by Debra Doxer
After that explanation, Grant starts a more personal conversation with her, asking her what it was like growing up trying to hide what she could do. He’s attempting to get to know her. But she hates talking about herself, and she’s giving him only brief monosyllabic responses. When I see the look of frustration on his face, I feel satisfied and start to relax.
The conversation picks up when Grant decides to tell Raielle about his upbringing. Turns out, they have similar backgrounds with single moms who taught them to suppress their power. Grant is on a mission to win her over, and he’s laying the groundwork. I wonder if she realizes that.
The drive takes about an hour and forty minutes. Grant pulls into the driveway of a sprawling beige stucco ranch with a red tile roof and glances at his watch. “Right on time.”
I climb out of the car and stretch, looking around. This street has very few houses on it, only two others that I can see. The yards have no trees. They’re mostly straggly bushes, dry dirt, and rocks. After all, this is the desert. Looming in the distance are mountains with the same landscape as the barren yards.
We follow Grant up the stone walkway to the front door. After he knocks, the lock clicks but the door opens only a foot or so. Standing there is a tall thin woman with dark hair cropped close to her head, and she doesn’t seem happy to see us.
“I told you not to bring them.” She scolds, looking down her nose at Grant. I can feel Raielle go rigid beside me.
“But your mother told me otherwise,” he replies, unbothered by her cool demeanor.
“My mother is too nice. I don’t suffer from that problem.”
He takes a step toward the door. “Please, Adrienne. We came all this way. At least tell her we’re here.”
For the first time, the woman’s eyes shift to us. “You brought John’s daughter.” She wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad. Then she shuts the door in our faces.
Raielle is obviously and justifiably shocked by her reception.
“Thanks for dragging us out here for nothing,” I say, not wanting to stand outside like a bunch of unwelcome strays.
He holds his hand up. “Meera will see us. Just wait.”
“Why is she so hostile?” Raielle asks.
Before he can respond, the door opens wide and the same woman stands there glaring at us. “She’s in the back. You have thirty minutes.” Then she turns on her heel and walks away.
Grant turns to us. “Sorry about that. Come on.”
When he walks into the house, I see Raielle hesitate. “You don’t have to do this.”
She pulls in a breath and gives me a hesitant smile. “What do you think she’ll do to us if we stay longer than thirty minutes?”
I shrug. “Beat us with her broomstick?”
Her eyes smile at me.
As she steps over the threshold, I give her a warning. “Watch yourself now. She’s probably got a herd of housecats in here.”
Elbowing me playfully, she continues on. I follow her to find Grant waiting for us. He leads us through an airy open main room that attaches to a bright kitchen with a sliding glass door to the backyard. As we walk through the house, I can smell the remnants of breakfast in the air, coffee and maybe some burned toast.
We step out onto a patio covered by a white awning. Even in the shade, it’s hot as hell out here. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness, but when they do I spot a frail woman sitting at a metal table at the end of a concrete patio.
“Hello, Meera,” Grant says, bending down to kiss the wrinkled skin of her cheek. Her thin hair is an artificial shade of brown, and she has it sprayed up around her head in what seems like an attempt to make it look fuller. A cotton shirtdress with a bright flower pattern hides most of her body. Her eyes are sharp, though, and they’re fixed on Raielle.
“What’s her name?” she asks Grant in a soft, thready voice.
“Raielle,” he answers, motioning her over. “And this is her friend, Lucas.”
She glances at me for an uninterested moment before her gaze returns to Raielle. “Raielle,” she whispers. “Come sit down.”
There are only two other chairs at the table. So I grab a deck chair that’s sitting in the sun and bring it under the awning, positioning myself beside Raielle once she sits. Of course, Grant takes the other chair next to her.
“You look like your mother,” Meera tells her. Then she rests her small, withered hands on top of the table with her palms up. She seems to be waiting for something.
“Give her your hands,” Grant says.
For a long moment, Raielle doesn’t move. Then, slowly, she extends her arms across the table. Meera’s fingers shake slightly as she takes Raielle’s hands in hers.
I keep a watch on Raielle, waiting for her expression to reveal any sign of trouble. But her face is calm, almost curious as she watches the older woman.
When she releases her hands a few moments later, Meera laughs softly and shakes her head. “Your father is playing games with you,” she says. “I can feel his energy inside you.”
Raielle pulls her arms back. “What do you mean?”
“He touched you,” she says. “He gave you a jolt and your power has been out of your control ever since.”
Raielle’s mouth drops open, and she angles a quick look at me. I can see the mix of anger and relief on her face. “That’s right,” she says to Meera. “Ever since he touched me, my energy has been so much stronger, and it seems to have a mind of its own. I didn’t connect what he did to me with that, though.” She turns to me again, and I can see the thoughts racing behind her eyes.
“It’s almost worn off,” Meera says. “But he didn’t make you stronger. That occurred naturally as you’ve matured, especially over the past few months. You should be back to yourself soon. Did you tell your father about your loss of control?”
Raielle shakes her head and Meera chuckles. “He’s probably dying of curiosity by now.”
“Why would he do that to me?”
She shrugs her narrow shoulders. “To see if he could. To see how you would react. I suppose it was a litmus test for your strength and independence. May I take your hands? I’d like to feel your power again now that I know what to expect.” When Raielle hesitates, she adds, “I won’t do what your father did. I promise.”
My chest feels tight at the thought of what her father put her through. And he was just playing with her? I touch her arm, watching as she once again gives her hands to the old woman. When I look over at Grant, he appears fascinated by their exchange.
“Please release her,” Meera says, and I realize she’s talking to me. “You’ll muddy things if you’re touching her.” She eyes my hand still on Raielle’s arm.
Reluctantly, I remove it. Once I do, Raielle pulls in a breath. A small smile plays on her lips for the next few moments as Meera does something to her. When the woman finally releases her and sits back in her chair, Raielle’s smile remains.
“What did it feel like?” I ask, curious about her expression.
She hesitates, searching for the words. “Like I was swimming in a pool of warm water.”
Across the table, Meera smiles at her.
“She’s pretty strong, right?” Grant asks. “As strong as John?”
“No.” Meera shakes her head and Grant’s face seems to fall. “She’s stronger.”
I glance at Raielle, but she doesn’t react at all to this news, even as Grant is pinning his eyes to her, obviously intrigued.
Meera points in her direction. “You have visions when you heal.”
“Visions?” Grant asks before she can answer.
Raielle licks her lips nervously. Then she nods. “Do you know why I have them? And why it doesn’t happen all the time?”
I think of the vision she had when she healed my arm. She saw my mother with the baseball bat, and then she knew the secret I’d been keeping for so long.
Meera leans forward in her chair. “I don’t know why some of us have them and o
thers don’t, but they occur when you’re healing someone who has experienced a devastating trauma of some kind. Those types of events leave behind more than physical injuries. They cause mental pain and create emotional scars. You can’t heal those, but your energy is still drawn to them. You still see them.”
“You have them, too, then?” Raielle asks.
Meera nods.
I wonder what Raielle is thinking as her body seems to relax into the chair. She glances at me and despite her calm expression, her eyes are shining. Then it clicks for me. Here with Meera, she’s finally found someone who understands her, someone who may be like her and can finally answer the questions she’s had for so long.
“What about her father?” I ask. “Why don’t you work with him any longer, and why does your daughter hate him so much?”
Meera sighs and looks out over the dusky mountains along the horizon. “We didn’t believe in the same things. When I first met him, he pretended that we were alike. He said I was the strongest healer he’d ever encountered besides himself. He asked me to partner with him. When I realized how many people we could help together, I agreed. But once we became established and John had the channels in place that started bringing us more and more patients, he stopped pretending.”
“Pretending what?” Raielle asks.
“That he cared. That he was in it for more than the money and the power.”
Raielle swallows and blinks a few times before she says, “Grant said that my father made you leave.”
Meera nods. “I wanted to help more than only rich people, and I told him so. John doesn’t like when people disagree with him.” Her hands disappear in her lap and she glances down at them. “He showed me the door.” Then she looks up at Grant and Raielle. “I didn’t go far, though. Because some of you still need me.” She smiles at them.
“Does he know that you’re here? That you’re still involved?” Raielle asks.
“I’m not involved. Not really. As long as I don’t cause trouble, he doesn’t care about little old me.”
Raielle bites her lip, and I can tell that she wants to ask something. I reach out and take her hand in mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “What is it?” I ask her.
She looks at all of us, still hesitant, before saying, “Can you feel it, Meera? When you’re healing someone and they’re not meant to recover. Do you always feel something different?”
“Yes.” Meera nods.
“Have you ever pushed past that feeling and continued anyway?”
I watch Raielle’s expression, knowing she’s thinking of that girl in her father’s clinic.
“No,” Meera says vehemently, shaking her head. “You can’t ever cross that line.”
“But what if something was telling you to keep going?”
Meera’s expression hardens. “You can’t. You never push past that point. If death is there, it must take someone, and if you disregard that, there are always consequences.”
Raielle swallows back her emotions. “But I felt something different yesterday. My father gave me a test using a sick little girl who he said didn’t have much time left. He claimed that he wanted me to learn that stopping point, but I already know what that point feels like. I’ve felt that before and I made the mistake of pushing past it. But yesterday, when I should have felt it again, my energy told me to keep going. That I was strong enough to heal her.”
“Your father was there with you?” Meera asks, leaning forward again.
“Yes. He stopped me. He told me that I’d failed his test and still had a lot to learn.”
Meera looks thoughtful as she clasps her hands in front of her. “The way you felt was probably his doing. His energy was still working inside you. It was tricking you. It’s likely that he wanted you to fail so you’d believe you need him more than you actually do.”
I watch Raielle’s face, wondering what she’s thinking, trying to gauge how upset this is making her, but her expression doesn’t change. “If Ray decided to walk away from her father, could you help her?” I ask. “Could you teach her what she needs to know?”
Meera’s daughter appears in the open doorway. “She can’t. If John’s daughter tries to walk away from him, he’ll come after her and he’ll come after us, too.”
Raielle shakes her head. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
Adrienne steps out onto the patio. “Then you shouldn’t come back here again. Especially considering what we’ve heard about John lately.”
Meera and Grant exchange a look.
“What have you heard?” I ask.
Adrienne crosses her arms. “That he’s suffering from what you all eventually fall victim to when you keep this up too long. He’s losing it. His power is fading and so is his mind. Grant, you must have heard the rumors. They say that John is unstable and desperate. He’s killing people without their consent now. He has more sick, rich people than he has willing bodies to trade for them.”
Raielle directs a sharp look at Grant. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know anything for sure.” He shifts in his chair. “What is true is that he’s losing some of his power. He’s not as strong as he used to be. It takes him longer to recover after a healing, which means he can’t do as many as he could before.”
I think about what Shane told me, that the money wasn’t rolling in so fast for the same reason Grant just said.
“Either way. It doesn’t matter,” Adrienne says. “We can’t help you.”
“Yes, we can,” Meera counters.
Adrienne glowers at her.
“This is what I do, Adrienne. I help people. I don’t turn them away.”
Raielle stands stiffly, interrupting them. “I appreciate your kindness, but I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
I take her arm. “Wait. She said she’d help you. Don’t say no so fast.”
Her eyes narrow, but before she can say anything, Meera says, “Why don’t you think about it. I know I’ve already given you a lot to think about. If you change your mind, you know where to find me. When you do come again, I promise Adrienne won’t give you any more trouble.” She’s looking at her daughter when she finishes speaking.
Raielle is on edge now as she thanks the old woman. Grant seems surprised by her refusal of Meera’s offer. But he also seems a little in awe now as he watches her. I don’t think he fully realized how strong Raielle is before now. He says his good-byes and follows Raielle through the door. I nod politely at a stoic Adrienne as she waits to shut the door behind me.
The three of us are quiet when we get back into the car, as though we don’t have a million things to discuss after what we just learned. Once we’re on the road, Raielle turns toward me in the backseat. “I know what you’re going to say.”
I give her a curious look, noticing the worried crease between her brows.
“That everything we learn about my father makes him sound worse and worse. That I should let Meera help me instead. But we can’t put her at odds with him. We probably shouldn’t have even come here today. You saw how afraid her daughter was.”
“We could get you out here without your father knowing,” Grant suggests. “You shouldn’t dismiss what she could do for you so quickly. And you heard her; she’s more than willing to help you.”
I can’t believe Grant and I are in agreement, but I take up his cause. “You heard what she said. Your father is playing with you. He’s not teaching you anything. Look at what he’s already put you through with that little test of his.”
“But that girl…” she says softly.
“What girl? The one in the clinic?” I ask, hating that I’m sitting behind her and can’t see her expression.
“Yes,” she answers, looking at Grant, not me. “I just don’t believe it was his power tricking me into what I felt with her. Now that it’s fading, I need to know for sure. I want to try to help her again.”
I sit back against my seat. “Christ, Ray.”
She turns around to face
me. “Meera said that when you know it’s time to stop, you have to stop. But I never reached that point with her. There was no stopping point for my power. It was you who stopped me. What if I’m the only one who can help her? What if she dies in that clinic waiting for a volunteer? Am I supposed to just forget about her?”
I know there are no words I can say to erase the determination on her face. There’s no talking her out of anything when she gets this way. “You can’t try to heal her again,” I snap at her, knowing that my ordering her not to do it is only going to make her angrier. But I don’t know how to make her listen. “Meera knows what she’s talking about. She knew about your visions and why your power was so out of control. You need to listen to her. Please, Ray.”
I’m scrubbing my hands over my face when I see Grant reach out to her and gently stroke her arm. “You’re not supposed to forget,” he says gently. “That’s not who you are. But we should think carefully before you decide anything. We should talk about it more.”
When he directs a calm, reassuring smile in her direction, I want to yank his hand away from her and tell him to stay the hell out of it. He’s not the one who encouraged her to heal Penelope, and then had to watch helplessly while she suffered from the horrific consequences of a disease she mistakenly gave to herself. I’ll never get over the part I played in that, and I don’t intend for it to happen again.
But when she grins back at him gratefully, my heart lurches. That’s what she wants, support, not an angry asshole who keeps yelling at her because he’s so afraid of losing her. I wonder if I have it in me to do what Grant seems to manage so easily. I can’t even pretend to support something that could result in nothing but more devastation for her.
