Ice and Ember – Part 2: Thermostat

She alternated, as she had planned. The ice, bright and sharp, and then, with no warning, the warm oil, poured in a thin gold thread along the length of his forearm, soft as a hand. The contrast was extraordinary. He heard himself make a sound he had not known he could make, and she laid a palm flat on his chest and said, "Breathe," and he did.

She was exact. She used the back of her wrist to test everything before it touched him. She poured the wax only from a good height, and only on the skin of his thigh, in tiny drops that cooled almost at once, and she watched his face as she did it, and she stopped when his jaw tightened. "Too much?" "No. Not too much. A little more, please." "A little more." She counted aloud under her breath, a doctor's habit. She wiped each drop clean with the warm towel.

Every ten minutes, sometimes sooner: "How are you? Temperature? Numbness? Any pain?" And he told her, honestly, in a low dazed voice. Once, he said, "Cold," and she took the ice away at once. Once, he said, "That's wonderful," and she smiled, and continued.

By the end of the first hour, he was no longer thinking. His whole body was a map of small bright signals: cold, warm, cool, warm. The room had narrowed to the glow of the lamp, the sound of her voice, the slow rhythm of her hands.

At last she took the candle from the tray, looked at it, and pinched out the flame between finger and thumb.

"Thermostat," said Dorothea, softly.

It was the word, and also the end, and she said it for them both. She set the bowl aside, wiped his arm gently with the towel, and checked his skin all over with a doctor's thoroughness, from wrist to shoulder, in the lamplight. "No marks. Good. No redness. Good."

"How was I?"

"Perfect." She lay down beside him and pulled the blanket over them both, and rested her head on his chest. "How are you?"

"Warm," said Anselm, with a dazed, enormous smile. "Everywhere. And very, very quiet."

"I think the quiet is the point."

"Yes." He stroked her hair. "Is there a part two?"

"There's always a part two," said Dorothea. "It involves a feather and a great deal less ice."

"I'll read up," said Anselm.

"You'll wait," said Dorothea, "which is much harder."

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