Little

Chapter 7

"Thank you Master Mordo," she said to the guy who had led them here. To the man reading a book, she said, "Thank you, Master Hamir."

"Mr. Strange," she said to Stephen.

"No, Doctor," he said, correcting her.

"Well, no, not anymore, surely?" she said. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

Stephen could do nothing but just stare in shock. How did she know that?

"And who's this?" she said looking at Peter.

"My name's Peter, I'm six years old," Peter said.

"Is this your son?" the Ancient One questioned.

"No, he's...it's complicated," Stephen said. He changed the subject. "Did...did you heal a man named Pangborn?" Stephen asked her. "Jonathan?"

"Not exactly," the Ancient one said.

"How do you correct a complete C7-C8 spinal cord injury?" Stephen asked, with disbelief. It was impossible to do that, without advanced technologies.

"I didn't," she replied. "He couldn't walk, I convinced him he could, and he did."

"You're...not suggesting it was psychosomatic?" Stephen asked, bewildered.

"When you reattach a severed nerve, is it you or the body who puts it back together?" the Ancient One asked, completely ignoring his question.

"It's the cells," Stephen answered. He already knew that.

"And the cells are only programmed to do that in specific ways, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"What if I told you that your entire body could be convinced to put itself back together in all sorts of ways?" she said.

Stephen stood up. This was something big. "You're talking about cellular regeneration," he said with excitement. "That's bleeding-edge medical tech! Is that why you're working here, without a governing medical board? I mean... just how experimental is your treatment?"

The Ancient One just gave him a smile. "Quite," she said.

"So you figured out a way to reprogram nerve cells to self heal?" Stephen asked.

The Ancient One and Mordo just stared at him. "No, Mr. Strange," the Ancient One finally said. "I know how to reorient the spirit to better heal the body."

"Spirit... to heal the body," Stephen repeated. What in blazes was she talking about? "Al... alright. How do we do that? Where do we start?"

The Ancient One showed him a book with a picture in it. The picture was of some weird Hindu ritual. "Don't like that map?" she said, noticing the expression on his face.

"Oh, no," Stephen replied. "It's... it's very good. It's just...you know, I've seen it before. In gift shops," he added with a sneer.

The Ancient One turned a page in the book. "And what about this one?" she said, showing him another picture.

"Acupuncture, great," Stephen said, looking at the picture.

She turned one more page in the book. "What about... that one?"

"You're showing me an MRI scan?" he said, looking at the book. "I can't believe this."

"Each of those maps was drawn up by someone who could see in part, but not the whole," the Ancient One said. Stephen wasn't taking it.

"I spent my last dollar getting here on a one-way ticket," he said. "And you're talking to me about healing through belief?"

The Ancient One looked at him with mild disgust. "You're a man who's looking at the world through a keyhole, and you spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole, she said. "To see more, know more. And now, on hearing that it can be widened in ways you can't imagine, you reject the possibility?"

"No, I reject it because I do not believe in fairy tales about chakras, or energy, or the power of belief," Stephe said. "There is no such thing as spirit! We are made of matter, and nothing more. We're just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe."

"Stop being mad," Peter said, tugging on Stephen's pant leg. "Be nice."

"The young one has much to teach you," the Ancient one said. "You think too little of yourself."

Stephen wasn't used to people talking down to him, but he hated it. "Oh, you think you see through me, do you?" he sneered. "Well, you don't. But I see through you!" He jabbed a finger at the Ancient One.

The Ancient One grabbed his hand and gave his chest a shove, and for a second, he was shoved out of his body.

He saw everything in slow motion. Mordo coming to catch him, Peter running towards him with his mouth open. Then he was pulled back inside his body.

"What did you just do to me?!" he said, shocked. Peter stared in shock at Stephen. "Woah! What was that?"

"I pushed your astral form out of your physical form," the Ancient One said, like it was a completely normal thing to happen.

"What's in that tea? Psilocybin? LSD?" Stephen asked. He was sure he'd been drugged.

"Just tea," the Ancient One said. "With a little honey."

"What just happened?" Stephen asked, breathing hard.

"For a moment, you entered the astral dimension," the Ancient One said.

"The what?" Stephen asked.

"A place where the soul exists apart from the body," the Ancient One said.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Stephen asked.

"To show you just how much you don't know," the Ancient One said. She pressed a finger to his forehead.

"Open your eye."

He was flung backwards and up out of the building, falling through the sky. This wasn't real, was it? He was in space now, circling the Earth. There was a...butterfly? A pretty Monarch. He reached out to touch it.

Then everything went crazy.

He was being flung through space and time and who knows what, other dimensions? From somewhere, he could hear Mordo's voice.

"His heart rate is getting dangerously high," he said.

For just a second, he was back in the building in Kamar-Taj in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Asia in the Eastern hemisphere, on safe planet Earth. "He looks alright to me," the Ancient One said.

Then it happened again.

"You think you know how the world works?" he heard the Ancient One say. "You think that this material universe is all there is? What is real? What mysteries lie beyond the reach of your senses? At the root of existence, mind and matter meet. Thoughts shape reality."

As she said this, hands came up and started grabbing him. Was that because...he was thinking about his hands?

"This universe is only one of an infinite number," she continued. "Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life-giving, others filled with malice and hunger. Dark places, where powers older than time lie... ravenous... and waiting."

He was flying straight towards a gigantic face that looked about ready to kill something. Thankfully, he was flung away from it at the last second.

"Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?" the Ancient One asked, her voice echoing.

Suddenly, in mere seconds, he was flung backwards through space and dimensions, and fell straight through the roof of Kamar-Taj and landed. Hard. Peter ran to help him up. "Now you hurt him!" he said to the Ancient One.

The Ancient One ignored Peter.

"Have you seen that before in a gift shop?" she asked Stephen.

Stephen slowly got to his knees, shaking all the way. He had seen. Now he believed.

"Teach me!" he said.

The Ancient One just stared at him for a long moment.

"No," she finally said.

They kicked him out.

They let Peter stay in.