Sal returned some time later with a small white suitcase emblazoned with a red cross. "We're going to need this now, unfortunately."

If Kyle wasn't scared after being "shot," the med-kit was a sobering item. What would hurt me where a bullet didn't?

"This next part, unfortunately, may hurt a little," said Sal, confirming Kyle's suspicions. She noticed his anxious look at the med-kit and laughed. "Oh, you'll be fine. If I'm right about that town, you'll look back on this like a leisurely swim through a local swimmin' hole."

"Nothing can be easy with you, can it?" he accused.

She frowned then, serious. "I'm sorry, Kyle. You've no idea how hard this is for me. I've got to make this fast, but teach you what you need, or you'll die. As distasteful this may be, to both of us, it's necessary." She covered his hand then. "You can hate me when it's over, if you want; I don't mind." Then, wistfully, "I think a few of the foks here still resent me for their training, somewhere deep inside. But it's better than the alternative, so I can live with that."

Kyle looked at the table and the vase, guilty for entertaining the same distaste for her methods, unsure how much was truly unavoidable, and uncertain if he wouldn't be worse somehow as a teacher.

She sat at the table for a while, one hand on Kyle's, another atop the first-aid kit. "You've forgotten our first meeting, but I'll take you back there again if we all survive. Consider it a treat leagues removed from that dessert I brought in earlier. It's refreshment for the soul," she said with a sigh, "and by the end of this, we'll both need it."

"Alright," he declared, "let's get this over with."

She stood once more. All business; be wary. "I haven't been fully upfront about your abilities, Kyle. They're dangerous in more ways than you realize. You're not just 'fixing' something, or 'breaking' something else. Have you ever felt scared of the dark?" she asked. "Ever fear that in the hollow of the blackness, reality was weak and monstrosities of dream or demons of unimaginable depths stood mere inches from you, biding their time and seeking your death?"

She grunted, opening the kit and leafing through various bandages with her fingers. "Everyone does. But for us, it's real. The boundaries between universes, what us physicists like to call pending waveform collapse, is under your command. We're separate, you and I, from essentially everything that defines reality. To tell the truth, I'm not sure how it works." She stared into his eyes, "Call it magic if you want, or assume you've been chosen by God. I don't really care which. Whatever you do, understand there's a balance."

A balance. "What, like Yin and Yang? That stuff?"

"Yes Kyle," she agreed, "that stuff. You see, you're not really fixing a vase, but exchanging the broken parts in this universe, for fully assembled parts elsewhere. The ball didn't pass through you, you moved it somewhere else, waited until it was through your protective radius, and brought it back. Sometimes," she warned, "you'll miss that last step, and that's when the pain begins.

"You haven't learned this in school yet, but there's a law that dictates conservation of energy. When you repel an item from this universe, that displaces energy. If you don't bring it back, that energy has to go somewhere, and for us, that means rebound."

She gripped his hand then, as if holding it steady. The hand she'd been using to examine the first-aid kit came around then, holding a scalpel that glinted in the candlelight. She looked him in the eye, you know what comes next.

Kyle braced himself and concentrated. Sal brought the surgical instrument down toward the table in one quick motion, and as she expected, the blade vanished inches before threatening Kyle's hand. Except she'd tricked him.

Though the blade was gone, Kyle was inexperienced, and didn't know where to send the blade after protecting his hand. As if on cue, a bulge appeared on his hand between his index and middle fingers, right where the scalpel would have struck. The boil grew and whitened as if heating in an oven, finally bursting forth in a gout of caustic blood that paradoxically cauterized the wound before Kyle fully understood what happened.

Sal was prepared with a roll of gauze, which she hastily wrapped around his immobile hand. Spots of blood blossomed through the porous material, tinting the outer layers a muted red, but the burned flesh beneath bled slowly and soon stopped entirely.

Through this, Kyle hardly reacted. This can't be real. My hand just exploded, and there's no way that just happened. No way, Jack. Lie me to the moon.

"Are you alright Kyle?" Sal asked, concerned at his vacant stare.

He nodded absently. Sure. I'm great. Got a hole in my hand big enough to store a pencil. Heck, I might use that later. His eyes still lacked focus, and his gaze fell nowhere in particular, blurred and useless. "Fine," he whispered.

"Kyle, I need you to listen." Sal snapped her fingers in his right ear, hoping he'd regain his senses soon.

Sanity threatened to flee for several minutes until, eventually, Kyle's pupils dilated. Flush with restored mind, Kyle finally comprehended what the hole in his hand meant, and his eyes widened in sudden agony. He hissed through his teeth and growled a stream of curses that only ended because he'd run out of breath.

Sal held up the scalpel, neatly sheared-off halfway up the handle. "Notice your hand wasn't cut. Displacing the scalpel heated your hand like falling off a bike—the friction of that mass and the force behind it entered you. Without sending it elsewhere," she gestured toward his bandaged wound, "catastrophe."

Kyle's breathing accelerated, threatening hyperventilation. He fully realized what happened, but why in God's name didn't she just warn him to be careful!? "You... my..."

"And here's the actual lesson. Your perception is skewed, just like a rich boy doesn't understand why everyone doesn't own a pony. You heal much faster than your friends, but unless you've gotten seriously hurt, you may just suspect you're lucky in avoiding injury—that you're careful.

"There's a part of your brain, you know: the midbrain, where your reflexes and things like breathing are controlled; things you don't consciously control. It has access to your abilities too, at a very primitive level."

Panic muted now, Kyle observes the gauze; a slug oozing grossly across his innocent hand, distaste visible in his eyes. I'll give you primitive. Jesus Christ.

"Compared to how quickly you can move, displace, or avoid something, your body is much slower. Two or three hours from now, if you remove this bandage, your hand will be completely healed." Kyle's seething rage betrayed surprise, then. "And if you'd broken a bone in a fall, while your friends may wait months to heal, you'd be fine before a plaster cast could harden. In fact," she noted, "you fell out of bed when you were four, and struck your head on your piggy-bank. Through the blood and matted hair, the doctor found nothing wrong with you, and sent you home: a lucky child indeed." She tsked, "Of course, we both know luck was playing hookey."

And a wash of images assaulted Kyle: cutting himself with a steak knife while doing dishes, missing a pop-fly ball that struck him directly in the head, yet finishing the game two innings later. Falling down stairs, slipping on ice, boring a hole through a belt and accidentally piercing his own hand; nothing left a scar or hurt for longer than a single day. Kyle always thought it was a lucky break, or a shallow cut, or something else, since his friends never boasted such recuperative abilities. Now? He hated having it spelled-out, but Sal was right: he didn't fathom the extent of his feckless birthright.

"Serendipity is a harsh mistress, Kyle. Kids get hurt. It's a fact of life. You don't have a single scar. Not even from that." She pointed at his hand for emphasis.

And of course, Sal left much unsaid. If his body replaced damaged tissue from somewhere else, where did it come from? Who was bleeding or crying, or even dying of serious injuries in his stead? Was that the real reason he couldn't help the dead woman? Because his power was exchange, so somewhere, someone would always be dead? It was a sobering thought, and a dismal one.

"It's not magic, Kyle." said Sal, understanding his contemplation. "But every time you use it, you'll wish it was."