Carry On Read online

  Carry On

  Celia Lake

  Copyright © 2020 by Celia Lake

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Augusta Scarlett.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Celia Lake

  The Mysterious Powers Series

  Carry On

  The Fossil Door

  Eclipse

  * * *

  The Mysterious Charm Series

  Outcrossing

  Goblin Fruit

  Magician’s Hoard

  Wards of the Roses

  In The Cards

  On The Bias

  Seven Sisters

  * * *

  Charms of Albion

  Pastiche

  Learn more about the world of Albion and future books at my website, celialake.com.

  * * *

  Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to hear about future books and learn about fascinating bits of research. Happy reading!

  About Carry On

  Can two war wounded learn how to carry on after life-changing injuries?

  * * *

  No one has told Roland anything useful since he awoke in the Temple of Healing following the battle of Ypres. Muzzy-headed from the potions he's forced to take and with no word from his family or friends, he is entirely alone. He’s only allowed out of his room for command performances, talking about his experience of the War to people who refuse to listen to reality.

  When Elen is assigned as his new nurse, Roland assumes she will be gone in a week or two like all the others. She’s still there in a month, stubbornly insisting on doing everything she can to help him recover.

  Elen has been sent back from the front after a head injury. She used to know the Temple of Healing well, back during her apprenticeship. Now, nothing works like it used to and she can’t figure out what to do about the fact Roland’s healer is entirely absent from his care. Except, that is, for baffling directives that are not at all in her patient’s best interest.

  Together, they must confront Elen’s fear of questioning authority and find out why Roland has been isolated from everyone he knows.

  Carry On is set during the Great War in Albion, the magical community of England, Wales, and Scotland. First in the Mysterious Power series, it has a happily-ever-after ending full of knitting, compassion, and romance.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Author’s notes

  Excerpt of The Fossil Door

  Chapter 1

  March 15th, 1915, in Trellech

  Elen looked up at the footsteps coming down the hall. The sound of the hard heels on the marble floor indicated it was some secretary or aide, not a nurse or healer. She had been waiting on the administrative floor of the Healing Temple for at least an hour now. The waiting room was dull, with no windows, and had no clock, so Elen had only been able to tell the passing of time by the chime of the temple bells and the amount of knitting she’d done. Given how far she’d gotten past the heel of the sock, she thought it had been three-quarters of an hour.

  “Therapeutes Morris? The Archiater will see you now.” He was an older man, too old to join up, though he walked easily enough. She tucked her knitting into her bag and stood up, automatically smoothing her skirts.

  She had dressed with care, wanting to look entirely ready for a new assignment. She wore her best mid-grey uniform dress with the matching half-cape. Her crisp white collar and cuffs were freshly bleached and ironed. A matching white linen cap covered the tight bun at the back of her head and she had attached the plain black bands on her forearms that indicated she was currently without an assignment. She was not on duty, so she was not wearing the apron or the sleeve covers, but they were tucked into the satchel over her shoulder along with her portfolio and her knitting.

  The assistant walked to the centre of the hallway, and Elen worked at keeping up with his pace, to make it seem even, rather than be left scurrying after him. He turned abruptly into a side room, on the right. Elen entered behind him and caught a glimpse, through the windows, of the Temple gardens laid out below.

  The spring flowers were beginning to bloom, mostly tulips, she thought. Before she could be sure, she was briskly escorted into the main office. She found herself standing with her back to the large windows there, feeling bereft of the view, and facing the chief administrator of the Temple.

  “Archiater, Therapeutes Morris.” This man, she knew, was Roderick Hudson. His dark hair was going silver, in a manner she was sure had been magically aided to be dignified rather than chaotic. His natural facial expression seemed firmly set on dour.

  He had been Archiater, chief administrator of the Temple, for some ten years. It had given him plenty of time to be well established, and he had served in the Boer War as a healer, so he was at least moderately familiar with wartime needs. He stood, momentarily, the kind of bob upwards that men of his social class gave as a bare gesture to women like her, who were rather beneath them socially. “Therapeutes Morris.”

  No chair for her, then. She hoped it wouldn’t be too long a meeting. “Good morning, Archiater. I’m reporting for reassignment.”

  He nodded, glancing at a manilla folder on his desk. She assumed it must have her files in it. There would be positive comments in it, about her work. Also the negative ones about her own infirmities. She’d been told, with strips torn out of her, that there was no time for nurses to have a sit down because they were feeling woozy. Or worse, because their head was splitting and they were seeing lights and all manner of distractions that were not actually there.

  No amount of arguing had worked, and she’d been sent back to Albion from the hospitals in France, in the hopes they might find something for her.

  “Your records.” The Archiater glanced up. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  She had practised this, repeatedly, in the mirror of the dressing table in her lodgings, stained and tarnished as it was. “I wish to serve, sir, and continue to use my skills, even if I am not able to do so at the front.”

  “You refused one of the country hospitals, rehabilitation work. Surely that would be better suited to your needs? Meaningful work, but a slower pace.“

  Elen took a breath, steadying herself. “I may need quiet sometimes, sir, when I have an attack, but I feel I have a lot to offer here, where there are more varied needs.” Her healer had encouraged her to find something else to do, but Elen had no idea who she’d be if she weren’t nursing. She certainly didn’t want to find out.

&
nbsp; After a moment’s hesitation, she added, truthfully enough. “The attacks are much less common now, and quite brief, most often in the evenings after I’d be off duty.” It helped to be away from the artillery, for all sorts of reasons. Brief also covered a multitude of options. Three hours was certainly more brief than eight.

  She continued, keeping her voice even. “The duties in one of the care homes, the patients are generally more stable.” They needed care, certainly, but she could do more than they needed. She wanted to do more than that. She considered, not for the first time, whether to bring up the other part, the reason she was here now.

  He was sharp, the Archiater was, and he looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “And?”

  Caught out, she swallowed. “I would prefer to serve in a temple, sir. I’m Therapeutes to Sirona. At the front, we just had the little shrines, but the auxiliary hospitals often don’t have anything other than the personal ones in quarters.”

  Archiater Hudson snorted, and she was sure then that she had been slotted into a tidy restricted category: middle-aged spinster, overly religious. So long as the label included ‘still useful’ she could cope. There was a long silence as he flicked through her file.

  “Specialities?” Which was in the file, but he seemed the type to want to prod at the information. Honestly, it wasn’t hard to guess, once she’d spelled out the devotion to Sirona.

  “The process of healing, sir, especially arranging for the best long-term results. Before the War, I served at the Temple of Youth, with young people who needed additional support recovering. Tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, scarlet fever, mumps, and so on if the illnesses were particularly debilitating or lengthy. But I have the training, sir, to assist a wide range of rehabilitative healing. They do not currently need additional staff.” The letter she had from colleagues there made it clear they were cutting down on beds, to aid the war effort elsewhere.

  He frowned at her. “Not in your current condition, certainly.” Blast, he was one of those men who thought a nurse was nothing more than a source of additional magical power. And that was a bit tricky right now, she would admit, at least in her own mind. Certainly she would not say such a thing out loud.

  She looked down at the floor, to avoid doing anything else to upset him, and heard him turning the pages again, flipping. “We have a patient,” he said, finally.

  “Sir?” Elen looked up again, just long enough to show her interest deliberately.

  “Major Roland Gospatrick. Excellent family, well-liked. Aiding in recruitment efforts, as his recovery allows.”

  Elen considered. The name seemed familiar, but she couldn’t immediately place it. “And his healing needs, sir?”

  “He suffers from physical ailments, most of which are responding well to treatment. But not all of his concerns are physical. He hears things, has unexpected reactions. It is possible there are hexes, or curses, or something of the kind that we have not yet identified.”

  That suggested rather an unusual history of injury. “The physical injuries, sir?”

  “Several deep wounds, healing well, but he fatigues easily, sometimes he cannot bear light. We would prefer not to leave him alone.” He looked her up and down. “He has not become violent, you understand. If he had, we would be handling his case differently. But he has become - disturbed. Unmoored in time and place.”

  Elen had heard something about these cases cropping up, though this seemed worse than those she’d heard about. “And you wish someone to be with him, see to his recuperation...” She decided to take the risk. “Be alert if there is something that would affect the recruiting?”

  That earned her a beaming smile. “Ah, you are as quick as your letters of recommendation made you sound.” He clearly hadn’t believed them. “Exactly. He will need someone for at least a month or two. Perhaps by then we will have another task for you.”

  It wasn’t as if she could turn it down. It was this or a country hospital, likely dingy and out of the way. “Thank you, sir. I would be delighted to serve.”

  He made a few marks on a form with his pen, then lit a stick of sealing wax. He let it drip onto the paper before stamping the page with the formal seal from his signet ring. “You have rooms nearby?”

  Elen bobbed her head. “Down the street, sir, nurses’ lodgings.”

  “You may be expected to spend the night, on a cot, if he has a relapse.” He glanced over at a clock on a shelf. “It is two, now. Report tomorrow morning, at nine, for your orientation and introduction.” His eyes flicked to the black bars on her sleeves. “Deep green for your uniform.” Long-term care, of course.

  “Of course, sir. I’ll see to it promptly.”

  “And any other little things you need to tend to. I expect you will be working long hours. We can’t spare anyone else to attend to his needs.” Which meant, depending on how badly off he was, that she could only go to bed when he was settled for the night, and she would have to be back well before breakfast and the morning rounds. She scarcely needed reminding to take advantage of the time she had, as she had been a working nurse for nearly fifteen years now.

  “Good afternoon, Therapeutes.” He rang a bell, and his aide reappeared, taking the form the Archiater held out. The aide cleared his throat. “Let me show you out, Therapeutes.”

  She had hoped to see her new patient’s file, but clearly that would have to wait. Perhaps the ward sister had it. For now, she would retreat back to her soulless little room on a dim side street, and arrange things properly for the coming challenge.

  The rooming house was not as awful as it could be; the roof did not leak, the hot water rarely ran out. However, their landlady certainly did not encourage anyone to sit around in the public rooms chatting. The public rooms were spare and spartan, not like the far more homey rooming house she’d lived in during her later apprenticeship with its piano and tea sets.

  For the moment, though, it was where she would live. And from what the Archiater said, she expected she would not have much time awake in that room in the future.

  Chapter 2

  Tuesday, March 16th, at the Temple of Healing

  Elen felt like she was being towed along by an ocean tug boat. She had reported promptly at quarter to nine, then signed what seemed like interminable forms addressing every possible detail.

  She finally finished at ten, enough time for the nurses to get through the usual morning routine without worrying about someone new tagging along. Her uniform was tidy. She’d sewn the dark green stripes on the sleeves, her fob watch was clipped in place, and she had fully stocked her personal supplies in her bag. Handkerchiefs, a few small packaged biscuits for a snack, her knitting, two books. She had no idea what to expect.

  She had, of course, served in the Temple of Healing during her training, all nurses did. But they had rearranged the long-term care wards since then. There were four, at least right now, on the ground floor of two of the buildings at the back of the complex, forming a small courtyard between them. There were other wards above, but she didn’t remember what those were at the moment.

  She approved of keeping the long-term wards on the ground floor. It would be easier to bring the residents outside on a pleasant day, or at least a little closer to the goings-on of the temple. Isolation, disconnection, those were nearly as dangerous as infection in a long-term patient.

  The gardens, at least, had not changed in the past decade. The flowers were beginning to bloom, and she felt more alive than she had in months walking past the scents of the herbs from the apothecary plants. It certainly would be more pleasant than the grey and endless dust and mud in France.

  Elen took a breath, on the broad paving stones outside the entrance, glancing back over her shoulder at the Temple, and the gardens spread out in front of it. Then she squared her shoulders and followed the little sign placards leading her to the ward nurse’s office.

  Sister Almeda, in charge of this ward, took her firmly in hand. “Therapeutes to Asclepius, of course.” Most of the heads
of wards were, there were biases in every system, including the hierarchy of deities honoured and served here. Sirona, to whom Elen had given her hands quite a long time ago, was respectable, but not the most influential of healing deities. “I expect all nurses on my ward to do their turn at temple duties without complaint.”

  “That is why I asked to be posted here, Sister, the chance to spend time in the shrines, properly.”

  There followed a string of questions about her qualifications, her best and worst skills, and why she was not at the front. Under Sister Almeda’s unyielding gaze, Elen had been honest about the limitations, and also noted that her migraines had been much better since she’d returned from France a month ago. She did not directly offer her healer’s report, and Sister Almeda seemed content with what Elen passed along, or at least indifferent. Elen had no idea what to do with that.

  “Well. We need someone with Major Gospatrick, and we shall see if you will do.” She considered, and unbent enough to say, “We can’t otherwise spare someone for him all the time, and you, on the other hand, will need to demonstrate your skills and usefulness.” Sister Almeda stood, abruptly, escorting Elen out of the office and locking up. The ward sister walked briskly down the stairs, then across to the next building, with Elen trotting behind.