's Hill, Virginia
February 15, 1862

Thomas Everett Personal Journal

I received word from Eleanor today regarding my father's passing. Though we had long expected this moment, its arrival strikes me with a force I scarcely anticipated.
The man who raised me with such steady devotion has departed this mortal realm, leaving behind a legacy of love and instruction that shall guide me through whatever days remain of my own journey.

Eleanor writes that he went peacefully at sunset, which provides some measure of comfort. She has tended to him with such dedication these many months, a debt I can never adequately repay.
Though I was not there, I am glad he had her by his side.

The funeral arrangements proceeded without my presence, another cruelty of this war that separates families even in their most desperate hours of need. Sarah managed all with Eleanor assisting as needed. I find myself picturing the scene—the church, the minister's words, little Charles asking his innocent questions about his grandfather's absence—though I know such imaginings serve only to deepen my grief.

There is both sorrow and relief in his passing, I confess. To know that his suffering has ended brings a certain peace, even as I mourn the father whose approval I sought in all things. How strange to inhabit a world where he no longer draws breath, where I can no longer seek his counsel or earn his proud smile. The finality of death strikes anew with each passing hour.

I pray that God grants him the eternal rest his earthly frame was so long denied.

End Entry

© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.