Chasing Ghosts by Madalyn Morgan (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

his address, but with the wrong house number and saying road instead of avenue.

‘Thank you. If you would like to take a seat I will see if Doctor D’Aramitz can see you,’ she said, leaving the waiting room.

Claire sat down and exhaled loudly. ‘She made me feel uncomfortable, nervous.’

‘She was just being efficient. I don’t suppose they see many new patients, especially visitors from Paris.’

‘Doctor D’Aramitz will see you now.’ The nurse stood at the doctor’s door like a soldier on sentry duty.

Claire smiled her thanks as she passed her and entered the surgery. Thomas followed Claire and the nurse followed him. Closing the door, the nurse took up her position at the doctor’s side. It was obvious the moment Claire saw the doctor that it could not have been him who took the bullets out Mitch’s leg in 1944. He would have been too young.

He lifted up his head after reading the few lines of information about his new patient. ‘Good afternoon, Madame Belland. What can I do for you?’ Claire showed him her hands. ‘Goodness, those cuts look nasty,’ he said, taking her hands in his and inspecting them. ‘We’ll need to wash them first, so we can see to remove any splinters or grit.’ He turned to the nurse, ‘Would you prepare a sterile bowl, please Nurse? Three parts warm water to one-part antiseptic solution.’

The nurse nodded, walked briskly to a small cupboard labelled Poisons, took out a bottle with skull and crossbones on it and a measuring jug. She took both to the sink, turned on the taps and, after carefully measuring water and solution into the bowl, she placed it on the table.

‘Thank you, Nurse.’

‘Doctor!’ she said and left.

Taking Claire’s hands, the doctor lowered them into the warm water. ‘Ouch! That stings.’

‘Yes, the antiseptic solution is strong. But it needs to be. The soil up at the old prison is polluted with toxins. Except for the entrance the Germans used, the guards regularly sprayed the camp’s boundary with an extremely toxic unknown poison. At least,’ he corrected, ‘it was unknown to us. They must have been tipped off that the allies were about to liberate the camp because before they arrived the Germans buried barrels of it in the woods. As they rusted they began to leak. The filthy stuff was stored behind the camp’s hospital and laboratory, too. It will take decades before the ground up there is safe.’

‘Were you not able to have samples analysed?’ Thomas asked.

‘Yes, and some of the substances we found up there were known to us. Many others we had never heard of and most of the stuff we knew was illegal; banned by the French medical profession in this part of the world. Some of the substances we identified are so toxic that if they get into your bloodstream they will kill you.’

A wave of nausea swept over Claire. ‘There couldn’t be enough poison in my bloodstream to kill me from this number of shallow scratches could there, Doctor D’Aramitz?’ Claire’s heart was thumping against her breastbone.

‘No, but don’t go up there again,’ the doctor warned.

Claire shot Thomas a look of panic. He had hardly contributed to the conversation. She knew what he was doing. He was watching and listening, to get the measure of the doctor. But it was now time to join in the conversation. She raised her eyebrows.

Thomas took the cue. ‘How did you know we had been to the prison, Doctor?’

‘This is a small community, Monsieur. When strangers come into the area, neighbour tells neighbour until everyone knows.’ The doctor lifted Claire’s right hand out of the bowl, dried it on a soft cloth and took a pair of tweezers from a black leather case. ‘Did you know someone who was in the prison?’ the doctor asked as he took splinters of wood and chips of stone from Claire’s palms.

Thomas nodded to Claire that she should answer. ‘Yes, my husband,’ she said.

‘Was he killed in the prison?’

‘No, he and several other prisoners escaped. My husband was shot in the leg and was found by some local people. They might have been Resistance members. My husband didn’t know. He was unconscious at the time and later, in case he was captured again by the Gestapo, he wasn’t told. Anyway, the men took him to a village where an elderly doctor operated on him and saved his leg. The doctor hid my husband until he was fit enough to travel, by which time the Gestapo had stopped looking for him. Via a network of local people, he was taken to Paris, and then brought home to me.’

‘The Canadian.’

‘Yes. Did you know him?’

‘I knew of him. I was in Switzerland training to be a doctor at the time. I wasn’t allowed to come home for the holidays. Grandfather said it was too dangerous. Much later I learned that my grandfather had treated a Canadian officer who had escaped from the prison.’

Claire’s pulse quickened with excitement. ‘Could we meet your grandfather?’ she asked.

‘There!’ Doctor D’Aramitz said, dabbing iodine on the cuts that remained on Claire’s palms. ‘All clean. The grit and splinters are gone.’

‘Doctor?’

‘My grandfather is old,’ he said, looking up into Claire’s face. ‘He lost many loved ones in the war, more than most people around here, as I did,’ the doctor said, as much to himself as to Claire and Thomas. ‘And he is not in good health. He hasn’t been for some time. I fear to drag up the past and the pain it holds would be too much for him.

‘Keep your hands dry. Don’t wash them more than you have to for a day or two, and the cuts will heal.’

‘Thank you,’ Claire said, ‘how much do I owe you?’

‘Nothing. Just promise me that you will not go to the prison again.’

‘I