VI

  Deterioration

  “Okay, if you’re still suspecting Ebuka is Kanevorian,” I was saying while Dr. Aliozor was locking the door to the office, “shouldn’t we worry about him, I don’t know… becoming dangerous? Is there any way to prevent that? To save him from this curse?”

  My mind was in his uncle’s answers. Maybe that part of the Kanevorian nature was recessive. Perhaps there was some way to bring it under control. His grandmother and uncle seemed normal.

  Speak of the devil, they say. I’d thought of the devil. The screaming started then. Grandma. She was screaming Ebuka’s name.

  The two of us burst onto the scene at once. Dr. Ugo and Dr. Ekumankah were at his bedside, already doing a GCS assessment.

  “Ebuka! Ebuka nwa’m kwuon’okwu. Mep’anya gi, kwuono’okwu,” his grandmother said as the nurses pulled her hands, to drag her away. Ebuka my child, talk. Open your eyes, and talk. “Ha kpoku aha gi, I me’anya, zaa ha.”

  Like some other patient care-givers, Mr. Peter stood rooted to a spot, staring at his nephew, mouth ajar. Pulse and respiratory rate were high; BP and SpO2 were normal; temperature was falling and his extremities were growing cold. The scene was not a comical one.

  I forced myself to watch Dr. Aliozor, forcing down the memories, the anger I felt at him each time it arose. He pressed something on his phone quickly, then joined the registrar and senior registrar at the bedside. I went with him, standing as far back from them as the table in the doctors’ station.

  “What did you get?,” he said, taking the child’s hand and settling into one chair nearby.

  “Chief, he can open his eye to pain,” Dr. Ugo said, scoring with his fingers.

  That was two for eye opening.

  “No verbal response. He withdrew from pain normally. Which should be…?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He turned his head my way. I wasn’t sure of the motor response scoring myself.

  Dr. Aliozor answered before I even typed in my browser. “Four. And the total is seven…”

  Any score from eight downward is coma.

  “…Doctor Ugo, get an NG tube for me to pass. Doctor Ekumankah call the Senior Registrar on call in PICU and inform the person they might have a patient. They should let the consultant on duty know.”

  Might because patient care-givers might decline after weighing the costs and benefits. One cost is an admission fee that runs into hundreds of thousands of naira daily. Dr. Aliozor explained everything to Ebuka’s relatives.

  “Make dey carry am for de place first. We go pay,” his uncle said.

  Dr. Aliozor hanging around Ebuka until we’d moved him into the intensive care ward, hooked him up to other machines, and the SR on duty in PICU arrived, I suspected he was at the same time coaxing.

  In a certain sense, my suspicions were off. Without my having to ask, he explained himself at the entrance of the CHER. I couldn’t accompany him to his car because Chisom needed help rounding off. Time for hand-over had passed. And those for the night shift had arrived.

  “I have bought us the rest of the day if we’re lucky,” he said.

  What had he paid for it? I glanced at him and glanced away, not daring to ask. I didn’t understand it. Nor was I seeking to. The last time, he’d lost sight in one eye for a time for glimpsing into parts of the future. He’d called it a unique form of magic, more ancient. That there were Forces accessible during a case, but they were not free, and there were limits to their access.

  “The child is in a bubble outside time. But if Ebuka is truly Kanevorian, he could break out of that bubble at any time...”

  The time was 4:55 pm.

  “You saw how long I was there. A force as powerful as Time shouldn’t take that long. Yet… I will know when he does, but you could tell one of the HOs on the night shift to keep an eye.”

  I told James before leaving.

  He paused for a while, as if giving me an opening to ask questions. I think he appreciated I didn’t ask.

  He continued. “Hopefully we get at least four, five, six hours. More. Oddly enough, if he breaks out before we can provide adequate treatment, it’s this same ‘Kanevorian’ body so resistant to magic that might let him hang on for some time. Any other child would be dead by now.

  “I need to go to town for the blood, and to return Doctor Bernard. At 5:30, you, if you’re comfortable enough working with me and missing Mass, and his uncle must be ready. Speak with him. We need to check out some things in that village before anything else. It’s supposed to be a discreet visit.”

  I watched him leave, easily. If I had fared this poorly when he was wearing another’s skin, how would I fare when he returned in his own body? It was one worry, among many.