Witchery Draught-excluders (aka Bike) Part 633 by Angharad

I held Simon’s hand but felt an urge to place my right hand over his tummy. I ignored it, but it almost demanded that I do so–so I did–if only to see what would happen next.

He gave me a strange look as I laid my right hand on his abdomen. Then a moment later he said, “Cor, your hand is getting warm…no it isn’t it’s bloody hot…geez…it’s practically on fire.” He was getting rather red in the face and sweat was beginning to bead around his upper lip.

I kept my hand on his tum, and the other on his wrist. He closed his eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep. “Is he dead?” asked an apprehensive Henry.

“No, course not, he’s just asleep.” I smirked, as much from embarrassment as anything, because I had wondered the same myself. However, I could feel the pulse in his wrist, so I knew that he was still with us.

I felt an ache in my arm and pulled it away from his tummy and I also let go his wrist. “I think he needs to sleep for a while.”

“Is that just so you can make a quick getaway?” asked Henry, suspiciously. “Remember, I’m a witness to what happened.”

“Witness, you’re the instigator, I didn’t want to try it, if you recall.”

“Hmm, instigator indeed, I’m an innocent, I tell you,” Henry could be charming, today he was proving to be a nuisance.

“Can’t you two go outside and fight, someone’s trying to sleep here?” We both looked around to see Simon with one eye open and sticking out his tongue at us. For a moment I thought he was having a seizure, instead it was merely an expression of rudeness.

“I must go and see the girls,” I said and picked up my jacket and bag.

“Yes, I’d better go too, see you later, son.”

“Bye,” said Simon and he yawned as we left.

“What was happening?”

“Nothing much, if there was any energy transfer, I couldn’t see anything or feel very much.”

“But he complained about the heat.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I’m convinced you have healing powers, Cathy.”

“Whoopee doo,” I said and walked on.

“Don’t mock it, you could lose it.”

“Lose what?”

“Your gift.”

“Which gift is that, the ability to kill people with a bow and arrow, or leap over tall buildings at a single bound?”

“You shouldn’t mock it, you have amazing powers.”

“I don’t think they’d show up in a laboratory–let’s face it Henry, for a case hardened banker, you’re a bit gullible at times. I reckon Simon was taking the piss, I couldn’t feel anything getting warmer, let alone hot.”

“Here, try touching my leg,” he plonked himself down on a bench seat.

“I beg your pardon?” I said raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t mean it like that, as you well know. Have a go at healing my ankle.”

“I thought your ankle was healed.”

“Not entirely, please, Cathy, have a go at it.”

“Okay, but don’t blame me if nothing happens. Remember what happened to the old lady who was healed at a happy clappy church service.”

“No, what happened to her?”

“She leapt out of her wheelchair, shouting, she could walk.”

“A miracle then?”

“No it wasn’t, she tried to take a step and fell flat on her face. There’s no such thing as miracles, Henry, just events we haven’t yet understood enough to explain and replicate.”

“In your precious laboratory, no doubt?”

“No doubt–don’t get all snotty with me, Henry; I told you from the outset that I didn’t believe any of it. I still don’t.”

“So how did Simon get hot?”

“Who said he did?”

“He did.”

“Henry, there could be a million and one reasons why he got hot; including an infection in his liver or some reaction to the paracetamol or the antidote. Maybe he just got excited, plus my hands are warm usually, so against his skin, it could have felt hot.”

“He was hot, I could see him perspiring.”

“He was sweating, possibly wondering where I was going to put my hands next?”

“Here,” Henry pulled up his trouser leg to reveal his bandaged ankle. “Do you need the bandage off?”

“I doubt it, because nothing is going to happen.” I put a hand either side of Henry’s ankle, on the bony bits they call the malleoli–or ankle bones. His ankle wasn’t very warm, not compared to my warm puddies. However, this time I felt something happen, like a sort of cool draft tickling the palms of my hands.

“Hot? My ankle is bloody freezing. You sure you have warm hands?”

“Yes, here.” I held out a hand for him to touch with his.

“Goodness, so it is. So why does my leg feel cold?”

“Maybe, it’s your punishment for being so pushy, you know sort of freezing to death, instead of turning into a block of salt.”

“That only happens to women,” he snapped back, “Keep going on the ankle, the pain is easing.”

“What pain?”

“The pain I always have there, since my car accident.”

“See placebo affect. It’s all in your head not your leg.” I wasn’t complying with his self delusions.

“Oh that feels so much better, can you try the other one,” he switched legs and I duly obliged while making disparaging remarks.

I put my hands on the second ankle, and played about with positioning. At one point I felt like an electric current going between my hands–weird or what? He physically jumped at that point. I tried to replicate it just to annoy him, but it wouldn’t happen again. This leg did get rather warm under my right hand. Healing or imagination? You tell me.

It had some benefit for him, he was deluded enough to reckon he could walk a bit faster and farther than he could since the accident. I wanted to run away before he fell arse over tip, but he didn’t, he walked faster and claimed he was in no pain. I decided he must have self hypnotised.