Part 24 - First Healing Magic Trainer

Christie slowed to cool down from her Sunday morning jog. Since she didn't have dance or taekwondo on Sundays, she took that as an opportunity to do a longer run than she did as part of her regular workouts. The early July morning was already quite warm and indicated that the day would be another hot one!

She'd spent the last hour reflecting on everything that had happened since her birthday/transformation day. Papa Kim had stepped up her meditation training now that she'd come into her full powers. He still wouldn't let her spar with just anyone, but at least she wasn't knocking the heavy bag off its chain anymore, and she couldn't just let herself go as she had back in May sparring against Tracy. Keeping her Chi (Grandfather's term for it) under control required a calm, cool head. It was just as well Christie wasn't particularly interested in Taekwondo competitions. Getting 'psyched up' for a sparring match was definitely not a good idea.

With her Mother's and Grandmother's help, Christie was developing better control of her Healer Sight abilities. Sometimes, she felt like a human electron microscope; her 'mental resolution' had become so fine. However, unfortunately, Christie still had to learn more about what her talent saw. Injuries, sicknesses and other physical problems looked 'wrong' to her, but in most cases, she didn't know precisely what was wrong. As her Mom observed, it was kind of hard to fix something if you didn't understand why it was a problem. You might accidentally fix something that wasn't broken and make things worse instead of better.

Valerie was starting carefully monitored physical therapy over at the hospital. The doctors were concerned about her motor controls and wanted to ease her back into any physical activity under knowledgeable supervision. Christie was careful to keep track of her friend's brain injury. She was pleased to see the last inhibition field her Mom had created was still preventing the damage from spreading. However, this was one of the places where Christie could sense something was still 'wrong' but didn't know what or how to heal it. Somehow, Christie didn't think Mrs. Stevens would let her daughter practice taekwondo until she was fully healed. Maybe she'd let Val try dance when she was released from the hospital? No sparring in ballet and the exercise would at least satisfy Valerie's need to be active and fit. Something to talk over with Val during their next visit.

Mrs. Dewinter, the head counselor at Dolley Madison High School, was due back from her vacation later this week. Christie had made a tentative appointment to meet with her. She wanted to discuss her remaining program of studies to prepare herself for a Pre-Med program at college. Christie had already completed most of her core graduation requirements and had plenty of slack in her senior schedule. Her fall schedule already included several advanced placement courses; redirecting them to a more science-centric program shouldn't be a big problem assuming seats were still available in those classes.

Rounding the corner onto her street, Christie saw an unfamiliar vehicle parked in front of her house. Mom had told her she had made arrangements for Christie to meet with one of the better sorcerous healers today, but it wasn't even eight o'clock yet! Slipping into her backyard, she crept to the patio doors to have a peak. A woman dressed in a gray business suit was sitting at the breakfast bar with her Mom, drinking coffee. Her Mother's apparent ease with the stranger meant that the woman was a guest and not a threat. Just a relatively early guest. The healer, perhaps? Only one way to find out, Christie told herself.

Opening the patio door, Christie called out, "Mom, I'm back!" and walked into the kitchen.

"Ah, Christie, you're home," Amanda said, looking up from their guest. "You were gone longer than I expected. Everything all right?"

"Just my regular Sunday morning run, Mom. You usually sleep later on Sundays, so I guess you didn't realize I try to get in ten miles on mornings I don't have dance or karate."

"And I forgot to tell you our guest would be arriving first thing this morning My bad. Sorry, Karen." The other woman made an 'it's nothing' gesture as she looked Christie over carefully. "Christie, I'd like to introduce Dr. Karen MacTire. She is an associate professor of osteopathic medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She is also a sorceress with potent healing talents. I've asked her to come and see if she can help you with your abilities. Karen, this is my daughter, Christie McKellar. As I told you, she fully emerged from her trial last month, and her healing ability far exceeds my own."

Christie walked over with her hand extended in greeting. Dr. MacTire was a brunette of about Christie's height but a bit more slender than the athletic teen. She had a smile that lighted her eyes and a warm aura that put the younger woman at ease. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. MacTire. Are you of Scots heritage since your name is 'Mac' and not 'Mc' like ours?"

"And I'm very pleased and excited to meet you. Please, call me Karen, and I'll call you Christie if that's all right?" Christie nodded as they shook hands. "And no, 'tis Irish I am. Mac Tire is actually Irish Gaelic for 'wolf.' Someone in our family's past might have been Mcmactire but decided it was a bit too much of a mouthful."

"Well, I need a shower before I can do anything else in polite company. Should I dress in anything particular, Dr... I mean, Karen?"

"Shorts and a T-shirt will be fine with me, lass. But who is this polite company you're worried about? Amanda, I thought you said we'd have the entire day to ourselves." Karen demanded accusingly of Christie's grinning Mom.

"Oh, off with you, Christie! I can tell between the pair of you I will have my hands full today. I'm gonna have to call MY Momma to help keep you two hellions in line!" Amanda retorted and then stuck her tongue out at their guest.

Giggling at the older women's antics, Christie scurried off to get cleaned up. "I haven't eaten yet! If the Doctor needs to bleed me, fine, but I expect to be fed right after!"

~-~

Since Karen assured them that no blood-letting would be required, they settled down for one of Amanda's tasty breakfasts. "Christie, I understand that your Mother and your Grandmother have scanned you and started your general training. Can you tell me why they don't feel capable of overseeing your healer training?"

Christie looked over to her Mother, who simply smiled and nodded and then replied. "Mom says I'm just too strong. I did some simple stuff before my trial was over - eased a monthly, stopped some bleeding, but even I can tell that I'm so much more powerful now than I was back then. Back then, I was swinging a feather; now it's more like one of those hydraulic hammers they use to pound building supports down to the bedrock."

"An odd simile that, Christie. So visual, too."

Amanda snorted a laugh. "Well, my original analogy to her was the difference between a jeweler's hammer and John-Henry's sixteen-pound sledgehammer, but that was before she came into full power."

"Indeed," the doctor mused. "Well, in that case, once we have finished this delicious breakfast, I think I will begin by redoing the scans myself. I have your data, Amanda, and I'm sure they are accurate, but I am more powerful and better trained, so I may see something you did not."

"Great!" Amanda replied immediately. "I couldn't make heads or tails of her aura myself. It was like staring into the sun at high noon with the naked eye! It was blinding!"

"Well, we shall see what we shall see, then."

~-~

After finishing and cleaning up after breakfast, the three women adjourned to Christie's favorite meditation spot in Amanda's garden. "Lovely arrangement, Amanda. I can see how Christie would find this place so inviting. Now, Christie, I am just going to passively scan and record your aura. Just relax. Don't do anything magical. Just let your mind empty."

"Is it all right if I sit down? That's how I'm used to meditating."

"That's fine for a start. If I need another position, we'll do that next. For now, I want to see your aura when you are completely at rest."

Nodding, Christie sat on the grass and assumed her lotus position. Moments later, her mind was in her 'safe place,' and her face was completely relaxed. "Excellent," Karen murmured to Amanda. "Now, let's see . . . . HOLY MOTHER MARY!!!" the doctor yelled and instinctively brought her arm up to shield her eyes.

"Karen??!" Amanda called out, hurrying over to her friend. "Are you all right."

"I'm okay," she hissed softly. "Never in all me born days . . . Heavens above, Amanda. You got your analogy wrong. She's like staring into the noonday sun through a telescope. My mind's eye is seein' spots, for god's sake. Give me a bit of time, okay?" A few minutes later, Karen looked back at Christie. "Is she still out of it? She dinna react at all to that?"

Amanda smiled. "She's been studying meditation techniques with a 90-year-old Korean Grand Master. We'll have to call her back if we want her before she's ready to come back on her own."

"Amazing. Well, let's rouse your daughter. I've got another test or two still to run, but I'm startin' to feel just a wee bit uneasy about training her meself!" Amanda and Karen had known each other since their training days. That her friend's Irish burr was coming through spoke volumes for just how off-balance or excited or both Karen was at that moment.

~-~

"Now, Christie, I have a spell I want to try out on you. This is designed to inhibit particularly powerful trainees' sorcerous strength so they can ease into learning to use their abilities without harming themselves or anyone else. Once it is removed, there will be no lingering after-effects, so it is completely safe."

"Okay, Karen. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to scan me with your Healer's Sight. That is harmless anyway, so it is a good place to start. I will cast the inhibition on you at full strength. That should completely block your access to your power. Then I will gradually reduce the strength of the inhibition until your Sight starts to return. Any questions?"

"Umm, should I try to push through the inhibition if I can?"

"Yes. I want to know when your power starts to overcome my spell. Ready?" Christie nodded. "All right, start trying to scan me. We will continue the test until you tell me you have your full range of Sight back."

For a few moments, Christie felt disoriented, as if she were trying to look through a foggy night at swirling lights. Taking a deep breath, she centered herself and unleashed her Healer Sight. The fog disappeared instantly, and Karen was bathed in the 'light' of Christie's Healer Sight.

Fascinated with the process, Christie did as she had been told. She scanned Karen's body. "WHOA!" She breathed, "What is THAT?"

"What is what? What happened?" Karen demanded. "What are you doing, girl?"

"Umm, you have this speck, in your left breast . . .it's tiny, about the size of the head of a pin, but it's . . 'wrong' somehow. It's only a few hundred cells at most, but they're different from those surrounding it. Oh, COOL! You're being treated for it, aren't you, Karen? Mom? It's like the inhibition ward you used with Valerie, only this one is at the individual cell level! Each cell is . . .sort of locked up. NEAT!"

Karen stepped back, staring at Christie in apparent disbelief. "Did I jump the gun and start looking before you got your spell complete?"

Dr. MacTire slowly sat down on the patio bench. "No, my spell is at full strength. No one has ever been able to access their powers when I cast that spell at full power. And you saw . . .you called it a speck?"

"Yeah, a speck. Something's really wrong with those cells - I think it might be isolated to the cell nuclei. Still, I haven't had a lot of higher-level biology courses yet, so I'm not sure about the nuclei thing. Just that the wrongness seems to be pretty small."

"And you saw, what did you call it, an inhibition ward around each cell?"

"Well, they looked like the ward that Mom used on my friend, but she put it around the entire injury. These are much smaller and seem to just enclose one cell each. I want to learn to do that!"

Karen shook her head slowly. "Join the club, young lady. I'd like to know how to do it, too. So far, my Mum's all but given up tryin' ta teach me how."

Christie cocked her head, looking at the speck more closely. "Ya know, it wouldn't be that hard . . .I wonder. Yes! Did it!"

"Did. . .what, Christie," Amanda asked cautiously.

"Put those fields around the cells in that other speck - the one on her right ovary. They looked wrong the same way the ones in her breast tissue did. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try with them, and whoever did the first ones could examine the wrongness there. I think those cells were trying to fission, so I stopped them."

"You. Stopped. Them. And these wrong cells on my ovary, you say?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Sorry, I got carried away. They just felt so wrong. I can undo the wards if you think I should."

"No . . No, that's fine, dear. It can wait until . . . Excuse me, please. I need to make a phone call." And rising from her seat, Dr. Karen MacTire, DO, hustled back into the McKellar house to retrieve her purse and phone.

~-~

Curious but not wanting to intrude, Christie and Amanda listened in from outside the patio's screen door. Karen didn't seem to care if they heard her anyway, as her side of the conversation was emphatic and rather loud.

"Mom, I NEED you. . ..Mom, I don't care that you've been shooting all morning. Yes, I know your rifle needs to be cleaned every time it's fired. MOM! I need you NOW. It is URGENT! STAT! Ask Poppa Paul to clean your rifle for once. You can grade his performance when you get back, but MOM? I. Need. YOU!" Karen stopped to listen and then let out a relieved breath. "No, I'm not at home. You remember, don't you? I had a consultation today with Amanda McKeller's girl? I need you here, Mom, YESTERDAY! Yes, Mom. That'll be fine. Thank you. Love you too. Give Wilma a head scratch for me."

With that, Karen broke the connection and started to put the phone back in her purse. Reconsidering, she slid the phone into the pocket of her suit coat and headed back out to talk to the McKellar women.

~

"And your Mom is coming here?" Amanda asked, surprised. They were chatting as they ate a light lunch of salad and iced tea out on the patio. "All the way from Edinburgh?"

"Ah, nay. Mum retired last year. She's a Professor Emerita of Medicine there now, but she got tired of having to age her looks. What's the point of havin' magically youthful looks if you have to look 75 years old every Monday when you go to work? She retired and moved here, so she isn't likely to run into her former colleagues. She has a place up in the mountains of western Maryland, so she's relatively close to me now and can help with my medical research from time to time."

"Edinburgh?" Christie asked. "Not an Irish college?"

"Ah, lassie," Karen grinned, hardening her burr intentionally, "The University of Edinburgh might be considered the United Kingdom's version of Johns Hopkins Medical School. 'Tis true that it is almost as good. Plus, they paid her an outrageous salary and catered to her every whim to get her out of Dublin."

"I can't wait to meet her!" The younger girl enthused.

"And I suspect she feels much the same way about you. We'll know by how much as soon as she arrives. She'll make the two-and-a-half-hour trip in less than 90 minutes if she's really excited; otherwise, it'll take two hours. Mum doesn't much care for speed limits."

~-~