by Audrina Cole
My anger flared. “He’s just one boy. And he didn’t deserve to die!”
“They rarely do. But that doesn’t mean you should take it upon yourself to cure him, especially without being prepared for it. Ember, the very least you could have done was gotten his phone number to contact him later, and then come back and talked to us about it. At least then you could have been prepared for it. There’s a reason we keep a few emergency pints around, in addition to the blood your mother stockpiles for the one major healing she does once a month, at the hospital. It’s for emergencies, and last-minute healings. You could have brought bags of blood along with you, and your mom or I could have been there.”
“Yeah, right, Dad. You never would have agreed.”
“She’s right, you wouldn’t have.” River stood in the kitchen doorway. We had all been too tense to hear or feel him coming.
“River,” Mom admonished. “You shouldn’t be eavesdropping.”
“Oh come on, Mom. You know that unless you whisper, I can hear everything that you’re saying all the way up in my room. It’s ridiculous for me to pretend that I can’t.”
“You should be trying not to hear.”
“Maybe if I had an iPod, I could have.” River looked pointedly at my mom. “A little music could have drowned you out.” He was fourteen, and dying to have an iPod. But mom had this thing about electromagnetic energy pollution, and didn’t like us carrying anything electronic on our bodies. She only allowed cell phones when we left the house, and we had to keep them as far from us as possible when not using it. At home they were supposed to be turned off. I understood the cell phone thing, but I thought iPods seemed pretty harmless. So did River. But Mom was fanatical about it…and sometimes weirdly inconsistent.
“Don’t even bother,” Mom said.
“Had to try.” My brother pulled out a chair and sat across from my mom. “Look, I’m not stupid. I know she was in bloodlust. Obviously she healed someone really sick. You guys never get mad at us, except when we heal someone really sick. Well, when Ember does. Because some of us have enough self-control to stay away from the really sick ones.” He was looking at me.
“It’s easy to stay away from the really sick people when you never do hospital visits.” I visited the local hospitals on a regular basis, as a volunteer. It gave me the opportunity to heal people who really needed it—at least, as much as my mother let me heal them. River avoided hospitals like the plague. “Not to mention, you have no idea what it’s like to have the drive. You can heal, but you don’t have the same strong urge to do it as I do. You’re still a kid.”
He scowled at me. “Even when I’m your age, I’ll know my limitations. I could never volunteer at the hospital and give a toddler with a hole in his heart a quickie dose of healing. I’d end up doing what you do, and cause all kinds of problems. No way. Better for me to stick to healing kids from our homeschooling group. Especially the hot girls.” He grinned.
“River.” Mom didn’t appreciate him making light of the situation.
“This is so stupid!” I argued. “What good is it to have healing abilities if you can’t even use them?” The sea of emotions at the table threatened to overwhelm me. I threw up my protective shield and closed my eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass.
“We’ve been over this, Ember,” Mom reached out and laid her hand over mine. “You can heal all you want, as long as you keep the flow slow and steady, and stop before you feel drained. You just can’t throw the channels wide open and go around completely curing every patient you meet.”
“I can’t heal anyone who is really sick! I can heal people with the flu, or with diverticulitis, but the cancer patients? Oh no, I have to let them die a miserable death. That’s stupid!” I was tired of the same old debate. It was so frustrating.
Dad’s surge of anger pushed at the perimeter of my circle of light. “He had cancer? You cured a cancer patient?!”
“Uh oh, now you’re really in trouble.” My brother cast me a sidelong glance.
“Shut up, River,” I hissed.
“Please tell me it wasn’t terminal.” Dad pleaded.
I looked away.
“Ember!” Dad turned to my mother. “Shanti, you let her go to a fundraiser for a terminal cancer patient? And a kid?” He groaned. “That’s even worse.”
“I thought she could handle it. She’s at the hospital all the time.” Mom rubbed his arm, and I knew she was trying to send him soothing energy. “There’s no sense in getting all riled up.”
“Well that boat’s already sailed.” Dad pounded the table again, then muttered under his breath. After a moment, he sighed, and leaned back in his chair, his head resting on the wall behind him. “This could get ugly.”
“He had no idea what I did.” I rushed to make the situation sound better than it was. “He fell asleep while I was healing him. I let him think he just passed out from the pain. He just finished chemo not long ago. By the time they figure out he’s healed, they’ll just figure the benefits of the chemo finally kicked in. No one will ever suspect.”
“I wish it were that easy.” Now Dad was sounding defeated. “Cancer is the worst thing you could cure. You know that. They take scans. All kinds of scans. When his next scan is done, they’ll see right away.”
“But that could be weeks away. Maybe even months.”
“Didn’t you tell me earlier tonight that Jenna had said the boy was on his last legs?” Mom asked.
I hate that my Mom is so perceptive…and has a good memory.
“Yes,” I sighed. “But that just means that they probably won’t bother with more tests, doesn’t it?”
“I thought you learned your lesson after you healed that lady last year.” Dad shook his head. “That was a close call. You swore you’d never do it again.”
He had to bring that one up. That had been a very close call. The woman at Sacred Heart Hospital had actually felt something happening when I healed her, and she could feel the difference right away. She had myocarditis after contracting a virus, which eventually led to congestive heart failure due. Within minutes of me starting the flow of energy, she could breathe easier, her coughing had subsided, and she was thanking me “for whatever it was” that I had done. If she hadn’t also been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, the staff might have taken more notice of her ramblings. Of course, I knew they wouldn’t find out until later that she would have been cured of that, too.
“Her husband was desperate,” I said. “I don’t think he would have made it if she died. I felt it.” The couple had been in their late forties. Jim, the husband, told me they could never have children because of Ellen’s heart condition. She was his whole life. I felt his anguish, and his determination. I was pretty sure he would end up killing himself after she died.
“You don’t know that,” Mom said, “and you’re not responsible for the choices other people make.”
“Even if I could save two people by healing one?” I folded my arms and looked away. My legs were crossed, and I jiggled my foot, agitated. I pushed away those memories, and focused on Alex. There was no point in getting yelled at for stuff I did a year ago. “Dad, you didn’t see Alex. You didn’t feel the loss of trust he had. I don’t know what happened to him, but the cancer was killing more than his body. Somehow it made him lose his trust in people, too.” I took a breath, and blew it out. “He was in so much pain, physically and emotionally, that I just had to help…”
No one looked at me. They shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. I knew each one of them had experiences where the choice to give someone only a partial healing was a struggle for them. But this time it was different. I needed to make them see that. I leaned forward and caught my mother’s eye.
“Mom, if you had looked into his eyes…there was just something so different about him. I can’t explain it. It’s like…we connected. On a different level than I’ve ever connected with someone before. I didn’t plan to cure him. I swear! I just opened the channels a little
bit. But then he relaxed, and closed his eyes, and leaned his head against my hand. I saw what was growing inside him. It was ugly. It was eating him alive. But even that didn’t sway me. I could feel the distrust fading, and some part of him coming back. A part of him that had been gone a long time. He’s special. I don’t know any other way to describe it. And I just felt deep within me that I couldn’t walk away, no matter what the cost. I didn’t mean to put anyone in jeopardy.” Tears clouded my vision as I realized just how much danger I could have put them all in. “But it was like I was compelled to do it.”
Dad’s demeanor softened. “Ember, your mother and I were young once. We went through the same thing. It’s hard, even now, for us to pass by someone who truly needs and deserves our help. It was worse when we were younger. We had all the drive to heal that a teenager has, but we didn’t yet have the responsibility on our shoulders of taking care of a whole family. When you’re young, it’s easy to give into the urge to go rogue, and do what feels right to you at the time. But as you get older, and you learn more about the repercussions of your actions, you’ll realize just how important it is to make levelheaded decisions. Why do you think I so rarely do major healings any more? Why do you think I’m in research now, instead of being a practicing physician? I’m too soft-hearted. It’s too hard and too stressful for me, facing patients every day that I can help…but knowing I can’t really help them, without endangering all of you.” He reached out and took Mom’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “I admire her for it, but I know my limitations. And until you’re older, and learn your own limitations, it’s important not to tempt fate.”
“I get that.” I leaned forward in my seat. “I really do. But come on! I’m seventeen. I have no curfew, I can drive, you don’t keep tabs on me…but I can’t help people? I don’t think it’s fair that the only ones who can cure people are you and Mom.”
“You help people all the time when you volunteer at the hospital,” Mom snapped. “No one said you can’t heal. We only said you can’t cure. You’re just too young.”
“How am I ever going to learn, if you don’t teach me? It’s hard to sit back and watch people suffer. I feel like I have the power to really make a difference in this world, and I can’t. I feel like…like an artist who’s only allowed to color in coloring books.” I sat back, dejected.
“But healing isn’t supposed to be about you using your talents,” Mom said. “It’s about helping those who need it the most. Your father and I weren’t even allowed to heal as much as you do now, when we were your age. But we trust you to be mature enough to make the right decisions for your experience level. Your father and I have much more experience than you do. We know how to carefully plan a full healing without attracting attention, and how to deal with the repercussions afterward.”
She meant avoiding bloodlust.
Once a month Dad met Mom at work, to help her after she cured a patient. She was careful who she chose, when it was done and how she went about it. She did it just after she got off the late shift. Dad was always there to meet her, and take care of her. He brought the blood bags, keeping them in the car, in a special insulated backpack, with icepacks to keep them cool. He’d wait outside the hospital room, keeping watch while Mom “checked in on one last patient.” He’d chat up any nurse that might interfere, and buy Mom enough time to finish up. When Mom was done with the healing, he’d bring her down to the car and drive to the darkest, emptiest corner of the parking garage, at the far edge of the security camera range, and pour the blood into a covered coffee cup, so she could drink it surreptitiously. They were very careful, and made sure to avoid endangering anyone.
“I know, Mom,” I sighed. “You’re very careful. I could be, too. If you let me.”
“Ember, you need to focus on what is important,” she continued, “it’s not just about you. It’s not about your feelings. The whole tribe is at risk if we expose ourselves. Just because the elders have gone out of their way to avoid placing restrictions on our people, doesn’t mean they won’t change their tune in the future. It’s important not to be selfish. We all have to look out for each other.”
I knew she was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. And no matter what she said, it wouldn’t change how I felt. I wasn’t sorry for healing Alex.
I’d do it again.
8
The little “talk” with my parents went on for another half hour or so, ending with me promising to be more careful, and Dad grounding me from the car for the week. I had turned seventeen a week before, and I was supposed to get Mom’s old car as soon as she picked up her “new” car—a second-hand Prius. I was mad, but I was smart enough to know I got off easy, so I kept my mouth shut.
Dad may be pretty relaxed when compared to most fathers, but you still didn’t want to get him riled up. He had been a hippy-dippy type like my mom, back in his younger days. He had a lot of the same values Mom had, but he still had a bit of a conservative streak that he couldn’t shake, from the more traditional upbringing he’d had.
He was a freelance researcher, under short-term contract for medical genetic research projects that had met with success and had garnered extra funding for more staff. In his spare time he liked to work on his own research. His pet project was coming up with theories about why we Healers—vampires, as society would call us—are the way that we are.
His favorite theories revolve around genetic mutation, either from a virus or an inherited genetic defect. I lean more toward the virus theory, myself. What kind of Creator would deliberately saddle us with this curse from our conception? A virus made more sense to me. Of course that’s not scientific enough for Dad, so in his time off, when he’s not working on building or repairing something with River or spending time with the family, he’s in his home office/lab, working on his theories.
Dad took his tea into his office, and Mom followed. That meant they weren’t finished discussing me. I had finished my tea while my parents were lecturing me, so I put my mug in the sink, grabbed my purse, and went upstairs, with River following closely behind. As I reached my door, River stopped too.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he whispered. “You know how much they go bananas over it.”
“I know.” I paused, my hand on my doorknob. “I just couldn’t help it.”
“If you keep this up, you’ll never get your own car. Me neither, for that matter.”
“Oh, you’re golden boy, they’ll probably give you my car.”
“Hey, Em, it’s not as easy for me as you think it is. We both have choices. I just choose whatever causes the least hassle.”
I knew he deliberately didn’t say “the right choice”, because walking away from someone in pain never felt right to either of us.
I heard my parents murmuring down in Dad’s office.
“Oh great,” River’s head tilted, listening. “They’re talking about supervising us more closely. Us! How did I get roped into in all this?”
“Don’t eavesdrop.”
“I have to, my future is at stake,” he whispered. “Mom’s saying she should quit her job. There goes half my freedom.”
“She always says that when she’s worried about us. She never does it. If she did, it would be much harder to come by the blood, not to mention, she’ll never give up having the easy opportunity to heal terminal patients with less risk of being noticed.” I opened my bedroom door. “Don’t tell me anymore, I’m trying not to listen.” The truth was, I just didn’t want to hear anymore.
“All right, but I better not suffer for your mistakes.” He frowned at me and retreated to his own room.
Once inside my room with the door closed, I sat on my bed and pulled out my stone bag again. I thought I handled all that pretty well. The citrine and bloodstone seem to have done the job. Now I need some black tourmaline. I picked up a shiny black stone with bits of white marbling running through it. Immediately I felt my negative energy ebb away, and was able to turn my thoughts to more positive things.
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br /> I didn’t need the natural healing effects that these gemstones provided. I could clear away my own negative energy, after all—unless I got myself really worked up. But I liked using them. It made me feel more connected to nature, something really important to a Healer. I often made jewelry from them, usually a pendant suspended from a leather cord.
Laying back on the pillows, I clutched the black tourmaline in my hand, and between the soothing tourmaline energy and the Valerian tea I’d consumed, soon I was fast asleep.
* * *
I woke up Sunday morning with a stiff neck, having slept all night fully-clothed in a semi-upright position. I stretched and rotated my neck, then held my hand there for a few minutes to heal the soreness. I savored the warm sensation on my neck, and the tingles in my hand. When I was done, I got up to take a shower.
Mom checked in with me after I’d showered and changed. “Try to get some reading done today before you get started on anything else.”
“It’s Sunday.”
Mom gave me a look.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll start in a minute.”
She left, and I picked up the copy of “Pride and Prejudice” I was working on. Since we did the “unschooling” thing, a free-choice version of homeschooling, we didn’t have a strict schedule for school or any real curriculum. That also meant that my complaints about it being the weekend didn’t hold much water. There were plenty of times that we took a day off from our studies during the week, and studied on the weekend, instead.
I didn’t know how most kids could sit in a hard chair all day and learn anything—I’d die of boredom. Our studies were mostly self-directed, so we learned about subjects that interested us the most. Meadow loved art and literature, River enjoyed astronomy and animal husbandry, and I preferred Earth sciences, biology, and creative writing. Of course, we learned all the basics too, and those were pretty cool, since Mom let us mostly choose which books to read, and growing up she let us choose which math books and games she ordered. Although once I got past geometry, I found math a chore.
