Chapter 16: Healers no more

Tsanja had prepared a beautiful dish of spiced potatoes, mushrooms, leek and cabbage for Hypatia and herself. Only Hypatia and Tsanja ate; the Felthings stood by and watched, in silence.

"This dish is very tasty, JaJa, a little spicy for my tastes. You would do better to find some beef or salmon for me, vegetables do not suit me at all."

"Yes, Mistress," Tsanja replied, furious, but with downcast eyes. How could she find meat or fish in this place?

"Now, Tsanja, how many healers are there in Gynt?"

"Just the one, Mrs Beale, she lives in the house on the rise near the big oak tree, at the other side of the village."

"Fascinating. I think you mean Jennifer Haarlem. Do you not think that your mother is a little presumptuous to use the name of James Beale?"

Hypatia did not wait for an answer. It was a statement, not a question, and she refused to use the honorific for a woman who had obviously lived in sin with an unmarried man.

"So who lives with this Jennifer?"

"Just some family, Mistress. Some relatives from Toridé, who were visiting before all of the troubles there."

Hypatia snorted.

"You're a fool, Tsanja. The demon is here in Gynt, and we must root it out before it extends its poisonous influence. The danger we face is more important than your precious healers, and you continue to defy me. They are tools of the demon. You may think them harmless, JaJa, but they are the true Lilith spawn. They must not be allowed to continue their work. They are fraudsters, JaJa. Their petty magics give comfort, but true healing can only come using the Church's methods. Surgery is the new magic, JaJa, cutting out the bad, leaving only the good.

"Pamela, Poe, Jennifer. They are tools of the demon, and we must do a little surgery ourselves.

"We are not unkind, Tsanja. They will feel no pain. The Church will make good use of them, JaJa, just as we will make good use of you.

"JaJa, how could you have done this to yourself? How could you have thrown away your virtue, your living, our trust, just for a moment of pleasure, and with a boy at that! Why have you thrown your lot in with your family, who are enemies of the Church?

"You will not be allowed to stay in this house after today. You have little to offer us, or your flock, in your present state. You have nothing to recommend you but your hands, JaJa.

"I will visit your beloved healers in the morning. You do not need to pay them a visit before then. If you wanted to take a walk this evening, I would advise against it. If you have forgotten my advice, then the Felthings will remind you. They are not as amiable as am I, and can sometimes get a little rough.

"You may now clear up the dinner things. Then, I think we can help you with your little problem."

Naked fear now showed on Tsanja's face as she brought the plates and glasses into the kitchen. She broke a plate on the kitchen floor, and nobody offered to help. Tears began to drip from her nose into the washing up water.

Tsanja continued to tidy, attempting to delay the inevitable, aware of Hypatia and those creatures in the next room. Eventually, two Felthings appeared either side of her, and she was silently escorted to her bedroom.

Hypatia brought several lanterns with her, and set them up around Tsanja's bed.

"This kind of work requires good light. On to your bed, Ja."

Hypatia brought out a black hood, a Felthing hood, and laid it on the bed.

"Am I to be turned into one of those?" Tsanja asked, pointing at a Felthing, her voice wavering.

Hypatia giggled.

"Oh, no, JaJa. You are a good person. You are on the side of the angels. You are a good Church woman. You are no longer fit to be a priestess, of course, but will be allowed to work in the kitchens at the Great Abbey."

Tsanja winced. She had seen the men and women who worked there, and thought them all to be simple, damaged, or crippled, and none of them spoke. She had thought at the time that it was charitable of the Church to employ such people.

Now she was to become one of them.

Hypatia continued her monologue.

"No, these are for tomorrow."

Hypatia dropped two more hoods on the bed, and smiled.

"Jennifer, Pamela, Poe.

"Yes, I think three will be sufficient. But your little friends, Dee and Madeleine, they also have a little problem. The Church does not look kindly upon little bastards born out of wedlock. All problems have solutions, JaJa, nothing is unfixable. They only need a little adjustment."

Madeleine started. How did this woman know so much? What did she mean by "a little adjustment?"

"JaJa, you are in a highly privileged position. Felthings are rather limited in their uses, you know. When the demon has been rooted out of our land, they will only starve, and pine. You are part of a little experiment, JaJa. If it is successful, the Felthings might turn out to be rather useful for helping foolish little girls with their silly little problems, and, let me tell you, there are rather a large number of foolish little girls in Solveig that will need our help."

She pointed at the Felthing closest to Tsanja.

"Show her."

The Felthing began to open its cloak.

It became clear that it had been a woman. Her breasts were snowy white, but sunken. The flesh puckered in where the nipples should have been, the aureoles bleached white.

Down below, her torso had been hollowed out. There was no belly button, and the stomach was sunken in, a mass of scar tissue. The Felthing opened the robe further, and Tsanja saw what was between its legs. Where the genitalia and anus should have been, only a single, white, puckered hole remained, and it gaped horribly as the Felthing moved. As its cloak dropped to the floor, its legs were lily white.

Tsanja gazed at the Felthing, and knew what it reminded her of. Below the neck, it was just white, cold, waxy flesh, splotched with blue bruises, no sign of any veins.

Tsanja had laid out such things for burial.

Below the neck, the Felthing was a corpse.

"They are magical, JaJa. They don't eat food any more. They eat only demon flesh, and purify it, send it back to the Trinity. The demon hates them. But I know, JaJa, how sweetly they turn women into their own kind. I can only guess at the pleasure, JaJa, but the fraction I enjoy is more than enough for me."

The creature turned its face towards Tsanja, and it licked its red lips. It opened its mouth, and its tongue began to emerge. No wonder the Felthings did not speak. There were no teeth in its mouth, and its saliva was thick, great strands of it across its lips, generously coating the tongue. This was no human tongue. It was thick, and ridged, and it moved in peristaltic contortions. The end of the tongue opened, like a maggot, sucking at the air.

"Felthings have lost one organ of pleasure, JaJa, only to gain another, one that is better suited to their purpose. They love it when they fulfil their purpose, JaJa, and they love to share."