Keep You From Harm

by Debra Doxer

  He stares at me confused.

  “See you later.” With that, I begin the walk home. When he calls after me, without turning around, I lift my arm up in a careless wave and continue walking, determined to get my priorities back in order.

  The Spring Valley Assisted Living Center is a squat brick building about ten miles outside of Fort Upton in a town called Springfield. It’s a bitter cold night, and I’m shivering miserably in the passenger seat as Kyle parks in the large, mostly empty lot. I follow him into the lobby of the building. It’s a small alcove with an attendant at a desk, but it’s bright and warm, and I sigh with relief as the chill abates. Glancing around, I wonder if Rob Jarvis is working tonight and what his reaction will be if he sees me.

  “We’re here to visit Cora Crawford,” Kyle tells the older man who is eyeing us both.

  My ears perk up at my grandmother’s last name. I knew her first name was Cora, but I don’t think I’d ever heard her last name. It must be my mother’s maiden name, too. How could I not know that? Kyle gives his information, and when the attendant locates something on his computer, he motions for us to go inside.

  “Why do they need security here?” I ask as we move into a corridor with an elevator. There’s a sharp antiseptic smell in the air.

  “Anyone could walk in and try to take advantage of the residents. A lot of these people don’t remember their families or who they are. I suppose it’s intended to keep them safe.” When the elevator door opens, we step inside, and Kyle presses the button for the third floor.

  We ride up in silence. When the doors slide apart, I see there’s another desk and a lounge area at the beginning of a long corridor. A round, short-haired woman is standing behind the desk, and she seems to recognize Kyle. “We haven’t seen you here in a while,” she comments as her eyes travel to me and widen.

  “This is my sister, Raielle.” He gestures in my direction, but he seems wary of her attention.

  She nods. “I see the resemblance. I didn’t know you had a sister.” She narrows her eyes at us.

  “How’s my grandmother? Is she awake?” he asks. I’m relieved he’s not going to bother with the story of my sudden appearance here in town.

  “She’s awake. I have her sitting in front of her window, like always.”

  “Come on,” he says to me. I begin to follow him down the hallway. I can feel the woman’s eyes on my back the whole way.

  “Right here,” he says before leading me into a small dimly lit room. I glance around and see a hospital bed in front of a large picture window that overlooks the highway in the distance. Outside, white and red lights blur past, traveling in opposite directions. Between the bed and the window is a chair. It’s facing away from us, and from behind I can see that the woman sitting in it has thinning straggly hair.

  “I have someone for you to meet, Grams,” Kyle says. He moves to stand in front of her, leaning back against the window and motioning me toward him. I walk slowly, my eyes on her as I move around the chair.

  Once I see her in profile, her resemblance to my mother is immediately apparent. The slant of her nose and the lift of her chin are both familiar to me. But her unkempt hair and her unfocused cloudy blue eyes belong to a stranger. She’s slight and hunched as she sits swallowed up by a white nightgown that covers her from her neck to her ankles. She never moves or indicates that she knows we’re there, but her eyes seem to watch the lights moving outside her window. I can see their starry pinpoints reflected in her glassy stare.

  “This is Raielle, your granddaughter,” Kyle explains. We both watch her and note her stillness. He glances at me and smiles sadly.

  “This is because of senility?” I whisper skeptically. She looks catatonic.

  He shifts uncomfortably. “That’s what the doctors tell us. They haven’t been able to find anything else wrong.”

  “Did this come on slowly?” I ask.

  “It started with small stuff, like forgetting where she put things, but it got worse in a hurry. Finally, we had to put her here, and for the last year or so, she’s been like this.”

  I stand beside Kyle and stare at her. A few silent moments pass before a shiver of anxiety passes through me. I feel a flutter low in my stomach, but it’s not the familiar sensation I have when I’m near a person who’s ill. It’s something similar though. Suddenly, an overwhelming need to touch my grandmother takes hold. “Could I have a few minutes alone with her?” I ask.

  Kyle’s eyes widen with surprise.

  Those words are out of my mouth before I can think them through. I scramble for a viable excuse. “This is kind of a big moment. I’d like to just be here with her for a little while, on my own. Do you mind?”

  He seems undecided as he studies me. “All right,” he finally says. “I’ll be down the hall by the elevator when you’re done.”

  “Thanks,” I reply, relieved but also nervous now.

  I watch my grandmother’s slow steady breathing as Kyle’s footsteps fade down the hallway. Once I’m sure he’s out of earshot, I reach my fingers toward her. Her withered hand, dotted with age spots, rests in her lap. I bring my fingertips to her skin with the very lightest of touches, and immediately an intense vibration travels from me into her. I notice her turn her head toward me, and I jump back, snatching my hand away, feeling spooked. But then she turns to the window and stares again, as though the moment never happened.

  I eye her curiously, seeing no evidence of any awareness now. Then I decide to try it again, but this time I’m braced for the sensation. Hesitantly, I lean forward, bringing only my fingertips down onto the top of her hand. The vibration begins again, strong at first before settling into a low hum. My face is close to hers, and I see her blink, once, twice, and then several times more rapidly. She inhales deeply and her eyes move until they’re on mine.

  “Angela,” she whispers, and her stale breath washes over me. With my fingers still on her hand, I lean back against the window, putting more distance between us.

  “I’m her daughter,” I say. “My name is Raielle.”

  Her blue eyes move over my face. “Raielle.” Her thready voice saying my name unsettles me. “What are you doing here? Where is Angela?” Then she looks down and sees my hand on hers. Realization dawns in her eyes. “You’re doing this,” she whispers.

  When I nod, she laughs and it’s a rough, wet sound. “You’re powerful. I can feel it. More powerful than I ever was. Maybe more powerful than your mother.”

  “You could do it, too? You could heal?” I ask, remaining outwardly calm as my insides churn with a mixture of disbelief and excitement.

  She tilts her head at me. “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Where is she?” She glances around the room and then back to me.

  “She’s not here,” I reply vaguely.

  She looks down at our connected hands again. “So strong,” she whispers. “You must charge a great deal,” she says, her gaze meeting mine.

  “What?” I ask, wondering if I heard her right.

  “Money, my dear. You could become very wealthy with your power, you know?” she says, her lips curving into a thin smile. “I made plenty of money curing silly little colds, but I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t cure diseases of the mind. I tried, but it never quite worked.”

  I take my hand back as I’m wondering if I heard her correctly. “People paid you money to heal them?”

  “Of course. I had people at my door day and night. But your mother was far more powerful than me. She could rid people of terrible things, illnesses that they would pay mountains of cash to be cured of. But she was always so difficult about it. She didn’t want to take money for it. Then something happened and she refused to continue.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  Her watery eyes meet mine, and I see malice in them. Before she even answers, I feel nausea crawling inside me. “She took leukemia from a boy and gave it to his father.”

  Disb
elief is my first reaction.

  Noting my expression, she explains. “She had her hands on both of them at the same time. She removed the disease from the son and then the father touched her and it went into him.” She chuckles, and I can feel the bile rising in my throat. “He died quickly, about a month later. She was afraid to try to heal him, afraid of where it would go next. The family hated us, those ingrates. She saved their child’s life.”

  She grabs my hand back, and she’s surprisingly strong. I can feel her trying to pull more energy from me. “It’s no wonder you’re so powerful. Your father was the strongest healer I’d ever seen. His energy could cure nearly anything. He had quite a following,” she says.

  “You knew my father?” I’m practically gaping at her as she caresses my fingers.

  “We could work together,” she muses, ignoring my question, grabbing my other hand before I can pull it away. “Now that you’ve cured me, we could work together and make a fortune. Your mother lost her taste for it. Then she met your father, and she ran away with him. Once she was gone, people stopped coming.”

  “No. She met my father in San Diego long after she left here.”

  My grandmother shakes her head. “He was from Los Angeles. She left Alec and followed him out there. Then they had you.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not,” she says in a firm voice. “Alec can tell you. I’m sure he remembers it all. She made a fool out of him.”

  Could she be telling the truth? I wonder as I stare at her frail form. Alec never mentioned this when I asked him why my mother left. Why would he hold that back? What’s difference could it make now? I start to feel tired. My head grows heavy on my shoulders. Somehow, she’s drawing energy from me against my will now. I’m fascinated even as I’m trying to pull my hands away.

  “We might have to go somewhere else,” she continues. “This town might not be so welcoming anymore.”

  “Does everyone know about us? About what we can do?” I ask. “Does Kyle know?”

  “Of course the whole town knows,” she laughs at me. “I advertised in the local newspaper. Where is your mother? Why has she kept you in the dark this way?”

  “She’s dead,” I answer, not even considering withholding the truth from her any longer.

  She winces, and I yank harder, trying to get her to release me. “She was murdered,” I tell her, bluntly. “Did you send someone after her?” I ask, thinking of Rob Jarvis, leaning in closer to her, my voice a low, angry whisper.

  Fear begins to seep into her eyes. “No,” she replies, shaking her head. “No,” she repeats. The truth is, if she’s been this way for more than a year, she couldn’t have spoken to the janitor here and sent him after us.

  “You have to be careful,” she whispers. “With power like yours, everyone will want a piece. Take me out of here, and I can protect you.”

  She finally releases one of my hands and unsuccessfully tries to push herself up from the chair. “Please, help me up. We need to leave. I have so many things I can teach you.”

  “Tell me how you came to be this way?” I ask. “What’s wrong with you?”

  She blinks in confusion. Then her eyes widen. “I tried to cure conditions that were too severe. But the money was too good to refuse. I didn’t know it could hurt me. It almost killed me.” She smiles. “But now you’re here. You’re here and we’re going to be unstoppable. Help me,” she grimaces as she tries to stand again.

  “I won’t work with you. I won’t take people’s money.”

  She shakes her head. “You sound just like your mother. You’ll do as I say or I’ll tell everyone about you and the sick people will begin beating a path to your door. Either way, you can’t hide your talents. Why would you want to?”

  I strengthen my grip on her. I can’t let her leave here. I can’t let her tell everyone. Panic builds inside me as she takes a deep breath, like she’s getting ready to scream. I focus on the vibration that still travels between us. I concentrate on the feeling, on locating it and harnessing it. Then I use all my strength to force it back in her direction. The disease traveling between us, starting to lose its hold on her as it leaves her body, courses through mine now, and I force it to flow back out again, down my arms and into my fingers, striking out at her like a snake and slithering back inside her. Her fingers fall slack as she releases me. I know the moment I tumble back and hit the window that she’s gone. This selfish, venomous woman is lost inside herself again.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Could you get that, Raielle?” my mother calls from the kitchen. It’s after ten, and I’m sitting on the couch surrounded by my homework. I extract myself, careful not to jostle the papers I’ve carefully organized for my study group tomorrow.

  I pull the door open, and Kelvin falls in toward me, landing heavily against me. My knees nearly buckle as I back into the living room, dragging him with me. “Mom!”

  “Who is it?” she asks sharply. Then her eyes widen in horror, and she reaches for her on-again, off-again addict boyfriend. “Close the door, Raielle,” she demands as she lays a groaning Kelvin onto the floor.

  Once his weight is off me, I glance down and realize that I’m covered in his blood. “Oh my god,” I whisper in shock.

  “Shut the door!” she demands again.

  I dash to the door and slam it closed, wincing at the loud sound before I return to them. My clothes are wet and sticky, clinging to me with garish warmth.

  “Kelvin,” Mom weeps as she lowers herself to the floor beside him. “What happened?”

  His answer is a wet cough. Blood seeps from his mouth. Mom gasps and stares up at me. “I shouldn’t do this,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t do this.”

  Then she inches his soaked shirt up, revealing the sliced skin of his stomach. Slowly, she lays her palms on him and closes her eyes. “I’ll take it into myself. I’ll pull it into me.”

  “What?” I gasp. “No!”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, turning her watery eyes to mine. “I’m so very sorry.”

  I sit straight up in bed, struggling for air. Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s nearly time to get ready for school. I try to slow my breathing down and calm my trembling muscles. The dream was so real, every detail so sharp, right down to the leopard headband my mother always wore in her thick blond hair. She was never the same after that night. She healed Kelvin, but the very next day his son died, not my mother. She hadn’t been able to take his injuries into her own body. Instead, they had found his son. A brain aneurysm killed him instantly, and Kelvin knew that somehow it was Mom’s doing. That’s when she began warning me that certain death couldn’t be cured, that terrible things happened when you tried. I think of my grandmother’s story about the boy with leukemia. Mom probably thought that if she used herself as some kind of vessel, Kelvin’s impending death could be contained within her. She was ready to die for him. But it jumped to his son instead. Her assumption had been wrong. It was a deadly mistake.

  I scrub my hands over my face. My obviously conscienceless grandmother told me lots of interesting things last night. She cured people like it was an entertaining parlor trick. She advertised her services in the local paper for god’s sake, and obviously everyone knew about it. Maybe she wasn’t taken seriously? I want to ask Kyle what he thinks about the business our grandmother used to run, but I can’t do that without revealing how I know about it. How could I know unless my catatonic grandmother told me? I can’t ask about it without revealing myself to him. Never tell anyone. My mother drilled that into me. I need to find out more before I completely disregard it.

  What about my father? Had my mother really met him here and followed him to Los Angeles? Obviously, nothing she told me, which was never much anyway, could be believed. Is it possible my father is alive and he has these abilities, too? Nothing I thought I knew can be trusted now.

  What do you do when a proverbial earthquake shakes loose more secrets from your past? You go to
school like any other day. My mind is still turning over all that I heard last night when I close my locker and glance over to find Lucas standing beside me.

  “Did you meet your grandmother? Was that the news you were talking about in your message?” he asks.

  What the fuck? Now he’s talking to me again like the cold shoulder he gave me yesterday never happened? I stare at him, shocked and annoyed by his nerve. I narrow my eyes. “Seriously?” Then I turn and head for class. Unfortunately, it’s the same class he’s going to.

  “Wait a minute,” he says, catching up to me. “I’m sorry about yesterday, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.”

  I ignore him and keep walking.

  “Stop. Please,” he pleads, placing a hand on my arm.

  I halt and stare pointedly at his hand. He reluctantly removes it. Then he takes a deep breath and runs the same hand through his hair. “Look, after Friday night I needed some time to think. I guess I needed a little space.”

  I nearly laugh at that as I stare at him through a haze of hurt. “You needed space after our one date?”

  His jaw clenches. “Don’t minimize that night, Ray. It was intense, and you know it.”

  “It was intensely disappointing,” I say even though I don’t mean it. Then I turn and resume walking.

  He catches right up to me, positioning himself in front me, forcing me to stop again. “We both know that’s not true. I never took you for a liar.”

  I avert my eyes because he’s right.

  “Just listen to me, okay?”

  His eyes seek mine, and I let him find them.

  “After that night, I decided it would be better if I stayed away from you.”

  I keep my eyes pinned to him, and I don’t let him see how much his words are wounding me.

  He rushes a hand through his hair again. His face is a combination of frustration and remorse. “I’ve got a lot of shit going on and with everything you’re already dealing with, it didn’t seem fair to add to it. I didn’t stay away to intentionally hurt you. I was trying to protect you from me. I was trying to be selfless. But I’m not selfless, Ray. I’m the complete opposite of selfless where you’re concerned. Because after just a few days, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t stay away from you, and I don’t want to. I never did.”