Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy: Volume I)

by Trey Copeland

  Chapter 7

  "Your health remains my responsibility," Calivera had said, insisting she escort Steffor to the ceremony. He did not attempt to argue or to hide his delight at the prospect of her ongoing presence.

  The remainder of that day she focused on Steffor's rehabilitation: deep tissue massages, Source spas, and cleansing steam showers. By late evening, she shifted the Source to induce a deep and natural sleep. As she laid her exhausted body down to sleep soon after, Calivera knew Steffor was in perfect physical health. Her lingering concern related to his mental state, an inconsolable melancholy pervading his attitude since his removal from the table. To part ways now, she concluded, would be negligent in her duties as a Healer.

  Accurate as her observations and conclusions about Steffor were and despite her exhaustion, Calivera could not sleep. She was unwilling to accept the consequence of Steffor's abrupt arrival in her life. Her recent experience with Steffor had changed her and denying that change taxed her soul with every passing moment. As if thick sediment settled at the basin of her mind, repressed memories stirred, determined to rise to the surface.

  Steffor roused a power within that, up to that moment, she swore to keep dormant. The emergence and rapid growth of this mysterious power aside, before Steffor, Calivera's life had been very fulfilling. All the solace required maintain sanity she had found in the Provider's Law. Now, that past existence read more like a mundane passage from the Deeds than the life she led for the past twenty-eight seasons. Or at best, the foggy remnants of a previous life long past.

  The Deeds showed no record of any Citizen, alive or past, of ever possessing her unique ability. Her discovery of it coincided with her indoctrination as a Healer. She was young and clumsy at that time, her shifting limited to healing minor scrapes and bruises. Still, even then, she knew her ability to see a wound of the soul was not normal. She managed to keep it hidden for many seasons, up to the fateful day Master Higfreid, her first teacher and mentor, learned of it by accident.

  She was three months into her long awaited training. Higfreid played the role of patient, lying prone on a Healer's table. He was demonstrating how to use the table to both amplify the healing properties of the Source and the patient's ability to consume it. It was then, as Calivera shifted the Source from the Provider's spirit into the table and began to transfer it into Higfreid's body, that she lost her grip on the strange power. Before she knew it, Calivera probed his soul. She revealed to both of them his deepest, darkest wounds, dating from his current life all the way to his first incarnation, to the dawn of time itself.

  It was over a few moments after it started. Higfreid had shot up from the table, breaking their connection. He then turned to her for a brief second, his face a mix of terror and awe, before moving onto the next student as if nothing had happened. From that incident alone, she learned how to keep the eerie talent hidden from her patients, but never from herself.

  Whenever she treated someone for an injury or illness, she always saw that person’s deeper wounds. These spiritual maladies, compiled over hundreds or thousands of past lives, influenced the wellbeing of the present. Confident in her ability to heal those invisible wounds, she resisted the temptation to do so. She feared how people might respond, feared what she might discover.

  To extenuate her decision to keep the power hidden from the whole, she would recite to herself verses from the Deeds. “The Provider reveals that which we are prepared to see," was verse that provided consistent comfort. Healing the spiritual wounds from past lives of those patients who came to her for wounds of the body, she concluded, was not her purpose. She would stay active and be patient.

  If the Provider intended for us to know the details of our past lives, then he would reveal them accordingly. Who am I to prevent another from learning of past mistakes, the opportunity to make the hard decisions they failed to make in the past.

  Despite what she assumed a harrowing experience for the other, Higfreid remained her most influential instructor. Over the seasons of training that followed the incident, he remained a close mentor and confidant. Up to the day of Steffor's accident, Higfreid never confronted her about the unique ability. When he finally did, while discreet, his intent was clear.

  They had placed Steffor on the ancient Healer's table the moment he arrived. An assembly of the Provider’s most gifted Healers applied their combined experience in attempt to revive the young Guardian. Calivera and dozens of others watched as they submerged the lifeless body into the Source infused table; the curved walls pulsated so bright with the Source, one had to squint. None could revive Steffor, the extreme damage to his body, the time passed since the accident, too much. After an hour with no pulse, they proclaimed him dead.

  Calivera tossed in her bed at the memory, remembering the look of frustration across Higfreid's face as he turned from the table to catch her concerned stare. Without hesitation, as if on impulse, he requested everyone to leave the shell except for Calivera. Once the room had cleared, he walked over to her and said, "If he is to be saved, it will be by your relationship with the Provider." With that, he left Calivera and Steffor to be alone.

  She had stood next to the table for several minutes, fixed on the soft contours of Steffor's pale face protruding the surface, unsure of what Higfreid expected her to do. Confident, in time, the purpose of her gift would be revealed; she never imagined it would be used to raise the dead.

  On impulse, not sure what would come of it, she lay onto the table and placed her forehead onto his. Without warning or permission, something summoned her power and forced it into action. The repressed memory rushed to the surface, forcing her to relive that helpless moment. As the commanding presence ripped her essence from rigid body and pulled her away as if by strong current. Calivera had waded through Steffor's heart, exploring every haunted cove and joyous sea, but could not find his soul. Then, more a ping on her own heart than words to the ear, she heard Steffor's cry for help.

  It hailed from a bottomless ocean of life, a vast plane of solitude and peace. A place that she felt drawn yet feared to explore. As her energy began to fade, she realized the fear of not being able to save Steffor overrode all other concerns. Like a lifeline, she tied the Provider around her soul, trusting it to lead back home. She swam, deeper and deeper, pulled toward Steffor by a force beyond her understanding. Moments into her descent, Calivera knew she would never have the strength to return. There was no turning back.

  Sleep penetrated her overactive mind, an auto-defense preventing the recall of memories to follow. It was too much, too soon.