The medicine room was dark, the air thick with the pungent reek of antiseptic wash, powdered sulfur, and dried chamomile blossoms. Corin Petch carried the small brass desk lamp into the room, shielding the flame with his spread fingers so the yellow glow wouldn’t reflect off the high windows toward the guard fire bowl outside.
Heth was sitting on an empty packing crate beside the door, her knees drawn up to her chin. Her hands wrapped was tight around her woolen scarf. As Bram and Corin entered, she looked up, her dark eyes reflecting the yellow flame of the wick. She didn’t speak. She simply pointed with her chin toward the narrow gap between the drug cabinet and the brick chimney breast.
“Here,” Corin whispered, kneeling on the cold pine floorboards. “Pell had the carpenters lay tongue-and-groove boards over the floor beams. But he had the tongues planed off two planks so they could be lifted without tearing the wainscoting.”
Bram knelt beside him, his left knee sinking onto the floorboards with a dull crunch of old grit. His right shoulder throbbed with a sharp, burning agony that made his vision swim with gray spots. But he forced his breath to stay slow and steady through his teeth. “The second board from the skirting,” Bram said, tapping the dark wood with his knuckle. “Feel for the countersunk screws. Pell used three-inch brass wood-screws so they wouldn’t rust in the mountain damp.”
