He has fired seven nurses this week, and if your child makes a single sound, you will both be thrown into the snow, Chief Guard Mikhail warned me at the heavy iron gates of the Volkov estate.
My heart hammered against my ribs, but my hands moved with practiced calm, pulling on sterile gloves. Damian Volkov lay still under the black silk, the frost that had once coated him now only a memory, thanks to Lily.
I pressed the cool tip of the digital thermometer against his pale forehead. The numbers on the small screen flickered erratically before settling.
“Twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit,” I murmured, my voice barely a whisper in the vast, silent room.
My own breath plumed out in a white cloud. His skin was impossibly cold, like a slab of ice, yet the pulse monitor I had attached to his finger displayed a steady 60 beats per minute.
A normal human body could not sustain life at such a temperature. This was beyond anything I had ever seen, a medical impossibility defying every textbook.
I tried to log the reading into my portable medical tablet, but as I typed, a web of frost spread rapidly across the thermometer’s screen. A sharp crack echoed in the silent room.
The plastic casing split, and the digital display went black. A tiny shard of ice fell onto the black silk sheet, melting instantly.
The sound drew the attention of Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper, who stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, a sour expression on her face. She had been assigned to “monitor” my care, a thinly veiled surveillance.
Her gaze fixed on the shattered thermometer, then flickered to Lily, who was quietly stacking wooden blocks on a nearby table, completely oblivious.
“See?” Mrs. Gable’s voice was low, but sharp, cutting through the eerie stillness. “Just as I feared.”
I turned, my hand still holding the broken device. “Mrs. Gable, this is highly unusual. His core temperature is-”
She shook her head, a grim set to her jaw. “The child. Your presence. It’s all a bad omen for the master. You bring bad luck into this house, Nurse.”
Her words hung in the frigid air, thick with accusation. She blamed Lily, a four-year-old deaf girl, for a supernatural phenomenon that defied science.
“Master Volkov was dying before we arrived,” I countered, trying to keep my voice steady. “My daughter’s touch brought him back to consciousness.”
Mrs. Gable snorted, her eyes narrowing. “A momentary flicker. He has been plagued by this cold since before the snow even fell. Now, you’ve broken the master’s equipment. More ill fortune.”
She turned abruptly and left the room, her heavy shoes thudding softly on the Persian rug. The door clicked shut behind her, leaving me alone with the impossible cold and the stark reality of the staff’s growing hostility.
The phantom cold of Room 404 was not just a medical mystery; it was becoming a weapon.
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