14. Chapter 14 The Clinic #2
She looked the same as the last time I’d seen her. Dark hair, soft pointed ears, a face that stopped you in a hallway. She wore a linen blouse and a skirt, and her tail curved along her hip beneath the fabric. She stood at the threshold and took in the room. Her gaze landed on me and stayed.
“Daniel,” she said with relief. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”
“Tova.” I stood up. “Come in. What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
She stepped inside but stayed near the door, hands clasped. She had the composure I remembered, the same level voice and careful posture, but something underneath it was urgent.
“People have been coming by the clinic,” she said. “Asking when you’ll be back. You’ve been gone and some of them have come back two or three times. Rowena asked me to find you.”
The guilt hit before she finished the sentence. The full-moon run, the loot sorting, the gear shopping, lunch at the Hen. I’d been busy.
“Are people waiting now?” I asked.
“Four or five when I left. More will come if word gets around that you’re back in town.” Tova looked at Bjorna, then at me. “I don’t mean to interrupt. Rowena said to tell you whenever I found you, and that there’s no pressure. But some of them are hurting.”
That was all I needed to hear.
“I’m going now,” I said. “Liv, you with me?”
Liv was already off the bench. “Obviously.”
“Take your time,” Bjorna said. “We’re done here.”
“Thank you, Tova. I appreciate you coming to find me. I’m sorry, I’ve been busy.”
Tova shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize. You have a life outside of the clinic. They’ll be glad you’re coming.”
She said it simply, and she meant it. I’d healed her when no one else would come. She remembered.
“Let’s go,” I said to Liv.
***
The clinic room was the same. Padded table against the inside wall, chair, washstand with basin and pitcher.
The window looked out onto the avenue and the smithy across the street, and Larg’s hammer rang at the steady double-tap that meant he was working something heavy.
The jar sat on its small table by the door, thick glass with the brass lid, coin slot on top.
A man was already waiting in the hallway when we arrived. Bear-kin, older, built like someone who’d spent his life lifting things. He had his left arm held against his ribs, favoring it with the careful habit of an injury he’d been carrying for a while.
Liv took her position at the door. She leaned against the frame, one ear on the hallway and one on the room, and pointed the man inside with her chin.
I waved at the large man. “Come on in.”
He looked at me as he came through the door, his eyes going to the stonethread first, the deep blue-gray of the robe, the belt, and then to my face.
“You look different,” he said.
I smiled. “I got an upgrade. How’s the shoulder?”
“It’s the elbow.” He sat on the table and held his left arm out. The joint was swollen and hot, the puffy redness of inflammation that had been building for weeks. “I work at the mill. The grinding wears on the joints. I’ve been wrapping it but it’s not getting better.”
I put my hands on either side of the elbow and let the gold come up.
[Mend.]
The inflammation cleared fast. The swelling dropped under my fingers and the heat went out of the tissue. Underneath, the joint had years of hard use ground into it, cartilage thinning and tendons tightened. The gold smoothed through it all, and the man’s grip unclenched as the pain left.
“Roll it for me,” I said.
He rotated the elbow, slow at first, then with more confidence. He bent it fully and straightened it and his face changed when the grinding wasn’t there.
“That’s remarkable. The grinding sound has been there for a year. I got used to waking up and hearing it pop every morning. Now it’s just quiet in there.” He flexed his fingers. “I appreciate this. I really do. I know you don’t charge, but I want to put something in for you.”
“That’s up to you. I’m glad I could help. Take it easy on the elbow for a couple of hours if you can. Let the new tissue settle.”
He dropped copper into the jar on his way out and nodded to Liv at the door. She gave him a small wave and checked the hallway.
“Fox-kin woman with a knee issue, it looks like.”
“Send her in.”
The fox-kin was young, early twenties at most, and she limped in on a knee that had been twisted wrong and never properly healed. She sat on the table and told me she’d stepped in a rut on the road outside town and her knee had popped and it hadn’t been right since.
“That looks painful. A sore knee can really take you out of commission,” I said.
“Yes, sir, it’s pretty bad.”
“Don’t call me sir, just Daniel is fine.”
She nodded with a half smile. “Daniel.”
I put my hands on the knee and let the magic work.
The ligament had ripped and was healing crooked, the body’s best attempt at repair without anyone helping it along.
The gold found the tear and corrected it, the tissue resettled into the shape it was supposed to be.
She gripped the edge of the table and her breath came out in a long, slow exhale when the pain released.
“Stand up. Walk to the door and back.”
She walked, and the limp was gone. Her eyes went wide and she walked again, faster, testing it, and her tail swept behind her in a quick arc that she couldn’t control.
“I can’t believe how good that feels. I’ve been limping for a while and I just accepted it. I thought that was how it was going to be from now on.” She stopped in front of me and her voice went quiet. “Thank you. My mother told me about you, but I thought she was exaggerating.”
“Your mother was right. I’m glad she sent you. Come back if it gives you any trouble. Listen, in the future, don’t hurt. Come to me and I’ll fix you.”
She put a silver coin in the jar and left, walking down the hallway straight-legged and steady. Liv looked back at me.
“You’re so flipping nice and cute,” Liv said.
“It doesn’t make sense to not be nice. It takes hardly any effort at all to heal these people. I’m glad to do it. My cuteness is just a bonus.”
Liv laughed. “It’s a very welcome bonus.”
The next patient didn’t come for a few minutes. The room went quiet, Larg’s hammer ringing through the window in steady pairs. The afternoon light had turned warm, the sun starting its drop toward the mountains.
“So how much of the huntress skirt is for you and how much is for me?” I asked.
Liv grinned from the doorway. “I’d say sixty-forty. Sixty for me because I’ll look incredible in it, and forty for you because I want you to not be able to think straight when I’m wearing it.”
“That seems like a fair split.”
“I thought so. Also, Sif is going to be so jealous.”
“Sif doesn’t get jealous. Confidence in herself isn’t in short supply.”
“Sif gets competitive. There’s a difference. She’s going to see me in a short skirt and she’s going to buy something shorter.”
“That’s a problem I’m willing to have. However, she is more of a tight leather pants kind of gal. I’m not opposed to seeing her in a short skirt.”
Liv laughed, and the sound bounced off the clinic walls and went out through the open window into the avenue. She was happy where she was and she wasn’t hiding it.
Footsteps came from the hallway. Liv’s ears swiveled and her expression changed.
“Daniel,” she said quietly. “Here comes another.”
A cat-kin woman came through the door. Slim, dark-haired, soft pointed ears pressed close to her skull.
She held her right side with one arm and gripped the torn strap of a canvas bag that had been ripped open along the bottom seam.
Her lip was split with dried blood down her chin.
Her left eye was almost pitch black around it.
A bruise bloomed along her left cheekbone, recent and dark, and her right knuckles were scraped raw.
She moved carefully. Every breath cost her something.
“Sit down,” I said. “Right here. I’ve got you.”
She sat on the padded edge and set the torn bag on the wood beside her. What was left inside told the story: a crushed loaf of bread, three bruised apples, and the neck of a broken bottle leaking into the canvas. She’d been carrying groceries.
“I’m Daniel. I’m going to heal you, and then we’ll talk. Okay?”
She nodded. Her voice came out steady and controlled, held together through practice. “My name’s Elin.”
“Nice to meet you, Elin.” I put my left hand on her ribs, over the injury, and my right hand on her shoulder to stabilize.
[Mend.]