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It had only been a few days since Jessamine’s arrival at the Institute when Will discovered it. He hadn’t been trying to, but on days when Jessamine was being particularly annoying, it proved to be very useful.
Charlotte had been excited about a new person the same age as Will and Jem coming to the Institute. She had assumed that they could train together and would become close friends, but that was not at all the case. From the moment Jessamine arrived, she and Will absolutely hated each other. They would fight when together and complain about each other when apart. She and Jem got along well enough, but never as well as Charlotte had hoped they would.
When Will discovered his neat little trick, he had been in the library with Jem and Jessamine. Jem had found a book to read and was perfectly content to sit there, but Will and Jessamine wished that they were anywhere but in the same room as each other.
They had spent most of the hour that they had been there yelling at each other. Jessamine was mad at Will for allegedly stealing her hairbrush and Will was very loudly telling her that he had nothing to do with its sudden disappearance. Jem ignored them and read his book, not bothering to tell Jessamine that her brush was currently hiding in the top drawer of Will’s dresser.
Halfway through a sentence, Will had to stop and cough. This was completely normal and happened on a daily basis, but what happened immediately afterward was exactly the opposite. As Jem looked up from his book to make sure Will was alright, he saw Jessamine wrinkle her nose in disgust, cover her mouth, and leave the room as fast as possible.
Will didn’t notice that Jessamine was gone until after he stopped coughing. He looked up to see Jem staring at the door in shock, and Jessamine was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did she go?” Will asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Jem said, still staring at the door. “She just left when you started coughing.”
Will thought about what Jem had said for a minute, and then smiled. “I’m going to have to test this.”
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And test it he did. For the next three days, Will tried to stay near Jessamine as much as possible. Every time he coughed, he, or Jem if the coughing fit was too bad, would watch Jessamine to see if she did the same thing she had done in the library. Sure enough, every time he started coughing, she would wrinkle her nose, cover her mouth, and leave the room as quickly as possible.
Will had never been happier.
He wasn’t sure why she was doing it, but he knew that it was the perfect way to get her to leave him alone. They didn’t even have to be real coughs. During one part of his “experiment”, he had faked a cough just to see if it had the same effect as the real ones. Jessamine didn’t seem to notice the difference and had immediately fled.
“I wonder why she’s doing it,” Jem muttered one night in the library.
“I don’t know,” Will said, “and I really don’t care. As long as she’s doing it, I’m happy.”
Jem wasn’t entirely happy with that answer. He knew that Will loved having a way to get Jessamine away from him, but he wanted more information. There had to be some reason that she was running away every time, and he was going to find out.
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It was a few days before Jem was able to talk to Jessamine alone. He knew that Will would stop him if he knew, so he had to make sure that Will wasn’t around when he did it. The first opportunity that he had like that was about a week after the initial discovery. They had been training most of the morning and although Jem felt fine, Will had been exhausted. Charlotte had sent him to his room with strict orders to take a nap, so Jem was left on his own and probably would be for a few hours.
He found Jessamine in the library. She was working on some embroidery, and even though she insisted that she was an expert at it, Jem could clearly see that she was not. He sat down in the armchair across from her and waited for her to notice him.
It didn’t take very long. Almost as soon as he was sitting, she looked up to see who it was and immediately looked back down at her work. “Where’s the other one?” she asked.
“He’s sleeping,” Jem said, deciding that it would be best not to tell Will that he was referred to as ‘the other one’. “It’s just me.”
“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to handle all that coughing right now. This is a very complicated project and I can’t be distracted.”
Jem didn’t know much about embroidery, but the wobbly-edged flower she was making did not seem very complicated. “I had a question about that, actually.”
“What is it?” Jessamine asked, then immediately poked herself with the needle.
“Why do you run out of the room every time Will starts coughing?”
Jessamine stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. Her expression was telling him that the answer should have been obvious and that he was stupid for not knowing. “Sometimes I wonder about your observation skills,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to catch whatever it is that he has.”
Jem frowned. “He’s been here for almost a year now. I think we would know by now if it was contagious.”
“Well, I’m not taking any chances,” she snapped. “It’s not very ladylike to cough like that. It would be absolutely dreadful for me if I got sick.”
“I’m sure it’s absolutely dreadful for Will,” Jem said under his breath.
Jessamine sighed and rolled her eyes. “Could you please leave now? I really must concentrate.”
Jem got up and left the library. He’d expected an answer somewhere along the lines of that one, but he hadn’t expected it to be so selfish. Jessamine was only concerned about how she would feel and what other people would think of her if she got sick. She clearly didn’t care about what Will went through every day and what people outside the Institute thought of his illness. When he had first found out about Will’s illness, he hadn’t assumed that it was contagious, and if it had been, he wouldn’t have cared. All he saw was a boy his age who was sick like he was a needed a friend.
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A few hours later, Jem was sorting through some sheet music in his room when he heard his door open. His back was to the door, but he didn’t need to look to know who it was. There was only one person in the Institute who let himself into Jem’s room like it was his own, and Jem had heard coughing from the room next door a few minutes earlier.
“How was your nap?” Jem asked without turning around.
“It was good,” Will said from behind him. “How was your talk with Jessamine?”
At this, Jem dropped the sheet music he was holding on the bed and turned around. “How do you know about that?”
“You wanted to know why she leaves every time and I wasn’t there,” Will said, shrugging. “I just assumed. It seems I was right.”
“It was… enlightening.”
“She thinks I’m contagious.”
Jem nodded. “I tried to tell her that you’re not but she wouldn’t listen.”
“She is Jessamine,” Will said. “If what you’re saying isn’t about her, then she doesn’t care.”
“You’re not wrong,” Jem said, turning back to the sheet music.
Will nodded and turned to leave. “As long as it makes her leave me alone, then I don’t really care that she thinks she’s going to catch something that nobody else in this building has caught.”
Jem wasn’t entirely sure that he believed that.
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By the end of the week, Jem had forgotten what Will had said and how he hadn’t believed it. The week had been pretty busy and he’d been too preoccupied with training and yin fen and Will’s physical therapy to worry about the effect that Jessamine’s actions could be having on Will.
Until a request from Charlotte brought it all back.
“I need you to get these for me,” Charlotte said, handing Jem a folded piece of paper and some money. “That’s enough for everything and you can use the change to get something for yourself. Maybe from that sweet shop that Will always drags you to?”
“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” Jem said, putting the paper and the money in his pocket. He started towards the door of the study and was about to go through when Charlotte’s voice stopped him.
“Take Will with you. He hasn’t been outside in three days and he needs the exercise.”
Jem nodded and left the room. He wasn’t entirely sure where Will was, but he needed to get his coat from his room so Will’s room would be the first place he could look.
Jem was hoping that he wouldn’t have to go too far to find Will, so when his knock on Will’s door was answered with a “Come in,” he was very happy. He found Will laying the wrong way on his bed and using his pillow as a footrest. He put the book he was reading down when Jem came in but didn’t make any effort to sit up.
“Charlotte needs us to go buy some things for her,” Jem said. “She also said that we can keep the change and go to that sweet shop you like.”
“Have fun then,” Will said. He still didn’t move to get up, but Jem wasn’t surprised.
“I will have fun when you get up and come with me.”
Will picked up his book again and opened it to where he had been before. “I’m not going.”
Jem stepped forward and, before Will could react, grabbed the book out of his hands. “Get up.”
“I just said I wasn’t going.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” Will said, glaring at Jem. “Can I have that back now?”
Jem shook his head. “You aren’t getting this back until you give me a reason.”
“It’s really none of your business.”
“I really don’t care.”
Will sighed and dangled one of his arms over the side of the bed. “Fine. I don’t want to go because I don’t want people to think I’m contagious.”
Jem didn’t know what he had been expecting Will to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. He stood there in shock for a minute before saying, “Does this have anything to do with Jessamine?”
Will finally took his feet off of his pillow and sat up. Jem made a mental note to tell Sophie that Will’s pillowcase needed to be washed while they were out. “If she’s so disgusted by it, I’m sure other people are too. How many times do you think we’ve gone out and people have avoided us because they’re scared of catching whatever they think I have?”
“Oh, Will…” Jem said, sitting down on the bed next to him. “I really don’t see why you should worry about what they think.”
“What’s the point in going out if everyone avoids me? They’re obviously grossed out, especially when there’s mucus involved. Some of them even decide to voice their opinions on it.”
Jem was trying to figure out what to say to convince him otherwise and didn’t quite register what Will had said until a second later. When he did, he looked up from his lap in shock and said, “People have said things to you?”
Will shrugged. “Only one man. Everyone just whispers to other people.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that I shouldn’t be going in public with a cough like that. Apparently it’s inconsiderate to others.”
Jem was very tempted to ask Will what the man looked like so he could go after him, but he decided that that may be a bad idea at the moment. Instead, he reached up and patted Will on the back. “Well, I know exactly what you should do the next time someone says something like that.”
Will looked very confused. “What is it?”
Jem smiled. “Cough in their face.”
Will looked shocked at the fact that James Carstairs had just told him to cough in someone’s face and Jem took the opportunity to stand up and drop the book he was still holding on Will’s lap.
“Come on,” he said. “We should go before Charlotte wonders what’s taking so long.”
Jem expected Will to refuse again and just go back to his book, but to his amazement, Will put the book on his bed and stood up. “Let’s go then. I believe candy was mentioned?”
Jem smiled. “It was, but if you spoil your dinner with it Charlotte won’t be happy.”
“Then I’ll just deal with the consequences,” Will said, leaning down to put his shoes on. “Maybe when we get back I’ll find Jessamine and cough in her face.”