It was after some heated debate and a crying Mrs. O'Flaherty that Brently was brought to Ms. Chopin.
Ms. Chopin was an enigma of the neighborhood, feared yet not respected despite the favors she performed. She fixed everyone's problems, including glasses, watches, paintings that people wanted retouched because they smiled too much. But the most valuable things she fixed were sick people. She was not magical and could not cure sick people; she ate the sickness. She consumed it into herself, adding to her pain.
When she received the call that there was a young boy, she walked upstairs and unlocked her door. She sank into a couch and waited until evening came.
There was a clock, directly across the couch hung onto the wall above her reach. She stared at this, her hands folded calmly in her lap faithfully.
She could not see the cogs of the clock turning, but she could hear it ticking at a pace that never seemed fast or slow enough. The ugly cogs were hidden. She only saw a reflection of the tip of her head on the glass face of the clock.
The rest of her reflection would have shown grayed, rotten teeth and skin; a side effect of every sickness that she consumed.
She sat with her back hunched forward and her body at a wayward angle that seemed impossible to balance, her eyes still on the clock as stillness wracked her frame.
Her stillness only pressed her harder into the couch, as if the clock reached out its hand, reaching towards her and pinning her throat upon the cushion, forbidding her to rise or breathe. But no matter how much she could manage to straighten her back or drag in another clock, it would still tick on without her.
The reflection showed the door opening halfway. She was then left with a motionless naked boy on the floor, passively waiting for her to eat.
She looked at the body. Then at the clock. Back at the body, and back at the clock. Her gaze finally fixed on his lips. She waited for him, fearfully, until she realized that something deep inside her had sprung to life and left her own lips in bated breaths, and her eyes widened in glee.
She threw herself onto the stiff boy, saying "free, free, free!", over and over, louder and louder as she feverishly ate him off the floor. She briefly wondered if she was a coward, but she dismissed her thoughts quickly. What did it matter? She did not stop to look at the cogs that were now visible at her angle or think about the pain that would come ahead. She saw beyond that bitter moment an eternity to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she would welcome it gladly.
She finished and left for the basement, regurgitating a soup of his remains. She could not help but laugh as he came up, sounds echoing off the walls of the basement. She was free, free, free! What a stroke of luck that he came to her! She welcomed this sickness with her body and soul. The smell did not sting her eyes nor could she taste the burn in her throat.
All she could taste was the elixir of life.
When the doctors came they said that Brently was alive and well, and marveled at how Kate was able to eat his death. Pity that she would not come back.
