I am not a healer. And, technically, I was not authorized to take records as I was not yet a Record Keeper. Nevertheless, for the next several hours I doled out medicine and massaged each chest to hasten the ointment’s work. Moreover, when asked to, I took informal stories from the people, glancing frequently in Hosea’s direction. He never seemed to suspect.

The patients were in various stages of death. However, when word spread that I could read and write, the worst of the lot, the very old and sick, would refuse pain medication, preferring to suffer with clear heads for the chance to be heard.

We had none of the niceties usually associated with recording. We were not in a listening room, but a noxious warehouse. The storytellers did not have the luxury of days to explain, only a few pressured minutes. I held hands with seconds of life in them, and listened to dying confessions. We spoke together, not as First and Second Brothers, but in dialog—although I attempted to limit my part. With rare exception, most grievous to me, I am unable to recall their names. What I did record in every instance is their visage. Their faces and smiles, their essence and eyes; I carry them with me still.

Toward the end of my time there, I encountered a worker younger than the rest. His diction was better than Robin’s and far better than William’s, indicating he had yet to undergo a Rebirth. I imagine he was just out of the Academy.

“You are the Record Keeper physician that the people are whispering about?” he asked.

I was checking his pulse, and waited to finish before responding. “I am a Record Keeper in training only, and not a healer.”

“Do you live in the big house with the white ghosts?” he asked, bluntly.

I smiled. “I suppose I do.”

“Why?”

“Because that is where I go to school.”

“Why?”

“Because when I was a baby, the white ghosts, as you call them, chose me to be a student of Record Keeping.”

He nodded. “I go to school. I learn to sing and dance. Do you learn these at your school?”

“No, but I have my own room, and lots of books to read.”

“O-bi! You mean, you sleep alone?” he said.

“Yes. I see my classmates during the day. But at night I sleep in a bed, quite alone.”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

“Do you get afraid?”

I laid a hand across his mouth. “Hush now, I have to take your pulse.”

He cocked his head and waited until I’d finished. “That is the second time you have taken my pulse.”

“And I must take it once more before we’re done.”

“Why?”

“Because Kha has instructed me to take it three times, and I don’t argue with Kha.”

“I think you are very wise. Is Kha your friend in the big house?”