Reinvigoration
The nonagenarian rolled over to his side to catch a sliver of the mid-morning light. He rubbed at his eyes, wiped his sleeve against his moist mustache, and hoisted himself upright. He was always quick to rise in the morning, but these days his initial routine included everything but standing.
He tugged off his stocking cap, rested his back against the headboard, and reached toward his endtable for a drink of water. His next impulse was to grab the nearest book - but then he noticed the wooden pipe he’d neglected to stow away. It brought a mischievous grin to the old man’s wrinkled face.
Two knocks coincided with the lighting of his pipe.
“Mr. Madrigal, your--”
“Yes, I know - bring her in.”
He would have been content to remain bedridden for just another hour, but Simon Madrigal was never one to put his wants before his needs.
“You’ve been sleeping in again,” the young brunette noted as she stepped swiftly toward the window and pulled apart the curtains.
The old man squinted. “You may recall that I’m retired.”
“Being a Madrigal is--”
“--a full time occupation and a lifelong commitment. Do you honestly still believe those words?”
She glanced down pensively and clasped her hands together. “...I might,” she admitted with a smile.
Simon laughed. “Well, you shouldn’t. I only taught you that nonsense because you loafed around too much as a child. Now you’re an eager morning bird - what happened?”
“I’ve not a clue, grandfather, but my hunch is that it has something to do with my obligation to your health.” She snatched the pipe out of his hand and set it on the windowsill. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop that?”
He gave a rumbling groan. “I thought my wife died ten years ago.” But he knew she was not wrong, and he had no right to resent her candor. It was through his own efforts that all of his children and grandchildren learned to speak bluntly, even to their elders.
“A good wife doesn’t need a pulse to keep her husband in line. Now, are you ready to begin?”
He nodded and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Of course. I’ve an unusually eventful day ahead of me.” The old man slouched down until he was flat on his back with his head propped up on a pillow. His upper body was rather fit for his age - but the dozens of scattered scars rendered his skin less presentable.
Teresa plucked off her gloves and rolled up her sleeves. “I was wondering why you sent for me again so soon. What is the occasion?” She placed a compact lockbox on the endtable and opened it to retrieve a scalpel.
“They’re honoring the veterans of the Great Blockade”, he explained, “and I didn’t bother to tell them that I wasn’t enlisted until the next year.”
She laughed lightly. “I’m sure they’d be happy to have you regardless. They’d be hard pressed to find someone your age who can remember anything at all.” She leaned in to search for an unblemished section of skin and settled for a spot on his upper right arm, where a lone scar had almost completely faded.
The venerable man was virtually numb to the sensation of the scalpel. What at first seemed perverse had by now become mundane. “Frankly, I don’t remember very much either. I’ll have no choice but to rivet them with tall tales.”
Their conversation came to a halt as Teresa’s attention narrowed in on her work. With her first laceration complete, she pulled away a blanket and tugged up a pant leg to reveal a pale, bony calf, just as saturated in scars as the torso. She opened another incision, lifted his leg, and squeezed it until the slightest stream of blood dripped down.
Teresa had just one more canvas to stain: her own flesh. She ran a clean scalpel through her palm and hovered it over the open wound on the elder’s arm. As two fingers pulled the cut apart, several drops of her own blood trickled down to infuse with his.
She pulled away her bloodied hand and clenched it shut while her cleaner fingers gently massaged Simon’s arm. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and began channeling her most practiced spell.
A tingling sensation overtook Simon’s nerves. It was neither euphoric nor painful; it merely signaled that the magic was working. The sensation traveled down from his shoulder to his legs, which tremored involuntarily as the magic ran its course.
Teresa pinned his legs still with her hands and pressed a soft cloth against the second incision. She kept her grip firm as she concentrated for a few more minutes, only letting go when the limbs ceased to shake.
She inspected the blood-soaked rag before discarding it into a rubbish bin. All three incisions had been sufficiently cauterized by the ritual, though they remained bright red and vulnerable.
Finally, Teresa opened a vial and poured it over Simon’s belly, releasing a lone leech. “Promise me that you won’t neglect to leech tonight. My work can only be half as effective when you don’t do your part to maintain it.”
“You know how much I hate these things,” he mumbled as he watched the slithering creature suckle from his skin. “And you know it won’t make a difference whether I last ten more years or ten more days. Life has been good to--”
“It makes all the difference in the world,” she interrupted. “You’ve still so much wisdom to bestow.”
He snickered as he slowly heaved himself up. “One of these days, Teresa, you’re going to realize that I’m not as wise as you think.”
