Chapter 131 - Feelers

"And I hear about the fit only now?" Katya snapped at them. "Why did no one notified me?"

"With all due respect, Katerina, we are not even under your jurisdiction," one of the medics snapped, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "It's not as out of control as my colleague was saying."

The colleague, the same lost witch who just cried to Katya, shrunk up a little and backed half a step away. Katya immediately zeroed on her like a bull on a red towel. She just opened her mouth for another dressing-down when I glanced up at Ghost. However crazy he was, I could read that in that moment, our thoughts were the same.

We bypassed Katya and went to the patients. Six of them. Four, strangely, looked fine—except that only one of them was conscious. He stared at us with blank, unseeing eyes from where he half-sat on the bed. The fifth was hidden under a blanket, and the sixth one… The sixth one curled all eight her limbs around herself and rocked on her bed, mumbling something undecipherable under her breath.

The atmosphere was straight out of a horror movie, despite the cleanliness of the room and the lovely view of the sunset from the wide window. I shuddered, forcing myself to avoid looking at the eight-limbed woman again.

"Which one is the patient two?" I wondered aloud. All six appeared to be fine enough, though with the four that looked fine, I wondered what their problem was. If I counted from the door, then the second bed was with one of the sedated people, but it was the same if I counted from the window.

Ghost went to the second from the door bed without a pause and pointed at the empty ampule lying on the nightstand. "See? Do you know what that means?"

I didn't, even as I followed Ghost's steps and looked at the tag on the ampule. The words written on it might've as well be in Chinese. Though, when I looked at the other nightstands, I saw the difference. "This one was just left here. Is this the sedative?"

"Yes. You might ask Katya to be sure if he's the right one, though. But I think we might as well look at his aura first!"

"He's the right one." Katya, grim as the reaper, walked up to us and our patient, leaving her medics, one angry and one almost tearful, behind. "We couldn't determine what was done to him, but he was having what looked like epileptic fits when we found him. Almost, but not exactly. His heartbeat and breathing didn't become dangerously erratic. He was lucid, too, but couldn't say a full word. We had to sedate him before he bit off his tongue… But he keeps coming to."

Ghost hummed thoughtfully. "I see, I see. Very interesting. Let's take a good look, Diana. How are you with aura diagnostic?"

"Aura what?"

He grinned. "Youngsters these days! Weren't you taught the basic healing? I learnt the basics even before I Awakened!"

"But do you still remember them?" I murmured unhappily under my breath.

"Well enough to teach you! Now, witches aren't the best practice. One just can't see anything through the well, so you will have to learn to do feelers, too. Don't worry, that's easy. Everyone can do it if they bother to learn! Bad thing that few witches do bother nowadays… What are you waiting for, Diana?"

Right. I closed my eyes and opened my third eye, while fighting to keep my ears open. The air in the room glinted with heavy yellows and greens of worry, fear, and despair, especially around the sixth bed. All the patients and medics, though, were hidden from me by the holes of their wells, visible only as rough silhouettes.

"Now, look here, Diana." The silhouette next to me was so big that it was hard to discern the gesture, but I guessed the Ghost lifted his arm to point at something on himself. "Feelers."

I watched in morbid fascination as five thin, almost web-like threads came from behind the veil of Ghost's well and reached to the epileptic patient. They were aspects, too, and each thread was different. Life, peace, joy, health, and knowledge. Next to him, I watched Katya do the same, except she only had two feelers, and they looked more like spaghetti. Hers were only life and knowledge, and she didn't rush them towards the patient.

With his five feelers, Ghost began to carefully prod under the patient's veil like under a blanket, speaking all the while. "You have to form feelers out of your aura, just like everyone does. Well, it can be hard when you don't have that much aura to begin with, but you can do it. These are for diagnostic, so they don't need to be powerful or long, quite the opposite. The thinner they are, the more precise are sensations and the less influence they are on the patient." He took a breath. "I don't imagine you will learn to make good feelers right here and now, don't you, Diana? You can just marvel at mine, then."

"Why are they all different?" I asked.

"Gives a better range of feeling. I can see how our patient's aspects react to different things… But always keep them positive or neutral, less you want to harm the patient further with your meddling. Ours, I must say, is very unusual. I've never seen anything like it! It was all made on the informational level, too, not physical or mental. Oh, I think I almost got it now. Let me just switch my feelers…"

He pulled them out from behind the 'curtain' and into himself, and when they returned, the aspects were different. Knowledge, peace, being, human, thought. How could Ghost even manipulate them in the first place was a pure mystery to me, though watching how his well shifted, I thought it played a big part in it.

"Aha!" Ghost exclaimed. "Yes, I think I see it now!"