Later, as he hitched the wagon to go for a cord of wood, Tarc wondered whether his talent might be strengthened by exercise. Perhaps it would be similar to the way his arms had strengthened from his daily chores carrying wood and water for the tavern?
Resolving to exercise whatever talent he did have, Tarc picked up a pebble and put it on the wagon seat next to him. As he drove out to the wood cutter’s lot he pushed the pebble back and forth across the seat for practice. After a bit he had an inspiration and tried lifting it off the seat.
With a feeling of awe, he watched the pebble rise an inch or two off the seat and float along there. He held it up there while the wagon rolled on several blocks. Eventually Tarc dropped it with the sensation that he couldn’t really hold it up much longer. It didn’t exactly make him tired, but did give him a mild headache.
After picking up a load of firewood from the wood cutter’s lot outside the wall, Tarc started the drive back to the tavern. Deputy Jarvis was on duty at the gate in the wall. Tarc said, “Thanks for your help with that soldier last night.”
“That’s our job,” Jarvis said. He smiled and winked, “It does make the job more pleasant when you feed us dinner for doing it.”
“That guy was huge!”
Jarvis grimaced, “Yeah, it’s a good thing there were three of us.”
As he checked through the gate, Tarc wondered whether three deputies would have been enough, had the giant soldier decided to fight.
Back on the road, Tarc once again suspended the pebble just above the seat. Focused on the pebble, he wasn’t much paying attention to his surroundings. After all, their old horse, Shogun, knew her own way home.
A call startled Tarc and his pebble fell, dropping to the floorboards. “Young Hyllis. Can you give me a ride down to your tavern? Something’s gone wrong with my foot.”
Tarc drew back on the reins, bringing their little wagon to a halt. Old John Benson, the florid overweight man who owned the general store, leaned heavily on a cane beside the road. Benson was a regular customer at the tavern, frequently coming in for a drink and often a meal. Tarc waited for Benson to board, eyeing his pebble and wondering whether he could float it back up from the floorboards without Benson noticing. He decided not. Somehow, he already knew that it wouldn’t be good if others became aware of his family’s talents.
Benson settled onto the seat next to Tarc with a sigh, “This old foot is killing me!”
“How did you hurt it?”
“I didn’t. It just started swelling in the middle of the damn night. My big toe turned red and now it hurts so bad I can barely walk on it.” Benson reached down to loosen the laces on his shoe with a sigh. “I hope your Mama will know what to do for it.”
“Is it hot?” Tarc asked, eyeing Benson’s foot out of the corner of his eye. Tarc’s mother had said often enough that red, hot, swollen, and tender were the four signs of infection. Infection could be horrible, killing people quickly. Sometimes though, people with infections seemed to be the ones that his mother could help the most.
Benson turned to look at Tarc, “How did you know? You going into your mom’s business?”
Tarc shrugged, “She’s been teaching me a few things.” He didn’t want to go into the training that his mother had been giving her children over the years in the hope they would follow in her footsteps. Or the fact that he didn’t know if that’s what he wanted to do. He liked Benson and felt concern that an infection in the man’s foot might be much more dangerous than Benson seemed to realize. On the other hand, he didn’t want to worry the man unnecessarily. “I’ll pull up to the front first, so you don’t have to walk so far.”
As soon as Tarc stopped the wagon in front of the tavern, he ran in to get his father. Daum came out and helped Benson up the steps to the great room. Anxious to see what was the matter with Benson, Tarc drove the wagon around back and hurriedly unloaded it into the woodshed. He hustled to put Shogun and the wagon into the stable, all the while wondering whether his mother would be able to help Benson. As quickly as he could, he loaded his strap with wood and headed into the great room.
As he had hoped, as soon as he stacked that load of wood his father eyed him and jerked his head towards Eva who was with Mr. Benson in the corner. Rolling up his strap Tarc approached them. Mr. Benson sat up on the table where Mama so frequently examined and treated people who came to her for care. Both of Benson’s feet were bare and Tarc could see that the left one was swollen and red around the base of the great toe. Tarc stared uneasily at Benson’s foot, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
Tarc’s mother looked up at him and said, “Tarc, have a look at Mr. Benson’s foot. What do you think?”
Tarc, worried that Benson would be angry to have a boy involved in his care, bent over the foot. “Umm…”
His mother interrupted him, “Be very gentle. It came on in the night and now it’s so sensitive that Mr. Benson can barely stand to have it touched. But,” she admonished, “don’t try to make a diagnosis without actually examining your patient.”
My patient?! Tarc thought with dismay. Even more worried that Benson would be angry to have a boy examining him, Tarc reached out and gently stroked the angry red skin. It blanched white as Tarc’s finger rubbed over it, immediately turning red again after the finger had passed. Benson drew it away, obviously feeling pain from even such a light touch. The skin felt hot. Red, hot, swollen, and painful, Tarc thought, the signs of infection!
Tarc looked up at his mother, uncertain what he should do or say, but feeling dismayed for Mr. Benson.
His mother merely gazed at him, unperturbed. “Well, what do you think?”
Tarc cleared his throat; then mumbled, “It could be an infection?” He hoped this possible diagnosis didn’t upset Mr. Benson. He glanced at Benson out of the corner of his eye, but Benson didn’t look upset.
Tarc’s mother said, “That could be. What makes you think it?”
“It’s red, hot, swollen, and painful.”
“Correct. And indeed, those are said to be the signs of infection. But, actually, they are the signs of inflammation. Infection is just one of several things which can cause inflammation. Can you think of any of the others?”
Inwardly Tarc groaned. It seemed like every time he felt like he understood something, in this case the signs of an infection, it turned out there were exceptions. He cast about mentally, but could think of nothing. “No.”
His mother sighed, “There is so much to learn Tarc. You’ve got to work harder!” Of course, she didn’t mention that by “work harder,” she meant that he should read more.
Mr. Benson said, apparently hoping to be helpful, “Eva says I have a ‘classic case.’”
Tarc stared blankly back and forth from Benson to his mother. “Sorry, I still don’t know.”
Tarc’s mother said, “Here’s what’s classic… Mr. Benson,” she pointed to his rounded stomach, “eats too much.” She raised a finger at this. Raising another finger she said, “He’s a man.” Another finger and a smile, “He drinks too much of your father’s fine beer.” She lifted another finger, “It’s the joint at the base of his great toe, which is the most common joint to be affected by this disease. It is indeed red, hot, swollen, and tender, which is typical, but does make it look infected. It came on in the night and hurts so badly that he can hardly stand for anything to touch it. This,” she said staring into Tarc’s eyes and pointing at Benson’s foot, “is what gout looks like.”
Exasperated, Tarc said, “But you just said it has all the signs of infection! How do you know it’s not infected?”
“Well, I can’t be absolutely sure, but as the old saying goes, ‘if it quacks and waddles, it’s most likely a duck.’ That’s why I asked Mr. Benson to leave his shoes off until you got here. So you could see a foot with a case of gout and remember it. You don’t want someday to recommend an amputation for someone who only has an attack of the gout.”
Benson had flinched slightly at the word, “
amputation.” Now, eyebrows up, he said, “No! Don’t be recommending anything like that!”
Eva Hyllis’ clear gray eyes turned back to Benson, “If it was infection, an amputation might be the only thing that would save your life.”
“I know, but it’s not…” his eyes suddenly grew much more worried, “is it?”
“No, it’s not. But, as you can tell from the way it feels, gout’s pretty obnoxious.” She stared at him with a serious look on her face, “You need to lose some weight. And, drink less beer.”
At first Benson appeared relieved when Eva said it wasn’t an infection. But then his brow wrinkled with worry, “Are you saying it’s going to hurt like this until I lose weight?!”
“No, like I told you, I’m brewing you some willow bark tea. I’ll give you more bark so you can brew your own. We’ll put a poultice of willow bark on your foot as well. The willow bark should help you get over this attack faster, but you would probably get over this attack in time even without treatment.” She held up a finger in admonition, “However, attacks of gout tend to repeat themselves and can happen in other joints. Losing weight and drinking less beer should keep you from having attacks quite as frequently.” She motioned to Tarc, “Come, let’s see how the tea is coming.”
In the kitchen Tarc’s mother swirled the small pot in which the shredded white willow bark had been steeping, “Your dad said that you’re showing some talent?”
Tarc shrugged, wondering why they called it ‘talent’ when his father seemed to think it was useless.
“Daum told me your talent lets you feel inside of things. Did you try to feel the insides of Mr. Benson’s feet?”
Tarc’s eyes widened as he considered that possibility for the first time. He shook his head.
She poured the tea through a cloth to filter out the willow bark. “Well, you should. I’m so happy for you because that talent is tremendously useful for a healer. Most of the time, it’s how I make a diagnosis.” She put a dollop of honey in the cup of tea; then turned her eyes back onto Tarc. “We have few enough treatments that are truly effective. Being able to make an accurate diagnosis lets us use the correct treatment on the few occasions that a treatment is available. When we go back out there, you sit and study the differences between his feet with your new talent. Hopefully, you’ll never forget what gout feels like.” With the cup of tea in one hand and the compress of willow bark in the other she waved him to come along and headed back out into the great room.
As they approached Mr. Benson, Tarc’s mother kicked a small barrel up to the end of the table next to Benson’s feet. She pointed to it, so Tarc sat on it. Staring hard at Benson’s feet, he allowed his preternatural sensation to flow out over and into the feet. His mother gave Benson the tea and, when he complained, urged him to drink it despite the taste. She wrapped the cloth with the willow bark around the toe as a poultice.
Studying Benson’s feet, Tarc observed with a growing sense of astonishment, that he could sense a number of different kinds of tissue inside of them. He recognized hard structures that were obviously the bones. The bones seemed to be much the same in their location and shape from the one foot to the other. There were spaces between the bones that must be the joints where motion occurred. Certainly, he could feel a space at the base of the great toe that must represent the joint there. There was a tiny bit of fluid in that joint in the good foot, but a great deal more fluid in the sick joint on the left. The fluid in the joint on the left also felt… thicker, or otherwise somehow, not quite right. In addition, Tarc could feel more fluid in the soft tissues all about that gouty joint. After a moment he realized that the extra fluid must be what their normal senses perceived as swelling.
Tarc’s father brought over a pair of crutches. They had been made from fairly straight limbs that had a wide fork at the top. Padding had been wrapped around the fork and the bottom tips wrapped with wire. Daussie brought out a bag of dried willow bark.
Benson, very grateful for the help, paid more generously than Tarc’s mother had requested and stumped out on his way back home to rest and elevate his foot as Eva had instructed. Tarc and the other members of his family started back on the many chores required to keep the tavern working.
As customers began to filter in for lunch Tarc wondered whether, in a bigger city, enough patients would come in needing his mother’s skills that she could support the family without their having to keep a tavern. As soon as the tavern’s usual slow time in the afternoon began, his mother sent him upstairs with instructions to stop his other reading and begin studying their atlas of anatomy. At first he felt angry to be sent off early to study, but as he climbed the stairs he heard Daussie complaining. He grinned to himself, thinking of her downstairs working while he was up studying.
To his surprise, Tarc found the world of anatomy fascinating. The atlas started with the arm. Inside his own arm his ghost found each of the structures shown in the book’s drawings. Somehow, he had been thinking that each person’s insides were different, but apparently they were similar to a surprising degree.
Later, Daussie came upstairs to work on her own reading assignment. She told Tarc to head back down because the kitchen needed water. As he passed through the kitchen his mother grasped his wrist to stop him. “What’s the name of this bone?” she asked, pointing to the midpoint between his shoulder and elbow.
Staring wide-eyed at her, he said, “I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you start at the beginning of the book?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t see the arm bone in there?”
“Yes, and I compared it to my own. Mine seems to be shaped almost exactly like the ones in the book,” he said with evident surprise. “I’d thought that there would be a lot more differences.”
Eva nodded but frowned, “Why don’t you know its name then?”
“I thought I was just supposed to learn where things were and how they were hooked up. What do the names matter?”
“So you and I, and other healers can talk to one another. If you’re going to take care of people, you not only need to know what their parts are, but what the names of their parts are. The language is important!”
Tarc shrugged, “Okay, okay, I’ll learn the names.”
“With your talent, you can simply feel the insides of people to know what their parts are. The only reason to study that book is so that you can learn the names and how things are supposed to be arranged. It really helps, when you’re wondering whether there’s something wrong, to know how things are supposed to be.” She shrugged, “Of course if the problem is just with one part of someone, you can just compare it to the matching part on the other side of the same person. For those parts that don’t have both left and right versions, you can just compare them to someone else. Or yourself, if you know you’re normal. But if you want to be good, you’ll know what it’s supposed to be like before you start comparisons.”
She tilted her head, “That’s why I had you compare Mr. Benson’s feet to one another. So you could see what was different about the sick foot.”
Now, Tarc frowned, “But there’s so little we can do. What good is it for us to know that he has gout, and how gout feels, when we can’t really do anything to help him?”
With an exasperated look Eva said, “We gave him willow bark tea!”
“So it makes his pain a little less. It doesn’t really make him better. He probably could have brewed his own willow bark tea.”
“When you’re hurting, having somebody lessen your pain does help! Besides, gout causes inflammation, and willow bark decreases inflammation, so it really is helping him, not just the pain. Just knowing that it’s not an infection is tremendously important. If he went to someone who didn’t know what gout was, they might have thought he had an infection like you did. Supposing then they’d tried to lance it to drain the pus out? Then he’d have a wound that might actually get infected. A wound that did him no good at all!”
At this outpouring o
f words Tarc put his hands up, covering his head as if shielding his skull from a beating. “Okay, okay… I understand… We helped him.” He shrugged and grinned shyly at Eva, “I just thought we’d be able to do something… better.”
Eva’s shoulders drooped a little and she sighed, “Well, yeah. There are a lot of diseases that we can’t do anything for. In the old days they used to have medicines for most of them,” she shrugged, “or so we’re told. The medicines we have now, like willow bark, aren’t very strong.” She eyed Tarc sternly, “However, the fact that we can’t do all that much is no excuse for not doing the very best we can.”
Chapter Two
Tarc turned the corner on his way to his afternoon of drill. With a shout, Jacob lunged at him, full-length, running him through with an imaginary sword. “Missed me!” Tarc exclaimed, twisting to the side like a matador.
“If I missed, it’s only ‘cause my sword won’t penetrate ugliness!”
Tarc sniffed ostentatiously, “What is that stench? Is that you?”
The two friends continued down the street trading insults. They had only been old enough to drill with the defense teams for a few weeks now, but the fact they were doing it made them feel quite manly.
As the name-calling wound down, the two friends talked about the events of their week. Jacob was excited because his birthday was nearly there and he hoped his father would get him a new knife.
Tarc desperately wanted to tell his friend about his new talent, but his father had warned him of the dangers of talking to other people about the Hyllis family’s talents. If others knew that members of their family could do things that no one else could, it could cause a lot of trouble.
Instead, he told Jacob about the big soldier who had caused the trouble in the tavern.
Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic Page 3