The woman’s breath hitched, but the mention of the fever stopped her from retreating into the cabin. In the late 1790s, a fever wasn't just an inconvenience; it was a death sentence.
"Chemistry?" the woman echoed, the word sounding foreign and dangerous on her tongue.
"Science," Gabrielle corrected. She didn't crack a smile. She simply knelt and began unzipping her backpack. The sound of the zipper—a sharp, mechanical shrrp—made the woman jump and cross herself again.
Gabrielle ignored the reaction. She was looking at the treeline. She had spotted a cluster of slender trees with greyish, fissured bark near the creek bed earlier. Salix alba. White Willow.
"Stay there," Gabrielle commanded. It wasn't an insult; it was a practical directive.
She marched toward the creek, her blue eyes scanning the branches. She didn't have a knife, but she found a sharp, jagged piece of flint near the water’s edge. Using her weight and the stone, she began to peel away strips of the inner bark, the "living" part of the tree. She remembered a documentary—or maybe it was a "survival" themed anime episode—about how the salicin was most concentrated in the spring growth.
She returned to the cabin with a handful of the bitter-smelling strips.
"You need a pot of boiling water," Gabrielle said, looking the woman in the eye. "And a cloth. If you don't break the fever, your lungs will likely fill by morning. I've seen the symptoms before."
The woman, terrified but desperate, gestured toward the heavy iron pot hanging over the hearth inside. "The fire is lit. Who... who taught you the way of the woods, girl? You look like a child, yet you speak like a physician."
"I read a lot," Gabrielle replied simply.
Inside the cabin, the air was thick with the scent of dried herbs and old grease. Gabrielle worked with methodical precision. She shredded the bark into the water, watching the liquid turn a murky, tea-like brown. She didn't have a thermometer, so she used the back of her hand to check the woman's temperature—a move that made the woman flinch at the sensation of Gabrielle’s clean, soft skin.
"Drink this. It’s going to taste like dirt and aspirin. Mostly because it is aspirin," Gabrielle said, handing over a wooden mug.
The woman took a sip, grimacing at the bitterness. "I am Martha," she rasped after a moment. "And you are in the Territory South of the River Ohio. But the men call it Tennessee now."
Gabrielle paused, a strip of bark still in her hand. Tennessee, late 1790s. She was home, but she was over two hundred years too early. There was no I-40. No Memphis. No anime conventions. Just the cold, hard reality of the frontier.
"I'm Gabrielle," she said, her voice steady despite the weight of the realization. "And I think I’m going to be here for a while."
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