Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic (15 page)

Mr. Calder stood up suddenly, stepping to Jacob and reaching into his pockets one at a time. “
I’d forgotten. Jacob had five silver pieces. He was supposed to be getting us some leather for the shop.” Having checked the last pocket Calder turned and said, “The money’s gone!”

The second deputy turned the first and said, “With
the stranger having made his escape we can’t check that.”

“No, of course not.” The first deputy said disgustedly.

The witness stepped closer and said, “Are you trying to blame this boy? ‘Cause the most he did to start any fight was to grab a man by the shoulder that he thought had picked his pocket! If you’re gonna arrest anyone for this, it ought to be the man who knifed someone for touching him!”

The deputy puffed up angrily for a moment, then deflated. “You’re right. I’d be blamin’ that man if he were here to blame. I’m just so upset about Miller…”

From
Tarc’s perspective things gradually calmed down. The deputies left and, after they’d had lunch, many of the onlookers departed as well. The afternoon lull in business came on a little slower than usual. The Calders stayed, and when Jacob woke up a little more Ms. Calder industriously spooned thick soup into him.

Jacob still looked white as could be, and his heart still beat rapidly. Eva finally said that
Tarc didn’t have to sit with him all the time, but told him to stop back and check on the bleeding every ten minutes or so. Out in the kitchen, Tarc asked his mother, “How can you stand the way Ms. Calder talks to you? You were saving her son’s life, yet she was doubting you at every turn!”

Eva looked pensive, then said, “When bad things happen… people lash out. They have to be angry at
someone
because something horrible has happened to themselves or someone they love.” She shrugged, “Often times we, who are
trying
to care for them, are the most convenient people to be mad at. It’s hard, but you should try not to take it personally.”

Tarc
blinked a few times as he pondered this. He could understand the reasoning, but wondered if he could keep from yelling back at someone who was being rude to him while he was trying to take care of them. His mother always seemed so unruffled… “How do you stay so calm? Jacob might die, his mother’s acting like a jerk, yet somehow you were able to talk to everyone like you were as cool as fresh well water.”

Eva gave a little snort, “My Dad taught me that no matter how bad things were, the healer should stay tranquil. If the healer’s upset, everyone around them gets flustered too
. That only makes things worse.”

Tarc
thought about it for another minute, then said, “I can push blood from one place to another inside of Jacob. I’ve been wondering if I should have pushed some of the blood that was around his intestines back through the wound in his spleen and into his vessels?”

Eva’s eyes widened in startlement. “Oh!
I never thought of that possibility!” She got a distant look on her face, then said musingly, “Probably, the liquid you can move around is only serum. The blood that’s in his abdomen will be clotting. You remember from your reading that blood is made of the red cells which carry oxygen, and plasma, the fluid that the red cells are carried in?”

Tarc
nodded.

“If the proteins in plasma that are responsible for clotting blood
have been used up to clot something, then the fluid that’s left is called ‘serum.’ What we would really like to put back into his veins is
all
the components of blood, including the red blood cells and the clotting factors. But, to do that, you need chemicals that will keep the blood from clotting, which we don’t have.” She shrugged, “But I’m pretty sure that even serum would be much better than the saline I gave him. If we ever have a patient like this again you should try pushing the liquid part of the blood back into their vessels. Don’t push anything with clots into their veins though, that could be really bad.”

Feeling overwhelmed by how much his mother knew that he didn’t
, despite all the time he’d spent reading their medical books, Tarc wondered if he’d ever be able to learn it all. He said, “I’d better go check on Jacob again.”

Eva nodded and
Tarc went back out to the big room. He leaned over Jacob and sent his ghost in to make sure the spleen had not started bleeding again. Mrs. Calder said with asperity, “When is Eva going to come check on Jacob again?”

Tarc
bit back an angry retort. He was a little surprised to find that he could speak in a calm tone despite his irritation. “She’ll be out again in a little bit. Jacob is doing fine right now.” He looked over and saw that the wood by the big fireplace was getting low. He headed back out through the kitchen, picking up his wood strap.

After Tarc had replenished their wood and water, he expected to be sent to the store for supplies. To his surprise, Eva told him that Daum had sent a list to the store with one of the men who’d come in for lunch. The store was going to deliver. “Uh, do you just want me to sit with Jacob then?”

“No,” Eva smiled at him, “I want you to go upstairs and study.” She hugged him briefly, “You’re going to be able to do so many things for people
Tarc! You have such a wonderful ability.” She frowned, “But, you must have knowledge to be able to use it well…” She finished huskily, “All the knowledge you can possibly get.”

Tarc
blinked, not sure whether he felt more proud of what she
thought
he could do, or more irritated about being sent up to study on such an exciting day. He should have practiced with his knives on one of his trips out to get wood.

He’d been planning to do it when he went for supplies.

That night, Eva had them carry down another mattress and put it next to the table Jacob was on. Feeling surprised at this,
Tarc said, “I can stay down here with him.”

Eva snorted, “I’m going to be checking
frequently to make sure he hasn’t started bleeding again. I
know
how you sleep. You wouldn’t check him again until morning!”

Tarc
ducked his head, realizing that was probably true.

***

Eva told Jacob he would have to stay in bed for the next four days. In the afternoon of the day after he had been stabbed, she had four men carry him up the stairs on his mattress. They put him in one of the guest rooms. He wasn’t even allowed up to the chamber pot, instead having to go in a big shallow bowl Eva called a “bedpan”. Tarc had to carry that out to the outhouse to empty it, which embarrassed both Jacob and himself.

Eva fed
Jacob meat for every meal, claiming he needed the “protein” in meat to make more blood. She also made him eat liver for the vitamins. Jacob tried to refuse but Eva went in and talked to him alone. Tarc didn’t know what she said to him, but after that Jacob ate liver with a minimum of complaining.

The morning after Jacob had been carried upstairs, Mrs. Gates appeared out at Eva’s treatment table.
Tarc had just come out of the kitchen and found her sitting there. “Oh, hello Mrs. Gates,” he said.

She stared at him dully for a moment
; then said in a bitter tone, “Tell your Mama I’m here to hear her tell me that she won’t help me one more time.”

Tarc
found himself desperately wanting to say something about catching more flies with honey than vinegar. However, he realized he really didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Gates at all. Saying only, “Okay,” he turned and went back into the kitchen.

His mother was kneading dough.
Tarc said, “Mrs. Gates is back. She’s talking just as ugly as she always does.”

Eva looked up and blew a few stray hairs away from her face. “You might talk ugly too, if you were dying of cancer.”

Tarc shrugged, granting that it might be true, but then said, “I just think that people would be more likely to help her if she didn’t act so hostile to everyone.”

Eva grinned at him, “That’s probably true, but I thought you wanted to try your new ‘heating’ idea on her tumors?
Are you going to refuse, just because she’s a sad, desperate, dying woman?”

Tarc
blinked, startled to realize that somehow he’d forgotten his own idea! “No, I’d… still like to try it. Unless you think it might make her worse?”

“It might, I don’t know. I’ll go ask her if she wants to try
something that might or might not work.”

“Um, do I need to come with you?”
Tarc asked, hoping not to spend any more time around the woman than he had to.

“No,” Eva laughed, “you stay here and knead
the dough for me. You’d rather do that, wouldn’t you?”

Tarc
nodded sheepishly and walked around the counter.

Eva came back in the kitchen and sighed. “She… really is a hard woman to talk to. When I offered to try a new kind of treatment, she barked at me for ‘holding it back all this time trying to get more money out of her.’” Eva snorted, “As if she’d actually paid me for most of her treatments in the past!”

“Really? She hasn’t paid for the willow bark or poppy tea
you’ve given her?”

Eva shrugged, “She’s paid sometimes, but only after dickering
about the price. When she’s really angry, she just takes her tea and leaves.” Eva paused, thinking, “Anyway, she’s agreed to try your treatment, but if she realizes that it’s actually
your
treatment rather than mine I’m sure she’ll balk.”

Tarc
certainly believed
that
. “What are you going to do?”

Eva cast her eyes around the kitchen. They fell on the high shelf where she kept some of her medical equipment.
Tarc saw that the glass bottles Eva and Daussie had used to put saline into Jacobs vein had been re-filled and put back up there. Presumably, they’d been pressure cooked as well. He wondered when that had happened. His mother went and got the glass beaker she had asked Tarc to collect Denny Smith’s urine specimen in. “Okay,” Eva said, “Here’s what we’ll do.” She grabbed a handful of cotton balls and stuffed them in the beaker. Then she picked up a bottle, unstoppered it and poured some fluid onto the cotton balls. Tarc recognized moonshine from the smell. “We’ll invert this over her chest in the region of some of the tumors in her lungs. I’ll tell you to hold it in place for… is ten minutes long enough?”

Tarc
nodded.

“That way she’ll think you’re only
holding it so I can get back to the kitchen. You do your thing and I’ll come back in ten minutes and we’ll take it off.” She looked at Tarc questioningly, “Does that seem reasonable?”

Tarc
nodded again, surprised to have his mother asking him about something medical. They went back out to the great room. Eva had Mrs. Gates lie flat on the table and Tarc sit on the bench next to her chest. Eva undid a couple of buttons on Mrs. Gates’ blouse, then quickly inverted the beaker onto her chest directly over two of the bigger tumors Tarc could sense there. The strong smell of the moonshine bit at his nose. Eva studied it for a moment, then said, “Tarc is going to sit here and hold the treatment vessel in place. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

Mrs. Gates said, “I’ll hold it myself! I don’t need no damned teenager holding something against my chest!”

Tarc had just put his hands on the beaker. His eyes darted up to his mother. Her eyes were closed and she was biting her lower lip. He couldn’t tell whether she was biting her lip in frustration, or to keep from laughing. He took his hands away as Mrs. Gates gripped the beaker herself.

After a few seconds more, Eva opened her eyes and calmly said, “Mrs. Gates, we are going to do this
my
way, or we’re
not
going to do it at all. I need for Tarc to hold the treatment vessel. His life force is an important part of the treatment.”

Life force?
Tarc thought. His mother didn’t believe in anything like that… he didn’t think. Then he thought to himself that “life force” was as good a description as “ghost” for his talent. He felt pretty sure however, that Eva just didn’t want to explain what was
really
going to happen. For a moment, he wondered whether they didn’t have some moral obligation to be honest about it. But Gates wouldn’t understand, really, what they were trying to do. Besides, the crotchety old lady would probably talk to others about whatever Eva said, thus endangering the Hyllis family secret.

Gates slowly let go of the beaker and lowered her hands down to her sides. It looked like she was gritting her teeth, but she said nothing.
Tarc reached out and gingerly took hold of the beaker. Pleasantly, Eva said, “Thank you Mrs. Gates. I’ll be back in ten minutes or so.”

Tarc
sent his ghost in and felt the two tumors under the beaker. As before, they were warmer and seemed bitter as compared to the tissue around them. Leaning closer to give his ghost more power, he increased the vibration of the molecules in them, making them warmer and warmer. Suddenly he wondered just how warm he needed to make them to kill the tissue there. He had some idea how hot he’d made the fly before it died, but thought that perhaps there might be a big difference between how much heat killed a fly and how much heat killed a cancer. Then he wondered if Mrs. Gates was going to feel pain from the heat in her tumor.