Chapter 68
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 1885
The wagon came to a stop in front of their house, and James gathered Margie up, leaping out before the driver even had a chance to put the tailgate down. He yelled his thanks over his shoulder and rushed to the porch, screaming for his father to open the door as he approached.
The door flew open, but it wasn’t his father there at first, it was Sadie. “Oh, Lort!” she exclaimed. “What’s happened?”
James didn’t have the time to stop and explain. He carried Margie into the parlor and lay her down gently on the sofa. He heard footsteps behind him and looked over his shoulder to see his parents staring in disbelief. “Get your medical bag!” he ordered and then returned his attention to his sister. James carried no medical bag, since he only practiced at the hospital, but their father still did house calls from time to time, and he had one on-hand.
Margie’s eyes were closed, and James noticed bruising all around them. Her limbs were still positioned oddly, and a bone protruded from her left leg right above the knee. That wasn’t the worst of his worries, however. He knew her skull was fractured. He needed his father’s stethoscope so he could better determine what was going on internally.
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw his father still standing there, panic in his eyes. His mother was behind him, crying hysterically, held back by Sadie who also had tears rolling down her cheeks. “Father!” James shouted. “Go get your medical bag!”
As if startled out of a dream, Wallace slowly began to nod, and a few seconds later, he bolted out of the room. James hoped he’d be back in time for the pair of them to determine what they could do for Margie, if anything.
He knew he couldn’t help her if he let his emotions get in the way; right now, this wasn’t his older sister, the one who’d tormented him nearly every day of his life, the one who teased him and called him a baby, the one he loved dearly and couldn’t imagine living without. No, for now, this was just a female patient in need of his assistance.
As soon as the elder Dr. Joplin returned, James opened the bag and pulled out the stethoscope. “I need towels, sheets. You know?” He caught his father’s eyes, and he blinked twice before nodding and disappearing again. James pressed the stethoscope to his sister’s heart and picked up a faint, slow timbre. He checked her lungs, and they appeared clear, though her breathing was shallow. Under the circumstances, he had no idea how she was still alive.
Once his father was back with the towels and a few sheets, he took the clean linens and timidly lifted Margie’s head off of his blood-soaked shirt. The sight was ghastly. Her skull was misshapen, and large clots of blood clung to her blonde hair. A fresh wail echoed from the doorway, and he realized his mother didn’t need to see this. “Sadie, please, get her out of here.”
He heard his mother protesting as Sadie dragged her out of the room. Felicity was screaming for her daughter, and James thought if sheer will could heal, his sister would be up dancing around the room now. But he knew it couldn’t, and he honestly had no idea how to put back together a broken skull.
“Water,” he said to his father, who had been tearing up the sheets. Again, there was a pause, but he didn’t move his eyes from Margie’s skull to see if his father was blinking once more. Footsteps retreating told him Wallace had complied.
Fresh blood still trickled from the wound, and James used the towel to put pressure on it, trying to get it to stop, but it was difficult to see exactly where it was coming from with such a bloody mess in the way. He hoped the water would help him clean it, but in the meantime, he set the towel down and began to carefully feel Margie’s skull with his fingers.
As soon as he touched the first jagged break in her cranium, a strange sensation shot through his body, similar to what he’d noticed when he’d been running so fast. But this was different—more intense. It was a surge of power and energy like nothing he had ever felt before, not even when he’d once accidentally shocked himself with static electricity.
Despite the uncomfortable sensation, James continued to trace the outline of the break, feeling for where the bones might be broken. Eventually, he found the place in Margie’s skull where the majority of the blood was coming from. His father returned with the water, and he dipped one of the clean bands of sheet into it, using it to wipe away some of the blood. He also dragged the cloth along the line he’d traced with his fingers. As he did so, James noticed something incredible. While there was now a thick line, almost like a scar, the break was hardly visible. The skull seemed even now, where only seconds before, it had been jagged and broken.
“What in the world?” he muttered.
“What is it?” his father asked.
Since he had not been in the room to see what it had looked like, or felt like anyway, before, James didn’t know how to explain it. “It’s like it’s healed—already.”
“What?” Wallace asked again.
“Her skull. It was fractured. Now… it’s not.”
“How can that be?”
It was a legitimate question, and one for which James had no answer. However, seeing as though he knew what method he had used the last time that led to this noted change, he decided to do it again. This time, he rested the palm of his hand carefully on the spot on Margie’s head that was still bleeding. He felt the surge of energy leave his hand. It felt different this time, as if it was draining his own resources in order to fix her, and he supposed it was because the wound was so much larger than the last one had been, but as he drew his hand away, the evidence was there; the hole was gone, and she was no longer bleeding.
“Dear God,” Wallace Joplin declared, staggering backward a few steps. “How did you…”
“I have no idea,” James admitted. Deciding he’d better hurry and see what else he could accomplish before whatever this strange power was decided to leave him, he traced the rest of her skull and then moved his attention to her limbs. With the precision of a surgeon, James set each of Margie’s fractures and watched in amazement as the bone in her leg not only returned to its place, but the skin regenerated over the wound, leaving nothing but a small red mark.
By the time James had accomplished all of that, he was nearing exhausted. He had been tired before in his life, particularly after a long shift in the hospital, but this was something else entirely.
Margie’s breathing was much deeper now, and a check of her heartbeat revealed it was also much stronger. However, that trail of blood coming from her mouth was an indication that she had internal damage. How could he fix that if he couldn’t see it, and he couldn’t touch it? He could take her into surgery, open her up, and hope to find the source of the bleeding, but that would take more time than they had now. She could die before they even got her to the hospital, and he might pass out from exhaustion.
Deciding there was only one thing left to do, James untucked her shirtwaist began to feel around her abdomen, just as he might if he was examining her for an injury, but this time, he did it slowly, praying that wherever his hands touched, if there was a rupture, they could somehow heal it.
His father watched, not speaking, not moving. James couldn’t remember ever seeing their father so helpless, but he supposed he couldn’t blame him. He had no idea what it might be like to see your child so broken, and he hadn’t given himself a chance to think of Margie as anything other than female victim number one.
After his initial pass over her internal organs, James intended to feel around one more time, but by then, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He felt like he might slump onto the floor at any moment. Margie’s eyes darted around from time to time, though they didn’t open, and he could see her breathing now. He prayed he’d done enough, as he knew there wasn’t going to be anything else he could do for his sister just now.
As if his father had just noticed the state he was in, he said, “James, whatever is the matter with you? Are you injured, too?”
“No,” James stammered, not sure he could get all of the words out. “Whatever is healing her is depleting me.” With those words, he felt himself slipping off of the edge of the sofa where he’d been perched next to his sister, and the last thing he felt were strong arms around him before he blacked out.
