The fit was tight. Splintered slates scraped skin from my cheek. Iron nails twined in my hair. A Wanted sign dislodged and drifted away in my wake. My sandal sank into the ground, and a putrid wetness gushed between my toes. Yelping, I leapt forward into the next clearing. I inspected my foot. The feathered remains of a fowl stuck there, dank in the moonlight. As I scraped it away, a nasty feeling poked at my stomach. Cautiously, I walked on.

The light I’d seen from my dorm was a well-lit warehouse at the end of the next street. The structure bustled with movement. Shadows, cast through a large open window, skipped along the ground. I moved closer until, finally, I crept onto the front porch and peeked in.

Hosea Khan was bent low over a figure draped in sheets. Through the white medical mask that covered his nose and mouth, he was issuing orders. “Take those bleeding pans away! And make sure the room is clear of purge. I could murder you for this, old man! Bleeding and purging? You might as well administer poison.”

I frowned: bleeding?

He turned his face, aiming another rebuke over his shoulder at a withered man with feathers decorating the neck of his bambi robes. The man cowered in the face of Hosea’s rage.

“Don’t hurt Potoo,” he said. “I told ’em and told ’em. I don’t never seen this spirit afore. Bad blood we got here. But do they hear—no! Kha, they cry, like little bird for help. ‘Potoo. Help us, Potoo.’” His voice whined weakly.

Hosea’s brow furrowed above his mask.

Potoo, I thought, must be the village medicine man. He was a spiritualist, a faith healer rather than a medic. He instructed the village children in song and dance. He told them stories and made up myths meant to comfort. If ever the medicine man ordered a remedy, it was one of three prescriptions: hash, liquor, or a spoonful of salt.

A woman wearing a white mask appeared to do Hosea’s bidding. I recognized the painted scarf wrapped around her head at once. I’d run my hands along it not two days ago, as she’d wept in my lap. Robin had a stack of wooden pans balanced in one gloved hand as she bent low to collect another from the bedside of a patient. I glowered at her through the window. Here she was, ignoring my good advice and breaking the law, again. She came closer to get a pan. She turned to pour its contents into a large bucket. A wash of red liquid sloshed into the pail.