“How is it?” Samuel asked.
The doctor shook her head. She went to say something but decided against it. He wasn’t familiar with many people in town, but he knew the doctor well enough to know she was disturbed. She busied herself with cutting away the infected tissue, the black blood and ripped meat breaking under the scalpel’s blade.
“Why are you here?” she asked softly enough that only Samuel could hear.
Samuel pushed his glasses up. His lips pursed. “I don’t know.”
The doctor didn’t press further. “Give me an empty vial,” she whispered.
Samuel hesitated but obeyed. The doctor popped the lid for the vial and placed the tip of it into the wound, lapping up the black and syrup-like blood. She closed the vial and tossed it and its contents back inside her bag.
“How much longer you got?” Charles asked, the soles of his feet bouncing.
The doctor brushed her hands across her lap before taking back the scalpel.
“As long as it takes.”
Another hour passed. The sunlight had begun to fade, but the doctor continued her work. After she finished slicing away the rotted meat and dabbing the cuts, she wrapped the leg in clean cloth and sealed it with a thick layer of gauze. Samuel helped her clean the tools, doing his best to ignore the smell. The girl looked peaceful as she slept, not like a crazed demon. Not that he had any clue what a demon would look like. But the more he watched her, the more he questioned the mayor’s story. Did she really kill that patrolman? How could they be sure? Her body was abnormal, that was true, and she attacked his father with an instinctual viciousness that was primal. But lying there, asleep with her closed eyes and slightly agape lips, she seemed nothing more than a harmless girl.
The doctor stood up and rolled her hips, turning to Charles.
“I need fresh clothes.”
Charles scratched his scalp. “I think I saw a couple of folded-up shirts for the sheriff behind his desk. Why?”
“Get one,” the doctor said before motioning to Samuel. “I’m going to dress her.”
“What do you mean?” Charles’s voice rose. He grabbed the bars, nearly shaking them. “What are you doing? Don’t touch its clothes! I think that’s a bad idea.”
The doctor tossed several tools into her bag. She grunted. “She’s freezing in that useless dress. It’s disgusting and covered in blood and pus and feces and who knows what else. She needs real clothes if she has any chance of recovering in this place. Northern clothes.”
“I’m just saying,” Charles stammered. “I don’t think—”
“She’s unconscious,” the doctor snapped, unable to contain her anger. “You asked me to keep her alive, didn’t you? Let me do my job.”
Charles eyed the doctor before sighing and leaving the room. He came back several minutes later, an oversized plaid shirt in hand. His wide eyes watched the girl intently, as if he were expecting her to jump up from her slumber.
The doctor waved at Charles. He pitched the shirt through the bars.
“This place is freezing,” the doctor said. “Is there a firepit somewhere?”
Charles hunched his shoulders. “Might be one in the shed.”
“Get it. The mayor wants this girl alive, right? She needs warmth.”
Samuel agreed. “She does seem cold.”
“Fine.” Charles did as instructed, his head dropped as if he’d been scolded.
The doctor tossed the sheriff’s spare shirt to Samuel. “Hold this.”
Samuel took the garment. He held his breath for a minute, watching as the doctor lifted the girl up and slipped off her dress. Ugly scars decorated her flat chest and tiny back. Some were thin and lined like stripes, while others looked like smoldered circles. She wasn’t wearing undergarments. He looked farther down and saw where her slit was supposed to be. He turned away quickly, cheeks flushed. He shouldn’t have looked. But he did.
Like an undressed mannequin in a store window, there was nothing there.
He knew as much as his father had felt the need to teach him about procreation and female anatomy, which was very little. But even he knew there was supposed to be something there. He glanced at the doctor. She, too, seemed disturbed by what she’d seen. Unlike Samuel, she studied the child’s ambiguous crotch unabashedly.
“This can’t be,” she said to herself.
Samuel’s heart raced. Was Charles right in calling the girl an “it”? If so, what on earth could it be? He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t think of the girl like that. It didn’t seem right.
From the corner of his eye, Samuel saw the doctor scoot the girl’s limp body into hers, pressing the girl against her chest. Samuel wondered how it would feel to have a warm body touch him like that. The chains jangled as the doctor dressed her. The shirt nearly swallowed the girl whole, reaching far past her knees.
“What is this child?” the doctor asked, the veins in her neck rising. “Why have you brought it here?”
Even the doctor considered the child an “it” now.
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
“Don’t lie to me. Do you realize the gravity of this? Does your father know you’re here?”
Samuel shook his head. “I’m not. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
The doctor moved away from the girl and began gathering up her things. What would his father think? Was the child human? Could it really be a demon? He studied the girl’s body once more, knowing now it was safe to do so since she was clothed. Her freckled cheekbones were round, her lips plump and pink, and her hair long, but her shoulders were square and boxlike. Her limbs, at least the ones that were intact, were slender and lean, but also defined by muscles. She had no breasts, but that was to be expected of a girl her age. But without genitals, was there any way of telling what she, or he, or it, was?
The sound of harsh scraping filled the jailhouse. Samuel turned to see Charles scooting himself into the room, grunting as he struggled to drag the firepit along with him. Samuel looked away from the girl and covered her back up with his coat. Even though he couldn’t be sure, he really felt like she was a girl.
Samuel helped Charles move the portable fireplace into the cell, but they were clumsy in getting it set up. Charles struck a match and lit the logs inside the steel chamber. The fire devoured the dried pinewood as if it were nothing, the bright flames raging as a flood of new heat and light filled the room.
“The child’s dehydrated,” the doctor said as they exited the cell. “Needs water. The wound will need to be re-dressed and cleaned every day.” She dug inside her bag and lobbed the green bottle and a roll of gauze to Samuel. He caught them clumsily, tucking them into his ribs.
“Wrap it snug,” the doctor instructed. “That way the wound won’t reopen. But not too tight or you’ll smother the circulation. If you follow my instructions perfectly, there’s a slim chance this child will survive. But odds are she will die. I want to be clear about that. Not with that leg staying attached. You hear me? I want no part of the blame if things go wrong.”