Eva said, “Tarc says that the walls of Susie’s heart are thick?”
Daussie’s eyes flashed to Tarc, “Um…”
“Um, you didn’t notice. Or um, Tarc’s wrong?”
In a small voice, Daussie said, “Um, I was too focused on the lungs, I guess.”
Tarc noticed Nylin edging up behind Eva and Daussie, listening intently and looking puzzled. He said, “Mom, maybe Nylin should go help Kazy and Grace work on the stew and the salad while you’re looking at our patient?”
Eva looked back over her shoulder and saw Nylin. “Yes, that’s a great idea. Nylin, would you mind helping out over there so they don’t fall too far behind?”
Nylin looked worried. “I’d be happy to help, but I don’t really know what to do.”
Eva patted her shoulder and sent her on the way, saying, “Kazy’s helped make stew quite a few times. If she doesn’t know what to do, you could at least be the one to run back over here with questions.”
They moved over to Susie and her mother. Eva learned Susie was indeed three years old and commented to Daussie and Tarc that she agreed that Susie looked to be about the right size for a two-year-old. She talked about the pulsations that were visible behind Susie’s collarbones. Tarc thought she was talking about these things, both to tell Tarc that she agreed with what he’d seen and to make sure that Daussie noticed them.
Eva paused then. Both Tarc and Daussie understood she was sending in her ghost. After a moment, she murmured, “I see what you mean about the lungs being thick and wet, but I think the problem’s coming from Susie’s heart. If you’ll pay careful attention, you’ll see there’s an abnormal connection between the aorta and the pulmonary artery just above where it leaves the left ventricle. I think that connection’s increasing the blood pressure in the lungs which is supposed to be a lot lower than the pressure out in the body”
Tarc already had his ghost in the girl. He immediately focused on the aorta, the large artery that came out of the left side of the heart to feed the entire body. He focused in on where it came out of the heart. It started branching shortly after it left the heart and he wasn’t even close to having learned all the branches, so he didn’t know if any of them were abnormal. Giving up on that, he tried tracing the pulmonary artery which was the big artery that came out of the right side of the heart and went to the lungs. It was simpler because it just split into two big arteries, one for each lung. Oh, he thought, noticing a connection or branch to the aorta. And blood’s flowing from the aorta into the pulmonary artery. He couldn’t remember any such vessel in the anatomy books. That shouldn’t be happening, should it? Tentatively, he said, “I think I see what you mean…”
He sent his ghost into the older sister. With a sense of minor triumph, he realized that there wasn’t any such connection in the healthy sister. Well, wait. There is something there, but there isn’t any blood flowing through it. It’s more like just a strap of tissue. Could something have formed a channel inside that strap in Susie?
Looking up, Tarc realized Eva was talking to the child’s mother. “…think we understand what’s going on. But, we’re going to need to talk amongst ourselves to see if we can come up with any ideas about how we might be able to treat Susie. Can you come back tomorrow?”
The mother looked upset. “Can’t you at least give me some medicine for her now?”
From the look on Eva’s face, Tarc thought she was searching for the best way to explain, but not coming up with much. She spoke slowly and tentatively, “The problem is that Susie was born with an abnormal heart… That’s not something that can be easily fixed with medicine…” Then, with sudden resolve, she said, “It’s as if you’d prepared many of the ingredients to cook onion soup when suddenly you realized that the onions had all gone bad. You might decide you needed to talk to some other cooks to decide what else you could make with the ingredients you had ready. Whether it might be better to make cabbage soup, or tomato soup, or…”
Snatching her up, Susie’s mother said, “My daughter is not soup.” She strode away.
Eva watched her go. After a moment, she said contemplatively, “Maybe that wasn’t the best analogy to use…”
Daussie looked appalled, but Tarc laughed. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”
Eva looked around at the partially set up booth. “Tarc, you finish setting up the booth. Daussie, you go read whatever we have about congenital anomalies of the heart. See if you can figure out what kind of anomaly Susie has and whether there’s anything we can do about it. I’ll go back to fixing dinner with Kazy and the new girls.
Tarc thought, Why do I have to set up the booth? I could read about congenital anomalies as well as… He snorted, Except, I’d rather set up the booth.
As he worked to finish setting up the booth, he wondered whether they could just close off that abnormal connection somehow. Though, I surely don’t want to cut the girl’s chest open to get in there and tie a suture around it!
***
That evening as the caravaners came through the line to get their stew and salad, many of them commented on how they’d missed the Hyllis’s cooking the past few nights.
Tarc’s father laughed and said they’d have to take occasional nights off from cooking in the future, just so the caravan would continue to appreciate them.
Tarc was disappointed that Lizeth didn’t come through the line, but then when she did—just before they closed up—she commented that she’d purposefully waited until later, hoping that Tarc might be able to take time off to come eat with her.
When he asked, Daussie rolled her eyes but told him to go ahead. As he walked away, she called after him, “You owe me an early break from the breakfast line tomorrow morning.”
Tarc waved acquiescence and continued following Lizeth over to where she usually sat to eat with the guards. When they sat down, Wayne eyed Tarc and said, “Lizeth, lately you’ve had this puppy following you pretty much everywhere. What’s going on?”
Tarc felt color rising in his cheeks, but Lizeth finish chewing, swallowed, then arched an eyebrow at Wayne, saying, “Occasionally I like to talk to someone who’s smarter than my horse.” She turned to Tarc, grinned and said, “Did you hear how we decided to divide up the Ragas’ horses?”
Tarc slowly shook his head and took another bite, realizing that he’d just assumed all fourteen belonged to the Hyllises, a division that obviously wouldn’t be fair. Well, you could argue it was fair since we’re the ones that killed all the Ragas, but we don’t really want that to get out.
“We decided to divide them up according to how many people were in each group.” She grinned at Tarc, “I argued that each of the three groups should get an equal share, but that was just to establish a good position to negotiate from.”
“Three groups?”
Lizeth frowned at him, “Of course,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers. “The Hyllises, the Ropers, and the Salders,” at this last, she placed her hand on her own chest, reminding him her last name was Salder. She arched an eyebrow, “I thought each group should get four horses and two should go to the caravan for the loan of the guards’ horses.”
Tarc rolled his eyes and snorted.
She leaned closer and whispered, “Aren’t you going to argue they should all be the Hyllis’s since you guys are the ones that killed all the Ragas?”
He grinned at her, “I thought that was obvious.”
“Oh, aren’t you uppity? Do I need to give you another lesson in swordsmanship?”
“No, no!” Tarc said leaning away as if terrified. He raised his palms in surrender, “Not that!” He leaned closer and whispered himself, “Well, not unless you let me give you a lesson in knife throwing?”
She gave him a serious look back, “Actually, I’d kind of like that.” Then she smiled again, “But the way we finally divvied up the horses was; one for me, two for the Ropers, and five for you five Hyllises. I didn’t raise much of a stink since, after all, you guys did do all the killin’. B
ut I did argue for and get first pick since I only got one horse. I took that handsome little red stallion.”
Tarc knew the one she was talking about because he’d hoped for it himself. However, he realized it was a perfect horse for someone like Lizeth. Spirited and strong, but not huge. “Good for you,” he said, wondering what the Hyllises would do with their five. To Lizeth, he said, “So, that’s eight horses, and we brought back fourteen. What’re we doing with the other six?”
“Two to the caravan and four to be sold, with us splitting the coin from the sales in the same ratio we split the eight horses.”
“Oh,” Tarc said, wondering whether he’d see any of that coin himself. Then his eyes focused on two of the other guards. Jason was giving Sam a coin and looked pretty irritated. They seemed to be arguing, though they were doing it quietly enough that Tarc couldn’t really hear. A moment later, Sam shrugged and held up what looked like a 7.5 centimeter (3 inch) nail. He was pinching the pointed tip between two fingers with the head end hanging down.
Jason reached out and placed two fingers, one on either side of the head.
Sam dropped the nail; Jason snapped his fingers closed on empty air as the nail had fallen past them; Sam caught the nail in his other hand—well below Jason’s hand.
Jason looked furious but nodded at Sam who held the nail up by its tip once again.
The same pattern followed, with Sam dropping the nail and Jason desperately trying to catch it but failing to do so.
They did this one more time, then Jason got out another coin and handed it over. He got up and walked away stiffly, though Tarc suspected he felt like stamping.
Lizeth had seen where Tarc’s eyes were and begun watching the second time Sam dropped the nail. “What do you think they’re doing?” she asked.
Tarc said, “It looks to me like they’re gambling on whether Jason can catch that nail when Sam drops it.”
Sounding puzzled, Lizeth asked, “Why didn’t he?”
Giving it some thought, Tarc slowly said, “I think it falls faster than a person can react…”
“That’s silly,” Lizeth said, getting up and starting toward Sam.
“You haven’t finished eating,” Tarc said, not wanting Lizeth to talk to her old boyfriend.
“Bring my plate,” she said to Tarc over her shoulder, still walking toward Sam.
Unhappily thinking about how Wayne called him a puppy for following Lizeth around, Tarc picked up both their plates and trailed after her. When he got there, Sam was explaining the game. “I drop it five times. If you catch it three times, you win a silver. If you drop it three times I win a half silver.”
Lizeth sat down across from him. “Okay, you’re on. But if I catch you cheating I’m going to take a gold away from you.”
Sam shook his head, “No cheating. All I do is drop the nail. You’re the one who’s catching it. You catch it three times out of five, you get the silver. There’s not actually any way I could cheat you.”
Lizeth studied him for a moment, then held out her fingers about two centimeters apart. “Drop your damned nail.”
He dropped it. She caught it. In fact, she caught it before it fell more than a centimeter.
She caught it three times in a row, then held out her palm, “Give me my silver.”
With a stunned look on his face, Sam got out a silver and put it in her hand.
Lizeth said, “Wanna do it again?”
His eyes a little wide, Sam shook his head, dropped the nail, got up, and walked away.
From reading his mother’s medical books, Tarc knew it took a certain amount of time for nerves to transmit their impulses. He’d assumed the amount of time it took for a message from her eyes to reach her brain—telling her the nail was falling—and for her brain to process the message and send it back out to her hand—telling it to grab the nail—was long enough that the circuit couldn’t be completed before the nail fell far enough her fingers could no longer close on it.
He picked up the nail. It seemed completely ordinary. He dropped it, and it fell like any other object. He glanced at Lizeth. She was giving him a suspicious look. He said, “Can you drop it while I try to catch it?”
She snorted, “I just got this silver. I’m not ready to give it to you.”
“Not for a silver or anything. Just to see if I can do it. I think you’re so fast…” He licked his lips, “It seems easy, but I’ll bet you’re the only person who can catch this nail… Except by accident.”
She grinned and lifted an eyebrow, “You might be right. I am quicker with a sword than anyone I know. But I think that’s just ’cause I practice a lot.” She picked up the nail and held it out.
Tarc put his fingers on either side of the head of the nail. She dropped it and his fingers closed on nothing.
The nail had fallen past them.
They did this five times, the last two with his fingers a couple of centimeters below the head of the nail to give him more time to catch it.
He still missed every time.
Her eyebrows were up, “No wonder you’re crap with a sword!”
Tarc shook his head, “You’re right. I’m nothing special with a sword. But I don’t think anyone else can catch this nail either. This’s why you’re so good with the sword—because you’re so much faster than anyone else.”
“Maybe…” she said thoughtfully giving a one-shoulder shrug.
“Let me drop it for you a few more times?”
She shrugged and held out her fingers with a gap between them. Tarc put the nail between her fingers so that her fingers were about halfway down its shank, rather than level with its head.
He dropped, she caught.
With a puzzled look, she put her hand back down on the table, saying, “This really isn’t that hard.”
It’s like she knows I’m going to do it before I let go, he thought, astonished. “Wait,” he said, “try it one more time.” When she put her hand out there, he positioned the nail between her fingertips, then put his left hand up so it blocked her view of the nail.
“What?” she said, “That’s not fair…” She stopped speaking when she realized that he’d dropped the nail…
…and she’d caught it.
Tarc jerked his hands back in astonishment. He hadn’t really thought she’d be able to catch it if she couldn’t see it. Was it just an accident? he wondered. “You can’t have really done that,” he said, “I don’t think… Can we try that one more time?”
They did, and she caught it again. They did it a third time just to be sure it hadn’t been some kind of bizarre coincidence.
But it wasn’t.
A bolt shot through Tarc as he suddenly thought, She has an ability! By that he wasn’t referring to her unusual quickness, but to the fact that he thought she had something like the Hyllis family’s ghosts and telekinetic or teleportation abilities. “Where’s the sun?” he asked suddenly.
She gave him a puzzled look, then waved to the west, “Somewhere behind those mountains I suppose.”
The wide sweep of her hand certainly encompassed the direction where his ghost could feel the heat of the sun. But Tarc didn’t think she’d been any more accurate than any other person of ordinary intelligence would’ve been. She certainly didn’t point right at it like the rest of the Hyllises could. Wondering about this, he slowly put the nail in his pocket.
Lizeth got up, stepped a little closer, then slowly settled into his lap. An arm snaked up around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss that fully disconnected his higher mental functions from further consideration of the phenomenon.
***
As they were sitting around their lamp, talking before bedding down for the night, Daussie looked around. Tarc thought she was checking to be sure Farlin, Nylin, and Grace hadn’t returned. They’d been over at the main fire, getting to know some of the other caravaners. She turned back to the family, “I worked out what’s wrong with that little girl’s heart.”
Eva perked up, “Wh
at is it?”
Taking on a lecturing tone, Daussie said, “It’s called a ‘patent ductus arteriosus.’ It’s something that’s normal in the fetus prior to birth. While the baby’s in the uterus, the lungs aren’t getting any air and therefore they aren’t oxygenating the blood that passes through them. Instead, blood with oxygen is coming through the umbilical cord from the mother and the lungs actually need oxygenated blood the same as the rest of the body does. The fetus has a couple of connections between the two sides of the heart that help the oxygenated blood from the umbilical cord get mixed together with the rest of the blood and then distributed to the most important organs, especially the brain. Those connections normally close shortly after birth to give the baby the kind of circulation we have as adults; where blood goes through the lungs first to get oxygen, then goes back to the heart to be sent out to the rest of the body. However, sometimes those mixing connections persist after birth and cause problems.”
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