Many times over the years, my Mum told me stories about the people who could cure things. “They were ‘charmers.’” she said.
One night, during a fierce winter storm, we lost power. My brothers were in our room entertaining themselves with a game of checkers by candlelight. Mum and I were in the kitchen. We talked as she washed dishes by hand. Each time a gust of wind shook our small house, the lantern flickered and created shadows that moved around the room.
“Mum, can you tell me about the charmers again?” I asked. “What’s a charmer?” She sat down across the table from me and leaned close. “They have special powers.”
“Really?” For some reason, I felt the need to whisper. “Were they witches and warlocks?”
“No! They were just like you and me.” She whispered too. Another gust of wind shook the house, sending the shadows dancing around the room again. “I knew a lady in Bull Creek (This is an area close to our village that had about six homes in it) who had a goiter in her throat.”
“What’s a goiter?” I interrupted.
“It’s lump in the lymph nodes in the neck. This lady’s goiter was so big, it was closing her throat. She couldn’t eat and had trouble breathing. Well, I forget the man’s name now, but he was a charmer. They say he went to the lady’s house, walked up to her, placed a hand on the lump, closed his eyes, and mumbled words no one understood. He then told her she would be fine.”
“What happened?” I interrupted again. I was wide-eyed with fascination and, scared to death.
“A week later the goiter was gone. It just disappeared.”
“Wow!” I still didn’t understand what a goiter was, but it was cool to know someone could make it go away with magic words.
Snow and hail, whipped by the winds, rattled against the kitchen window. “There was another time.”
“Where?”
“Hush! Let me talk.” She scolded me. “Your dad and I were at Clarence and Sylvia’s. You don’t know them. They were old and are gone now.” She took a sip of her tea and leaned close again. “They say Clarence had the power too.
“We were playing cards that night. They didn’t have electricity in their house. Most houses didn’t back then you know. All they had were candles or lanterns like this one.” She pointed to the lamp beside us. “Your father and I were playing cards with Clarence. He always seemed to win. Best card player I ever saw. Anyway, Sylvia was in the kitchen drying dishes. She’d washed a glass chimney for a lantern that night. It was just like the one.” I looked at our lamp again.
Mum continued. “She was drying the chimney. Her small hand pushed the dish cloth inside and twisted to dry the inside. The glass broke and slit her wrist. Michael, blood poured from her wrist in a river of red. Your father and I were scared. We thought she would bleed to death right in front of us.
“Clarence wasn’t fazed at all. He calmly got up, walked up to Sylvia, and took her wounded hand in one of his. He held the cut face up, waved his other hand over it and mumbled words we couldn’t hear. Michael, I swear, the blood stopped flowing. They bandaged her wrist, and in a few days she was fine. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.”
The wind whipped more hail and snow against the window. I turned pale.
“Wow!” was all I could say.
“There are some people who just have these powers.” Mum said.
“How do they get them, Mum?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I do know they can pass it on. They say the person with the power can pass it on to someone else, but that person cannot use the power until the person who gave it to them dies. If a man has the power, he has to pass it to a woman, and if a woman has the power, she has to pass it to a man.
