Edward’s palm slapped the table hard. “Enough! We are not going to—”
“She has a point, Edward,” Lily’s other uncle said. Feng was normally a cheerful man, easygoing and sociable. He looked ruffled now. “If Lily’s job is putting us and our children in danger . . .” He glanced nervously at Rule. “Or maybe it’s her association with lupi. Whichever, we deserve to—”
“Deserve?” That was Madame Yu, her voice cold and sharp enough to cut flesh along with the others’ speech. “You will tell me what you think you deserve, bái mù, for blaming the one who fights evil instead of blaming the evil she fights.”
Rule didn’t know the Chinese phrase she’d used. Clearly Feng did. Just as clearly, it was an insult. He went white around the mouth.
Edward spoke into the sudden silence. “If terrorists in Afghanistan blow up a girls’ school and kill the students, are their teachers to blame for teaching them? Are their parents at fault for wanting their daughters to be taught, or are the Afghan people to blame for not giving in to the terrorists?”
Feng spoke stiffly. “I was not blaming Lily.”
To Rule’s surprise, his wife, Deborah, said firmly, “Yes, dear, you were. Not in so many words, but that’s what Mequi and you meant. And very upsetting that must be for poor Lily.” She reached across the table and patted Lily’s hand. “Pay no attention to them, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Deborah,” Edward said. “I would like to stop wasting time now. We are going to hear from two experts who disagree about Julia’s diagnosis, but first I must make you aware of a difficult decision I face. Some of you have met Dr. Babbitt already. He is a well-credentialed psychiatrist recommended by both Susan and Paul. He believes I need to have Julia declared incompetent.”
“Oh, no,” Deborah said. “Oh, no.”
“That can’t be right,” Lily muttered. “I don’t see how that can be right.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Susan said. “Mother—well, she thinks she’s twelve. She won’t react the way she would if she were . . . if she thought of herself as an adult.”
“Edward,” Feng said. “You’re considering this?”
Mequi looked severe. “Of course he is. What else is to be done?”
“I’m considering it,” Edward said evenly. “I haven’t decided. From what Dr. Babbitt tells me, the medical power of attorney I hold for Julia doesn’t apply in the current situation.”
“The problem is,” Dr. Babbitt said gently, “that the law regards Julia as an adult. She’s not comatose, nor does she fall under other established guidelines, so at this time we have to obtain her agreement to any course of action taken to help her. Given that she is mentally twelve years old and has no knowledge of what medicine is like in the twenty-first century, I don’t believe she’s capable of making such decisions. But even if you agree, this can’t be implemented quickly. It would have to go before a court.”
“I wanted you all to be aware that this may need to be done,” Edward said, “though it can’t happen right away. My immediate decision rests on the points on which our two experts disagree—diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Babbitt, will you present your diagnosis?”
The psychiatrist cleared his throat. “I can’t call it that. As far as I can tell, Julia’s case is unique, so we have no diagnosis that fits. I can give you my professional opinion, though, which is based on both my interview with her and on diagnostic tests.” He looked around the table, making brief eye contact with everyone. “First, I’m told that her condition was magically induced. If so—”
“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.