Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  “All right,” I acknowledged.

  “And you know how I feel about you passing out your diamonds,” he gruffed. “Don’t think I wouldn’t bind that arm of yours in tin if I could.”

  And there went my control lecture right out his other ear. As ruffling as that was, it still didn’t overshadow all those diamonds I’d sold coming back around. The remote chance that Silas knew about that little secret left me reeling with even more anxiety. The loyal house steward would have to tell Tanner whether or not he asked. I would bet my sparkly butt on it.

  “Is there something else?” he questioned, sensing my worry.

  “Not a thing,” I lied. “I’m as ready as I can be.”

  Tanner collected a folded map from off Mrs. Kingston’s desk and handed it to me. “Now you are.” I started to head off when he held out his hand. “I’ll need a topaz to keep my intervention low-key.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “I forgot it,” Tanner shrugged, looking just as superficial as his reason. He took a commanding step closer while an unyielding gleam flared in his eyes. “So it looks like you’ll have to give me one of yours.”

  “All right,” I agreed and cupped my hands. With one hearty breath, I focused on the golden topaz’s energy and then blew a stream of air into my palm. Now that I claimed two topazes, I could have whipped up one in either color, since invisibility was on the menu. However that was one reminder I didn’t need this soon. Once I’d sensed the stone had been magically charged with all the powers it allowed me to grant, I opened my hands to inspect my efforts. My most impressive topaz to date lay cradled in my palms, bearing the hue of a spring daffodil and without a single blemish to be found.

  With a showy plop, I placed the flawless golden stone in his palm and rolled it around for his complete inspection. Of course it didn’t bother me the least little bit that I could feel the warmth from his skin. It was so addictively arousing that I tossed around getting a little vice-therapy for myself. Surely Mrs. Kingston had a brochure outlining some sort of general Twelve-Step plan to control urges around here somewhere, no matter how carnal the source.

  “How’s that?” I posed.

  Tanner lifted his head and trained his arresting violet eyes to mine. “Perfect,” he murmured.

  I hated when I detected the slightest rasp in his tone. AGAIN, I found myself smack in the middle of another one of his split-personality moments — unwavering mentor one minute, followed by all these erratic and ambiguous acts that suggested the possibility of much more. I knew it was only a matter of time before my official fitting for my straitjacket. Then again, I couldn’t have asked for a better place for my mental breakdown. I needed this outing to provide me with some relief, every second of it. Hell, at least a distraction to take my mind off last night. But being alone with the professor, no matter where we were, was like trying to muzzle a crack-head with a stocked pipe.

  “Though I would have preferred one in blue,” he added.

  That sure put my wandering thoughts in check. “Well, it’s not,” I said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You could—”

  I cut him off right there. “NO.” Just going off the frustration slanting his eyes, he wasn’t pleased by my rejection. His mouth had barely opened when I threw up my hand and added, “Please don’t ask me again. You know exactly why I won’t.” Nor will I in the near future, I affirmed silently. And quite possibly the distant future too… Feeling Simone’s thoughts and raw emotions last night when I’d claimed her stone was horrible enough, I certainly couldn’t stomach rolling around in them this soon.

  We stood silent for a moment while the air between us grew dense and chilly. “Believe it or not,” Tanner began, “good things can always be found in any bad situation. It works just like The Veil. The cosmos doesn’t issue one without the other.” Then he took a poised step closer while the heat of his glare burned just as confident as his claim. “But you have to open your eyes and look for it.” He started to say something else but ended up stifling his words with an abrupt turn.

  I watched him hurry out of the office, knowing full well whatever he’d chosen to muzzle was bad enough to count to ten. Or hurtful? There’d been plenty of times I’d kept my trap shut over the years, and the reason was always the same: there were just some things that could never be taken back nor forgotten.

  Crap…

  I immediately located The Havens building on the map. With my route secured, I released Mrs. Kingston with an amnesia-directed “snap” and strolled out the door.

  I waited to turn invisible just before I arrived at the Alzheimer’s Ward. With a confident breath, I stepped off the lonely elevator and followed the arrows to the patients’ private rooms.

  Six-Hundred One, I called out in my head. It seemed like the ideal place to start. I only sensed one set of brainwaves within the room, thankfully. I crept inside to find an older gentleman sitting in a cozy upholstered chair and looking out the window. He remained as he was, sitting statue-still and unfazed, even when the door clicked to a harsh close. In fact, he wasn’t aware of hardly anything at all, not from the vibrations I sensed loitering in his head. The mental image I conjured was the equivalent of a green line on heart monitor, barely quivering as it streaked across the screen. I picked up the chart hanging on the foot of his bed. I was clueless to the varying degrees of Alzheimer’s, but seeing something like “STAGE 7” and the phrase “mandatory assistance” didn’t sound good at all.

  I lowered my veil as I slowly approached him. I didn’t want to risk alarming the ailing man, if that was even possible considering his state. His daze never faltered, not even when I positioned myself in front of the window. The man’s hair and beard were as white as snow, and he had one of the sweetest grandfather faces I’d ever seen. But distance and confusion shrouded it, making the soft lines framing his blue eyes seem so painful and murky. I knelt beside the man and took his hand. When he didn’t grip back, I closed his fingers around mine and held on to him with a gentle grasp. I couldn’t stand seeing him this way for a second longer. With my prayer to the cosmos fired, I started channeling the diamond’s power, concentrating all of my efforts on his brain. All of a sudden I could feel his deteriorating lobes starting to repair themselves, like the diamond’s energy was cauterizing their broken connections and infusing them with new life. Every time a synapse healed, it vibrated a signal back to me that sparked tiny fires within my own soul. The feeling was absolutely incredible, like I’d stumbled upon pure and selfless ecstasy by mistake. A smile poured over me like streams of cleansing rain. I never wanted this marvelous feeling to end…not ever.

  It finally did, for his sake. The man, whose name I’d learned was Gus, stared at me for a moment and then shifted his gaze to the window. His alert blue eyes were now dancing in the sunlight streaming into the room, and then the most buoyant smile tore across his face like he’d just ripped into the best birthday present he had ever been given in his entire life.

  It took him a few good seconds, but he eventually turned back to me and said, “Could you please hand me the phone?”

  Something told me it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but he seemed so happy I didn’t have the heart to refuse. After a series of punches, I heard Gus asking the operator for the nearest cab company. Shit. I really hadn’t given any thought as to how I was going to handle a mass exodus of miraculously cured patients.

  Once Gus had ordered up his taxi, he rose to his feet and gave his limbs a taut stretch. “Could you hand me my coat out of the closet, angel?”

  My head may have been rocking out a “NO”, but I said, “Yes,” and accommodated his request. I helped him on with his coat. Then he pulled his wallet out of the bedside drawer and gave it a comforting, long-lost squeeze.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Checking out,” Gus said doubtlessly.

  “Shouldn’t you buzz one of the nurses? Or wait for the doctor? Maybe call your family?” I urged, half-panic
ked.

  Gus’ eyes widened. “I could leave a note,” he said. Gus picked up a pad from off the desk and then reached for the pen, slowly wrapping his fingers around it purposely. I realized his teary pause was because he hadn’t written something in some time. I kind of got a little misty myself. After a confident sigh, he jotted something down, ripped off the note, and then laid it on his bed.

  I glanced at the perfectly penned message.

  All I could do was shake my head. Simple and direct.

  “Come on, come on,” Gus rushed, hands waving. “You have to help sneak me out of here.”

  “Me?” I blurted.

  “Yes — You,” Gus said with a swift point. “Look, angel — I’ve been wasting away in this room for a long time, until about five minutes ago when I felt something pull me out of the clouds. I feel like I’m eighteen again and ready to take on the world. Now, I’ve never laid eyes on you before… You’re not dressed like a nurse… Your badge says ‘visitor’, not ‘therapist’… And you’re too young to be a doctor. I don’t know how or why, but my seventy-three-year-old gut tells me that somehow this is your doing.” I raised my hand to grab his arm when he stepped back and demanded, “Now tell me I’m wrong.”

  I knew I should have zapped his brain right then and there, but I found the man’s calm and logical rationale about receiving a miraculous healing just as amusing as his spunky attitude.

  Gus let out a couple of laughs. “And while you’re standing there trying to come up with a story, I’ll extend you the courtesy of knowing up front that my 165 I.Q. is back and as strong as ever.”

  I stood there shaking my head. They should really put a little more background info on those charts. And you could rest assured that next time I rebuilt someone’s engine, I was checking EVERYTHING, from the daggone distributor to the spark plugs.

  Gus stepped closer and took hold of my hand. “They’re not going to let me walk out of here on my own. Please,” he pleaded. “You’ve gotten me this far . . . Take me the rest of the way.”

  He wasn’t that off-base about needing some help. I could just picture a couple of hulking orderlies tugging this gentleman kicking and screaming back to his room if they caught him. And a reinstated genius claiming that he was “completely healed” might even get him buckled to his bed. I couldn’t let that happen. It would be like watching Santa Clause getting bagged and tagged. And yeah, a part of me didn’t want to refuse him, even if he was a touch headstrong and arrogant.

  “If I do, where will you go?” I demanded with a warden-like arch to my brow.

  “To my son’s house, angel,” he vowed and gave his potbelly a few pats. “After I stop somewhere and get a bacon cheeseburger. They’ve grilled-chickened me to death around here.” The exhausted sneer on his face was enough to tip the scales for me.

  I squeezed his hand. “Okay, I’ll help you — but my name is Shiloh.”

  A few tears rolled out of Gus’ eyes as he stroked the side of my face. “You might be a Shiloh, but you’re an angel to me,” he quivered.

  Everything fell to a hush in that instant. Aside from Katie, this was the only other time I’d personally experienced someone else’s utter gratitude. But I was the one who felt blessed, truly blessed for this magnificent gift the diamond granted. Both Ty’s and Katie’s healings were purely selfish, and even Mrs. Blaine’s to a certain degree, having been directed by Bea. I’d never experienced such a limitless and heartwarming feeling of euphoria before, not even from my amethyst. Even in spite of all the pain I’d ever felt and whatever torture lay down the road, being the Diamond Talisman was worth it — every bit of it.

  “Let’s go,” I insisted hastily, sensing my own baby-blues starting to pool. After a simple plea to my golden topaz, the two of us disappeared and headed out the door. Though Einstein never raised the first question about why the nurses strolling up and down the halls seemed completely oblivious to our departure, his brilliant brainwaves assured me that he knew something incredibly unexplainable was going on.

  His yellow & black-checkered getaway car was already parked and waiting when we exited the building. Gus planted a firm peck on my cheek and gave me a warm hug, and in return, I gave him a good brain-scrubbing and then helped him into the backseat. I didn’t bother waving as the cab drove off. He couldn’t remember a thing about me, or my involvement with his healing now anyway. But I made sure the bacon-cheeseburger part stuck.

  “HEY!” Tanner’s voice boomed in my head. “What are you doing?!?”

  I practically hit the globe of a lamppost I jumped so high. I started scanning the area since I couldn’t respond with a direct mental reply.

  “Second building to your right, two stories up, next to the last window,” my mentor directed. And there he was, standing on the other side of the glass with his mouth open and everything. “You’re only supposed to heal them, not jailbreak them out of here — personally,” he laughed.

  I threw out my arms. “SORRY!” I mouthed up, shrugging out an apology.

  “Tell them to wait for their doctors to release them,” he instructed, head shaking. I shooed him away with my hands and headed back into the building, straight for room number 602 — with my modified marching orders.

  I stepped into the elevator and gave the “6” button a triumphant punch. My heart was soaring right along with my ascent, and it felt fan-freakin-tastic.

  I sensed a message coming from Tanner. “I bet you’re feeling pretty good right about now.”

  I sure am, I affirmed, cheesy grin and full-on ecstatic. I pressed my back against the rear wall of the elevator, hoping to keep my feet on the ground and thankful for Tanner bringing me here today.

  I had the entire Alzheimer’s floor all wrapped up in less than an hour, and each experience felt unequivocally better than the one before. I didn’t even mind the more combative patients, including the woman who smacked my face twice and called me a “hussy”.

  I continued working my way down, level by level. The multiple-personality disorder patients on the third floor were interesting healing experiences. I was so used to absorbing one person’s thoughts and memories that tapping into patients possessing a wider range of different temperaments threw me for a loop. Surely the diamond’s energy had pulled out the right ones or possibly had overridden their jumbled circuits with a flip of their mental reset-switches. At least that’s what I was counting on.

  My idle and itchy hands arrived back in the lobby of The Havens with five minutes to spare. I truly hoped we weren’t finished for the day. Surely there were more suffering souls around here in need of Dr. Wallace’s services. Maybe I can talk him into stopping by another mental hospital after we leave here? Or an orthopedic center? I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at some broken bones.

  I’d just found the courtyard with the fountain Tanner had described when he happened to call. “Fifteen more minutes,” he requested. “Twenty tops, and then we’ll grab some lunch.”

  The mere mention of food got my stomach juices rumbling, and the fact that I was dying of thirst didn’t help — flavored thirst, that is. There were only so many water fountains a Diet-Coke addict could take.

  The sight of a bright yellow and white striped umbrella rising from a service cart couldn’t have looked any more refreshing. Now I wanted some lemonade. I headed over like a magnet and stepped into the short line. While I watched the attendant collect his customer’s money, I soon realized I didn’t have any on me. I’d climbed onto the back of that bike without caring one flip about my purse. This situation would have never happened to Daddy or Samuel. Both of them kept a twenty on them at all times hidden in their steel-toe boots.

  I shook my head. That’ll learn me.

  I was just about to make my way over to a nearby bench when a female’s voice hooked my ears and tugged me back to my spot in line. It wasn’t what she was saying, but how her words were stammering, horribly. Bless her heart. The woman was doing her damnedest to tell the vendor what she wanted. She could
barely get the “Snapple” out of her mouth, let alone the “Peach Tea” part that I’d plucked out of her head because she kept stumbling all over her syllables. I’d picked up on something else while swimming around in her mind. Her name was Shirley Reynolds, and she’d had the most trouble speaking to strangers and in crowds all throughout her life…and had been teased something fierce as a child. I finally had to stop eavesdropping on her lobes because I was getting pretty angry. So much that I started questioning whether or not the vendor really knew what she wanted and was just being a jerk by not handing her the daggone bottle. With that considered, I checked his head too. He wasn’t, thank goodness for him and his stack of napkins because I was already plannin’ a hefty gust to see if he was able to talk with all of them crammed down his throat. He was simply being patient with her, which was rare nowadays. So after acknowledging the gleam of his shiny halo, I turned my attention to the one circling my own head.

  I threw the cosmos a smile along with my trumped glare. Of all freaking-things, I mused confidently.

  All topazes held the same general powers, no matter the color, but each of them had been granted their own additional healing ability to set them apart. The blue topaz was a stone that revolved around conveyance, and was known as the “orator’s stone”. No matter what the ailment stemmed from—psychological or physical—that particular hue of topaz would make their impediment magically disappear, from mending ailing muscles and connections to purging the most crippling case of stage-fright.

  Yep. That was all the verification I needed. Destiny was playing puppet-master yet again, changing backdrops on cue and tugging on my marionette strings. Apparently it was as determined as my mentor to absolve me of my blue topaz issues.