When Vyrda reached to open the door into the clinic, the knob was snatched out of her hand as the door jerked open wide. Ms. Milner stood there. She demanded, “Where’d you go?!”
Wearily, Vyrda said, “To help a patient who’s been waiting hours while we tried to save your husband.”
“I can’t believe you left us here with these…” she shook a finger at Jadyn, Rrica, and Kazy, “children!”
Kazy slowly walked up behind the woman as Vyrda said tiredly, “Because of their youth, they’re more capable of chest compressions than I am Ms. Milner. They’re doing them fine, you can see he’s just as pink as when I left.”
“But…! But you should’ve been doing something. You… you… said his heart wasn’t restarting. You’ve got to do something to make it start!”
Vyrda slowly shook her head. She spoke despairingly, “I don’t know of anything else to do Ms. Milner. We’ve tried everything we know. We tried them over and over before we came down to tell you we didn’t know how to save him.”
“We’ll take him to someone else then!” the woman said angrily.
Vyrda glanced over at the patient, “It’s going to be very difficult to keep pressing on his chest while you’re moving him,” she shook her head, “and if you stop, he’ll be dead in just a couple of minutes. If you want another healer to see him, I’d suggest you go get the healer and bring them here. We’ll keep doing the compressions till you get back.”
The woman turned and looked at her husband, then turned back to Vyrda, eyes brimming with tears. She dropped to her knees, throwing her arms around Vyrda’s legs. “Please! Whatever you need to do to save him, do it! We’ll pay! We’ll pay whatever you want!”
Vyrda tugged the woman’s arms loose, then got down on her own knees to hug the woman in return. “You don’t have to pay us. If you want, we’ll try all the things we’ve already tried, one more time. Believe me, we’ve already tried everything we can think of over and over, but say the word and we’ll try them all again.”
Nodding vehemently, the woman said, “Yes, yes. Please!”
Soon Vyrda was slapping and striking poor Mr. Milner on the chest. Next, she bent down to rest her head on his chest and spoke some prayers. She checked for a pulse and said there was none. Standing back up, she waved Seri over and said, “You do your special prayers now.”
Seri stepped up, placed her head on the man’s chest, pumped some blood through his heart to make sure the tissue was well oxygenated, then she telekinetically smacked the heart from all four sides and, while it lay quiet, smacked the area of the sinoatrial node.
The heart beat twice, then went back into fibrillation.
The son had been keeping his fingers on his father’s pulse. “Do that prayer again! I felt a couple of pulses!”
Seri did, but this time the contraction only extended a few centimeters from where it started in the atrium. As she stood back up, she noticed Milner was turning grey.
The mother was standing at her son’s side squeezing his shoulder, “Anything?”
The son miserably shook his head. He indicated his father’s face, “Dad’s turning grey again.”
“Oh!” the mother exclaimed. “Start pushing on his chest again!”
The son caught her arm, “It’s not going to work Mom. They’ve tried and tried… Pa’s gone.”
Seri couldn’t help thinking Milner wasn’t actually gone yet, but she realized—like everyone else—that nothing they could do was going to restart Mr. Milner’s heart.
But, Seri thought with resolve, I’m going to figure out how to do it for the next patient. I don’t ever want to fail someone like this again.
~~~
Milner died. Seri couldn’t help wondering whether it was right for his wife and son to be there as it happened. Tears ran down their faces and they sobbed as they held his hand and hugged one another.
Vyrda stepped over to Seri and told her to go read the ophthalmology book to find out what was wrong with Ms. Thompson. Seri was reminded that, despite the tragedy in front of them, Ms. Thompson had a lesser tragedy of her own. One that also needed their help. She went back into the alcove and got down the ophthalmology book.
A couple of minutes later, she was joined by Rrica who said Vyrda’d told her to help find a solution for Thompson. Seri explained Thompson’s condition then went back to their ophthalmology textbook while Rrica got down an anatomy atlas to read about the eye.
As she carefully turned the pages of the ancient ophthalmology book, Seri pondered the fact that Vyrda’d kept Kazy and Jadyn out there with her to help deal with the Milner’s emotions. Is it going to cause trouble if they keep the Milner’s from experiencing the full depths of their grief? she wondered.
Her attention shifted from that when she found diagrams of a condition called “retinal detachment” in the book. A little more reading convinced her that detachment was what Thompson had. The ancients had methods to reattach the retina, but she didn’t see how it could be done in their little clinic. Just like with Milner, they could understand and make a diagnosis, but they didn’t have the technology the ancients used to perform the treatment. She showed it to Rrica, “Some of these pictures are just like what my ghirit finds in Thompson’s eye. I’m going to go get Vyrda.”
Rrica said, “Wait, I just saw a nice diagram of the layers of the eye including the retina.” She carefully turned the pages backward, saying, “It might help you understand what you’re treating.”
Once Seri’d learned about the layers she went out and got Vyrda. Back in the alcove, she showed Vyrda the pictures and explained retinal detachment, “The retina’s a layer that’s just a few cells thick. It contains the nerve cells that react to light so we can see. When it pulls loose or ‘detaches’ from the deeper layers it gets torn away from its blood supply. This makes it urgent to put the retina back down against the deeper layers so the blood supply can re-attach before the retina dies completely.”
Vyrda’d perked up, “It sounds like this is a condition we can treat. Using telekinesis to push the retina back down against the wall of the eyeball wasn’t difficult at all.” Then, apparently seeing the expression on Seri’s face, she sighed, “What’s the problem?”
“Getting it to stay there,” Seri said sadly. “More fluid tends to get underneath it and float it away again. The ancients used to inject a bubble of air into the eye, then have the patient hold their head in the right position so the bubble floated up and pushed the retina back into place. We’ve got them beat there because we can push it back in place with our talent. But, once they’d put in a bubble, they could have the patient stay in the position that held the bubble against the detachment for days. We can’t stay by the patient constantly, using telekinesis to hold the retina in place. Also, the ancients would tack the tear in the retina back down to the outside of the eyeball, either by freezing little spots with something they called a ‘cryoprobe’ or by burning spots with something called a ‘laser.’ Tacking it down kept fluid from getting back underneath the retina to float it loose again.” She shrugged, “Since we don’t have cryoprobes or lasers, I’m afraid it’ll probably just recur.”
Rrica, who’d been listening, said, “It’s too bad Daussie’s not here. She could’ve teleported a bubble into the eye, couldn’t she?”
“Yes she could,” Vyrda said. She was actually smiling though, “But the ancients didn’t have a Daussie. They ‘injected’ bubbles in the eye, right?”
Seri nodded, “I don’t know what that means though, do you?”
“They stuck a hollow needle into the eyeball and pushed air in through it.”
“Oh! Gross!” Seri said with a shudder. She sighed, “Oh well, I guess that’s just one more thing we can’t do.”
Vyrda’s smile was bigger now, “We have hollow needles and a few syringes. We can push air in with those.”
“We could?!”
Vyrda nodded.
Seri frowned, “But still, no lasers or cryoprobes, right?�
��
“Nope,” Vyrda said. “We have something better. We can heat things with telekinesis.”
Seri listened in amazement as Vyrda explained how Tarc had taught her to heat things with her ghirit. With Vyrda coaching her, Seri sent her ghirit into her own fingertip, visualizing the tiny particles her flesh was made of. The particles seemed to be vibrating, and when Seri visualized them vibrating faster and faster she felt warmth in her fingertip. After a moment, the fingertip felt hot. She stopped before it got burning hot, but she could tell it wouldn’t be difficult to get it hot enough to burn. She excitedly looked up at Vyrda, “And you think we can heat little spots of the retina enough that they weld to the underlying tissue like the ancients did with their lasers?”
Vyrda nodded, “Maybe we could even try holding the molecules still. They vibrate rapidly when they’re hot and they vibrate less when they’re cold, so perhaps we could simulate the cryoprobe treatment.”
Seri focused back on her finger, trying to hold the particles still. In a moment it seemed as if the tip of her finger was getting cold. When she touched it with a finger from her other hand, she could sense the coldness with the other hand.
~~~
Since Milner’s body was still lying in the clinic waiting for funeral arrangements, they took Ms. Thompson up to one of the rooms they rented out to travelers. There, under Kazy’s guidance, Jadyn put Ms. Thompson to sleep. They turned Thompson on her side and rotated her head so that the part of her eyeball with the retinal detachment was on top. Putting a needle into Thompson’s eyeball, Vyrda sucked out some of the vitreous fluid within the ball. While Seri held the needle still, Vyrda removed the syringe and sucked air into it through a folded sterile gauze pad, trying to filter out any particulate matter containing bacteria. She injected a bubble of the filtered air, waiting for it to float up and hold the retina in place.
She used her telekinesis to massage some bubbles of fluid out from beneath the retinal layer. They paused for a moment so everyone could lean in, using their ghirits to examine the eyeball and sense what’d been done. Then Vyrda started heating tiny spots around the tear in the retina, welding it back down to the deeper tissues.
As soon as Vyrda felt she’d sufficiently welded the tissue, Jadyn let Thompson wake back up.
Vyrda leaned in as Thompson’s eye fluttered open. “Ms. Thompson?” She got a slight nod in response so Vyrda continued, “Everything went very well and we think we’ve got the part of your retina that detached stuck back down. However, like we talked about, we’d like you to keep your head in this position—left side up, face turned somewhat down toward the floor—almost all the time for the next three days. That’ll probably be difficult.”
Sounding resolved, Thompson said, “I’ll do it. Anything to save my eyesight.”
“Do you need us to send a message to your family? So they’ll know where you are?”
“Wait. You’re not even letting me go home?”
“We’d rather you didn’t. You’d have a hard time keeping your head in this position all the way home. You can stay here in this room. We normally rent it out to travelers but no one’s reserved it for tonight.”
“Oh,” Thompson said thoughtfully. She decided she’d like to have her son and daughter notified.
Seri went down to the kitchen to join Rrica who’d gone down a little earlier for the dinner rush. Vyrda’d told Seri to send Norman back upstairs to get directions to Ms. Thompson’s house since he knew the town better. Seri thought Norman was pissed about getting sent on an errand—he seemed to think he was above such menial tasks—but she didn’t know what to do about it.
~~~
Jadyn and Kazy arrived in the kitchen a few minutes later. There was a substantial crowd in the dining room already and they all had to work hard to help the kitchen catch up with the orders.
Seri found herself cutting vegetables next to Jadyn. She quietly asked her, “Do you think it’s right, suppressing people’s grief? My mother said grief was something you needed to work through.”
Jadyn shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think Eva or Kazy know either. I guess you know this telepathic changing of people’s minds is kind of new to them too, right?” Once Seri nodded, Jadyn continued, “So I don’t think they’ve relieved very many people’s grief and probably don’t know whether it causes trouble later. Kazy told me one of the ancients’ books said people have a number of reactions to terrible events. Such as the death of a loved one or learning that they themselves are going to die. Also when they’re permanently injured. I’m sure they have similar reactions to other things that produce major losses in their lives.”
Picking up another tomato, Jadyn continued, “One reaction’s to have ‘denial’ where they say their loved one hasn’t really died or that she’s going to come back to life. If they’re the one who’s dying, they’ll deny that it’s going to happen, claiming they’re going to get better. If they lost a leg or they’ve been paralyzed, they’ll say their amputated leg’s going to grow back or their crippled legs are going to start working. Things we all know won’t really happen, but they really feel them.
“Another reaction’s anger. They lash out at people around them, as if finding someone to blame will make their pain go away. They might blame their healers or their family. This can cause huge problems for them when they drive away the very people they need to help them in their time of need.
“In a third reaction, they get depressed.
“A fourth reaction is to ‘bargain’ like I heard Ms. Milner did when she offered to pay Vyrda whatever she wanted if Vyrda’d just save her husband.
“Or, fifth, they reach a state of ‘acceptance’ where they come to terms with what’s happened and move on with whatever life they have left.” She shrugged, “The ancients thought this was the best state for them to be in.
“Some people go through one or several of the reactions and some just move directly on to acceptance. Some never get there. The first four reactions cause lots of problems, not just for the people around them but for themselves. Kazy says what she’s trying to do is to help them move on to acceptance, not keep them from feeling sad. She doesn’t think that moving more quickly to acceptance is going to cause trouble in the long line, but… we don’t really know for sure.”
Seri frowned, “What’s the difference between ‘sad’ and depressed?”
Jadyn snorted softly, “That’s the ten-gold question, isn’t it? I get the impression that sad’s crying with everyone else, but depressed is moping off by yourself and avoiding interactions with other people. But I don’t pretend to understand it. Kazy thinks we telepaths should let people be sad but that we should help people who’re depressed. Or, who’re angry, in denial, or bargaining.”
Seri thought about it, finally deciding she didn’t know the answer but that she felt pretty good trusting Kazy’s morality in selecting the proper ethics. Though I’m not sure why I’m so confident of the morality of a girl who’s so young.
Then she wondered whether Kazy might have influenced her trust. What if I only trust her because she makes me trust her?
Chapter Eight
No one had knocked, so, when the door opened, Marissa looked up with trepidation. She didn’t fear for herself, after all, her time on Earth was short. But she did fear for her husband George. He was at their stove trying to make dinner. He was a terrible cook and her illness had robbed her of appetite, but she loved him for the way he strove to feed her something every day.
“George,” she said warningly…
But then her son Hareh came through the door. “Mom!” he cried, trotting across the room and dropping to his knees to clasp her in his arms.
Marissa’s heart leaped. She’d begged her son not to go seek some famous healer. People were always excited about the newest healer they claimed to be unbelievably good. In the long run “unbelievable” was the only part that ever turned out to be true. Not only had Marissa worried about the danger of Hareh being on the roa
d, but she’d also feared she wouldn’t live long enough to see him return. When a caravan had come reporting the violent overthrow of the government in Walterston—the town where this healer Hyllis was supposed to live—she’d feared for her son’s fate.
The fact that he hadn’t returned with the caravan bearing the news had fanned the flames of that fear.
Her morbid fantasies had run rampant.
Hareh’d died on the road.
He’d died in the fighting at Walterston.
He’d found the healer and she’d proved to be a charlatan like all the others—but rather than return home to his mother before she died, Hareh had continued his wild goose chase, following new rumors of some other healer.
Now though, as he held her, she found to her surprise she felt disappointed he hadn’t found an amazing healer. Marissa’d been sure she hadn’t fallen into Hareh’s fantasies of a preternaturally powerful medicine woman, but realized that, despite her scoffing, she’d subliminally hoped all the rumors would prove true.
That he’d come home with a cure for her cancer.
She ruffled Hareh’s hair and, speaking around a frog of both love and disappointment, said, “Thanks for coming home.”
Some people had come in the door behind her son. She’d initially thought they were the kids who’d gone with him, seeking training as healers. She’d thought that, disappointed, they’d returned with him, tails between their legs. Now getting a better look at them, she realized that the little group consisted of a woman her own age and two tall, slender teenagers, a boy and a girl.
The woman in her late thirties looked familiar.
She felt a chill. The woman looked like a younger version of Marissa’s long-dead mother.
Prickles forming in her scalp, Marissa hoarsely whispered, “Eva?”
Sisters Page 18
