"Yeah."
"Funny thing about that trip to Chicago," Kirchner said. "In your records, your injury is listed as a human bite wound, not a dog. And it says you were airlifted in with another patient. Who..." he shuffled through some paperwork on his desk, picking a file out of the chaos, "is also a patient of mine."
"Ah," I said, trying to calculate how much trouble I was in. "Lucas."
He nodded, opening the file and studying it. "A very...unique boy, Lucas. I hope he's well. All of this is by way of saying I know more about what happened than most in the village. Confidentiality, of course, requires me not to share any of this," he added. "Besides, it's not really the point."
I watched him, bewildered now. "What is the point, then?" I asked.
"You say you had no attack when you were bitten."
"That's right."
"Can you tell me when the last time you felt any arrhythmia was?" he asked.
I thought about it. "Not recently."
"How long?"
"I don't know," I said. I did know -- but I didn't really want to admit I'd had at least two arrhythmias without telling him. After all, they'd said to expect them...
He looked at me.
"Three months, maybe," I said.
He nodded and got up, walking around his desk and picking up an oversized envelope, which he passed across to me. Still confused, I pulled out the papers inside, the x-ray films, the charts and graphs. It looked to me like gibberish.
"Listen, I don't have a medical degree," I said, spreading them out in front of me.
"Those are the results of tests performed on you when you were in Chicago," he said. "They're not what anyone expected, which is why it took me a while to get them. They had to do some verification that there hadn't been a mix-up."
"Oh," I said in a small voice. I thought, I should have known better. I'd really believed that Lucas had healed me when he'd touched me on the chest to reset my heart, the night he'd shown himself to be Nameless. But of course belief wasn't a luxury afforded to me -- I needed to have facts.
"So, six months?" I asked, looking up at Kirchner, who frowned. "Or three? Should I be in hospice care?"
"What -- no!" he said, looking startled. "No, Christopher -- sorry, I'm so sorry, that wasn't what I meant at all. You're not in any danger."
I exhaled with relief. "Then what do these say?"
"They say...well, they say they've found nothing," he said, sitting down to face me across the desk.
I blinked at him. "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Well, it is, and it isn't. It's perplexing," he explained. "These tests show a perfectly healthy heart. No irregularities, nothing at all wrong with the tissue itself. None of the weakness that we should be seeing, especially after Halloween. Far as they can tell you're a perfectly healthy young man."
"Did they mix up my tests?" I asked.
"That's what I thought, but they assure me they double-checked, hence the delay. And I have to say, having been your doctor for three years....this is your heart, Christopher," he said, reaching over to pick up what looked to me like a blobby, grainy green-and-black photograph of someone's thumb. "Only thing I can think is that maybe you got some hemlock in it when you -- went with Lucas to Chicago," he added, giving the words a slight sardonic twist. "But there aren't any known applications of hemlock for heart conditions, so that's basically hoodoo, and I can't explain it. Can you?"
I looked down at my hand, turned it over so that it was palm-up. I didn't even know what to think. I wondered if it was possible to be an atheist and still have a crisis of faith.
"I think I know what happened," I said, after a while.
"Well, you could share it with me," he replied, looking annoyed. I smiled.
"Frankly, I don't think you'd believe me," I told him. "Do you need me to do any more tests?"
"They'd like to see you in the city again, just to confirm some of their findings."
"Immediately?"
"Soon would be better, but that's up to you. If you feel well, Christopher, that's what matters," he told me. "Let me get you that cream, and you can get out of here."
I stopped him with a hand on his arm as he was headed for his supply cabinet.
"Does this...happen to people?" I asked. "I mean, is this documented or anything?"
He shook his head. "When you moved here I did a lot of reading. God knows I'm no heart specialist, but I know just about as much as anyone does about yours. You shouldn't have expected it would go away -- you shouldn't now, until you've confirmed your results. If you're healed I won't ask too many questions, but if you're not..." he gave me a regretful look. "You know you'll be lucky to make it another ten years, Christopher. You have to know that."
"Yeah," I said. "Appreciate the honesty, Kirchner."
I let him go, stood there and waited, gripped the tube of scar cream when he pressed it into my hand.
"You all right, son?" he asked. I nodded.
"Fine. Thanks for the news. I'll see what I can do about getting up to the city soon," I said. I put on my coat, stepped out into the cold, and walked back up the street to Dusk Books. Inside, I took my pulse, fingers pressing lightly against the artery at my throat.
Steady and even. Seventy beats per minute. I put my hand over my heart and could imagine Lucas's hand there under it. A good heart meant I had a choice. I could leave if I wanted, permanently leave. I could go back to Chicago, which I'd missed in my first year in Low Ferry with a desperate longing that had only begun to fade with my second summer in the village.
But...it had faded. And I'd already made my decision.
***
In Chicago, they joke that "spring'll be on a Tuesday this year," but in Low Ferry spring comes a little earlier and stays longer. I promised myself I'd visit the city soon, but it was April before I knew it and with the warm weather came more customers. I propped my green door open permanently and began using the glass door again. One sunny morning, I borrowed the ladder from the cafe and hauled a bucket of black paint and a brush up the ladder to retouch my sign.
"Hiya, Christopher!" Paula called, as I was carefully going over the curve of the u in Dusk. "Nice day for painting!"