Telekinetic

by Laurence E. Dahners

  Horrified, Tarc realized that it sounded like it might be a ‘female problem’ of some kind. Hoping his dismay didn’t show on his face, Tarc did his best to speak calmly like his mother had taught. “Do you think you have a fever?” he asked reaching out to touch her forehead with the back of his hand. He noted with some relief that she didn’t feel very hot.

  Denny said, “I’m not sure, sometimes I feel kind of warm, but Joe says he doesn’t think I’ve got a fever.”

  “Is your appetite okay?”

  “Appetite?”

  “Do you get hungry?”

  “Oh, yeah. But maybe not as hungry as I usually am. It’s the burning that’s really driving me crazy though. That, and the fact that I have to pee all the time!”

  Tarc resisted the impulse to frown and tell her that she’d already told him that. Eva often said that sometimes the only thing they could do was to listen compassionately while their patients complained. When Denny launched into a further description of just how bad she’d been feeling; Tarc realized he could use that time to send out his ghost senses. As they entered her lower abdomen though, he suddenly realized that he hadn’t studied that part of the anatomy atlas yet. Worse, there weren’t going to be left and right versions of things down there and, he blinked, she was a woman and he was a man. He couldn’t make a comparison between her parts down there and his own because there were certainly going to be some male—female differences. In fact, he didn’t know if anything was the same between men and women in that region! Then he wondered if he was allowed to feel around down there. He felt certain that he wasn’t allowed to touch women down there with his hands!

  Denny kept talking. Tarc resisted the impulse to look downwards where his ghost was traveling. He kept his eyes on hers, but realized that he wasn’t really hearing anything she was saying. He hoped it wasn’t important. He quickly explored his own lower abdomen with his ghost senses. With a sense of panic he realized that things were indeed significantly different down inside there when he compared Denny to himself. He recognized his bladder because it was filled with urine. It seemed to him like the bladder must have something to do with her symptoms since she complained so much about peeing. Shifting back to her he realized that she also had a bladder, though hers didn’t have much urine in it as compared to his. Hmmm, the wall of her bladder seems thicker than mine, he thought wonderingly, tugging at it with a ghost finger.

  “Oh!” Denny squeaked. She stood so quickly the bench fell over behind her and she said, “Oh! I have to go really bad! Sorry! I’ll be back in a minute.” Her hand made an abortive motion towards her crotch as if she wanted to hold herself. She turned and scurried for the back door that led to the outhouse.

  Worried that Denny might recognize that he’d done something to her bladder, Tarc stood quickly enough that he nearly tipped over the bench on his side of the table too. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he walked around and set Denny’s bench back upright.

  He started back into the kitchen, but bumped into Daussie at the door. “Hey,” she said angrily, “if you’re done chit-chatting with Denny, the rest of us could use some help!”

  Tarc drew a breath for a furious retort, but before he did Eva interrupted. “Daussie, back off. I told Tarc to talk to her, she’s a patient.”

  “Why’s Tarc talking to her? I could have talked to her!”

  “I’m trying to teach both of you how to be healers. Tarc’s at the stage of his training where he needs to see some patients and try to figure out what’s wrong with them.”

  Daussie’s eyes flew wide, her expression stricken. Turning to her mother she said, “Why Tarc? Why not me? I want to be a healer… I don’t think he even cares!”

  “Because…” Eva said slowly, as if she dreaded the words herself, “Tarc can… do some things… that you can’t do. Maybe in a couple years…” she trailed off.

  Daussie banged down the plates she’d been holding and, knuckling her eyes, turned and ran out the back door with a moan.

  For a moment their mother looked sadly after Daussie. Then she turned to Tarc, “I hope to God she gets some talent too. It’ll break her heart if she doesn’t.” Eva’s eyes went to the plates Daussie had put down and she looked back up at Tarc, “Will you take those out? They go to the two strangers by the door.”

  Pissed that he had to take up Daussie’s slack, but not wanting to cause his mother any more grief, Tarc picked up the two plates and headed out into the big room. Denny Smith hadn’t returned, so he didn’t have to say anything to her. He went to the two strangers at the door, sullen and not paying much attention. He set the plates down a little too hard, then looked at the men while waiting for their coppers. With a sense of déjà vu he realized they had a very hard look about them. Somehow, they reminded him of the big man who’d had a thing for Daussie the week before.

  The men looked up at him and one grunted in irritation. He made a sucking sound over his teeth and said, “What happened to the pretty blond girl?”

  A sick sense of apprehension settled in Tarc’s stomach. He said, “She got sent on an errand.”

  “Well,” the stranger said with a greasy gap toothed grin, “she’s the one that took my order. Therefore, she’s the one I’m givin’ my coppers to.” His eyebrows bounced up and down, “When she gets back from her errand, send her on back out here to collect the money.” The man picked up his fork and turned away from Tarc, effectively dismissing him.

  Tarc stood there uncertainly for a moment, trying to think how to demand payment from someone who frightened him. “We take payment when we bring the food here at Hyllis’ Tavern,” he said, but without the authority he had hoped to project.

  “Oh, I’ll pay, make no mistake,” the man said, glancing up at Tarc from under a lowered eyebrow. “But, I ain’t paying you. I’m payin’ that hot little blond chica.” He grinned at the man across the table from him, “Hell, I’d pay some extra coppers just to rest my weary eyes on her again,” he said with an ugly laugh.

  His stomach in a knot, Tarc stood for another moment, then abruptly turned and headed back to the kitchen. How can this be happening again? he wondered. He’d worked in this tavern his entire life. He’d seen fights, of course. It was a tavern after all and men sometimes drank too much. Sometimes, the fights were over women. But not the women in Tarc’s family! Could Daussie really be so… pretty that she’s driving some of these men crazy?

  Tarc just couldn’t see it.

  Back in the kitchen with his mother, Tarc realized he’d just walked past Denny Smith without acknowledging her presence. Worse his mother turned to him and said, “So, what’s wrong with Denny?”

  Tarc dithered a moment. He knew he should tell his mother about the two men, but didn’t want to confess that he’d failed to obtain their payment. He was supposed to pick up their plates and bring them back to the kitchen if they didn’t pay, but they’d reminded him too much of the big soldier from the week before. He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been afraid to try to take their plates.

  He didn’t want to talk to his mother about Denny Smith either, but it seemed the lesser of two evils. “Um, something’s wrong with her bladder.” He shrugged, “I think?”

  His mother looked at him consideringly. “Okaaay. So, tell me the story.”

  “Um, she says it… burns, down there,” he waved nebulously down towards his own crotch, “when she pees.”

  Eva grinned at him, “And you’re embarrassed. And I suppose she is too?”

  Tarc nodded, feeling himself blush again.

  “Well, if you’re going to be a healer, you’re gonna have to get over being embarrassed. Tell me the rest of her story.”

  Tarc stumbled through the story Denny had given him, and her answers to the questions he’d asked.

  “Does her urine smell bad?”

  Aghast, Tarc hissed, “I didn’t ask her that!”

  “I just finished telling you, if you’re going to take care of people, you can’t be embarr
assed about these things!” She lifted an eyebrow, “If you act embarrassed, they’ll feel embarrassed.” Eva turned and opened the cabinet where she kept her medical supplies. She pulled out a small glass cup, one so perfect it had to be from the old days. It had no warping or discolorations in it like new glass would have had. She handed it to Tarc, “Go ask her to pee in this.”

  “Mom!” Tarc said, eyes wide, “Can’t you ask her? Besides she just went out to pee. When I…” Tarc ran down, not knowing quite how to explain what had just happened.

  “When you what?”

  “Uh, I was using my ghost to… you know… see what was different down there. But I, I, wasn’t sure what was different because she’s a girl…”

  “Oh Lordy,” Eva grinned at him over the pot she was stirring, “you were comparing her parts to yours?”

  Tarc felt a hot flush come over his face, “That’s what you said to do!”

  Eva started with a little giggle but was soon laughing so hard she bent over and tears came to her eyes. Still snorting, she stood, wiped at her cheeks, and said, “Found quite a few differences, did you?”

  Still embarrassed, but also angry, Tarc nodded. “The wall of her bladder is thicker than mine, but I didn’t know if that was just a boy-girl difference or something wrong. So I tugged on it a little…”

  “Tugged on it?” Eva’s eyes were very wide. “You can move things like your dad?”

  “Um, yeah.” He had just been assuming, he realized, that his mother and father could do the same things with their talent. “You can’t?”

  “No,” she breathed, “I can only feel the insides of things. Your dad told me that you could feel a silver inside his fist, but he didn’t say you could move things. Does he know you can do that?”

  “Yeah. I moved a copper for him on the bar.”

  “That man, sometimes I swear…” She grinned, starting to turn pieces of chicken on the grill and shaking her head. “I suppose he wanted it to be a surprise,” she mused. She turned the last piece of chicken, then turned and threw her arms around Tarc, squeezing him hard. “Oh Tarc, that’s wonderful! Being able to sense the insides of people and move things will let you do so many more things to help your patients!”

  Feeling his mother’s pride in him lifted Tarc’s spirits immeasurably. Then his thoughts stumbled, “Wait, Dad can sense things. He told me… he knows where the sun is, and can tell where people are!”

  “Yeah, we both can tell where warm things are. But only I can feel inside of things, and only he can move things.” She lifted an eyebrow at him as she turned to stir the soup again. “Feeling the insides of people to know what’s wrong with them is tremendously useful for a healer. I’ve always wished I could move things inside them too. Then I could poke at the different parts to tell which structures were really hurting. That would be… incredibly helpful for making a better diagnosis.”

  Tarc tilted his head, “Can’t you just ask dad to move things for you?”

  She shrugged, “I can ask him, but he can only really push on things he can see. Since he can’t see inside of people, he can’t push on the right things to be helpful.” She shrugged again, “Even if I could get him to tug on things he couldn’t see, he’d still have to tug on them hard enough for me to feel them move so that I would know what he was actually tugging on.”

  “Why wouldn’t that work?”

  “We’ve tried. It would be really hard with a real patient because we couldn’t talk back and forth in front of them about what we were trying to do. But, I’ve had him try moving things inside me or inside animal carcasses. The amount of force you guys can exert is so little that it’s hard to tell for sure what it is that you’re wiggling.”

  “Really?” Tarc asked with surprise.

  “Yeah…” she frowned, “Wait, how hard can you push on things?”

  Tarc shrugged, then reached out with his ghost and pushed her index finger to one side.

  Eva let out a startled squeak, and stared at Tarc with wide eyes. “Oh my God! Tarc that’s amazing… and wonderful! We’re going to be able to do so much more for people!” Her eyes turned towards the great room and she frowned, “Did you push that hard on Denny’s bladder? ‘Cause, if you tugged that hard, maybe anyone would have felt like they had to pee.”

  “No, I barely tugged at all. It sure affected her though.” He reached down with his ghost and tugged on his own bladder. He could feel something happen, but it wasn’t painful. It didn’t even make him feel like he had to pee, and his bladder was a lot fuller than Denny’s had been. “A lot more than it affects me when I tug on my bladder the same amount,” he said to his mother.

  “Tug on mine the same amount then,” his mother said.

  Tarc’s eyes widened, something just seemed wrong about fooling with his mother’s… whatever. Stuff down there, he thought.

  His mother rolled her eyes, “Come on Tarc, if you’re going to be a healer you’re going to have to stop being so squeamish!”

  Tarc reached out with his ghost, found his mother’s bladder which certainly had a lot more urine in it than Denny’s, and gave it a little tug.

  A small crease formed between his mother’s eyebrows and she said, “That’s all the harder you tugged on Denny’s bladder?”

  He nodded.

  “Well then, her bladder’s certainly very irritable.” She turned back to the grill and moved some things around, then stirred the big pot. “It would be better if you could get her to pee in the cup, but I’ll bet she doesn’t have any left. Then we would smell it to see if it has a bad odor, and look at it to see if it’s cloudy. Both of those things suggest an infection in the urine.” Despite her admonition to Tarc that he needed to stop being so self-conscious, she blushed a little, “Infections in the urine are common in women right after they get married.”

  Tarc blushed as well. About all he knew about sex came from the stories boys his age told one another, but from those stories he could guess how getting married might affect your bladder. Especially after he’d just finished poking around down inside Denny Smith with his ghost and knew how close together things were down there. A sense of foreboding came over him. Infections were really terrible things. He wondered. “Is… Denny gonna die?”

  “Well,” his mother said, tilting her head and thought, “maybe. But usually not. The body can fight off a lot of urine infections itself, especially if we give it some help.”

  Tarc frowned, “What kind of help can we give? I thought there weren’t any medicines for infection anymore.”

  Eva got down a couple of plates and started loading them with food off the grill. “Mostly, we give her advice. She needs to drink lots of fluid so that she’ll make lots of urine to wash away the bacteria causing the infection. Cranberries are good for UTI, though there aren’t any fresh ones this time of year. Usually Benson’s store has dried cranberries and I keep some in case they run out.

  “UTI?”

  “That’s what your grandmother called it. She said it stood for ‘urinary tract infection.’ That was what they called it back in the old days when they had medicines that would cure a UTI with just a few doses.” She held out the plates, “Here, take these to the Garcias. I’m going to take a quick look out back to see if Daussie has gotten over her snit. Then we’ll talk to Denny together.”

  Just then Daussie came in the door, looking sullen. She looked at the plates, “I’ll take them out; apparently that’s all I’m good for anyway.”

  Tarc already had the plates in his hands. He suddenly remembered the two men by the door, “No, I’ll take them.”

  Daussie sneered at him, “Since when are you willing to do any extra work?”

  Tarc considered just turning and going out there with the plates. But, what if Daussie comes out into the big room after me? “Um, those two men by the door…? They’re trouble. You shouldn’t go out there.”

  Daussie’s eyes narrowed, “What do you mean, ‘trouble’?” She started to step towards the door as if
she were going to peer out into the big room.

  Tarc blocked her from the door and said uncomfortably, “They said things, um, about you… Like that big soldier from a week or so ago. They wouldn’t pay me, said they wanted you to pick up the money. I don’t think you should go out there.”

  Now his mother frowned at him, “You left them their food when they didn’t pay?!”

  It was Tarc’s turn to look sullen. But he also blushed with some embarrassment. Quietly he said, “They’re pretty scary. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You just pick their plates up and bring them back to the kitchen!”

  “I know.” Tarc said miserably, “I’m sorry.”

  “At the least,” Eva said, “you should have told me about it right away. By now they’ll have finished eating it all!”

  “Sorry. I was going to, but then you asked me about Denny…”

  His mother stepped to the door and peered out of the kitchen at the two men. When she turned back she had an unhappy look on her face. “I can see why they worried you.”

  Eva turned to Daussie, “He’s right, you shouldn’t go back out there until they’re gone. In fact, I think you should go offer the deputies a free meal again. We won’t ask those men for their payment again until after the deputies come in.” She looked at Tarc, “You go ahead and take this food to the Garcias. Then stop and let your dad know what’s going on. When you get back we’ll talk to Denny together.”

  Tarc frowned and tilted his head. “But Mom, if we feed three deputies for free, it’ll cost us more than if we just didn’t charge those two men.”

  Eva shrugged, “That’s true. But we don’t want word to get out that if you act like a jerk you can eat for free.”

  Tarc backed through the door and headed out into the big room with the Garcias’ food. As he passed Denny Smith he quietly said, “My mom should be able to come out and talk to you in a few more minutes.”

  Tarc passed fairly close to the table with the two strangers as he went to deliver the Garcias’ food. The man who’d spoken to him before said, “Hey, boy. Is that sweet little blonde back yet?”