On their quick striding to the mayor’s house, Firebaugh explained that Nash had knocked at his door about ten minutes before and in distress had asked the doctor to come see ‘Mary Lynn’, as the ‘child’ was thrashing in her bed and would not be eased.

“Prepare yourself,” Firebaugh said as they reached the house, but Matthew needed no further warning; he was both excited and terrified, for what if the condition was fighting the antidote and leading to Berry’s death?

Nash let them in at once. By the glow of Matthew’s lantern, a low fire in the hearth and two other lamps in the room, they saw Pamela in a nightgown standing with her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide as if trying to stifle a scream.

Matthew followed Firebaugh into the bedroom. There they saw Berry twisting and turning in her bed, the sheet wrapped around her and the blanket thrown to the floor, her body convulsing with such violence that Matthew feared her spine would break. Her knees came up and nearly slammed into her chin. Her arms flailed out, her head came up and fell back again, her eyes staring forth and sweat glistening on her face.

“Help me hold her,” Firebaugh said.

It was a hard go. Her strength in this state of disturbance defied the two men trying to keep her from breaking her own bones. “Her mouth!” Firebaugh said. “Get her mouth open!” He withdrew from a pocket of his robe a short length of polished wood, which with great difficulty he was able to get between her teeth to prevent her from snapping her tongue clean through. Still she fought. The two men hung on. At some point the bed collapsed. A leg came up, a foot slammed against the wall, and at last her convulsions lessened and stopped altogether.

“Dear God,” said Nash at the doorway. “What have we done?”

“Go brew some tea,” the doctor told him. “Strong. Stronger than strong. Go on.”

Nash went. They could hear Pamela sobbing, and him trying to console her to no avail.

“Now we wait,” Firebaugh said to Matthew. He offered a cautious smile. “The tea is for me.”

The wind picked up outside. The flurries blew. Matthew tended to the hearth in the front room and listened to the ticking of a clock while the Nashes stayed out of sight and away.

Just before six, Firebaugh emerged from the bedroom. Hollow-eyed and weary, he said, “Go see her.”

At once Matthew was in the bedroom. Firebaugh quietly closed the door behind him.

She was still wrapped up in the sheet, but she was sitting up and curled up, her back pressed against the wall. As Matthew approached, she blinked at him as if he were an apparition drifting toward her from a dream.

“Matthew,” she whispered.

And then: “My Matthew.”