The Serpent's Shadow

'I quite understand, dear,' Maya soothed.. 'Now, you're making your muscles all tense, and that's making it hard for me to help. Can you sit back and relax for me?' She looked up at the pale round of a face with two red patches on the cheeks, and the eyes hidden in smudges of charcoal. 'I think I can fix this for you, if you'll just relax.'

'No knives, no operatin' then? You can fix it now?' There was hope there. 'I saw a doctor at a clinic when it started gettin' sore, an' he said there oughta be an operation, so I left an' tried t' work it off.'

The other doctor was probably looking for a poor little fool to experiment on, Maya thought bitterly. There were surgeons and doctors of that sort, perfectly willing to work at charity clinics just so they could find people who wouldn't complain if they were used to try out some new apparatus or theory.

'No, dear. Your knee just got a bit out of joint— not quite dislocated, but enough so you'd be in pain,' Maya replied. A lie, of course; the ligaments were torn, but she could fix that. 'Then your poor ankles weren't quite up to taking on the extra load, you see. The more it hurt, the more you threw yourself off balance, and that just made things worse. Like trying to put out a fire by throwing paraffin oil on it.'

Satisfied with the explanation, the girl leaned back in the comfortable easy chair Maya had placed in the examination room, and Maya called on her magic.

This she could do, had been able to do from the time she could toddle, with no need of tutelage from Surya. Healing came as naturally to Maya as breathing. With her hands making slow, soothing massaging motions on the girl's knee, she reached down, down, deep into the native, living earth and rock beneath the pavements of the city, deep into the heart of her own little jungle, and up into the life force of the city itself. Where there was life, there was power, and that power could be channeled into healing. It poured generously into her, glowing emerald, sparkling topaz, golden brown and warm, bringing with it the taste of cinnamon and honey in the back of her mouth.

She gathered all of it into herself, the golds, yellows, and velvety browns of the earth-energy, the peridot and leaf-green and turquoise life-energy; she brought it in through her navel and transmuted it into the ever-verdant emerald green of healing, sending it out in a steady stream through her hands.

'Cor—that feels good, that does,' the girl murmured, in a note of surprise. 'Feels warm!'

'That's because I'm getting the blood to flow properly around your knee,' Maya told her. 'This is quite a new treatment—German, you know.'

'Oh, German,' the girl repeated, as if that explained everything. 'Them Germans, they got all the tricks, don't they, then?'

Maya laughed, a low and rich chuckle. 'So they think.' She continued to pour healing into the knee, mending the tears invisibly, without scarring, and leaving enough residual energy that the ligaments could continue to strengthen themselves. The girl was going to need strong knees if she was going to dance the can-can. She moved down to the ankle, which fortunately suffered only from strain; she pulled out inflammation and pain, leaving ease in her wake. Simple magic, simply done, but satisfying. When she stood up, the girl got up carefully out of the chair, and her eyes widened as she tested her knee and found it strong and supple again, then rose on her toes and did an experimental kick over Maya's head. Maya had been expecting this, and didn't duck.

'Blimey! It's better!' she blurted, and flushed with pleasure.

'And mind you don't skimp on your exercises from now on, nor on your warm-ups,' Maya replied, as the girl fumbled in her worn velvet reticule and pressed her five-shilling fee into Maya's hand. 'That's what got you into this trouble, you said so yourself. Does a fiddler mistreat his fiddle? He keeps it warm and safe; he doesn't play it in the rain, nor ask too much of it until it's been limbered and ready. Those legs are your instrument, my girl. Treat them right, and they'll put bread in your mouth for a long, long time. Don't be tempted to show off your kicks until you've warmed up your muscles and stretched them out.'

'Garn—' the girl shook her head. 'Th' rest of 'em said you 'ad a way of puttin' things. Me mam alms said the legs was the last thing t' go. Dance th' cancan, an' they ain't lookin' none at yer face.'

'Exactly. In fact, I've heard that the greatest star of the can-can in Paris is a hideous old washerwoman with a face like a flatiron—but she has the best legs in all of France, and they throw money at her feet when she dances.' Maya held the door of the examining room open for her, and the dancer frisked out with a laugh.

'Thank'ee, Miss Doctor!' the girl said gratefully, with a touch of the pertness that probably made her look prettier on stage than she really was. 'If I walk at a good clip, I can make the theater in time for curtain and get me legs warmed up!'

'You're very welcome.' Maya looked at the benches in the hall as the girl skipped out the door. There was one patient waiting, a woman who seemed a little shabbier than her usual run, and was coughing. The brown dress had once been fine velvet, but now was so rubbed that there was scarcely anything left of the pile anywhere, and it didn't look to have been cleaned or brushed in months. The girl had a new silk kerchief around her neck, her hair put up inexpertly beneath a bonnet that was liberally trimmed with motheaten feathers and stained rosettes of ribbon. She looked to be a little younger than the dancer who had just left; sixteen or seventeen, but older than her years.

Much older. Those eyes have seen more than anyone should see in a lifetime.