Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 12

Exclusive for Steemit - serialisation of Cruel and Unusual – my second novel

Again, I would like to encourage you to catch up on the previous episodes. It's starting to get real for Jack...

Episodes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

On a routine post-mortem, Jack found the same symptoms that his mother had suffered. He went through his old notes and other records. Soon Jack was back as his old self, single-minded and relentless, pursuing a cure for the disease that had killed his mother.

His patients in the workhouse hospital enabled him to study live sufferers of the disease, but they came his way too infrequent for his thirst for research potential and so his research progressed slowly.

Still he could not find a cause for the disease. He tried to find a common denominator amongst sufferers but it affected rich and poor alike. He even resorted to unscientific reasoning and tried comparing the sufferers’ looks but again he was thwarted, ugly and beautiful and all shades between were apt to become victim to this disease.

The only absolute fact was that the disease could only affect women because of the reproductive organs but that was obvious too.

In sheer desperation to find a way out of the stalemate that he found himself locked in, Jack wandered in to a bookshop late one afternoon, his mind distracted by the constant puzzle he had set himself.

Perusing old medical books with long-discarded theories was a habit he had picked up whilst at University and he indulged in this practice when he was at an impasse. He happened to pick up a book that did not seem to belong in the medical section.

The book was large, heavy and ancient. It was bound in leather it seemed; yet the texture was odd to the touch. The front cover was embossed with a large circle enclosing the outline of a star which was raised a touch more prominently than the rest of the design.

Jack turned the book over in his hands; there was no title on the cover or on the spine. The back had no decoration of any kind. Inside, on the front page, a title of sorts was faded, and to his surprise, hand written. Perfect and neat, the ink was a barely legible title - Grimoire.

Intrigued, Jack read pages at random. A list of cures for warts, of all things, was listed on the page facing him. He read on.

One instruction said to rub the wart with a black slug and then to impale the slug on the spikes of a Hawthorn in the light of a New Moon. How on earth that would cure a wart, heaven only knew.

Another cure stated that the hair from a horse’s tail tied tight about the wart would cause the wart to drop off. Jack thought about this for a moment. Cutting off blood supply to the wart would indeed cause it to die off and he supposed that the natural oils in the horse hair would aid the process. “Not quite as ludicrous as I first imagined.” Jack muttered to himself.

Jack flipped through the book backwards and forwards through the pages, stopping to read a couple that took his fancy.

Chewing the bark from a Willow could cure a headache, as could Feverfew. Then Jack became yet more interested in the writings in this ancient tome. Evening Primrose, crushed and distilled could help alleviate “women’s problems - the monthly kind”.

It was an interesting book, not only for the cures but also for the hand-written script that was as uniform and constant as though it had been printed mechanically - yet that was clearly not the case. The book had been painstakingly written in a perfect, legible hand - it must have taken years.

Jack was quite tempted to purchase the book, if only for the novelty value. Then he happened upon a page that captured his attention and had him enthralled.

The cure for a Weerwolf is difficult and filled with danger. Preparation and aforethought is essential. Silver is widely thought to be the only metal which can harm or kill such a beast but to cure it, there are many methods.

Jack closed the book and took it to the rear of the shop. The shopkeeper looked surprised as Jack placed the book on the scarred wooden countertop before him, and asked for him to wrap it.

“Are you quite sure sir?” The man raised his half-moon glasses with one hand whilst holding the book at the optimum distance from his eyes in order that he could appraise the book with more care. “It is not your usual type of medical book. I confess that I placed it in that category only because I had not the slightest notion of where else I could put it.”

“Yes I am quite sure.” Jack said, trying to keep his tone light and pleasant, his impatience rising with the delay. “I do not wish to use it for my medical research; it is more for the novelty if you understand.”

“Ah then it should be perfect for that purpose, sir.”

Jack took the package straight home and searched for the page that had captured his attention. There was a great deal of pages on the subject of curing ‘Weerwolves’. There was a great deal more on how to discover if a man - or a woman - was indeed such a creature.

Jack read long into the wee small hours and had not finished even when the book slid into his lap and he began to slumber.

Jack woke late and had to rush in order to get to the hospital on time. He was so distracted during the day that at last, he handed over the tools of his trade to a colleague and admitted that he had spent a terrible night and therefore it would be best if he did not perform operations that day.

For the first time that he could remember, Jack left the hospital early. He took a hackney carriage home rather than his usual walk and as soon as he could, he picked up his new book.

When he had finished reading the very last page on how to discover and reveal a ‘Weerwolf’, he forced himself to wash and change and to go out to eat. He did not linger at the club however, he returned home straight after finishing his meal, electing to smoke his cigar in the carriage home.

He was excited because when he had forced himself to put the book down and go to eat, it was because he could foresee not having the willpower to do that later on, once he had begun to read the next section – “How to make a Weerwolf of you or of some enemy for purpose of revenge”.

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