Chapter 94 – Face to Face

June came to the clinic without Elise.

It was the afternoon after the letter had arrived. The replies had gone out with the morning water delivery, as promised. Helen had found someone from the laundry going toward the pool, and June had arranged for the other adults there to cover her absence while she made the walk back with the carrier.

She wore the red jacket Helen had described. The zip was broken, and she had fastened the front with a large safety pin.

Nia watched her cross the dining hall.

"She's waiting at the pool," June said before sitting down. "She knows I'm coming here first. I told her I'd take your answer back myself."

Some of the tension left Nia's face. She still couldn't stop looking past June toward the doorway.

Dr. Sayegh brought a chair over. June laid the medical note on her knee. There were pencil marks beside two passages.

"I've read this," she said. "I'd like to hear the part about the light from the people it happened to."

Kai told her how the pull had shifted when his marked palm touched the blue ring at Nia's ankle. Nia described what remained afterward and what the retrieval counter had called her. Neither tried to explain more than they knew.

June looked at the wrist Kai kept supported near his stomach.

"Has anyone else been hurt while helping you here?"

"Not by the marks," Sayegh said. "We've kept clear of the light. That is what we've done, not proof that we understand it."

June rubbed a thumb along the folded edge of the note.

"If Elise comes, she won't think about any of this when she sees her sister."

"I know," Nia said. "Tell her about my hands and leg before she comes in. She can't jump on the bed. She used to do that."

They worked out where the chair would go, on Nia's far side, away from Kai's marked wrist and the foot of her own bed. June would stay beside Elise. Tomas would help Nia sit comfortably before they arrived, rather than trying to move her with a child reaching across him.

Sayegh answered June's questions. Nia listened without trying to hurry her.

Then June asked about the bridge.

The guard who had made the first trip came over when the desk worker called her. She had rested since the previous evening, but she did not want to bring Elise across the narrow strip beside the damaged rail.

"There's a pedestrian underpass farther along the tracks," June said. "We used it before all this. I don't know what it looks like now."

The guard took out the map. June pointed to a small set of steps that the printed bus line had almost covered.

"We can look on the way back," the guard said. "All three of us. If we can't use it, nobody brings the girl tomorrow."

June looked at Nia.

"If the route is passable, and Elise still wants to come after we've talked, I'll bring her for a short visit. The other adults at the pool can cover that."

Nia nodded. "Tell her I want to see her. Don't make it sound as if I'm asking her to wait because I don't."

June put the folded note back inside her jacket.

"I can tell her that."

***

The underpass took longer, but it was usable.

The carrier and guard returned before dark after taking June back to the pool. They had descended one flight, walked beneath the tracks and climbed another. Some rubbish blocked the lower steps. They moved what they could lift, checked the passage together and used the same route on their return.

It was dry. Both stair rails were still fixed to the walls. There was a broken pane near the far entrance that they had cleared from the walking line.

It was not a route for the stretchers.

The guard would check it again before taking Elise through. June had agreed to wait at the pool if anything had changed, and to keep the visit short enough to return in daylight. The carrier agreed to accompany them on his next round beyond the laundry. The clinic had arranged the guard's cover before she left.

Nia asked to hear the plan twice. The second time, she interrupted only to ask when June had last seen her sister.

"She met us inside the door," the guard said. "Wanted to know whether I'd seen your bed."

Nia looked down at the blanket.

"What did you tell her?"

"That it's a bed. With a pillow. And people bringing you food."

Kai saw Nia's shoulders lower.

After the evening dressings, he asked the desk worker to send a message of his own. Ruth needed an update, and he wanted the clinic address passed on to Mara when she could next leave her patients. He asked for the new observations to be copied rather than sending away the only record.

Tomas added the treatment notes he wanted passed on. There was no promised visit from Mara, but the request went into the next morning's delivery bundle.

Kai slept before the lamps were turned down. He woke once when his right wrist shifted, called the attendant and slept again after they settled it.

***

Elise stopped in the doorway with the blue sweater tucked under one arm.

For a moment Kai thought she had not seen Nia. Her gaze went past the beds, returned, and stayed on the splint resting against her sister's chest.

Kai's message had left with the carrier that morning. The visit had taken longer to arrange. The guard and carrier had gone ahead to inspect the underpass before collecting June and Elise. A pool volunteer came too, so June and Elise would still have two escorts when the guard returned to duty. All five had walked back together, taking the steps at Elise's pace. June had repeated the precautions at the gate, and Sayegh had checked Nia before allowing them into the ward.

Now all that preparation had left a girl standing at the end of the aisle, holding a sweater too tightly.

Nia said her name.

Elise walked forward. After three steps she almost ran, then looked at June and slowed again.

"I know," she said, before June could speak. "I remember."

Tomas had placed the chair where they had agreed. He drew it closer to Nia's head while June guided Elise around the far side of the bed.

Nia was trying to lift her less injured hand. She couldn't make it do what she wanted. She put it back on the blanket and turned her face toward her sister instead.

"Come here. Up here."

Elise set the sweater on the chair. June helped her lean close without putting weight on Nia's arms or reaching toward the injured leg. Nia pressed her cheek against her sister's.

They stayed like that until Elise began to cry.

"I went to the window every time someone came," she said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"June said I couldn't go home by myself."

"She was right."

Elise drew back far enough to look at her. "You didn't come home either."

Nia swallowed. "I couldn't get there."

Kai looked down at his supported wrist. June was watching the girls, one hand on the chair so Elise wouldn't catch its legs when she sat. Tomas quietly moved the drinking cup off the edge of the bedside table.

Nobody asked Nia to explain the station.

Elise sat, picked the sweater up again and laid it across her knees. One cuff was stretched, and a loose thread hung from the hem.

"I didn't tear it," she said. "It was like that."

Nia laughed through her tears.

"I wasn't going to ask about the sweater."

"You looked at it."

"I've missed you wearing it."

Elise looked away and rubbed her nose with the stretched cuff.

June passed her a cloth.

For a while the conversation came in pieces. Elise wanted to know whether Nia had eaten, why the bed could lift at one end, and whether the doctor would take the splint off when her fingers stopped hurting. Nia answered what she could. When she couldn't, she told her sister to ask Sayegh instead of making something up.

Elise offered to help with the lunch bowls.

"You're visiting," June said. "You don't have to work here."

"I could still carry one."

Nia looked at the sweater on her knees. "You can tell me about the little boy you helped. Helen said he was with you at the bus stop."

His name was Ben. His aunt had found him at the pool. Elise told the story out of order, going back to explain that the aunt wasn't the woman who first asked for him, and that June had made them wait while she checked.

Kai listened without interrupting. There were names, misplaced shoes and an argument about who got the last clean cup. At the station they had spent so long following Elise's name through things he couldn't trust. She had been somewhere else, doing things that had nothing to do with those records.

That did not explain how the station had obtained her name. It did tell him that finding an answer there had not been the only way to find her.

Elise noticed him watching.

"Are you Kai?"

He nodded.

"Nia said you helped her."

"She helped me too."

Elise studied the blanket over his legs and the padded arm.

"Did you get stuck together?"

"Yes."

She pointed to the spoon on Nia's tray and asked Tomas whether she could help her sister eat.

He showed her where to sit and stayed close for the first few spoonfuls. Nia complained that she was getting too much broth and not enough potato. Elise tipped the spoon back into the bowl and tried again.

Kai turned his head toward the aisle to give them what privacy he could.

The guard was beside the cupboard, checking a scrape across the back of her hand. A small white light hovered above her other palm. She tipped her hand to move it over the scrape.

He felt a fine pressure at his left wrist before he looked directly at the light.

He kept the arm still.

The sensation was much fainter than the warning beside the ruined truck. This time he could see the person it seemed to come from. As the light went out, the pressure eased.

He did not try to follow it up his arm.

When Tomas passed his bed, Kai asked whether the guard would have a few minutes after the visit.

"For what?"

"Something I want to check. Without moving the hand."

Tomas looked at his face, then at the arm. "Tell me before you start."

Kai did.

***

Leaving was harder than arriving.

Elise had expected to stay until Nia was well enough to come with her. June reminded her what they had agreed at the pool, and she said she remembered, but didn't get out of the chair.

Nia asked whether she could read the letter once more before putting it away.

Elise read it to her. She corrected one word the desk worker had read differently and complained about the pencil being too blunt.

Then she stood and unfolded the blue sweater.

"Where do you want it?"

"Keep it," Nia said. "You've got farther to walk."

"I brought it for you."

Nia looked at June, then back at her sister.

"Over the foot of the blanket, then. Let Tomas put it there."

Tomas laid it across the blanket without disturbing the supported leg. The cloth did not cover the places he needed to watch.

Elise leaned close for another goodbye. She was more careful this time, and Nia managed to keep her voice steady until June led her down the aisle.

The carrier and the pool volunteer were waiting at the doors. They had stayed together while June brought Elise inside. The four would walk the checked underpass route back together; the guard remained at the clinic for her next duty period.

Elise turned at the doorway.

"You'll answer if I send another letter?"

"Every one I get."

She looked at Nia for a little longer, then took June's hand and went outside.

Nia lay back after they had gone. She cried again, but when Tomas asked whether the visit had been too much, she shook her head.

"I needed to see her."

He left the sweater where she could see it.

***

The guard had a few minutes before her watch began. After taking a drink and washing her hands, she brought a stool to the side of Kai's bed.

"It isn't a healing skill," she said.

"I know. I felt something when you used it. I'd like to know whether I can do that without seeing it."

Tomas had told Sayegh what Kai proposed. She wanted the arm left on its support and the attempt stopped if it increased the pain. She made no promise about what a result would mean. Tomas stayed to watch him while she returned to another patient.

The guard set a freestanding screen between her stool and the bed. Its panel was solid, unlike the hanging curtains. Tomas checked from Kai's position that neither her hands nor the glow would be visible around the edge. The stool was close enough for ordinary conversation.

"Sometimes I won't make it," she said. "Don't give me an answer just because I'm sitting here."

She kept her feet still. When she moved the light, it would be with her hand, to one side or the other of the stool. Kai closed his eyes as well.

He did not take a deeper breath or try to push the warmth toward his shoulder. He kept his attention near the wrist, where he could still distinguish it from the larger ache.

For a while there was only that ache and the noise from the kitchen.

Then a slight pressure appeared off to his left. It reminded him of the edge of Mara's healing light, though there was no touch on his skin.

"Left," he said.

The guard let the skill go before answering. "That was left."

They paused. Tomas asked whether the shoulder felt different. It didn't.

On the next attempt, Kai waited longer. He could hear someone shifting a bowl outside the screen, but he felt nothing he could separate from his own arm.

"I can't tell."

"I didn't use it that time."

The third time he felt the pressure nearer the center, then a little to his right. He gave the direction before it faded. The guard said that was where she'd held her hand.

Kai wanted one more.

This time the sensation spread into the ache at his wrist. He tried to locate it, lost it, and felt his shoulder begin to tighten.

He opened his eyes.

"Stop there."

The guard put out the light. Tomas helped him settle the arm without changing the support beneath the dark line.

"I had it on the left again," she said. "Did you get that?"

Kai shook his head. "I felt something. I couldn't place it."

Tomas recorded the last attempt with the others. Kai had named the direction correctly twice, offered no direction when the light was off, and failed to place it on the final attempt. They had tried only one person at one distance.

The discomfort eased after he stopped. The hand hadn't moved. He couldn't have held the spoon beside his bed afterward any more than he could before.

But they had something specific to try again. He had stayed near the wrist and noticed a change outside it, without trying to force the path farther open.

The guard took the screen away when Tomas had finished recording the attempt. Beyond it, Nia had fallen asleep with the blue sweater across the end of her blanket.

Kai let his eyes close too. Next time, he wanted to see whether he could find the light when it was already burning, rather than only noticing when it changed.