The Calling (Mae Martin Mysteries Book 1)

by Amber Foxx

  “Root chakra,” Charlie said. “Red. Stability. Basic needs. It’s at the perineum or the tip of the tailbone.”

  “Charlie, I am not putting this ruby on your ass.”

  He laughed, winced, and one hand flew to his chest. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The second chakra is the orange crystal. Just below the navel. Close relationships. Sex. And you won’t have to touch that, either.” He paused to see if she smiled at his joke. She didn’t. “Third—yellow. At the diaphragm. Money. Power. Work. Your way in the world. Fourth—green. The heart chakra. Relationships with humanity and the earth. Compassion. Fifth chakra—sky blue, at the base of the throat. Truth. Voice. Between the heart and the head. Sixth chakra, purple. The third eye. Intuition, visions, insights.” At this he sank back into his pillow, and breathed more slowly, as if working at it. “Seventh chakra—crown of the head. Clear white light. No sound. Pure awareness.”

  All of his chakras were probably out of whack. Mae couldn’t think of a thing he’d mentioned that seemed right in him. She waited until she was sure he was up to talking more, watching his breath ease. If she was going to heal him, she wanted to do it without seeing more of his life. “So, when I can’t control my visions and too much comes in, is my sixth chakra too open?”

  “Probably.”

  “Are there things I can do to adjust the way they open and close in myself, as well as my clients?”

  “I’m getting to that. Give me a minute.” He lay with his eyes closed for a moment, then looked at her. “All right. There are minor chakras in all the joints, and in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. You need to move the energy into your hands.”

  “How?”

  “Get my balls.” He watched her reaction, smiled halfway. “My dragon balls are over there behind all those flowers somewhere.”

  Mae walked to the windowsill and discovered the brocaded box among the vases. She blew grains of pollen off its surface and brought it back to the bed, relieved to see that neither the crystals nor his hands had moved. It bothered her to leave them there beside him, even though she’d be using them to heal him. If she could. Her efforts might bring back the artist, but if his nerve damage and breathing problems were affecting his blood pressure, she might not be much help with something so medically complicated.

  Mae took the balls from the box. “Now what?”

  “Roll them for a while. Each hand.”

  He watched. Either he couldn’t interfere, or he didn’t want to. She had no difficulty in rolling them smoothly around each other, the gold-rimmed dragons and clouds circling without touching.

  “It empties your mind,” Charlie said. “Moves your energy into your hands. Opens the hand chakras. Now put them away and close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m teaching you. A little Qi Gong exercise. Close your eyes.”

  Mae put the balls back in their case, setting it on the table beside Charlie, and took the crystals from the bed. She moved them over to the windowsill and then sat in the chair beside Charlie’s bed. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re funny. I can’t believe how little you trust me. Close your eyes. I’m not doing anything to you. I’m a sick, fat old man in a hospital bed with his chest ripped open and sewed up. Do you really think I’m dangerous?”

  “Not taking any chances.” Mae closed her eyes. “Go ahead, teach me.”

  “You’re a difficult student.” He waited a moment, then spoke. “Imagine a gold light, like a sun, in your right hand, and silver ball of light like a moon in your left. Feel them.”

  She turned her palms up and imagined the spheres until she could feel their weight, the heat of the little sun and coolness of the little moon. “I have them.”

  “Juggle them. Toss them hand to hand. Know exactly where they are, and when they land.”

  It was harder than it sounded. Sometimes she lost track of which sphere was in which hand and had to start over, but after a while her mind fell silent and she could feel and see the sun and the moon, and image and sensation took over in a flow. It was like a more complex and challenging version of the ballgame imagery she had used when she first started learning to focus her mind, and it had a more intense effect, strengthening her own energy and creating a sun-quality and a moon-quality in her body’s right and left sides.

  “Now catch them and press them together and begin to turn them against each other until you have a yin-yang ball of silver and gold. You do know the yin-yang symbol?”

  “I’m not quite that country.” She rolled the spheres together. At first they wouldn’t meld, but with concentration she could blend them. When the spherical yin-yang symbol took shape, she felt a surge of energy up the center of her spine. Was that that the susumna channel he had talked about? “I did it. Now what?”

  “Undo them, and put them away. Like they were a set of dragon balls.”

  Untwisting the spheres of light back into a sun and moon, rolling them back into her hands, she imagined a box for them, a clear quartz box with white velvet inside. She set the tiny celestial spheres in the box and closed it. Its fastener was a latch made of light. She opened her eyes. Charlie looked to be asleep, but she doubted it. He might have been watching her entire inner experience for all she knew.

  “Did you feel anything?” he asked.

  “Kind of like electricity, yeah. And a cool side and a warm side. The electricity went up my spine.”

  “Not bad, for a beginner. Now, you can use your hands and the crystals either on or above the chakras, touching the physical body or just the energy body. You should be able to heal me better now. I don’t want an amateur messing with my parts.”

  “Why’d you even ask me, if I’m such an amateur?”

  “Because you owe me. Now get started. You can start with my feet, or with the root chakra.”

  Before attempting to heal him, Mae felt the need to give him a kind of checkup now that he’d taught her the energy system. He seemed to expect her to jump in without it, but that would be like doing surgery without taking an X-ray or MRI first. She knew what was wrong with his body, but from what she’d seen of him in the spirit world, that part might be in worse shape. If this went well, she could sense his chakras without having to see any images or stories that went with them. It’d be like the way she’d worked with Randi, only better because of her new knowledge and the new skills.

  Just as she did when she was using the sight to answer a question, Mae quieted her mind and set the intention to see what was wrong with him. She held Charlie’s feet again, then began to explore the air over his body, a few inches off the skin, holding the clear crystals. No wolf. No glowing hand. But there was a strong sensation. A draining, sucking feeling. Mae backed off and waited until the feeling subsided.

  Then she moved her hands to his troublesome knee. The image of Pamela still came up there. And suddenly, Malba. Mae dropped into the vision so fully she didn’t even feel the tunnel take her there. She was in Charlie’s office. Malba and Charlie, both looking a few years younger, sat at the round table while she threw the bones. Malba shook her head, made a clucking sound, and Charlie gave her a raised eyebrow.

  “Am I going to die?” He made it sound like a joke.

  “No, but you’re gonna feel like it.” Malba pointed her red-nailed finger at a pattern of bones on the clutter of papers. “This is a woman. I kind of hear her ... Talks Southern, and I can’t see her exactly, but she’s tall and strong. White girl, young-ish. And there’s something different about her.”

  “Different what way?”

  “I don’t know. She just feels different. Might be how she looks, or some power in her. I don’t know. But she’s gonna take it all, Charlie. Leave you with nothing.”

  “She already tried,” he chuckled. “But I won.”

  “You saying this is your past?”

  Charlie rose, walked to his desk, and dug through a drawer until he brought out a small photograp
h of Pamela in action in a college basketball game. He showed it to Malba. “My ex-girlfriend. Is this her?”

  Malba stared for a while. “Maybe. Maybe not. She might not be the one. But if it’s her, she’s not done yet. You be careful.” Malba tapped the bones. “These reach out to your future.”

  The office faded. Me. She meant me. I’m trying to heal him and she said I was gonna take everything.

  Mae moved her hands up to Charlie’s heart. Over his incision there was an angry energy, a flaring, pulsing rage. To the side of it, an image of Dana emerged, in uniform, along with a hollow feeling like a hole opening up over his heart. The sucking feeling again.

  Mae drew away from it and moved down to a lower chakra, the one about sex and relationships. Would there be a different kind of wound there? Energy lines ran like red strips of tape from his penis towards an image of Pamela walking down a long hallway, her back to Charlie. Energy, seeking but stopping short of her spike heels on the hallway floor. Mae almost pulled out of the vision. Did she want to help Charlie sexually? But if she healed the hurt and anger with Pamela, he might get his old self back, his art and his creativity. She sent out a tentative touch of healing, imagining scissors cutting the tape. It snapped up around her like a snake whipping into motion, and the hungry emptiness began to pull at her. Alarmed, she backed off.

  Mae took her grandmother’s amethyst from the row of crystals on the windowsill and held it. Now what? Could Granma guide her? She’d never felt that kind of sucking hole in someone before. Like something was not only missing from Charlie, but so far gone that his energy was a vacuum.

  If she tried to heal this vacuum, what would happen? It felt dangerous, like the weird stillness in the eye of a hurricane. Was it a danger to herself, or to Charlie, or both? Pamela might have punctured his spirit in some way when he lost his inner artist. If something was sucking the life out of him, Mae had to help. But he might have used his power to start his own heart attack, and it had gotten out of control, slowly killing him. If she touched that hole, could it pull her in rather than help him? Frightening possibilities outside her experience loomed in that void.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You haven’t even tried. Where are those seven crystals? Use them. You can do it.”

  “There’s so much wrong. Really messed up stuff going on in you.”

  “I didn’t ask for a diagnosis, I asked for you to heal me. I already know what’s wrong. You just have to move the energy out of your head and into your hands. Be the channel, don’t be in charge.”

  Mae hoped she could. His original self was so far gone, though.

  She went to the windowsill and got the seven crystals. She could start at the root and work up. Or she could start where she saw the images, in his knee, and in his heart. But maybe that relationship problem started at the second chakra in the lower belly, with his break with Pamela. She hesitated, fingering the orange crystal. He seemed to think the crash course in raising her energies and in the anatomy of chakras and nadis would work, as if she’d know how to use all these systems already. Her hands felt stronger, as if more energy flowed through, and her head felt alive with a kind of buzzing at the crown of her head and between her eyebrows, but she didn’t feel more skilled or competent. Instead, she felt overwhelmed.

  “Go on,” Charlie’s weak, strained voice urged. “Stop expecting it to be easy.”

  “I don’t.”

  Starting over, she placed her hands on his feet and waited. The sucking feeling came again. It scared her, but she kept going. She wasn’t going to have Charlie Tann thinking she was lazy or scared.

  Slowly, she felt her energy begin to pour into him, a river of pink, bright light. It reached him. It touched something in a dark place behind his heart. Not in one of the damaged chakras, though. She waited. Something moved. A hint of life.

  Deep against his spine, she saw a shadow. The wolf was beginning to re-form. She’d given him power. What had Bernadette said? That if you un-witched someone he’d be like an alcoholic without a drink. Desperate.

  I can’t heal him. He’s trying to get his power back.

  Too late. Plunged deep into the spirit world, Mae stood alone in the woods with the wolf. It was still getting to its feet, still gathering itself, as if it had been weak and sick, but she could feel herself being pulled to it. Charlie had to have taken control of the vision. She didn’t know where she was anymore. If she got lost in this place, she might lose her gift altogether—and the wolf might come back stronger than ever. Fighting the drain with what power she had left, she searched her soul for some way to stop him, to save herself.

  The woods became the woods near John Tyler’s place, beyond the church and the farms. Nineteen years old and scared to kill anything, Mae froze behind a screen of thin shrubs. It was her first real hunt with a real buck in her sights, not the deer-shaped plywood target. Mack whispered, his beer breath close on her face, Kill it, Mae. Now. You got a good shot.

  Kill? But she had to. They were poor and needed the meat. The rifle kicked against her shoulder.

  Mack and the deer faded. The wolf, standing now, had Charlie’s eyes. Would she kill Charlie—stop his heart when she shot the wolf?

  She couldn’t think it through any more than she could think and hunt, or think and hit a ball. If she let her mind get in the way, her aim would falter. The sucking drain and the wolf were getting stronger, and her own power weaker.

  Her energy became the rifle and she was a hunter again. Survival. She shot. The wolf went down.

  Charlie’s breath stopped. His eyes stayed shut as a look of rage crossed his face, a hint of red in his sallowness. Then he let out a sigh that was almost a bark.

  Feeling as if she had stepped back from a cliff, Mae put the rainbow of crystals back in her purse. “Sorry. Can’t do it.”

  Charlie opened his eyes, his brows lowered. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “It wouldn’t be right.” Her voice shook. Confronting him still scared her, even after bringing down the wolf. Its eyes haunted her. “You have to stay like this.”

  “What? With my blood pressure about to blow a hole in my head?”

  “No. You know what I mean. You need to let go of your power. Maybe you’ll heal on your own if you stop going after that.”

  “I will heal or not heal,” he said, each word coming out like a chip of ice, “according to my own lights, according to my own life, in my own way and in my own time. In ways that your judgment will find wanting. I asked for your help—”

  “So you could steal my power. Wanting to paint again—bull. You want to be a wolf again and have that power in your hands.”

  Mae watched his response, an icy stare and labored breath. Making sure she didn’t make a sick man sicker, she paused until he seemed to breathe more easily. “Now they’ve all left you, maybe you’ll get your soul back, instead of your power.”

  “How does this heal my soul?” Charlie asked with a sneer. “Does it come rushing back in?” He mimed the sudden return, like catching a fly ball to the heart.

  “I don’t know. It might. But I reckon you’ll feel pretty empty for a while.”

  Charlie folded his hands over his belly, fingers outstretched and taut, his expression concentrated and tight, seeming to watch or listen to something. “You are a contemptible healer.” He sank deeper into his pillows, the tension breaking into collapse. “A coward and a failure.”

  “No. I was better than you expected, not worse. If you really wanted to be healed, you wouldn’t have asked me—some beginner you thought you could fool.”

  A large blonde nurse in a loud print top came in and looked at Charlie and his chart. “We’re up!” she announced with strange cheeriness. “I’m here to take your vitals, Dr. Tann.”

  Martyred annoyance mixed with a jocular tone in what was left of his voice. “Well, just make sure to give my vitals back to me. I should hate to be without my vitals.”

  The nurse smiled, wrap
ped a blood pressure cuff around Charlie's arm and inflated it, frowned, then looked at his chart, recorded the numbers. Then she checked his pulse, and recorded that and placed an electronic thermometer in his mouth.

  “Your BP’s down a little. Still too high, but at least there’s progress. Doctor Greer didn’t change your meds again though, did she?”

  Charlie shook his head and tried to talk around the thermometer. “She’s threatening to. I already feel like I’m driving with the brakes on, though. I don’t want more drugs.”

  “She’ll be around to see you in about an hour. But this is progress.” The nurse removed the thermometer, made more notes in the chart. “You relax now, Dr. Tann. I know you want to go home.”

  She smiled at him, squeezed his hand, and he squeezed hers back.

  “He’s one of our favorite patients,” the nurse said to Mae. “But I’m sure you know.”

  As she left, Charlie gave her a wave, like royalty.

  Mae asked in amazement, “Their favorite patient?”

  “It’s because I make connections. I know you don’t believe that. You think that I don’t love. You think that because I don’t do what you would do, I must be a very bad man. But I know how to connect with people. You underestimate me.”

  “No. But you wanted me to.”

  Charlie drew his head back, tilted it to one side, and studied her. “You still don’t like me, do you?”

  “Sorry. Can’t seem to. Even Ted Williams struck out sometimes.” Mae picked up her purse and started for the door. “But thanks for the lessons.”

  “Wait.”

  She stopped, looked back at him. With a strained grunt he reached to the table, picked up the brocade box and held it out towards her. “Take my balls.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He gestured forcefully with the hand holding the box. “You’ve already cut them off.”

  Mae approached cautiously. Was this sincere? Or a trick? An attack?