Having gotten control of herself, Kazy described the events surrounding Mr. Milner’s death with clinical dispassion and painstaking detail, making no effort to hide the guilt she felt for their failure.
Although she didn’t understand the medical condition or the terms used to describe it, Marissa listened to all their desperate efforts to save the man’s life with a sense of awe. If I ever get in that situation I can only hope I have such dedicated people around me, she thought.
Eva said, “Well, it wouldn’t have helped to have me here. You did everything I could think of and several things I didn’t. Like the rest of you, I’m amazed by what we can do for people, but Mr. Milner was only one of innumerable patients we’ve lost… and are going to lose in the future.” She swept the others with her eyes, “There are so many killers we can do little or nothing for. Dementia, diabetes, blood cancers like leukemia, infections that don’t respond to sulfa, old age, the list goes on and on. The ancients had cures for many of those conditions so we still have a lot of work left to do.
“But,” Kazy said with a heart-rending rasp in her voice, “it was so sudden! He was just having a little chest pain when he came in. Then he died right in front of us. And nothing we did worked. We all felt helpless.”
Eva stood and went to Kazy, holding her briefly before going on to hug Vyrda, Seri, Rrica, and Jadyn. As she did so she murmured words Marissa didn’t remember well later. She expressed remorse for not being there, reminded them that when they saved a patient it only put that person’s eventual and certain death off to a later time, consoled them for what would surely be only one of many failures if they continued working as healers. When she finished her circuit of the others and returned to her seat Marissa could tell they all felt better—despite the tears still on their faces. Even Marissa felt better. She used her talent to influence them. All of us.
And I guess I think that was a good thing.
Kazy blew her nose and gave a little giggle. She said, “Seri’s sworn vengeance on fibrillation. She’s been studying everything she can read about it and trying to come up with a way to generate electricity since that’s the way the ancients defibrillated hearts. I think some of her ideas are really interesting. I’m pretty sure she’s actually producing electric current, though I don’t know how we’d prove it.”
A sudden movement caught Marissa’s eye. Tarc, who’d been sitting morosely slumped in his chair, had just leaned forward and fixed an eager gaze on Seri. “How?!” he asked.
Though Seri was older than Tarc, she appeared intimidated by his sudden intense attention. She haltingly explained how she’d zoomed in on a copper with her ghirit, down to that point where she started seeing little particles. She looked at Tarc, “The way you did. The particles that might be molecules or atoms?”
Tarc nodded impatiently, “And…?”
“There’s fuzzy stuff… around the particles. Kazy, Rrica, and I think the fuzzy stuff might be the electrons of atoms. Rrica says that electricity is electrons moving through wires, so we tried pushing the fuzzy stuff around a wire circle—”
Tarc was getting a copper out of his pocket but he asked with intensity, “And it worked?!”
“Well, the fuzzy stuff seems to go around the circle all right, but I’m not sure that really proves it’s electrons that’re moving, like electricity—”
“Do you have the wire here?!” Tarc interrupted eagerly. He lifted his copper to his head.
Kazy held out a flexible black circle about a meter around and five millimeters thick. There was a copper twist at one location. After a moment, Marissa realized the copper twist was joining two ends of a straight piece of the black material—wire?—together to form the circle.
Tarc put his copper away and held the circle up to his forehead. His eyes were closed. After a moment, he said, “Amazing!” He opened his eyes and gave Seri an admiring look. “I think you must be right!”
“And…” Seri glanced at Rrica. “Rrica had this idea that if it was electricity, we’d be able to make muscle twitch by touching the ends of the wire to it.”
Tarc’s intense gaze shifted to Rrica.
Seeming flustered, she said, “Nerves make muscles contract by depolarizing the fibers at their point of contact. It’s kind of like an electrical impulse.”
Flicking his eyes back and forth over the three young women, Tarc asked, “One of you stuck a wire down into your muscle?”
Seri said, “No, Rrica suggested we try it on muscle from a freshly killed chicken. It does make them twitch, though it doesn’t work for very long after they’re killed.”
Looking gobsmacked, Tarc stared down at the wire in his hands. “Electricity! I think you’re probably right.” He stood, “I’ve got to…”
Tarc had trailed off when Eva said, “Wait! I’m sure you want to go try feeding electricity into some ancient devices, but first help us understand what they’ve discovered about electricity in medicine.”
Reluctantly, Tarc sat back down. He shrugged, “The ancients’ books describe electricity as a flow of electrons through wires, just like Seri described. Just like I can feel running through this wire when I push the…” he looked up at Seri and gave her a little grin, “the ‘fuzzy stuff’ through it.”
Eva looked at the young women, “So, are you thinking the next time a patient comes in with fibrillation, one of the telekinetics can hold the ends of a wire up against two spots on their chest, push electrons through it, and shock the heart so it stops twitching?”
They looked at one another. Then to Marissa’s surprise, Kazy—who at least looked to be the youngest of them— spoke as if she were their leader. “From our reading, we think the ancients’ defibrillator machines were very powerful. So powerful it’s hard to believe one of us could make that much electricity. Well,” she glanced at the other two, “the ones that delivered shocks to the chest wall used a lot of power anyway. In surgery, they used lower-powered defibrillators applied directly to the heart through the opening in the chest. They also had defibrillator machines they actually put inside people. Small wires went from the machine to the heart. Somehow the machine could tell when the heart started fibrillating. When that happened it released a low-power shock that restarted the heart.”
“So,” Eva said slowly, “are you thinking that if we stuck a needle into the chest and down to the heart, you could push enough electrons through it to restart the heart?”
“Two needles,” Seri said. “The electrons have to flow from the first needle to the second needle through the wire and then from the second needle to the first through the heart. The ancients called it a ‘circuit.’ Apparently, electricity almost always flowed around in circles. Also” she looked uncertain, “I think the needles would have to have insulation down almost to the tip so they didn’t deliver their electricity to the skin, or muscle, or lung, or something else between where the needle enters the skin and where it reaches the heart.”
“Wait a minute,” Tarc said, “lightning’s supposed to be electricity—”
“I think that might be too much electricity, Tarc,” Daussie interrupted with a grin.
Tarc rolled his eyes, “Why’s the world’s biggest smartass gotta be my sister? he asked rhetorically, then turned to Seri. “Lightning just goes from the clouds to the ground, right?”
Rrica answered that question, “From what I read, I think with lightning it’s just that a whole lot of electrons have already gathered in either the sky or the ground and they’re stuck there. The lightning’s just when all those extra electrons suddenly jump from one place to the other.”
Tarc smiled, “So, no circuit, right?”
Rrica shrugged, “You could say the circuit started when all those electrons slowly moved from the ground to the cloud, then it got completed when they all jumped back to the ground.”
Tarc shook his head, “That doesn’t make any sense…” He looked at the wire in his hands for a moment, then lifted it to his head. He looked back at the rest of the
people in the room, “As soon as I start pushing electrons through the wire, they make a circuit. There’s no delay followed by a sudden jump.”
“Ah,” Rrica said, “but electrons find it really easy to flow through copper. The book I read when I was a kid implied that in other materials they have trouble moving. Like the insulation on this wire. Or like air or clouds. You know how sometimes when you reach out to touch something metal, a spark jumps? That’s because you’ve gotten some extra electrons trapped in you and they jump across the gap on their way somewhere else.”
Tarc lifted his arm, resting his forearm over the top of his head. He closed his eyes. “Let’s see if I can push the electrons from one place to another in one of my muscles.”
Eva hurriedly said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be experimenting on yourself. What if something…”
Eva paused when one of Tarc’s fingers suddenly twitched. Tarc slowly lowered his arm, staring at it.
Eva said, “Did that…? Was that twitch real, or…”
“It was real,” Tarc said, “I pushed a lot of the fuzzy stuff from one end of the muscle to the other, then suddenly let go. The fuzziness snapped back to where it’d come from, and, when it did, the muscle twitched… harder than I expected. I suppose I might be imagining it. I could’ve have made the finger twitch with my nerves after all.” He looked around at the others, “I should try it on someone else.”
“You should not!” Eva said.
“It only hurt a little bit,” Tarc said at the same time that Seri said, “You can try it on me. I already tried some self-experiments on my own gastrocnemius.”
Eva didn’t protest so a couple of minutes later Seri was laying on one of the gurneys while Tarc leaned his head close to her calf. Seri’s whole ankle twitched and she reached down to rub it. Sounding dismayed Eva asked, “Did he hurt you?!”
“Not as bad as I hurt myself when I was trying to ‘smack’ my muscles.”
This led to a discussion of smacking. As soon Seri had explained it a little, Daussie suddenly reached up to grab the back of her head, “Ow!” She turned to glare at her brother.
He backed away, raising his hands. “Sorry, sorry! I just couldn’t resist. I apologize…” He bent over and sneezed violently.
“Children!” Eva said warningly.
Teenagers, Marissa thought. Then with satisfaction, But, it’s good to see the girl can defend herself! She had a sudden thought and looked at her son, I guess Hareh can defend himself that way too.
***
The next morning, Marissa was downstairs eating breakfast when all the healers came trooping back from somewhere. They looked both excited and delighted—as if something momentous had occurred.
As they were going upstairs, Marissa called out to Hareh and he came over. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.
“I’m fine. Better than I’ve been in ages. I just wanted to know what’s got you guys so excited?”
“We went to a butcher. One who owes Eva and Daussie because they took out his kidney stones. Eva asked him if we could try a new medicine on one of the pigs they were going to butcher today and...”
“And what?” Marissa asked impatiently.
Hareh leaned close, “Sorry, someone walked behind you and I realized I shouldn’t be talking so loudly. The butcher said okay, so we gathered around. Eva rubbed some oil on the pig’s shoulders as a cover for when Tarc shocked its heart. When Tarc was ready, he nodded at her and she lifted her hands off. Tarc released the electrons from where he’d pushed them to one end of the heart. They flowed back suddenly making a shock. The pig sort of flinched, though that might have been its muscles twitching in response to the shock. Its heart completely stopped for a few seconds, then it started beating again as if nothing had happened!” He shook his head in amazement, “That pig’s heart completely stopped beating for a few seconds, so you could kind of say it was dead. But afterward, the pig looked fine.”
Marissa stared into the distance. My little sister’s starting and stopping hearts! Well, her son is. I would never have dreamed this.
Excitedly, Hareh said, “Amazing, huh? Seri and Vyrda can do it too, though it’s obviously a lot of effort for Vyrda.”
Surprised to hear it was a struggle for the more mature Vyrda, Marissa asked, “Why’s it more effort for her?”
“Her telekinesis is a lot weaker than Seri’s. Seri’s is weaker than Tarc’s too, though she’s getting stronger.”
“So, isn’t Vyrda… I thought she was Eva’s teacher?”
“Oh no! Aunt Eva’s amazing! Nobody else has even a tenth of her knowledge. Vyrda’s learning from her just like the rest of us. There are some areas where Vyrda knows a little more than Tarc or Daussie, but in other fields, they’re teaching her too.”
***
Over the next few days, Marissa came to understand that the people of Clancy Vail had thought it a great tragedy when Eva left on the road to Cooperstown, embarking on a futile mission to save her sister’s life from cancer. A mission they thought would surely claim Eva’s life.
Apparently, Eva’s husband Daum and his cousin Kazy were the only people who’d expected Eva and her children to survive the trip.
Everyone else had thought she just didn’t understand the risks when she’d left. By the time of her return, they’d already been thinking of her as dead. They’d believed themselves destitute of the healing miracles she’d been providing more and more routinely.
Besides, they thought she was an amazing cook. The caravan had delivered them home during the noon rush for lunch. A time when the tavern was packed with people excited to eat the recipes she’d developed there.
When the word got out that Eva was back, people had also started spilling out of the city proper to witness and welcome their return.
When some of the deliriously happy people had asked how their little party of four had managed to get past the outlaws that’d taken over the Cooperstown road, Eva’d just shrugged and said the road had recently gotten safer—implying they’d simply traveled at a fortuitous time. When Marissa confronted her later, wondering over how unlikely it was that all those people had accepted her story, she’d shrugged and said, “I might’ve influenced them a little so they’d tend to believe me.”
Marissa frowned at her, “I thought it was against your ethics to change people?”
She shook her head, “I didn’t change them. I influenced their current thinking in a beneficial direction. One that didn’t harm them and provided great benefit to us. But, they’re no different than they were before I influenced them.”
Marissa narrowed her eyes, “So, you decide which influences are beneficial?”
With a shrug, Eva nodded. “Who else?” She focused on Marissa for a moment, “I had to influence you, you know? You were certain that your little sister couldn’t help you. You didn’t want any witchy powers used on you. You thought I was just another charlatan. I tried to talk you around, but I could tell that wasn’t going to work. So… I… tilted your attitude a little so you’d let us save your life.”
“Oh,” Marissa said as her mind pitched stormily from indignation over being influenced to gratitude over her current health. After a moment, she smiled and said, “Who else indeed? Thank you.” Though it was a struggle because of the enormous frog that’d formed in her throat, she managed to choke out, “Thank you for… returning my life to…to…”
Eva hugged her. She said quietly, “I know.”
***
Daum was in the brewery when Tarc found him. “Dad, I don’t know if you’ve heard we think we can generate electricity with our telekinesis?”
Daum’s eyebrows went up. ‘You can?”
Tarc nodded, “We’re pretty sure. I’d like some money so I can buy some ancient electrical devices and see if I can get any of them to work.”
Daum frowned, “You don’t think you can try that on the stuff down in the underground facility?”
Looking unhappy, Tarc said, �
��I’ve already tried it with a couple of the things down there, but almost all of them are really complex devices. I can’t get them to work, but it might be because they need more electricity than I can provide. Or they may need a different kind of power. There isn’t much about electricity in the books we have, but I know some devices used electricity that surged back and forth instead of just flowing one way. Or it might be that one of the hundreds of components in those machines have deteriorated.” He sighed, “I need some simple electrical devices to learn on.”
“Those should be cheap right? Don’t you have enough of your own money for—?”
Tarc interrupted, “No. The simple ones tend to be expensive because people who’re trying to figure out how electricity works want them.”
Daum studied his son for a moment, thinking it sounded like a waste of time and money, but also considering how Tarc had a gift for figuring things out. He sighed, “Well, right now our finances aren’t as good as we’d hoped.” He explained what was happening with their money in Farleysville.
“And,” Tarc said thoughtfully, “are you thinking maybe I could get some of that money back…?
Daum nodded slowly. “And keep a share for your experiments.”
***
Brendan Geller led Narita into the Hyllis tavern and over to the area where patients waited to be seen. They’d arrived early and the lunch crowd was just beginning to thin. Geller had tried to arrive then because arriving early for the clinic put them at the front of the queue to be seen. Besides, he loved the food and the beer at the tavern. He ordered beers for Narita and himself and one of the pizzas for them to share.
They were just finishing their pizza when—confirming she was back—Eva came out of the kitchen and headed across the room, obviously intending to go up to the clinic. Seeing Geller, she stopped, “Hello! Have you had any luck making either of the other antibiotics for us?”
Hyllis Family 06 - Sisters Page 25