“Yes, I understand now what we must do for the leg,” Healer Sil-Gaeryn said after perhaps ten or fifteen minutes of examining Erin's knee. “Healer Lin-Jerani spoke about your hands. You have….” He paused, apparently trying to remember the words he wanted. “Scares? Bad scares on your hands?”
“'Scares'? Oh, scars. Yes, I have bad scars.” Erin held out her hands, palm up, so that the healer could see the pink lines covering her hands and wrists.
Healer Sil-Gaeryn gave her an apologetic smile. “Scars, yes. Sorry.” He took hold of each of her hands in turn and looked at them closely for a few minutes, running his fingers over the scars crisscrossing her skin. Finally he nodded, looking satisfied. “Yes, I understand. But now, before we begin the healing, I want that you tell me how you received these wounds, please. With all the information that you remember.”
“Oh. All right,” Erin said, a little hesitantly. She wasn’t sure how she was going to explain everything so that he could understand her.
Melanie seemed to sense her concern. “You can just talk normally,” she said. “Like you would if you were telling me. And I’ll translate everything into Silmarith. Then we can be sure Healer Sil-Gaeryn will get it all, and Firasa will be able to understand, too. Just go kind of slow to give me time to repeat everything, okay?”
“Okay,” Erin said with relief. “Well, I hurt my leg in an accident at school,” she began, pausing after every sentence or two to let Melanie interpret for the others. “It was in my PE class, and we were playing a weird football-type game in the gym because it was raining outside. They had all the bleachers out because there was supposed to be a basketball game or something there after school. Our teacher was talking to one of the coaches and wasn’t paying very much attention to what we were doing, so a few of the boys had started getting pretty rough. I had just caught the ball, and a boy from the other team rammed into me to try to get it away."
Erin stopped for a moment, both to give Melanie a chance to catch up and to recall the scene in her mind. It wasn't a pleasant memory, but since Healer Sil-Gaeryn had asked for as much information as possible, she did her best to remember the details of what had happened.
"We were on the side of the gym, close to the bleachers, and I fell back onto one of the bottom seats. My left leg was sticking out in front of me. So my foot was on the floor, and the top of my leg was against the lowest seat, but there was nothing underneath the middle. And…and the boy who ran into me….” Erin swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice even. “Well, he's a big guy. He's on the school football team, and he's probably twice my size. And he…he landed right on my knee. There was this loud cracking sound.... People told me later that I screamed like a banshee, but I don’t remember that. I don’t really even remember it hurting. I just remember looking down at my leg after the guy got off me and seeing it all bent backwards with bits of bone sticking out and blood running everywhere.... But I was already starting to go into shock then, and most of what happened after that is just a blur. My next clear memory is waking up in the hospital.”
Melanie winced at the description of the injury, and when they heard her repeat it in Silmarith, Healer Sil-Gaeryn and Firasa both frowned and gave Erin sympathetic looks.
“That sounds really awful," Melanie said when she was done translating. "So then what? They must have operated on your leg and tried to put all the pieces back together, right?”
Erin nodded. “Right. The orthopedic surgeon said it went pretty well. I've had to wear a brace ever since, but at least I can walk. Though they told me I'd probably never be able to do ballet again....”
“Well, our kind of surgery is much more effective,” Melanie said with a smile. “We’ll see if we can’t get you back to ballet level.” She exchanged a few words in Silmarith with Healer Sil-Gaeryn and then turned back to Erin. “What about your wrists, then? It doesn't sound like they got hurt at the same time your leg did.”
“No, that was later. But it was kind of because of my leg that it happened. You see….” Erin paused, not sure how best to explain everything. “Well, what happened after the surgery is kind of strange. They put me on pretty strong painkillers, of course, and I started hallucinating sometimes. The things I saw seemed to be pretty harmless, but they kind of scared me, and sometimes I did weird things because of them. So, one night I was at home by myself because the rest of my family had all gone to my little sister’s piano recital. I didn't go with them because my leg was still in a huge brace, and I had a hard time walking or even sitting normally. Anyway, while they were gone, I went in the bathroom, and I suddenly saw this face staring at me from the mirror. It really scared me, and I was kind of out of it because of all the medications I was on, so I lost control and started shouting and hitting the mirror to try to get the face to go away. And it did go away, but I broke the mirror and got my hands and arms all sliced up in the process. Most of the cuts weren't very deep, and the doctor who sewed them up did a good job, so there’s nothing really wrong with my hands now. But I’ve been getting a little tired of people seeing the scars and thinking I tried to commit suicide or something.”
Erin stopped again and waited for Melanie to finish translating everything she had said to Healer Sil-Gaeryn and Firasa. She had actually left quite a lot of things out of the story. Besides not explaining Wraith at all, she also hadn’t mentioned that it was her sister Sylvia, running upstairs to tell Erin all about her recital, who had found her lying in the bathroom, unconscious and covered in blood. Erin didn’t think that part would matter much to the healer, although she knew it mattered very much to Sylvia, who had abruptly gone from spending an hour or two at the piano every day to refusing to even touch the instrument. It was because of Sylvia, as much as anything else, that Erin hoped they would be able to get rid of her scars.
“He wants to know if you’re Kirchel Lir-Anaurian’s cousin,” Melanie said.
Erin looked up, surprised. She had been looking down at her hands and thinking about Sylvia, and the question caught her slightly off-guard. “Yes, I am.”
“Ah, yes.” Healer Sil-Gaeryn nodded, a look of understanding on his face.
Erin frowned slightly, wondering why he would have asked about her relation to Kirchel. Then she remembered that Kirchel had contacted someone at Zeiryn, trying to get more information about Wraith. She had said she talked to someone named Myria, who had then asked other people about it. Healer Sil-Gaeryn might have been one of those people.
But if he knew about Wraith or realized there were some parts of the story Erin had skipped, he didn't mention it. He spoke to Firasa, who had been standing near the bed listening to Melanie’s translation but now turned back to the table and began readying the supplies on it. The healer then spoke to Melanie, who nodded and turned back to Erin.
“He says that he can make you sleep through everything if you want,” she said. “He has all the information he needs now, and they won’t need you to do anything during the healing, so it might get really boring if you’re just sitting here. Plus, the process you’ll have to go through to get rid of those scars is going to hurt quite a lot, so you’d probably just as soon miss that, too.”
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“Oh.” Erin hadn’t been expecting this. “So he’ll just put me to sleep, and it will be all over when I wake up?”
“Well, mostly. They might have you do a few things afterwards, like make sure you can walk all right and everything. And Healer Sil-Gaeryn will give you some instructions on what you need to do while you finish healing. It will be a week or two before you’re completely back to normal. But they’ll get all the healing work done while you’re asleep. Does that sound all right?”
“I guess so. If that’s what he thinks is best.”
Melanie repeated Erin’s answer in Silmarith. Healer Sil-Gaeryn nodded, giving Erin a reassuring smile. He made a movement with his hands, and the bed moved smoothly down to a nearly flat position. Melanie stood up and stepped away from the bed to give the healer room to move up closer to Erin’s head.
“Close your eyes,” he said gently. “And do not fear.”
Erin closed her eyes. She felt Healer Sil-Gaeryn put a hand lightly on her forehead. A feeling of warmth and drowsiness swept over her, and her whole body became relaxed and limp. With a small sigh, she drifted off to sleep.
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It took Erin a minute to remember where she was after she opened her eyes. She blinked sleepily at the white marble ceiling a few times and then turned her head to one side. Healer Sil-Gaeryn was sitting in a chair next to her bed. He smiled when she looked at him.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Erin spent a moment taking inventory before she answered. “My hands hurt,” she said finally.
The healer nodded. “They will hurt some for a few days. The skin on your leg also. But your scars will be gone.” He made the top half of the bed rise up so that Erin was in a sitting position. Then he picked up a cup from the table next to him and handed it to her. “Here. Drink.”
She took the cup awkwardly in both of her hands, which had been covered in white bandages from her palms to halfway down her forearms. She took a sip of the liquid inside it and recognized the taste of lonom. Her mouth and throat felt rather dry from being asleep, and the cool, sweet liquid seemed very refreshing. Erin drank the rest of it slowly and then handed the cup back to Healer Sil-Gaeryn, who put it down on the table. Then he picked up what looked like a folded sheet of paper, which he gave to Erin.
“Melanie had to go,” he said. “But she wrote this for you.”
Erin took the paper from him and unfolded it. It contained a handwritten letter.
> Erin,
>
>
>
> I’m sorry to have to leave you, but your healing took a little longer than we hoped it would, and I’ve got to go do my shift in the nursery. There are four new babies today, so they really can’t spare me. But Healer Sil-Gaeryn asked me to write down your post-op instructions to be sure you could understand them. So, here they are.
>
>
>
> Hands: Your hands and wrists are going to be sore for a day or two, so try not to do too much with them. Healer Sil-Gaeryn will give you some salve to put on them that will keep them from hurting as much and will help them finish healing. You should gently rinse off your hands and wrists with clean water (try not to rub them too hard) and then put on a generous amount of salve and fresh bandages. Do that morning and evening for the next three days. By that time, your skin should be completely healed, and you won’t need the salve and bandages anymore.
>
>
>
> Leg: You’ll notice that there’s a kind of thin brace over your leg. They put that on to keep the pieces of your knee in the right place while they heal back together. It’s quite stiff now, but the magic on it will gradually make it more flexible as your leg heals. It will disappear when your leg is healed completely, which should take a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can move normally as much as the brace will let you. It should prevent you from moving in any way that will hurt your knee (though I don’t recommend you deliberately try to test its limits). You don’t have to worry about getting the brace wet or anything like that—you can more or less pretend it isn’t there. They got rid of the scars on your leg, too, so it might be a little sore, but the brace will protect the skin and help it heal, so you don’t need to do anything extra there.
>
>
>
> Healer Sil-Gaeryn also said that you should try to take it easy for a few weeks and not do anything that will stress your knee too much. Get plenty of rest and good food and all of that to help your body heal itself. Your leg will be a little stiff and weak for a while because of lack of use. Try to do some light exercise with it every day to get it back in shape. You can gradually work into more intense activities like ballet.
>
>
>
> It was great to meet you, Erin. I hope we can see each other again sometime. For now, take care and get well soon!
>
>
>
> Melanie
Erin read the letter over slowly, trying to be sure she understood everything she was supposed to do. When she had finished studying the instructions Melanie had written for her, she folded the letter and looked back up at Healer Sil-Gaeryn.
“You understand?” he asked. “You have questions?”
“I think I understand.”
“Good.” He smiled at her. “Now, try to stand and walk some.”
He pulled the blanket off her and, with a flick of his hand, made it fold itself and settle onto the foot of the bed. With another gesture, he made Erin’s shoes fly from the chair back onto her feet.
Erin carefully swung her legs down off the bed, noticing that her left pant leg was intact again. She could feel a thin layer of something very stiff underneath it. It prevented her left knee from bending at all. With Healer Sil-Gaeryn’s help, she stood up and took a few tentative steps.
The stiff brace on her knee forced her to limp awkwardly, but the leg bore her weight and was only a little sore, which was a lot better than just after her surgery, when she had to wear an equally stiff brace that was much heavier.
Besides, it was beginning to sink in that in a month’s time, her leg would be completely back to normal. She would be able to run and climb stairs and dance again. That thought made her feel almost like she was floating on air.
“Very good,” Healer Sil-Gaeryn said after Erin had hobbled around the room for a few minutes. He had been watching her left leg intently, as though making sure the bones and muscles were staying in their proper place. “You feel all right to walk?”
“Yes. I feel fine.”
“Very good,” he repeated, nodding. He picked up a cloth bag from the nearest table and handed it to her. “Here is the salve and bandages for your hands. Healer Lin-Jerani sent a message before you woke to say that they are soon finished. You should go to their room to wait.”
“All right.” Erin took the small bag and tied the straps around her waist. Then she looked back at Healer Sil-Gaeryn. “Thank you for your help,” she said, her voice breaking slightly with emotion. “Thank you so very much.”
He smiled kindly at her. “You are very much welcome. Send a message to me if there is any problem, all right?”
“I will.”
“Then, tinalas len go jyrat.”
“Ne seh tulad go len,” Erin responded, feeling grateful that she had at least learned how to say a proper farewell in Silmarith.
She limped to the door and opened it, glancing back to give Healer Sil-Gaeryn one last smile of thanks before she stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.