“If?” Lily said.
He smiled apologetically. “I’m not questioning your expertise. In my field, we often express opinions conditionally. Psychiatry is a science, but not a precise one. We still know very little about how observational data correlates to physical data about the brain. In other words, I can readily diagnose schizophrenia, but not by using an MRI. Yet MRIs can still be useful. In your mother’s case, the MRI shows no evidence of brain damage or other abnormalities, which is encouraging. It suggests that whatever was done to her, the effect was to suppress her memories, which—”
That is false.
The mental voice was as sharp and cold as a shard of ice. All around the table, eyes popped wide. Dr. Babbitt turned pale. Mequi said something in Chinese; Susan and Deborah gasped. Paul stiffened and Jim looked around suspiciously and Feng blurted out, “What the hell was that?”
“That,” Grandmother said, “is the other expert we will hear from—Sun Mzao, known to some as Sam.”
“The, uh . . .” Dr. Babbitt cleared his throat. “The dragon.”
“Yes.”
“Then that was mindspeech.”
“Of course.”
“I have never . . .” The psychiatrist shook his head. “How should I address him?”
Out loud. It is tedious to sort through the mental chatter that passes for thought in humans to abstract what you wish to say. Do not address me now. I will first correct your conclusion that a lack of physical damage to the brain means that Julia Yu’s memories are being magically suppressed. They are not. The memories are either destroyed or unreachable.
Dr. Babbitt straightened his shoulders. “I, uh, suppose, sir, that you have examined her thoughts, but that would prove only that her memories aren’t available to her.”
The human tendency to settle on the convenient or comfortable answer is biologically based, as is the way you leap at conclusions like frogs jumping at flies. Resist this tendency. I recommend you review the work done by your Dr. Daniel Kahneman. It is flawed, but his metaphor of the two systems is a reasonable way for you to grasp the existence of your innate biases so that you may attempt to guard against them.
“Dr. Kahneman? I don’t . . . oh, yes, heuristics. I’ve read his work on heuristics, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”
You know I can read thoughts. You assume this is the extent of my ability to work with minds. You are wrong. You are also wrong about Julia’s condition. Of course, you lack a basic grasp of the interrelation between memory, identity, and sovereignty, so your failure to comprehend her condition is not surprising.
“And you do comprehend it?” The doctor sounded both polite and skeptical.
Not fully. Unlike you, I perceive it, but my comprehension is limited. I have never encountered a mind damaged in this way. I will now address Julia’s family. Do not interrupt. Edward Yu.
Lily’s father didn’t bat an eye. “Yes?”
Julia’s memory is not being magically suppressed. Either the vast majority of such memories no longer exist or they are severed from her mind. She does possess some badly fragmented memories from beyond the day when she observed her twelfth birthday, but she is unaware of them. This suppression is her mind’s own instinctive response. No effort should be made to direct her thinking toward those fragments. It is unlikely her mind would survive.
Lily reached for Rule’s hand and held it tightly. She didn’t speak.
“You are saying . . .” Edward’s voice broke. “You say there is no hope.”
There is no chance that conventional human treatments will restore her memory. There remains a slim chance of magical restoration. This depends on whether we can determine what induced her condition and on whether the memories have been eradicated or are somehow severed from her mind. Understand that by “mind” I do not mean brain or the ability to reason. Mind is the product of consciousness combined with memory. It is not a wholly physical construct, but its nonphysical components are largely inaccessible by humans. Ghosts are a projection of mind. Most are uninhabited by consciousness, but not all. Lily Yu.
“Yes.” Lily’s voice was husky, as if with unshed tears. She kept a tight grip on Rule’s hand.
The ghost of Al Drummond contacted you. What did he say?
“If you know that much, why don’t you know what he said?”
I sense the constructs you call ghosts, but I cannot hear them. I heard your speech to him. I did not hear his speech to you, which uses channels you would describe as spirit.
Lily grimaced. “Spirit again. He said Friar was involved and that he’d be working this case with me, but mostly on his side of things.”
Good. You will need his assistance, limited as it is likely to be. You and Cullen Seaborne are correct in assuming that the attack on your mother involves spiritual energy rather than purely magical.
“But what does that mean?” she cried, frustrated. “I don’t have any idea what it means when you say ‘spirit.’”
I congratulate you on awareness of your ignorance. Spirit is capricious, personal, universal, and indefinable. It can neither be shaped through will nor grasped by reason. It is often spoken of in terms of good or evil, and observation suggests that humans in particular access it through this polarity. It is both the product of and the ground for soul. I understand very little about it.
“You . . .” Rule closed his mouth before he finished that statement—though Sam was probably well aware of what he was thinking. Sam habitually claimed vastly superior understanding of pretty much everything, and not without reason. If the first couple of millennia don’t kill you, you probably do know what you’re talking about most of the time. If the black dragon didn’t understand spirit, who did? Rule kept his voice level. “Do you have a recommendation?”
Several. First, you need spiritual consultants. Dr. Nettie Two Horses is an obvious choice. I suggest you seek others as well. Second, you need to bring Julia Yu to me on the roof of this building. I will ensorcell her and—
The outcry was immediate.
“What?”
“Absolutely not!”
“No one is going to ensorcell my sister.”
“If this is your idea of an expert, Edward, you need to—”
Madame Yu slapped one hand on the table. “Bah! Stop bleating. You dislike the word ‘ensorcell.’ You understand it not at all. It is a tool, like a surgeon’s knife. It works for good or ill depending on the wielder’s intent and skill.”
Sam’s chill mental voice took over. The surgical analogy is appropriate, although in this instance I would liken ensorcellment more to the anesthetic than to the knife. I propose to perform what you may think of as delicate and complex mental surgery on Julia. Without ensorcellment, this would be as brutal as if a cardiac surgeon were to cut open a patient without benefit of anesthesia and saw through his ribs to gain access to his heart. Even if the patient did not die from shock, his screams and writhings would render a successful outcome unlikely.
That brought a few moments of profound silence. Edward broke it. “If Julia’s memory is gone or—or whatever, what good will this surgery do?”
Julia’s condition is fragile. Dr. Babbitt is aware of this. He makes several errors, but his observational skill is sufficient for him to recognize what I perceive more directly. He intends to propose that she be incarcerated in a facility where her environment can be regulated in an attempt to shield her from some of the shocks of adapting to a time, place, body, and people she does not recognize or understand.
Deborah looked horrified. Her voice wobbled as she addressed Dr. Babbitt. “You want to lock her away?”
The doctor’s eyes were soft with distress. “This wasn’t how I meant to bring it up, nor is that how I’d phrase it, but . . . yes. Essentially I agree with, uh, Sam about her condition. She needs to be in a controlled
