The Wail-wisher

“I can’t cure this.”

The Physician tilted his head, mimicking the surprised girl who had just stopped reciting about his prowess. Milica was startled, rightfully, since it was rare for her Fratello to interrupt her. He had practiced the art of shutting down Milica’s praise that melded into poetry for so long, and now the Physician violated his code to protect Milica’s prose, his tone in a hurry.

“It is not that he is green because he is sick,” he said, kneeling beside the boy. “He is green. Something else made him sick.”

The entity that had olive green colour for complexion rustled. His hair rustled tiny orange petals as he spoke. “Leave,” he commanded.

“Leave!?” The boy could have just spat on Milica’s fiery mother’s grave. She went livid. “Your hand literally rots!”

As proof, Milica picked up a twig. She poked the boy’s hand, resting limp by his half-sitting position. What surprised Milica was not that the twig caught the acidic ochre immediately. What surprised her was the hand that absorbed the twig before it rotted.

“Dryad,” exclaimed Milica in amazement. “You shouldn’t have existed.”

The rotting boy coughed. Instead of blood, he spewed dark purple stamens. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Sorry about her,” the Physician interjected. “She bears no ill-will. I am just as perplexed as she is. Biologically speaking, all dryads are female.”

Dryads are born from a satyr conceiving with another dryad. If the child is born female, she is a dryad. If the child is a male, he is a satyr. One needs to locate the nodes on each of their armpits to confirm that the dryad is a female. There’s also a flowery structure in the place where anybody with a shred level of delicacy can’t mention. Not that there was a need in the first place to differentiate the genders–they were all female. Mind you, the Physician himself only learned this from a colleague from the Commoner Council, for he took the dryad-satyr fact at face value. During his colleague’s exploration for new edible vegetations, she blushed hard when her team kept going on about defl—

“Caro Fratello,” Milica called him. She massaged her temple. “You are playing fun facts about other species inside your mind, huh.”

The Physician blinked. He laughed. “Sorry, sorry. But it only reinforced my judgement before. Bad enough that my expertise is beast-type monsters with only superficiality for plant-based monsters like dryad. Now we learn that there is a male dryad. Youngster, what is your name?”

The dryad boy must’ve just lectured himself in his mind (do plants even have brains?), because his eyes widened in sudden conclusion. “The Wail-wisher.”

“I am sorry?”

“That’s who you are. Traveling duo with a carriage smelling of oils, rotten carcasses and poisons alike. Accompanying red-haired, loud-headed, can’t-read-the-room—”

Milica snapped. “Hey!”

“—guardian of some sort, is the man who once wore the red robe of a Royal Physician. One who walks with monsters to grind them as his medicine. You are the bringer of that plague to Maniattania Kingdom, the Wail-wisher.”

It was a tense one second for the boy. With his plight, the dryad boy had prepared each day as though it would be his last. It does not matter how—one way or another he’ll meet his end because of his why: he should not live.

What the dryad did not prepare was by whom.

At the end of the one second silence, finally the Wail-wisher announced his verdict: “Yep, that’s us. And so?”

The dryad boy looked almost offended. “So… you’re bringing Maniattania’s plague to me. I had hoped my death would come fast. With this rot, it will come so slow. It never occurred to me that it will be done even slower with your arrival.”

“For a boy with a death wish,” Milica interjected, “you sure are energetic.”

Blood then trickled from the red-haired woman’s finger. It dripped vertically, until they transformed into a scalpel. Milica placed her blood-make blade on a clean sheet before she pushed it closer to her Fratello, who’s now washing his hands with clear water. A serene smile flashed on the Physician’s mouth as he watched the dryad boy’s eye widen in horror.

“What’s your name, youngster?”

“…what?”

“Your name,” the Physician repeated patiently for the impatient patient. “Can’t start a procedure without confirming the patient’s name, can we? If you want to build a rapport, she’s Milica, a vampiress. The last vampire, as the forest must have heard about Upior. I am as you call me, the Wail-wisher.”

The Physician let the boy’s mind settle.

“If this kind of thing is comforting to you, the plague only hits humans. As you are not one, as my patients are during this recent year, the squirrels will be quicker than us to dispose of you than me. Or even the plague itself.” The Physician wore his gloves. “Now, I need your name, age, and of course your consent to operate on you.”

“Fritz,” he said simply. Although doubt still lingered, the Physician diagnosed curiosity about the Physician had infected Fritz's brain. “I am three years old.”

“Haven’t reached the age of consent, then. Parents?”

“Dryads age differently than humans,” Fritz retorted dryly. Then his face fell. “I don’t have any parents.”

“Three years old is still young even in a first-do-no-harm situation. Any other guardians?”

“I don’t need one!” Fritz growled and, out of his own admission, coughed more of black petals. He sighed in resignation. “Look, based on my own understanding of what plant I based on… I’d say I am around 18 years old, taken or given in human time. Good enough for you?”

“Very.” The Physician leaned forward, smiling like a kindergarten teacher. “It’s nice to meet you, Fritz.”

Milica, who’s now finishing hauling some pain-killers and anesthetic agents, raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t you say you can’t cure this?”

The Physician took a double-take on the source of Fritz's plight. His right hand was now encased in grey-brown clouds. It seemed like Fritz's physiology had fought whatever plight he had, because even now new buds of flowers tried to push the rots—to no avail. In real time the Physician saw Fritz's hand molt, refresh, and rot again. If that sort of thing happened to humans, he guessed it was like an endless cycle of phantom pain.

“That I did,” the Physician finally answered. He let Milica administer the drugs around Fritz's hand. “But it is not like we can’t inoculate the disease first. It always begins with a triage.”

The brandy was poured. Fritz yelped, if only for a while. The local anaesthetic agent finally took effect.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” The Physician guessed Fritz's expression. “I find that amazing as well. Your physique. When a physician meets an unknown, he always has to fight the urge to flinch. Only by braving the unknown will open up new unknown cures. Now, Fritz, do you trust me?”

Fritz regarded the Physician’s eyes. They were orange, like a frozen lava. They regarded Fritz with calm reassurance and awe.

“No,” Fritz decided.

“That’s too bad.” The Physician breathed a sad tone. Then he incised Fritz's hand. “Because we’d have to do this anyway. Your contribution to the medicinal world will be remembered.”

Case I: The Male Dryad