The Touch (Healer Series)

by Allison Rios

  “I’m going to let you boys be and check on Helen. See what she’s up to,” Matthew said. “You want some breakfast?”

  AJ glanced at Max. “It’s the best breakfast you’ll ever have. Helen’s one hell of a cook.”

  Max nodded. “Sounds good. Mind if AJ shows me around a bit, first?”

  AJ sensed something was up. He’d had a strange feeling for the last day. He figured it might have been everything that happened the night before but with Max in town, he knew the feeling of trouble might mean more.

  “Not at all,” Matthew responded, heading up the porch stairs. “Come around in about a half hour. Helen will have something good for you.”

  “Okay.” AJ turned to look at Max. “Let’s walk – I’ll show you around some.”

  The look on Max’s face told AJ that something more sinister was going on, so the men began walking back towards the barn where they could have more privacy.

  When they were a safe distance from the house AJ broke the silence.

  “Why are you really out here, Max?”

  His closest friend hesitated. He knew AJ’s senses weren’t as strong as his, and he felt almost bad for being frustrated that they hadn’t developed more. He knew AJ couldn’t help the pace at which his gift grew. Max felt a bit like he was leaving the kid to the wolves by leaving him alone out here when he kept getting the sense that things just weren’t safe.

  “You feel anything strange, kid?”

  “I’m feeling all sorts of strange, Max,” AJ said, half laughing. “If you only knew the week I’ve had. Like I’m in a twilight zone. Although I’m guessing your idea of strange isn’t the type related to a woman.”

  “I gather this has something to do with coming half dressed out of that lady’s house?”

  “How do you know it was Addie’s house?”

  “I didn’t, until you just told me. A few days ago, I thought you said you were going to back off.”

  “I was until things got complicated. Nothing happened. Well, nothing happened between us. Her ex-boyfriend came back, put a beating on her. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “Seems to be your habit,” Max said with a smile.

  “So what’s up? I just saw you. I’m surprised to see you out here. It’s a long drive this early in the morning, must be something important for you to make the trip.”

  “I just feel like there’s something going on, AJ. Something’s going to happen.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I’m not sure. Feels to be a Grim, but it feels different. The whole situation is creepy. It doesn’t feel the same as it has in the past. I can’t put my finger on it. Something is bizarre. I wanted to see how it felt out here by you, make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m okay,” AJ replied, folding his arms across his chest. “You got me a little scared, I’m not gonna lie. What do you think this is? I’ve been feeling off too, like a bad omen or something.”

  “Same here. I really don’t know. First time I’ve felt this way since I found out I was a Healer. I just want you to be careful, call me if anything odd comes up. I don’t even know what to tell you to watch out for other than that. I needed to see for myself. Maybe it’s nothing.”

  “Let’s hope for nothing,” AJ replied, shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to another. Max took note of his bare, dirty feet.

  “You don’t wear shoes anymore?”

  “Not when I’m bolting into the middle of a fight moments after relaxing in bed.”

  “Sounds like you have a story for me,” Max replied, slapping AJ on the back. “You’re creeping me out a little, this whole only-wearing-shorts thing. It’s like you’re joining a boy band or something. There’s a whole vibe you got going there.”

  “Shut up,” AJ laughed.

  “No really, is this how you’re picking up the ladies? You just need a few more tattoos and a guitar and you’d be golden. Maybe I’m going about it all wrong. I’m being too modest, making sure I actually get dressed before I leave the house.”

  AJ laughed, looking down and kicking the dirt with his shoeless foot. Whereas AJ spent his lonely hours working out, Max spent his free time reading and educating himself on anything and everything possible - one of the many luxuries of potentially having decades to do so. You can pick up a lot of knowledge in a couple hundred years. AJ was thankful to have someone who knew so much on his side.

  He really wanted to ask Max about Addie and what he should do. He had, somewhat, when they spoke last. Maybe if Max knew everything that had gone on he would break his normal code of letting people figure life out for themselves and just give him a push in the right direction.

  He also wanted to ask his friend about Isabelle. It was the same question he’d asked Max a hundred times before. The answer was consistently rejected by his overworked brain. He needed reminders about why they couldn’t save everyone to lessen the guilt that stirred inside his heart. Being told again that it wasn’t his choice was something he hoped would ease his pain, although he knew it never did.

  Max noticed AJ’s face grow serious.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  Max knew the look. AJ had worn the disguise often, not yet forming the gruff exterior some Healers had from years of their craft. He wasn’t sure he ever would. The kid had a heart of gold and the demeanor to go with it. He looked like a giant warrior while he was still the soft-hearted teddy bear girls always said they wanted.

  “It’s about a girl. A little one, name is Isabelle,” he clarified, knowing Max would immediately assume it was Addie. “A little girl in town. We met yesterday at a party for her. A fundraiser, actually. She’s got cancer.”

  “And the visions weren’t good,” Max filled in, knowing where the conversation was going. AJ wasn’t much for hiding his emotions. They were always clearly written on his face. Max had repeatedly teased AJ that he’d make a terrible poker player.

  “No,” AJ said slowly. “No they weren’t. They weren’t entirely bad – her mom and dad are going to make sure that there is better cancer care for children at the local hospital, which will end up being an amazing thing for the sick kids in local towns around here, but it’s still….”

  “Unfair. I know AJ. I know.” Max understood.

  It had taken Max his first 100 years to finally be able to handle the fact that these choices weren’t his to make.

  “I know you want to save everyone. And I know that the children are the hardest.”

  “It was her eyes, Max. They were beautiful. The eyes of an angel, really. She was so innocent, so sweet. And she knew who I was.”

  “They usually do. Kids still believe in magic and have faith in the good of the world. Makes it so much harder, I know. Sometimes, you just have to focus on other things. There’s a reason that some people live and some don’t. Healing is the one thing people can’t buy with their money, bribe for, or steal. That’s one of the reasons why what we do matters, why it works. Doesn’t matter if someone is dirt poor or rich and famous. Hell, Einstein suffered a liver disease. He was cured because he had more theoretical work to complete – the same reason he was cured of a heart illness later in his life. He had to keep going to do great things that changed the world, and he did. It’s the things like this that remind us why we do what we do.”

  AJ’s arms were folded, his voice choking up at the mere memory of his time with Isabelle. “She whispered in my ear that she’d be okay. She only wanted me to watch over her mom and dad and brothers. It was gut-wrenching. And then she looked at me and whispered that it was okay.”

  AJ could feel the tears on the verge of overflowing onto his face. It didn’t matter how built he got; when it came down to it, his feelings were something he never wanted to sacrifice. He’d heard Max talk about Healers who shut down their emotions, who pushed them aside and turned into a zombie of a person. AJ didn’t want that. All of the feelings of happiness, sadness, pain and fear made him feel alive - a stro
nger, better person. While the situations were often heartbreaking like Isabelle’s cancer, he felt a sense of relief in the tears. They meant he was breathing, that he was real. They meant he had a heart and soul. A good one, too.

  Max just listened, as he was so adept at doing.

  “Addie kept saying she was sure the doctors would cure the girl; that the doctors had said they would. It’s so hard to look at someone and lie to their face saying that yeah, they probably would.”

  “It’s not lying,” Max said, reminding AJ of their role in all of this. “Did you tell Addie they’d fix Isabelle?”

  “No. I just said she was probably right.”

  “You’re not lying. You can’t tell her the truth. Not without her knowing about you.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her,” AJ said somewhat sarcastically. Max didn’t take it personally.

  “I’m not worried about that AJ. I know you wouldn’t. You know that’s not just to protect you, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” AJ replied in the same sarcastic tone. It was the only answer he ever got and he was already tired of hearing it.

  “Think about it. You can’t tell people not only because of what could happen to you. Think about the burden it would put on someone. Especially someone you’re getting so close to or truly care about. Explaining it when first of all they most likely wouldn’t believe it, and they sure as hell wouldn’t understand it. Asking them to keep that secret and know what you know is too much to ask of someone. The people we care about deserve better than that.”

  AJ hadn’t thought about it that way. It would be a burden. He knew how hard it was to keep the secret. He knew the pain it caused to know bad things. It wasn’t something he’d wish freely on another person.

  “I don’t know what to do about her,” AJ said, turning his body and lifting his elbow to indicate Addie’s house.

  “In what way?”

  “I feel things Max. Things I haven’t felt before. Things I can’t suppress.”

  “What are you looking for me to say? I can’t tell you what to do, kid.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything these days. I’m just confused. I’ve never been in love, so I don’t even know how that feels. I imagine it feels incredibly close to this – to the feeling I get every time I touch her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for in terms of an answer. I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. We have the gift of free will just like every mortal does. It is a choice. You can choose to live your life however you want, and no one is going to judge you except for you. You’re the only one who has to live with your decision, and so you have to do what is going to make you happy. Life doesn’t always turn out exactly how you plan it. It changes on a daily – hell, on minute by minute basis. The best we can do is ride the ebbs and tides and make the decisions that are best for us at that time. That’s what life is. We may have a special gift but when it comes to decisions about everything else, we’re the same as every other person on this planet.”

  “I hate when you’re right,” AJ said with a smirk. “Enough of this talk. You want some breakfast?”

  “Yes, sir!” Max replied, turning back towards the B&B. “Let’s go.”

  He knew AJ had more questions. He would give his young friend the time and space to ask them on his own terms.

  The guys walked back towards the smell of Helen’s kitchen and AJ glanced back over at Addie’s house. She was becoming the most terrifying, daunting, and exhausting decision he’d ever had to make.

  **************************************************

  After breakfast, Max felt a bit relieved leaving AJ in the hands of Helen and Matthew. He knew they would take care of the kid. And just as quickly as he’d rode into town, he was ready to leave.

  “Sure you don’t want to stay?” AJ asked. It wasn’t so much a friendly gesture as the hope that Max being around would keep him distracted from Addie.

  “I wanted to see your digs, see if you were okay. You’ve got a great couple of people there watching over you. I’m going to head back to my quiet and solitude.”

  “There’s quiet and solitude right here! You can stay at the B&B.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be much quiet and solitude once you go back to stewing about this girl. It’d be like living through a teenage romantic comedy. All the will she, won’t she, should I kiss her crap. No thank you!”

  “There’s not going to be any kissing,” AJ said, his cheeks lighting up like the fourth of July. “Not now. I can’t do that. Healers are meant to be Healers for a long time, not a couple of years and then retirement. I haven’t been doing this long enough. I owe it to my bloodline, to the world, to live out this destiny I was handed down.”

  “Who’s to say your destiny isn’t with Ms. Addie?”

  AJ rejected the thought.

  “I’m serious,” Max said. “I just want you to be open to it. No one tells us what our destiny is. Your destiny could be any number of things. Look at the President. He’s elected, serves his four to eight years, and then he’s on to the next phase in life. His destiny wasn’t to be President forever; it was to serve that role for a certain amount of time. People aren’t born Healers to just be that for all eternity. Well, not every one of us at least. We’re meant to make a change in the world, a change for the better. And I think when you’ve figured out how you’re gonna do that, you’ll see that your destiny is what you make it, not what you think someone else has planned for you.”

  Max had a way of making everything make sense, which is why AJ enjoyed his friendship so much. They were different and unexplainably the same. AJ enjoyed the education he received and Max enjoyed having someone to take care of like a son. He’d never gotten to play that role and he always thought he would’ve been really good at it.

  “I’m gonna head out. Remember to call me if anything comes up AJ. I’m serious. Don’t head out with your macho man persona and try to save the world alone. This is not the right place nor the right time for that shit. I’m here to help.”

  “I got it. I’ll keep you posted. Have a safe trip.”

  With a handshake and a wave, Max was headed back home.

  8 GRIMS

  The Grims had always been a sordid group, divided amongst their kind since the beginning of time. Half of them carried out their destined paths with guilt and reservation, given they inherited the same conscience as Healers and mortals. The other half used their strengths to further their own agendas. It was how the world worked with any group capable of usurping a certain amount of power – there were some bad apples that were greedy to view the world from the heights of an imaginary throne.

  The pain they caused could range from a mere broken heart to the strength of a tropical storm, depending upon how resilient the Grim was and what their bloodline consisted of. The wild ones reveled in destruction and found the blame-game that humanity played to be delightful.

  Because the range of pain Grims could inflict, it had never occurred to the mortal population that everything from a scrape or a migraine to catastrophic events could all be tied to one unknown group of individuals. While people blamed God or the devil, the truth was that the Grims – not tied to any religious belief or history – were simply people born with a gene that provided them a gift, albeit what normal people would consider a sinister one. Their power was restricted to touching one human life directly per day, as it takes far more energy to expend evil than to create good.

  There were an especially strong few who descended from a long bloodline of cruelty, long ago broken off from the leaders of the original clan. They were the whispers in the ear telling someone to cause harm. They were the jealousy, anger and hatred that caused wars. They were the evil that made the bad stronger, and the boredom that made people do things they otherwise wouldn’t.

  They laughed at the mortals they viewed as pitiful as the weaker beings searched for a reason or an answer. Why did someone get cancer? No logical
explanation or scientific reason existed in most cases. Humans would try and tie it to a particular action such as smoking or pollution. There’d be equal studies on the internet to support or oppose a theory and Grims took pleasure in the nastiest part of such documentation; the lengths mortals would go to in order to support their side. Tearing each other down only furthered the pleasure of the vile Grims.

  The truth was a much simpler concept that, because most adults didn’t believe in what they couldn’t see they would never begin to understand that a coven of cruelty-laden people could inflict damage with just a touch.

  The Grims drifted in and out of towns nearly unnoticed, especially in busy ones. Dressed in dark clothing, they may have been looked at as Goth or punk. That was only a benefit of their apparel choice. They weren’t attempting to dress like those groups; it was a uniform they’d had since the beginning of time. They found it amusing that the humans were scared of them based on looks alone and gossiped about them for what they adorned their bodies with because they could stand out and cause fear without ever having to reveal what they could do. Often shunned by the population, they were able to carry on without getting caught because people kept a distance from them.

  Grims could die the same way as Healers -- by either utilizing all of their strength or by not using their strength at all, until it built to a point where it exploded within them. Just as the Healers battled with the guilt they housed from not being allowed to heal everyone, the better half of the Grim population battled the inner turmoil over having to inflict pain on others and many refused to touch anyone, causing Grims themselves to lose their lives.

  When the Grims first appeared on the earth, their mission wasn’t entirely a sinister one. They weren’t there to inflict damage and harm. Rather, they were there to keep the population from becoming too large and destroying the earth. Though they brought illness and storms, they did so originally with the knowledge that the Healers would bring tranquility to people in their dying moments and allow them a peaceful transition into death.