The Apothecary Diaries

Chapter 11: The Unsettling Matter of the Spirit (Part Two)

Somnambulism was a most mysterious condition. It caused one to move around as though awake, even when one was asleep. The cause could be some sort of disturbance in the heart, something no amount or type of medicine could cure. For there was no medicine to soothe a troubled spirit.

Maomao knew of a courtesan who had suffered from the condition. She had been of sunny disposition, a good singer, and one man had even been talking about buying her out of prostitution. But the negotiations fell through, for every night she would wander the brothel like a woman possessed. Ugly rumors began to dog her. When the madam tried to restrain her to stop her from walking around one night, the woman scratched her so badly she bled.

The next day, the other women confronted her about her behavior, but the courtesan said cheerfully, "My goodness, ladies, what are you talking about?"

The woman remembered nothing, but her bare feet were covered with mud and scratches.

"And what happened to her?" Jinshi asked. He, Maomao, and Gaoshun were in the sitting room together, along with Consort Gyokuyou. Hongniang was looking after the little princess.

"Nothing," Maomao said curtly. "When the discussions of her emancipation ended, so did her wandering around."

"Was it that the discussions upset her, then?" Gyokuyou asked with a puzzled look.

Maomao nodded. "It seems likely. The suitor was the head of a large business, but he was a man with not only a wife and children already, but even grandchildren. The woman's contract was going to be up with another year's work, anyway." Perhaps she found the idea of working another year better than being married off to a man she had no interest in. In the end, the woman had worked out the remainder of her contract with no further offers to buy her out.

"Exceptional emotional agitation commonly results in wandering like this, so we tried to give her perfumes and medicines that might help calm her down. They relaxed her a little, but didn't do much more." Maomao had always been the one to mix the concoctions, not her father.

"Hmm," Jinshi said with more than a touch of boredom. "And that's really all there is to that story?"

"That's all." Maomao struggled not to sneer at Jinshi's languid look. Gaoshun sat beside him, silently encouraging her in this effort. "If that's all you need, I must get back to work," Maomao said. Then she bowed and left the room.

 Let's turn back the clock a bit. The day after she had witnessed the spirit, Maomao had gone to see her favorite chatterbox, Xiaolan. Xiaolan was forever trying to pry information about Gyokuyou out of Maomao, so this time Maomao fed her some innocuous tidbits in exchange for what she knew about the ghost.

The trouble had begun about two weeks before. The spirit had first been spotted in the northern quarter. Shortly after that, it had begun to be seen in the eastern quarter, and started to appear every night. The guards, frightened by the entire situation, did nothing about it. But as the situation didn't seem to be causing any harm, no one punished them for their inaction.

It seemed that the deep moat, the high walls, and the overall impenetrability of the rear palace had left the guards susceptible to such fears. Worthless for security.

Next, Maomao had headed to see the quack. His loose lips told her something new—about Princess Fuyou, how she had been unwell lately. She was the third princess of a vassal state so small it could have been flicked away with a finger; though she was given the title "Princess," she was really little more than a highly ranked concubine. She had a building in the northern quarter. She liked to dance, but she was nervous and high strung, and had once made a mistake while dancing for His Majesty. The other consorts in attendance had laughed at her, and since then she had refused to come out of her room. A sensitive soul, one might say. Princess Fuyou had no conspicuous qualities other than her dancing, and it was said that in the two years since she had come to the rear palace, His Majesty had not spent the night with her once. Now she was to be given in marriage to a military official, an old friend of hers, and one hoped, might be happy.