The Healer (8 page)

“It's not like that.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “It's exactly that.”

“I'm not being tortured. And I'm not a prisoner.”

“No? You're free to go? You're free to choose what you do? If you wanted to be something else besides a healer, if you wanted, take my tongue, a different life, you could have one?”

The thought had never occurred to him. “I don't.”

“You see? You can't even consider the possibility. That's not loving something. That's obedience. That's blind devotion. A dog has that. Are you a dog?”

His face grew hot. “You're cruel.”

“It's a cruel world.” She pushed her plate away, barely having touched her food, and stood. Payne looked miserable.

“Cheer up,” she said. “I'm leaving.”

She turned and walked away, but after a few steps stopped. He was such a child. So guileless and innocent. And she…so full of bile. Both of them were victims of the human world—how sad that they could find nothing better to do than take it out on one another. She through meanness, he through thoughtlessness and self-absorption.

“Look,” she said, more gently. “I was speaking for myself. I'm having trouble here. It's hard for me. I'm tired and worn-out all the time. Anything to make things easier I'm going to try. It's different for you.”

“What would make things easier would be if you were nicer.”

She felt like shaking him. “Maybe so, but that's not the point. You have a talent, Payne.”

“You have a talent, too.”

“No,” she said. “That's what I'm telling you. I don't.”

He had ample time to reflect on what Vecque had said—and what he had—in the days that followed. A weather system ushered in a series
of storms, one on top of another, that lasted nearly two weeks. The coup de grace was a raging blizzard unlike anything that he had yet seen. It cut off the One and Two Prime sites from each other and suspended all but the most essential services in camp. Crews worked around the clock and still couldn't keep the streets and rail lines open.

The storm finally blew itself out and the sky lifted. Staggering outside, the men emerged into a transformed world. Some of the snowdrifts were as tall as buildings. Many of the buildings, in fact, had all but disappeared. Smoke curled and spewed from hidden chimneys, giving the appearance that the snow itself was smoldering. Pannus Mountain was a dome of solid white.

Payne shoveled out a path, first to the healing center, then to his quarters. He was relieved to get out after being cooped up inside so long. He was anxious to talk to Vecque, for their quarrel had disturbed him. He thought he knew where things had gone wrong.

First off, he had to admit that she was probably right. He did have a talent. Where she was mistaken was in thinking that she did not. Every person had a talent. In some—and maybe he was one of these—it was obvious and accessible. In others it was sleeping, hidden or submerged. His job, he felt, was to coax Vecque's talent to the surface, to make it visible and useful to her. He also wanted to apologize. Whatever the problem was, he was determined to set it right.

He left a note on his door saying where he was going, then made his way to the saddle and the rail line that linked the One and Two Prime operations. The camp looked strange to him, nonsensical—concealed and at the same time enlarged. Like one of the snow geese he'd once seen with its chest ballooned out in courtship: magnificent and half again its normal size, a promise built on puffs of air. Despite the presence of men and plows, there was a stillness that pervaded everything. Sounds were muted, as though this beautifully feathered concoction were too delicate and fragile to be disturbed by noise.

The rail line had been cleared, but not the roads beyond it, and for
the final half mile or so, he had to make his way on foot. The snow was not as deep as it was on his side of the mountain, for the northern escarpment had acted as something of a shield against the storm. Still, there was enough of it to make walking a chore, and by the time he reached his destination, he was winded and thus annoyed to see that he had further work to do. There was a chest-high bank of snow that ran a good twenty feet from where he stood to the door of the healing center. Vecque, apparently, had not yet seen fit to shovel out a path.

It was left to him, then, to make his own way in, and by the time he did, he was hot and sweaty. The room, by contrast, was frigid cold. Which was odd, because there should have been a fire going. Vecque, it seemed, was either out or sleeping in.

He pressed his ear to the connecting door to her quarters, listening for signs of life. He heard what sounded like deep breathing, and with apologies for waking her, knocked.

The creak of bedsprings was followed by a groan. And then a tired, slurred voice. “Who is it?”

“It's me,” he said.

But Vecque was already struggling to her feet. Even half-asleep she understood that it didn't matter who it was, only that there was someone, and that that someone was waiting for her. Asking who had been a lapse.

“Never mind. I'm coming. Have a seat.”

A minute later she appeared. She was wearing her customary outfit, a loose fitting shirt and pants, although the shirt was rumpled and in need of cleaning and the pants seemed a shade too big.

“You,” she said.

“Me,” he replied with a smile. To his eye it seemed that she'd lost weight.

She yawned, then lost her balance for a second, steadying herself against the door.

Instantly, he was at her side. “Are you all right?”

She mumbled something beneath her breath.

“Vecque?”

“What?”

“I said are you all right.”

“Why shouldn't I be?” she snapped.

This, at least, was familiar territory. He allowed himself to relax.

“Hello, Vecque.”

“Hello yourself.” She rubbed her eyes and then her arms. “It's cold in here.”

“There's no fire.”

She frowned, glancing at the stove. “Should be. I had one going just a while ago.”

Payne went to see if he could stir it back to life. The ashes, though, were cold and gray. There hadn't been a fire for some time.

“It's dead,” he said, a little puzzled.

Vecque frowned again, then shrugged it off. “Blankets work.” She went into her room and brought one out, wrapping it around her shoulders. “Guess I've been in bed longer than I thought.”

“How long's that?”

She didn't know, nor did she seem to care. “I'll tell you something, this storm's the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“How's that?”

“I finally got some rest.”

“I'm glad,” he said.

“And it kept the wolves away.”

“You saw a wolf?”

“Every day,” she said. “Lots of them.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What wolves?”

“You know. The two-legged ones.”

She took a chair but had trouble getting comfortable. She drew her blanket tighter across her chest.

“So, what brings you?”

“I came to apologize.”

“For what?” she asked.

He explained as best he could. She listened to him patiently, although he got the sense she didn't know exactly what he was talking about. As if she hadn't thought about it near as much as he had. Maybe not at all. Still, when he was done, she thanked him. She seemed touched by his words.

“You're a good man,” she told him, then got a little teary-eyed. Embarrassed, she looked away.

“I haven't been myself lately. As you can see.” She wiped her eyes. “It's been rough.”

“I'd like to help you.”

“I think you just did.”

“More,” he said.

“That's sweet. Unfortunately, I don't believe it's possible.”

“It is,” he said. “I can. I know I can. I want to.”

He was so earnest and well-meaning, and she, so not herself, that it took a moment for her to grasp what he was saying. And then her hands flew up to ward him off.

“Oh no. No no no. Not that again.”

“I don't mean
that,”
he said, although, in fact, he had been thinking of the very thing. Healing the miners was so easy for him. He was ready for something harder and more challenging, something new.

But he had to be more clever if he was going to persuade her. Or maybe just more patient, let her come to it on her own.

“What I mean is, I could help you with your own healing. Help you make it easier.”

She doubted this. Moreover, he was annoying her. “Do you know what's going on with me? Do you understand what's happening? I'm being drained, Payne.”

As soon as she said it, he knew that she was right. She had the symptoms: the lassitude, the fatigue, the weight loss, the malaise. But
this didn't stop him from denying it. Nor from trying to talk her out of it.

“Work is an enormous burden. Some of these illnesses are close to Level Three. It's natural to be tired. I'm tired, too.”

“No you're not.”

“Sure I am. And another thing. You said that it was happening before, and it wasn't. What makes you think that this is any different? It could be another false alarm.”

“It's not.”

“How do you know?”

She glared at him. “Look. I'm sorry, but it's happening. Please don't argue with me.”

Despite everything he knew of the Drain, everything he'd heard and now, through Vecque, was witnessing, Payne believed it could be stopped, or at least slowed down. He was like a man who, never having been sick, does not believe in illness. Instead, he believed in the power of the will, most notably, his own.

“I can still help you.”

“You can't.”

“I can. But you have to trust me.”

“But I don't.”

She might as well have slapped him.

“I'm sorry, but you don't understand me, Payne. You don't know what I'm going through. You're different.”

“I'm not.”

“No? You know what it's like, the way it drags you down and saps your strength? The way that everything's an effort. The way you lose your will? All you want to do is rest, but rest doesn't make you feel any better. Familiar, Payne? Tell me you know how it feels.”

“You have to stand up to it,” he said. “You have to fight. You can. You have the power to resist.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what? Have the power?”

“Do you fight? Do you even know what it means?”

“Sure I do. Sure I fight.”

She would have liked this to be true, even if it meant that he, too, was under siege. Just to feel, if only for an instant, that she wasn't all alone.

“Liar. You don't fight. You don't have to.” With a sigh she pulled the blanket tighter, huddling in its thin cocoon. “I hate you, Payne.”

The weeks passed, and he kept at her, not satisfied with no for an answer. She told him to mind his business, called him names, refused to speak to him, but in the end threw up her hands and let him have his way. She couldn't compete with him: he was tireless, and she was not. She needed to preserve her strength for work.

For a while, then, he became her teacher. Which took some getting used to, because it was a reversal of their customary roles. What he lacked in a concrete plan he made up for in gusto. And while Vecque remained skeptical that anything would work, for nothing in the history of healers and healing ever had, she agreed to give it a try.

One by one they went through the steps and then the stages of a healing, comparing notes, discussing styles, dissecting subtle differences between the two of them. The most important one Payne found, the only one that seemed significant, was in their attitude. He enjoyed the work. Vecque despised it.

This, he guessed, made everything more difficult for her, from identification to enhancement, which naturally affected all the other, downstream stages of a healing. She was like a runner throwing obstacles in her own path. Of all things, the Drain did not require such assistance.

But how to change a person's attitude and feelings? Especially a person
so committed and attached to them? Vecque was fueled by her anger and hatred the way that other people were fueled by food. They seemed to prop her up and keep her going when little else did. She claimed they gave her bearing and a sense of identity and even comfort, like an old familiar friend.