by S. E. Akers
I was about to wrap up my fruitless search when I spotted a smiling woman sitting by herself several yards down. My head started to cloud as soon as I dipped into her mind. For the woman to be emanating such a pleasant and put-together persona on the outside, she sure reeked with an awfully stifling haze of depression. There were erratic glints of happiness too, but her stagnate thoughts made her head feel like a dreary overcast sky with only flashes of sunlight shining through in spurts. You could tell her hopes were in question, and her mind revealed the reason. Her name was Rebecca. She was married to a man named, Tom. The two of them had a little boy named, Lucca, who’d just turned five that they loved more than life itself. However they weren’t sure Lucca even knew it because he lived far away in a dark realm of his own. Their child had autism and their dreams for his former-self’s future return had been shattered a couple of years ago.
I clutched my chest. I sensed Rebecca’s worries pounding right along with every beat her fretful heart struck. Ironically they were much simpler at their core (things most would take for granted), however in her world, they carried the weight of a mountain. The newest car or biggest house was trivial. All she wanted was enough money for the countless therapies her son needed and some to put away for him down the road. What lay ahead bothered her the most. That was the plague that drowned her soul — the long list of things that would most likely never come his way. Rebecca didn’t care what school he attended. Her only desire for his education was that Lucca could be mainstreamed in a regular classroom and that the school would give him the services he needed. Envisioning him graduating high school with an actual diploma or even attending college seemed like a fantasy to her. A nagging stream of unanswerable questions shadowed her mind. Would he be able to live on his own? Secure a decent job? Would he have enough money to live off of? Have a girlfriend one day? Get married and start a family? I found her candor about her son experiencing sex rather surprising. Any other parent under the sun wouldn’t want to think about their kids engaging in that taboo act, but Rebecca’s eyes had even shed their fair share of tears over knowing Lucca may never experience that level of intimacy with another soul. I actually saw the exact moment unfold when she’d received her son’s devastating diagnosis. It was like someone had punched a hole through her chest and ripped out her heart. She even imagined the doctor holding it out in front of her like a hunter would vaunt his latest kill. Lucca’s entire life flashed before her eyes in that moment, and then everything dimmed. The security of knowing her son would be happy and forever safe from harm was her strongest desire. This woman couldn’t have cared less how lavish a kid’s birthday party was. She simply longed for the day when her son would finally be invited to one, just one. I listened in on her wishes, clinging to them as if they were oddly my own. Being able to sit still for a family portrait, with or without a smile… Finding a responsible sitter that would make sure he didn’t wander off and drown in the neighbor’s pool just so she could schedule a doctor’s appointment… Not getting bullied at school in the fall because he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone… And then friends… I’d heard those painful pleas as she watched the other children playing in the park. She wanted her child to experience having a friend, at least one in his life. But she thought the chances of that happening were slim at best. Hearing that broke my heart. I couldn’t imagine someone not having a single friend to grow-up with, especially not experiencing the soulful bond two best friends shared.
I couldn’t let that happen. Everyone needed a bosom friend.
I followed her hawk-eyed stare over to a little boy lining cars around the edge of a checkered blanket. I knew it was Lucca from the images of his sweet little face that had drifted through her mind like a warm breeze. I watched him position the cars, arranging them in his own precise way. Their placement held neither rhyme nor reason on the surface, but upon checking under his hood, I realized his system rang with as much logic as anyone else’s. The longer I dallied in his mind, the more confusion I felt. Some of his circuits seemed deaden while others ran like any other child. Most of them sparked erratically, sending various areas of his lobes into overdrive. The jumbled sensation fanned throughout his entire body, stretching from his fingers to the tips of his toes. My stare returned to Rebecca. Her son was surviving off-center in another world, and he needed someone to light his path home.
“I found someone,” I muttered, eyeing the woman intensely.
Katie followed my stare. “Her?” she posed. “Humph… I thought she looked the sanest.”
“She’s not crazy,” I assured. “She’s tormented.”
My bosom friend gave the palms of her hands several fierce rubs. “Let’s go,” she urged and took a couple of steps in the woman’s direction.
I grabbed her arm and aimed her shoulders in the opposite direction. “This way,” I said.
“I thought you were healing that lady?” she asked, confused.
“No, I’m healing her son, Lucca. He has autism. I mean, I think I can. Transcendence had their own autism facility listed on their guide map. If it’s a brain disorder, then I don’t see why I can’t.” My breaths quickened the closer our steps carried us towards the little boy. I stopped to fire off a prayer and then turned towards Katie to get ready. “Healing him heals her too . . . and his father. I’ve never heard someone’s brain ramble worries on a loop like that. All of her thoughts revolved around what his future holds. An emerald could offer her a little insight, but a diamond can give him a fighting chance in this world.”
Katie smiled and pointed to Lucca. “Then hop to it Mind-Whisperer.”
I wrangled the mother’s brainwaves and blacked-out her mind first. That granted me all the access I needed, less the alarming cries of any suspected stranger-danger. Then, I cast my golden veil and extended its bounds so the three of us would be cloaked from anyone else’s prying eyes.
We approached Lucca cautiously. Even though he never looked up at us, I sensed he was more than aware of our presence. I stepped over the cars carefully and knelt down in front of him. He resisted when I placed my hands on his head. But as soon as I’d called upon the diamond’s powers, Lucca slowly lifted his stare and our eyes connected like the last piece of a puzzle had been locked into place. The energy I was channeling warmed the tips of my fingers into their signature glow. I was so connected to this little boy that every coherent thought and memory he held flooded my mind. So did every tear I saw streaming from his parents eyes when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. This precious five-year-old boy had his whole life ahead of him now — without the suffocating choke of limitations. A watery streak shot down my cheek. It was one thing to feel the happiness from all the adults I’d healed the other day, but it was quite another to know you were giving someone something as simple as “a choice” in their lives and could see it reflected in their eyes. My fingers kept a firm lock on his little head for a few more selfish seconds. All of his memories of me were about to vanish forever and this time, it was hard to let the feeling go so easily.
I kissed his forehead. “I truly wish you a happy life,” I whispered. His smile widened, like I had handed him his favorite toy car and in that moment, I knew all the darkness had disappeared.
With no one looking, I retracted the invisibility spell and backed away from Lucca, who was now rolling his cars around while he puttered out engine noises and plenty of “toots” to go along with them.
“This part will be just as good,” I assured Katie, directing my attention to his unsuspecting mother. “Maybe better?”
I released his mother and turned back to Lucca. I felt the weight of my bottom lip sinking to the ground as I watched him. Something was off. Lucca was lining up his cars again around the edge of the blanket, having slipped back into the clutches of the silent world that had imprisoned him before.
“Should he still be doing that?” Katie questioned.
“No,” I huffed, dumbfounded, and hurried back to the blanket.
I place
d my hands on his head and tried healing him again, quicker this time. The same reemergence came like it had minutes ago, but it started fading as soon as my hands fell into my lap. Something had gone wrong. The diamond’s energy had felt like any other time I’d called on it and successfully healed someone before. A tremble rocked my body. The mounting stress that stemmed from my creature-banishing issues was bad enough, but the thought of my worries spilling over into the healing-side of my abilities pummeled my insides like an iron shrapnel grenade had gone off. I sat there staring at the little boy, knowing I had to feel as helpless as his mother — sad, desperate, and unable to find the right switch to flip.
“Shi, you dropped your veil, and his mother is running over here. Get away from him,” Katie implored.
“What’s going on?” his mother demanded, huffing and puffing.
I sat lethargically on the blanket with him, stripped of both my ability to think or speak.
Rebecca snatched her son into her arms. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”
Katie stepped forward. “He looks exactly like her little brother,” she blurted. “We thought it was him.”
“Well, he’s NOT,” the woman assured Katie and then turned her glare to me.
I hadn’t sensed this many angry sentiments coming from a mother since that bear thought I was going to hurt her cub last December.
“You need to get off my blanket,” she ordered curtly and patted her son’s head, trying to soothe him as he writhed in her arms. “We’re leaving now.”
I rose to my feet and stepped back. “I—I’m so sorry,” I apologized, knowing my intrusion was the last thing I regretted.
The woman pacified me with a nod, but only because she believed Katie’s story. She immediately started placing all the cars in her tote bag and then folded up the blanket to the sound of Lucca’s whimpers. Knowing I’d totally wrecked their morning out on top of not being able to heal him made me feel a good thousand times worse.
I wandered off the playground in a daze, feeling just as crestfallen as I was clueless.
Katie grabbed my hand. “Wait, Shi! What happened back there?”
“It didn’t take,” I confessed.
“Why didn’t it take?” Katie pressed.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled sadly. “And I was really pouring all of my healing powers into him.”
“Maybe your focus was just a little off?” Katie guessed.
Hearing her announce my worst fear sent my heart plummeting further. “That’s not helping,” I muttered.
“Well, it’s possible,” Katie continued. “It’s happened when I’ve attempted a few spells myself.”
I dug the tips of my fingers into my temples and started knocking out circles. “That’s really not helping.”
Katie consoled me with a hug. “Sorry.”
This can’t be happening…on top of everything else. I tilted my head to the sky. Could someone please, PLEASE give me a BREAK? Is that too much to freaking ask?
I turned to Katie. “So? Any other light bulbs shining upstairs?” I huffed, conceding complete defeat. And here I didn’t think I could feel any worse. My mistake.
Katie glanced around feverishly, sensing my unease and ignoring my snark. “Just a crappy backup plan.” She pointed to an ice cream vendor a little ways down the lane. “To numb your pain . . . or at the least we can cool off while we think of something else?”
Now I felt horrible for my snippy remark. “You can go ahead,” I muttered, needing a moment to wallow alone in my most recent failure. “I’ll wait for you here.”
“Okay,” Katie smiled and started to head off. She hadn’t turned around completely when from out of nowhere a rubber playground ball pounded the side of her head with a hollow-sounding “THUMP”.
A grouchy-looking young boy ran up to her. “You could have caught it for me, lady!” he barked. “What’s wrong with you?”
Katie kicked some sand at him as he ran off and then shot me a vengeful stare. “Think about what I said.” She gave her knuckles a gusty crack and then aimed her evil-eye glare towards the boy running to get his ball. “I’ll make it look real clean,” Katie grumbled as she stormed off.
I moped towards a bench lying beneath the arms of two shady oak trees. My stare kept darting back to Lucca and his mother. The fact that I couldn’t soothe any of her worries with my amethyst was equally as upsetting. I wasn’t about to trap another person’s feelings inside one. Of course I could give her mine to hold on to until I figured out what had gone wrong, but then Tanner would undoubtedly try to contact me. I could only imagine his response when my reply came via his cell phone. My hands couldn’t have been tied any tighter. I was completely incapable of offering this woman a thing and the pain wrenching my heart was killing me.
At least for right now, I affirmed as I pulled out my cell. I entered Rebecca’s full name and address that I’d retrieved from her mind and placed them into my contacts without further delay. Then I crashed onto the bench with a weighty plop. I was surprised my rear didn’t crack the wooden slats in two after feeling the rocking “boom” I’d made.
“Gracious!” an elderly woman beside me exclaimed. “I didn’t realize that I’d hopped on a seesaw.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you sitting there.”
“That’s quite all right,” the woman assured while she eyed me from head to toe. “So are you babysitting for the summer or do you lay claim to one of these little darlings?”
The crazy thought of me even being pregnant forced my lips into a droll grin. “Neither,” I replied. “I’m just out here trying to get some fresh air.”
“It does the mind wonders.” The woman leaned in closer. “Pardon my saying so, but as low as what you look, you may be out here until the moon makes its rise.”
Gotta love frank words from a stranger. “The thought has crossed my mind,” I said politely.
Lucca and his mother captured my gaze when they strolled past. My heart inevitably followed their steps, still heavy with regret.
“I guess that’s why I thought you might be a caregiver,” the woman said. “I saw you out there with the children.”
I snapped out of my daze. “Oh,” I mumbled. I didn’t realize my latest failure had scored an audience.
“You must excuse me again. That’s what us elderly folk are supposed to do,” she beamed. “Sit on park benches and keep our eyes locked on everyone from sunup to sundown. It says so on our AARP cards.”
I smiled and turned back to discover that Lucca and his mother had already disappeared around the bend. As empty as I felt and as hot as what it was out here, I could have literally melted onto the ground in a spiritless glop of sadness. I still didn’t know what could have gone wrong. It couldn’t have been my focus.
Not a chance, I assured myself.
“It’s such a shame about his autism,” the elderly woman remarked.
My head whipped towards the woman. “You could tell?” I couldn’t, at least not on the outside.
“Only because they come here a lot,” she replied. “But it seems like I’m noticing more and more children with it nowadays. It affects their brains, mucking up its signals . . . But it reeks havoc with a lot of their other systems as well.” She tossed me a nod. “I used to be a nurse, so I like to keep up with what’s going on in the medical world.”
I issued her a courteous smile and nodded.
The woman continued, “The last few news reports I saw suggested that their bodies aren’t able to eliminate toxins properly, and they build up in the cells of their organs. Hopefully someone will find a cure soon. I can’t imagine the medley of remedies one pill would have to contain to alleviate so many issues.”
My thoughts whirled with speculations. If what this woman claimed was true, then that could very well explain why my healing didn’t last. Possibly? I was basically blowing air into a ball filled with tiny holes. How could he stay “healed” if all of his other systems were af
fected? They had to be draining what I’d done.
I thought I heard the woman saying something else. “I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.
“I said peanuts, dear.” The woman extended her bag of peanuts. “Would you care for one?”
My brain fired off a swift warning shot while I shifted my stare between her gracious offering and the dark sunglasses shielding her eyes. Then I automatically scooted down the bench more than a fuzz and stuck my hand inside my purse.
“No thank you,” I said, now rigid. I didn’t care how appalling it would look, one false black-eyed move and I planned on taking grandma down right here on the lawn.
The woman retracted her offer with a noticeable flinch and placed the bag down by her side. “All right,” she sang cordially and then took off her sunglasses.
I scanned her brainwaves while she rummaged through her purse. The woman wasn’t exuding anything letting me know she was possessed. All she seemed focused on was finding her handkerchief. I watched her wipe off her lenses, trying to get a look at her eyeballs.
The woman started to put them back on, only to pause and turn to me first. “I was just trying to be polite,” she winked.
Her eyes were just as blue as mine. Crap. Now I really felt bad, despite my burning suspicions. Then a possibility hit me. Considering the shape-shifting ability a particular Talisman claimed in regards to various womanly forms, the risky reality of guarding Tanner’s precious lifeline, and the fact that she’d babysat me on another holiday not too long ago, I knew exactly who this woman really was. I had to give Kamya props for her disguise, as well as her little test to see if I’d learned my don’t-take-anything-from-strangers lesson.