Empath

by Evans, S. Usher

  "My village has lost ten men this week," the boy whispered. "Please, you have to help—"

  "What can I do?" Lauren said. "I'm not a doctor."

  "Let's bring him to Siors." Cefin nodded. "He'll know what to do."

  ***

  "Tyllwyllwch is a dangerous disease indeed," Siors nodded, tipping the spout of the tea kettle into the boy's cup that was almost too big for his hands before offering some to Lauren and Cefin, who were huddled on either side of the hearth. Once he put the kettle back, he turned to look through his stacks of books on the wall.

  "I mean, what is it?" Lauren asked. "Is it a virus or a…" She trailed off when she realized no one knew the difference between a virus and a bacterial infection. Also, she had no treatments for either. In any case, she decided to shut up and listen to Siors.

  "A darkening of the soul," he said, pulling out an old book and flipping the pages. "It seeps into a village, quietly and without warning. It passes from person to person, until the person has no energy to move, no energy to eat, and they waste away."

  Lauren swallowed hard. That didn't sound like anything she wanted to be involved in.

  "So what do I have to do with it?"

  "An old wives' tale says the empath can cure the darkness," Siors said, placing the book in front of her. On the open page was a painting, one that looked like it came out of middle ages Europe (or a Monty Python cartoon). Each person had a pained look on his face and was surrounded by a thick black cartoonish smoke.

  But what drew Lauren's eye was the girl on the page standing apart from the group, seemingly sucking in the darkness through a bright light at her chest.

  "That's what my village elders said, too," Tomos squeaked, looking between Siors and Lauren. "They said that they'd heard a new empath had arrived and to bring her before anyone else…died."

  Lauren could feel the eyes of everyone on her. It became quite toasty in the room.

  "I don't know…I have no idea…" Lauren swallowed and glanced around, trying to buy herself some time. "I've only been an empath for a few days. I don't know how to…fix this."

  "Please, you have to help us. Otherwise, we have no hope," Tomos cried, dropping the mug of tea and rushing towards her. She barely got a breath in before the boy's hands were around her waist.

  My momma and my sister, what will happen to them? It came so fast and this girl, she's the only one who can save us. I am so afraid—

  Lauren let out a gasp as she came back to herself, more relieved to be back in her own mind than in someone else's. Cefin had the boy by the arm, and Tomos was struggling against him with tears in his eyes.

  "Are you all right?" Cefin asked Lauren.

  "Yeah." Lauren nodded, rubbing her face. The boy's terror surged through her, until it became her own, and every fiber of her being was demanding she accompany him. She hated this feeling; she hated not being in control, but she knew if she walked away now, she would be haunted by this little boy's fear for a long time.

  "Okay, I'll go," she said quietly.

  "You will?" the boy cried.

  "Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing, but…yeah, I'll try."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cefin insisted on going with her, and regardless of her protests, the three of them—Lauren, Cefin, and Tomos—set off down the mountainside to the village of Heulog. Tomos scurried out in front of them, throwing a look back every few moments to make sure they were still following him. Each time, she'd give him an affirming smile, even as she, herself, slipped and slid on the rocks.

  "I'm getting really tired of this," Lauren hissed, pushing herself upright. "Really wish there were some stairs or something on this mountain." Cefin trotted back over to her and reached out a hand. Lauren took it without thinking—

  She's quite pretty when she's frustrated.

  "Gods, sorry," Cefin said, pulling his hand back like she had burnt him. Lauren fell back to the ground in a heap, suddenly realizing what this whole can't-touch-anyone thing really meant for her. Especially now, considering she and Cefin had just come to a good place.

  And also, he was attracted to her.

  "What are you waiting for? It's just up ahead," Tomos said, appearing over a ridge.

  "I…sorry…" Cefin said. He opened and closed his hand like he wanted to hold onto her again, but then clamped his arms down by his side.

  Lauren pulled herself up to stand and tossed a smile at Cefin. "No worries," she said, marching beside him. She had to remain normal; she didn't want to torture herself by pining after someone she couldn't be with. Suddenly, her hypothetical wedding disappeared just as quickly as the one she'd made on Pinterest for her and Josh.

  "There it is!" Tomos cried, pointing out the distance and taking off at a run.

  "Whoa," she whispered, stopping in her tracks.

  She could barely see the village through a dark gray and very thick fog. For a moment, she thought it was smoke from a fire or from a morning mist. But she saw no fire; in fact, it chilled her to the bone just looking at it.

  "What is it?" Cefin asked.

  "There's something over that village," Lauren replied. "It's…don't you see it?"

  "No." Cefin shook his head. "Looks like a normal village to me?"

  Lauren, no longer surprised that she could see things others could not, was still concerned about the ominous sight. With every step closer to the darkness, the temperature seemed to fall another two degrees until she could even see her breath in front of her. Lauren turned behind her and realized they'd been walking through the darkness for some time now. A small shape wandered up to her in the darkness, forming into the shape of Tomos.

  "Come!" he said, disappearing into the mist again.

  Lauren hurried off into the direction he came from but soon lost him. Another dark shape was moving next to her, coming close enough for Lauren to see it was an old man. He seemed to be emanating a dark aura—the same blackness that surrounded them. Lauren would have thought him the source of the darkness, but for another woman that walked by covered in the dark mist.

  "So you're not seeing this?" Lauren whispered to Cefin, the only non-dark thing she could see in this village.

  "Seeing what?" Cefin said.

  "Over here!" Tomos was back, appearing through the dark like a ghost. Lauren followed behind Cefin, who could obviously still see the boy. She wondered if this darkness was the tyllwyllwch. If so, there was so much of it, she wasn't sure how she'd be able to get rid of it. She had visions of a giant room fan, but dismissed the notion.

  A man wheeled a cart with two burlap bags on it.

  "Are they?" she asked.

  "Taken by the tyllwyllwch," he said sadly, continuing to move forward, unaware that he too was surrounded by the darkness.

  "Lauren." Cefin stood close to her, but he didn't touch her.

  She nodded and followed him into a hut not unlike those in Rhianu. She passed over the threshold and let out a hot breath that fogged in front of her. It was ice cold, as cold as the dead of winter. Her body shook involuntarily, trying to get warm. The blackness was thick in here too, almost too thick for her to see. She felt weighed down, and it was hard to breathe.

  "Mamma!" Tomos was crying out in the corner, and Lauren didn't need her eyes to know where his mother lay. Rather, she could sense the cold darkness coming from the corner. She took several tentative steps before kneeling next to a bed, where a woman lay on the bed.

  She was young, not older than Lauren herself, and already with a little boy who was eight or nine. The darkness poured from her like a frigid steam, her shallow breaths the only sign that the woman was not dead.

  "Can you help her?" Tomos asked.

  "I don't know," Lauren said, hesitating. She wasn't sure what would happen if she placed her hands on this woman, if she'd be contaminated as well. More than that, something about this darkness told her that it was going to hurt like hell.

  She turned to the boy next to her, whose eyes were wide with fear, and the protestations d
ied in her throat. What was she thinking? If she had the power to help this poor woman, she needed to do it.

  But what was it she was supposed to do? Siors' book wasn't very helpful. Just a girl standing in front of a group of people, drawing in some dark mist. Was she supposed to breathe it all in? Wave her arms around? Or blast it away like some anime character?

  "Lauren?" Cefin's voice echoed behind her and she began to feel stupid. She shouldn't have come here, and she shouldn't have—

  "Please…do something…" Tomos was crying again.

  Steeling herself for whatever horribleness was going to happen, Lauren shakily reached out her hands and placed them on the clammy arm of the woman.

  She gasped and pulled her hands away. She'd never felt anything like that before; it was like dipping her arms into a sink filled with ice water.

  "Lauren?" Cefin asked.

  "I'm…" Lauren said, taking a moment to readjust. "I'm fine."

  And before she could talk herself out of it, she pressed her hands on the woman again.

  ***

  Lauren stood in the frigid darkness, as if she were at the bottom of a deep cave. She could hear the slow drip-drip-drip of water nearby. The air felt heavy and thick around her; even blinking her eyes was difficult. She shivered, trying to move in the blackness, but found herself unable to go very far.

  "Hello?" Lauren called, not sure how she was a corporeal form in this weird place she had traveled to in her subconscious. She knew the tyll-whatever was there, chilling her to the bone.

  "Hello?" she called again, her voice echoing in the empty space. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here…so…"

  She sounded idiotic, she knew it, but she felt idiotic.

  She spun around again, and noticed for the first time that everything had a red tint to it. She looked down at her chest and saw that her necklace, hidden beneath her dress, was glowing red.

  She pulled the stone out and was blinded by the glare from it. It wasn't just shining—it was hot, like a lightbulb on too long. She let it drop from her hands against her chest and could feel the heat through the layers of clothes.

  But with the stone shining bright, she could now see farther than her own nose, although the darkness still surrounded her.

  "Hello?" she called again. "Are you here?"

  Who "you" was, she had no idea, but she somehow knew she was looking for someone.

  "I'm not going to hurt you," Lauren called, taking a few tentative steps forward. She remembered walking in the cave just before running into the Anghenfil—

  Her stone dimmed slightly, and she heard a soft laughter. It was a familiar voice, the one that had been haunting her dreams.

  Panic gripped her and the light lessoned more. Why would the Anghenfil be here, in the consciousness of this woman?

  "I imagined it," Lauren whispered to herself. "It's not here, it's up in the mountains, and it's not here."

  The stone glowed brighter and it gave her confidence, but Lauren knew she needed to figure out a way to clear out the tyllwyllwch before she succumbed to it.

  "Okay, Dailey, if you were an empath, which you are, how would you get rid of a big dark mist?" She paused and tried to clear the nerves from her mind to think clearer. "Mist dissipates in heat, right? So maybe if I build a fire?"

  As if on cue, the stone against her chest grew hotter.

  "Oh, duh," Lauren said, picking it up by the gold chain. This must be how the other empath did it, too. She eyed the red stone encased in around her neck. "So…make the mist go away, stone."

  It didn't do anything.

  "Damn it." Lauren let the stone fall to her chest. She folded her arms over her chest and thought for a moment, trying to connect the dots between the stone growing hotter and whatever she was doing.

  But as she thought about it, the stone seemed to burn brighter.

  "Ah, so that's it then." Lauren nodded satisfactorily. In her mind's eye, she envisioned the stone around her neck to be like a warm morning sun, the heat evaporating the mist like on a river.

  The stone burned so bright that she could see the backs of her eyelids, but she held firm, knowing that if she kept going, brighter and brighter, that…

  "Lauren…Lauren…"

  ***

  The first thing Lauren registered was the burning sensation on her chest, and she weakly pulled the stone away from her sweat-covered chest. It was still hot and singed her fingers, so she could only imagine how badly her skin had been burnt.

  The second thing she registered was the sound of the little boy crying and the sight of Cefin kneeling next to her, his face white and his eyes filled with something between amazement and concern.

  "What happened?" Lauren gasped, her throat feeling like a desert.

  "You touched her, and you began murmuring to yourself," Cefin said. "And then your amulet began glowing, and you started sweating and then you collapsed."

  "And…" Lauren said, slowly pulling herself upright so she could see the woman on the bed. She was pale and weak, with the hint of a smile on her face. She was comforting Tomos as he sobbed into her shoulder.

  "You did it," Cefin whispered. "You healed her."

  Lauren looked around the house, realizing that the dark mist was gone. In fact, it seemed quite warm in there now; or maybe that was because she had a permanent furnace hanging around her neck. She swiveled her head farther around to look out the open door of the home and noticed the darkness still hung around the rest of the village.

  "Who else?" Lauren asked.

  "No," Cefin replied firmly. "You're ill; you need to rest."

  "I think I just overdid it." Perhaps it was the feeling of doing something for someone else, or the fact that she could control something, but it made her want to go out and heal every person in that village.

  "Are you sure?" Cefin asked.

  "Yeah," Lauren smiled and stood up. "Who's next?"

  Almost every person in Heulog, it seemed, was infected with the tyllwyllwch. Those who were still walking around still had the dark aura around them, but it was easy to clear off within a few seconds. The ones who lay in their beds like Tomos' mother were harder, and Lauren found herself waking up on the ground more than once. But she didn't want to stop, even though Cefin begged her to. The feeling of helping others was too good, too addicting, even though her head began to ache as the sun set on the village.

  "That's the last of them, Lauren," Cefin said, as he and Lauren left a house where an old grandfather had just woken up.

  "Is it? Don't you want to do another sweep?" Lauren asked, flexing her hands.

  "If there are more, you can heal them in the morning," Cefin said. "You're pale and haven't eaten all day. You need to rest."

  "I'm fine." Lauren saw the sign for a tavern in the center of the village. "But I could use a beer?"

  To her surprise, Cefin's face broke from the stony concern into a wide smile.

  "Well, m'lady," he said, following her into the tavern. It was filled almost over capacity with people, elbow-to-elbow around old wooden tables with sudsy beers in their hands. When the first person spotted Lauren in the entryway, he cheered, and was joined by the rest of the group. A glass was thrust into Lauren's hand, followed by a hearty slap on the back.

  Elation.

  Happiness.

  Relief.

  Emotions came to and fro as she was manhandled in the tavern, everyone wishing to shake her hand and personally thank her for saving the village. Cefin kicked away the first two people, but Lauren waved him off, now almost used to the jolting feeling of being in someone else's head after healing others all day. Besides, everyone was so happy that it left her feeling happy, even when the last person had shaken her hand.

  She finally sat down at the table, her third beer in her hand. She didn't feel drunk, as most of her first two had ended up on the floor instead of in her stomach. She took a long swig—it was warm and tasted like urine—but it was beer and she let out a happy sigh.

&nbs
p; "What?" Cefin asked, wiping away the suds on his upper lip.

  "Just happy. Glad I'm finally useful for something."

  "You've been useful," Cefin said with a mischievous smile. "You were useful entertainment when I set you to doing the laundry."

  "Hah!" Lauren barked, swallowing another gulp.

  "You've got a gift, you know," Cefin said, piercing her with his handsome eyes. "You saved a lot of lives today."

  Lauren picked up the amulet around her neck and looked at it. It was the only thing she had on her from her old world—

  Her old world.

  She'd thought it so casually, like living in the old world was a dream. Her mom and dad were just figments of her imagination, Josh was just a fantasy she'd concocted. It was just as well; she wasn't going home.

  She took another sip of her beer and smiled as another man came to thank her for saving his child's life, but somehow she couldn't bring herself back up where she'd been before. Something dark had settled in her chest, and she was struggling to get rid of it, even in this boisterous tavern. She felt like all of the happiness she'd experienced today had gone cold, like a cup of coffee out too long.

  "We shall return to the village in the morning," Cefin said, taking a long drink. "If you are agreeable to that?"

  "Mm-hmm," Lauren said, playing with the amulet around her neck.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah, just suddenly got really tired." Lauren forced a smile on her face so Cefin wouldn't become concerned. "I think I'm going to take a walk."

  "Would you like me to come with you?"

  Lauren waved him off and backed away slowly. "No, no, stay here and have a good time! You work too hard. Good for you to have a break. I'll be back in a bit."

  Cefin shrugged and turned to engage with the man who had just walked up to the table, presumably the leader of the village, who was thanking Cefin profusely for bringing Lauren.

  Lauren took this opportunity to slip out of the tavern, leaving the warm and rowdy room for the quiet of the cool night. Wrapping her arms tight around herself, she began strolling aimlessly, hoping to find a quiet place to sit. It did not take her long to reach the edge of the town, and a thick forest that loomed in the darkness. She stepped under the canopy, sliding down the trunk of the tree.