Psychicians (a Hyllis family story #5)

by Laurence Dahners

  Eva looked down at the patient again. “I can’t be!” she whispered, “I don’t hear anyone’s thoughts.”

  Daussie said contemplatively, “Maybe you’re limited like Dad. You have some parts of it, but not others. Like he can move things with his mind, but his ghirit can’t sense inside anything. You transmit but don’t receive.”

  Eva looked back down at the man. He was staring up at them, curiosity and confusion in his eyes. Sleep, she thought at him. His eyes drifted closed. Damn, she thought. Shaking her head, she looked up at Daussie, “It can’t be. I spent all that time trying to learn how to hypnotize people. I couldn’t affect them at all.”

  Kazy said, “I’ll bet you were focused on what you were saying and doing, not on trying to actually push their mind with yours.”

  Oh, Eva thought, knowing Kazy was right. She’d been focused on hypnotic techniques and not on engaging the patient with her mind. She suddenly thought about all the anxious and upset patients she’d been able to calm over the years. Maybe, without even knowing it, I’ve been doing it a little bit all along. She looked up at Kazy, “You may be right. But can you make sure he doesn’t remember this little conversation?”

  “Sure,” Kazy said stepping to the head of the bed. “I’m going to wake him up too, so restrain what you say.”

  ~~~

  That evening the family got together to talk about Eva’s newfound talent. “It’s real,” Eva confirmed. This afternoon I stepped out where the dogs hang out around the kitchen. I put one to sleep without any trouble. I think I’ve been doing it unconsciously for years. Calming people who’re distraught, helping people relax. I just thought I had a way with words. I didn’t notice it because my ability to listen to someone’s thoughts is pretty weak.”

  Daum lowered an eyebrow, “Wait a minute! Is this why you always get your way around here?”

  Eva looked chagrined, “I hope not?”

  Daum laughed, “You should see the look on your face. I think you get your way because you’re usually right.” He turned and spoke to Tarc sotto voce, “At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.”

  Daussie gave her a little hug, “It’s going to be great to have two anesthesiologists!”

  “Before we get too excited, we need to be sure my talent’s strong enough to put someone to sleep and keep them that way during a truly painful procedure.”

  ***

  Nylin had just finished making herself a sandwich with buttered sourdough bread, roast pork, cheese, lettuce, and tomato when she heard Tarc’s voice over her shoulder, “Wow, that looks really good. Can you show me how to make one for myself?”

  She glanced quickly up at him, but then her eyes dropped again practically against her will. “I can make you one,” she said softly.

  “I’m not helpless,” he said with a chuckle. “I just need you to make sure I get it right.” He pulled out a loaf of bread and sliced himself off a couple of slabs.

  “It’s simple, I’ll just tell you what to put on it. You start by buttering—”

  He scooped up some butter, then looked over at her with sad puppy-dog eyes. “Are you saying you won’t stay and supervise me?”

  “Um, sure,” Nylin said, watching him slice off a generous section of roast pork and drop it into place. She opened her mouth to tell him what went next, but he’d already picked up the cheese. As he laid a thick slice on top of the hot roast pork, she handed him some slices of tomato. By the time he’d laid them on his sandwich, she’d already pulled off a couple of leaves of lettuce.

  He smiled at her, “Thank you. Shall we sit out on the steps and eat our sandwiches?”

  She forced herself to lift her dark eyes to his startlingly blue ones. “That’d be nice.”

  ~~~

  They sat out in the late morning sun, eating their sandwiches. Nylin felt like it was the best sandwich she’d ever had. After she’d finished about half of it, she turned to Tarc. After hesitating for a moment, she said, “I’m pretty sure you remember helping me dig up the Ragas’ money before we left their camp?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tarc nod his head.

  “I’ve been wondering what I should do with that money. It seems like there should be something better than just hiding it.”

  Tarc said, “You’re probably right about that. My dad says not to let your money be lazy. Money should always be hard at work.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Tarc shrugged, “You could put it in a bank. They’d pay you interest on it. In theory, a bank’s safer than hiding it in your room where someone could steal it but it’s also a place where money works. On the other hand, even banks can have trouble. Our bank back in Walterston got robbed and couldn’t give us all our money back.” He snorted, “Much less pay us the interest they owed us.”

  “Should I bury it somewhere, like the Ragas did?”

  “No, then it’d be ‘lazy.’ You could also invest it in something.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You could start a business of your own.”

  “I don’t think it’s enough money for that.”

  “Or, you could go into partnership with someone else. Or even buy a small share of a bigger business. For example, if you bought a share of the tavern, the money could be invested to enlarge the kitchen and the dining room. Then the tavern could do more business and make bigger profits, some of which they’d owe to you.”

  “Oh,” she said thoughtfully. After a few moments, she asked, “How would I go about that?”

  Tarc looked out over the town below them. “If I were you, I’d ask Kazy. She likes healing, but she’s really interested in cooking and in the business of running the tavern too. I’ll bet she’s got lots of ideas for improvements that could be made with a little more money. She could even suggest ways for you to talk to Daum about it.”

  “Thank you,” Nylin said softly, feeling like she had a lot to think about.

  “There’s a caravan in town,” Tarc said, sounding nervous. “Would you… like to see if we can get the afternoon off to go look around?”

  Nylin’s breath caught short in her throat, but after a moment, she managed to say, “I’d like that a lot…”

  ***

  Taking a break from her reading, Eva looked around her new clinic room.

  They’d set it up in the largest of the six upstairs rooms at the tavern. That room also had two windows—whereas the other rooms only had one each—so during the day it had the best light. They’d moved two of the salvaged gurneys into the room and fitted them with mattresses. Not only were the gurneys narrower than regular beds—so they didn’t take up as much space—but they were tall enough that the healers could examine patients without bending over. Standing let you move around a patient more easily—important in a crisis.

  They’d bought some tall stools to sit on while taking care of people as well. Considering how long they sometimes crouched over patients, she was sure the stools would occasionally be welcome.

  The metal surfaces of the gurneys were easy to clean. Leather straps had replaced the ancient rubber on the wheels so the gurneys could be rolled around if needed.

  They’d also brought in several of the tall stainless steel cabinets Tarc had salvaged from the underground facility. They were easy to clean, and her reading had taught her that bacteria didn’t like to grow on metal. They’d put some of the cabinets in the kitchen downstairs as well.

  They were keeping their medical supplies in the cabinets now, which felt a lot more professional than keeping them on shelves in the kitchen as the had in the past. And, they’d put their medical books, old and new in the cabinets. By turning the cabinets so their backs were to the room, they’d formed an alcove the healers could step into. That way they could get down a book to read about a patient’s problem without the patients seeing the books—books by the ancients being against the law and reviled by many. In addition, the alcove provided a hidden location where they could prep
are medical instruments they didn’t want the patient to be intimidated by.

  The door opened and Vyrda stepped in. Vyrda opened her mouth to speak, but Eva broke in. “If you drain any abscesses, save some of the pus for me. I need something I can be sure has a lot of bacteria in it.” At Vyrda’s puzzled look she amplified, “For practice with the microscope.”

  “Okaay,” Vyrda said doubtfully. “How do you want me to save it?”

  “Hmm,” Eva said thoughtfully. She got up and walked around into the alcove of the cabinets, “How about one of these little glass jars we salvaged?” There’d been hundreds of small glass screwtop jars in boxes at the underground facility. The aged plastic of the screw caps was fragile but held together if you were gentle with it. Eva pictured using them for all kinds of specimens they might collect for the microscope. Urine, sputum, blood, and of course, pus.

  Vyrda took the little glass jar and slipped it into a pocket. “I came in to talk to you about a couple of patients who have cancer.” She shrugged, “I thought about just trying to heat their tumors like Tarc showed me in Mrs. Gates. But then, I remembered how you’d said we should consult one another as much as possible, since consultations were such a great way to learn from one another.” She frowned, “And one of them has so much tumor I don’t think I could kill all of it if I spent the entire day. Maybe he’d be a better one for Tarc?”

  Eva drew in a mildly alarmed breath. “Oh! I don’t think, even if you could, that you should try to kill that much tumor all at one time. After the tumor dies, the body has to break down the dead cells and carry them away. All those broken down cells are kind of toxic, so you should try not to give the body too much of a burden to deal with all at one time.”

  Vyrda looked upset. “I should’ve realized that.” She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, then said, “I think I should have all my patients see you before I treat them. I’m just beginning to see how important consultation is.”

  Eva gave a little laugh, “Well, I don’t think you should make someone with an abscess wait until I’m available. You certainly know how to treat that problem already, and it’s pretty urgent.”

  With a little shrug, Vyrda said, “Still, unless there’s a reason I can’t, I’d like to bring even those to see you if I can. Is that okay?”

  Eva nodded eagerly, “Yes. I’d very much like that. In fact, if you’d like, I could go with you to see your cancer patients right now.”

  Vyrda pulled back in surprise, “Don’t you have to start cooking for the lunch rush?”

  Eva produced an uncertain nod, “I do. But Daum’s always happy to do the cooking if I’m taking care of patients. He knows patient care’s what I really love. And, with all these extra people we’ve got helping us, he can get things done even if I’m gone a little.”

  “He’s a good man,” Vyrda said with a smile. She straightened “But, don’t abuse him if you don’t have to. I’ll bring the patients with cancer over here in the midmorning or mid-afternoon when things are slow in the kitchen.”

  Eva gave her an alarmed look, “When am I going to get my reading done? And learn how to use the microscope, and find some stains for the bacteria, and…”

  She ran down as Vyrda waved her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You do those things in the mornings. I’ll only bring patients for the mid-afternoon slowdown, okay?”

  “Patients with chronic illnesses. Anyone with an acute problem, you bring them any time of day or night.”

  Vyrda grinned. “Like stab wounds to the liver?” she said, reminding Eva how she’d already brought a patient in the middle of the night.

  Eva laughed, “Yeah, like those.” She got a serious look, “Now that Daum’s tapped his first kegs, we’re starting to get busy in the evenings. So, he’s staying up late running the bar and I’m trying to let him sleep in in the morning. I do breakfast, we share lunch and dinner duties, and he, Kazy and Tarc run the bar in the evenings. Your plan of me studying in the mornings when things get slow, then seeing patients in the afternoon works pretty well with that schedule. If things get too busy for me to read in the morning,” she grinned, “I’ll just have to stay stupid.”

  “Um,” Vyrda said hesitantly.

  Eva gave her an amused look, “What is it?”

  “Um, I already brought in a patient this morning. An old friend. Would you mind talking to him? Or should I bring him back this afternoon?”

  “Of course I’ll see him. We can’t make him go away and come back for my convenience. What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s been slowly going blind. Apparently, his father went blind in the same fashion and he doesn’t think anything can be done about it, but he thought he’d ask.”

  “What do you see when you examine him?”

  “When I look in his eye with my ghirit, everything seems normal.” Vyrda shrugged, “But when I look at him with my eyes, his pupils look like they’ve got… clouds in them.”

  “Oh,” Eva said, disappointed. “It sounds like he’s got cataracts.”

  Vyrda winced, “From the look on your face, I’d guess it’s another of the millions of things we can’t do anything about, right?”

  Shoulders slumping, Eva said, “Yeah.” She got up, “One of the new books I brought home from the salvage site’s about ophthalmology. Let’s see what it says about cataracts before we talk to your patient.”

  ~~~

  After they’d read about them, Vyrda thought the patient did have cataracts. They both felt grim about their prospects of doing anything for him. Nonetheless, Vyrda led him up to the clinic room so they could examine him together. As she came into the room, she was saying, “So, I’m afraid there’s probably not anything we can do, but I wanted Ms. Hyllis to see your eyes for herself before we decided that for sure.” Vyrda paused and motioned to Eva, “Eva Hyllis, this is Brendan Geller.”

  Geller looked to be in his 70s. Eva’s first thought was that he had to have been a lucky man to have lived to such an age without sustaining any fatal afflictions. “Hello, Mr. Geller. Are you otherwise healthy? Besides your eyes, I mean?”

  Geller bobbed a little nod, “I’ve got some aches and pains, but I remind myself every morning that I’m lucky to have lived this long.” He produced a worried frown, “Though, now that I’m getting almost completely blind like my father did, I don’t feel so lucky any more.”

  Eva had him sit, then took his hands and said, “I like to sit quietly with my patients before we get down to making a diagnosis and trying to come up with a treatment.”

  “Okay,” Geller said, not sounding impatient, just resigned.

  Eva quietly explored his body with her ghirit. His brain seemed healthy, including the occipital lobes where vision was processed. The arteries in his neck and those going to his heart didn’t have much plaque. She went through the rest of him relatively quickly, not encountering any cancers or other abnormalities. No wonder he’s still alive, she thought, he’s healthy as a horse.

  Finally, she turned her attention to his eyes, which seemed completely normal to her ghirit. Eva even took a moment to compare his eyes to Vyrda’s. As far as her ghirit was concerned everything seemed the same between the two of them. She lifted her eyes to look into his and saw the cloudiness Vyrda’d mentioned. “How bad is your vision?”

  “Well,” he said reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a piece of glass on a string, “even before my eyes got cloudy, I was having to use a lens to read fine writing. It still helps, but now, even using the lens, I strain to figure out one letter at a time. I can’t really go anywhere without anyone to guide me, and… I just feel so helpless.”

  Eva stared at the piece of glass. Demonstrating, the man pulled it up to his eye and looked through it at her. She noticed that his eye looked bigger when he did so. Henry Roper had worn lenses in front of both of his eyes. Roper said they were technology from the ancients that helped him see better, but Eva hadn’t ever looked at them very carefully. Now she asked, “Where’d yo
u get that lens, Mr. Geller?”

  “From one of the antiquities dealers. It was cheaper ’cause it was broken, but,” he shook his head, “still expensive.” Hearing her interest, he lifted the string from around his neck and handed the lens to her, “Careful, it’s got a sharp edge where it broke.”

  Eva thought the lens was probably about half of a lens like the ones that Roper’d had mounted in front of his eyes. Because of the break, she could see it was thicker in the middle and thinner at the edges. She held it up and looked at her hand through it. It magnifies, she thought, though not nearly as much as the microscope. “And this helped you see even before you got the cataracts?”

  “Cataracts?”

  “An ancient term for the cloudiness in the lens of your eye.”

  “My eye has a lens in it?” he asked, sounding quite surprised.

  Eva nodded. “It’s getting cloudy, like ancient glass that’s scratched and worn.” Even in their present times, much of the glass in buildings and the glassware used for drinking was salvaged from the cities of the ancients. There’d been so many people, and so many buildings back in the old times, that something as durable as glass—despite breakage—was still plentiful after the centuries. Even new glass, blown by glassblowers, was almost all made from old glass that’d broken and been melted down.

  Geller waved at the lens in Eva’s hand, “If only you could take out my old, cloudy lens and put in a piece of that one.”

  A cold shock shot down Eva’s spine.

  Her surprise had two causes. First, the realization that Daussie actually could remove his old lens. Her brief look at the book on ophthalmology had mentioned that as an antiquated treatment for cataracts. Unfortunately, it required the patient to use very thick heavy external lenses to compensate for the lost function of the absent internal lens of the eye. Second, the hand he waved at her had splotchy stains on it. Not wanting to address the possibility of removing the man’s lens until she’d had a good deal more time to think about it, she focused on the stains. “What caused all those blue spots on your fingers?”