Borrowed Heart

by Linda Lamberson

  “Anyway, I don’t think we have to worry much about you running into anyone who knew you because you died so young. And according to your file, you weren’t famous, you weren’t involved in hardly any extracurricular activities, and you didn’t travel a lot.”

  “Wow, when you say it like that, my former life seems so … dull. I must have been nothing short of ordinary.” I hung my head down glumly, questioning how I could have allowed my brief life to be so uneventful.

  “On the contrary, love,” Teddy said warmly. “You had to be something real special to have found yourself up here—especially to get the likes of me teaching you the tricks of the trade.” Teddy threw his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. I smiled.

  For the next hour, I learned how to clear my head and focus solely on making myself feel solid as a rock and lighter than air as I slowly—very slowly at first—phased in and out of view. By the umpteenth time, I was able to materialize and dematerialize fairly competently and quickly.

  “Good, good. You’re a quick study. You’ll do just fine,” Teddy declared. “I’m proud of you, kid.” He nudged me and smiled. “Let’s take a quick break before we move on to teleportation. Here, take my hand and close your eyes or else you might get motion sick.” I did as Teddy asked and the next thing I knew, we were standing on the floor of the Grand Canyon.

  “Everybody always likes the view from the top of this place, but I think it’s much more impressive down here at the bottom looking up at the canyon walls. What do you think?” Teddy asked.

  “Yes, impressive,” I agreed. It truly was incredible. The clear blue sky was a perfect backdrop for the red-orange rock walls that were visible for miles in every direction. I could hear the sounds of different animals from every direction, everything from soaring eagles above us to desert snakes slithering in the sand. But there wasn’t a trace of a single human. The sun’s rays were beaming down on us, and it felt good. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to drink in the life that was bustling around me.

  “So,” Teddy said after a minute, “as you can see, teleportation can take us to amazing places. But it’s not just for fun. It’s another invaluable tool that can save your hide.”

  “What do you mean?” I said somewhat absentmindedly. I couldn’t help but be distracted by the energy surrounding me. I was curious to see which of the two scorpions one hundred feet away would win the battle over the same half-dead beetle. I was entranced by the bees nearly one hundred yards away collecting pollen from the cactus flowers that were in bloom. I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. Peter said I would have heightened senses, but I had no idea they would be this sharp.

  “Eve,” Teddy said authoritatively. I snapped out of my fog and gave him my full attention. In our brief time together, Teddy had called me by my name only once—the first time he introduced himself. I suspected he was about to tell me something important.

  “A word of warning; we can’t ever be wholly invisible to everyone—or everything,” Teddy cautioned. “To the trained eye or psyche, a Shepherd’s signature is always detectable. That’s why the ability to transport yourself from place to place is what I deem to be the second most important skill we possess. Just remember, if you need to get out of Dodge in a hurry, teleportation is the way to do it.”

  “Teddy, are you saying some people can actually see us when we’re invisible?” I asked, stunned.

  “Not see us as much as feel us.” He paused for a moment as if to collect his thoughts. “Some humans also have heightened senses. Take genuine psychics, for instance; they often know things that most other humans do not—or cannot—know because most humans are not in tune with their sixth sense.

  “There are other ways humans can detect us as well,” he continued. “For example, if a human had strong ties to a particular Shepherd when that Shepherd was a mortal. In that scenario, the human might possess the ability to sense the Shepherd’s presence if nearby even when the Shepherd is invisible.”

  “So it’s possible for a human to have ties to one of us?”

  “Well, if a human developed a strong enough bond with a Shepherd when the Shepherd was alive, then, theoretically, that bond could be strong enough to survive death,” Teddy explained. “Take twin siblings, for example, or a mother and a child. Even a husband and wife could have a deep enough connection. But to transcend death, the bond would have to run deeper than some familial or marital connection; it would have to be spiritual, divine . . . soulful.

  “In any case,” he went on to say, “that’s why we’ve got to take the precautions we do when doling out assignments. We want to minimize the risk of a Shepherd being exposed at all costs.”

  “So,” I tested, “the chances of me being assigned to someone from the same town are—”

  “One in a trillion,” he replied, cutting me off.

  “And to anyone I know?”

  “Not gonna happen, sweetheart,” Teddy said, without as much as an ounce of doubt.

  “What about demons? Should I assume that they can detect us?”

  Teddy looked at me, surprised. He must not have realized I already knew about demons.

  “Peter told me about them,” I offered.

  “Petey, huh?” Teddy unsuccessfully tried to stifle another knowing smile. “The truth is that most demons don’t care if you’re hanging out on Earth or not. And even if they did, they wouldn’t dare do anything about it—well, except for maybe one group of troublesome wrongdoers …” His voice trailed off.

  “The Servants,” I added.

  “Petey?” Teddy looked at me with raised eyebrows. I nodded affirmatively. “That’s a lot of information for a new Shepherd to process.” He shook his head back and forth. “You shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about the Servants. I suspect Hell itself would have to freeze over before you’d ever run into one.

  “The Servants are a hunted group—and they know it. So they stay out of sight most of the time and rarely surface for air. They’ve got humans running around doing most of their dirty work. That said, if you ever feel like you’re in danger, whether it be at the hands of a human, a demon, or whatever else that may come along, you teleport your sweet self right out of wherever it is you’re located. Got it?”

  “Um … yeah.” I might have understood what he was saying on some intellectual level, but I had absolutely no idea how to actually do it.

  “Teleportation is really very simple—much easier than phasing,” Teddy continued. “When we teleport, we travel at the speed of thought, which I’ll have you know is much faster than the speed of light. Okay, so here goes—when you want to go somewhere, all you have to do is picture your destination in your mind and will yourself there.”

  “Will myself there?”

  “Yup. Let’s have you give it a go. See that big pile of rocks over there by the far canyon wall?” he asked, pointing to a pile of rocks that had to be a mile away.

  “That pile? Way over there?” I asked meekly, pointing to the pile Teddy had singled out.

  “Yup. Just picture yourself standing on top of those rocks and will yourself there—you know, make yourself want to be standing there on top of them.”

  “Just like that … Picture myself on top of the rocks and want to go there.” I looked at Teddy like he was nuts.

  “Yup,” he said confidently. “Go ahead, missy. You can do it.” He nudged my shoulder.

  “If you say so,” I said uncertainly. “Here goes nothing.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” he said, chuckling.

  I closed my eyes and mentally pictured myself standing on top of the pile of rocks he had chosen. Okay, Eve—transport yourself to the rocks, I told myself. You want to be on the rocks. Go to the rocks. Go to the rocks. I chanted to myself. You can do this. You have to do this. I waited for a second and felt nothing.

  “See, Teddy, I told you I couldn’t—” I opened my eyes and couldn’t finish my sentence. Teddy wasn’t there. I turned around to find him and almost lo
st my balance. I was standing on top of a small, jagged boulder. I looked down to see that I was at least fifty feet in the air.

  “What the—” I exclaimed out loud. Immediately, I heard a roar of laughter and saw Teddy a mile away doubled over in hysterics.

  “Would it be ill-mannered of me to say, ‘I told you so’?” he managed to spit out in between his fits of laughter.

  I just stood there, wide-eyed in amazement. I did it. I actually did it! My mind was struggling to wrap itself around what had just happened. But once the initial shock wore off, I realized how incredibly cool it was to be able to teleport.

  “That was mind-blowing!” I shouted to Teddy as I began laughing. I let out a scream of exhilaration and jumped up and down in excitement before losing my balance again and almost falling off the boulder.

  “Take it easy there, cowgirl! Okay, now come on back the same way you went!” Teddy yelled back to me. I pictured myself standing next to him and told myself to travel to that spot. I didn’t even close my eyes—I didn’t need to. Before I could even finish my thought, I was standing next to him, exactly where I had pictured myself standing. Amazing.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Teddy had me teleporting myself all over the Grand Canyon—to the edges of the Canyon cliffs, to the banks of the Colorado River, and even on top of the smallest of river rocks that barely jutted out above the raging river rapids. He also taught me how to teleport in my dematerialized state, explaining that from now on I always needed to remain invisible when teleporting myself around Earth.

  “You never know when you’ll have an audience—unwanted or not. The biggest mistake you can make is to have some human see you materialize right before his or her eyes. Humans are not equipped to handle our kind of magic. Questions will be raised, possible investigations mounted—basically, a lot of hoo-hah will follow all because of some fancy little parlor trick. And the Council will not treat such a blunder kindly, that’s for darn sure. So don’t let me hear about how you went ahead and let the cat out of the bag. Capiche?”

  “Capiche,” I said with an affirmative nod of my head.

  “All right then. Well, that’s it for me. I’ve taught you the ropes and bestowed upon you my most clever words of wisdom,” Teddy said with a cocky grin. “Any questions?”

  What questions don’t I have? I thought. Where do I begin?

  “How did you teleport me here?” I began. “Can I do that with someone else?”

  “Dual teleportation is pretty advanced stuff. It’s only for seasoned Shepherds, and even some of them never master the art of dual transport. Before you can learn how to teleport with another being, or object for that matter, you need to master teleportation on a whole other level—like teleporting yourself to a destination you’ve never been before and can’t even picture in your mind.”

  “Well, how do you do that? How do you travel to a place that you’ve never been before?” I asked.

  “That is for another day, sugar.”

  “Oh c’mon. My mind is buzzing with possibilities. Give me a hint, please?” I smiled and batted my eyelashes slightly in hopes that he would succumb to my feminine wiles.

  “Fine,” Teddy sighed, “I’ll throw you a bone. When you want to go to somewhere you’ve never been before, but you happen to be familiar with a landmark at that location, you can transport yourself there simply by conjuring up a mental image of that landmark and willing yourself to it. It doesn’t have to be a perfect image—just close enough. Take Paris for instance. You don’t remember if you ever went there during your life, but you still can picture what the Eiffel Tower looks like, right?”

  “Yes,” I was beginning to picture the structure in my mind.

  “Okay then,” he continued, “if you picture an accurate enough image of the landmark in your mind you can transport yourself there. But beware—if your image is sufficiently off target, like a wacky adaptation of the Eiffel Tower, you’ll miss Paris and end up in some hotel in Las Vegas or at the seventh hole of some mini-golf course somewhere in the middle of nowhere with the Eiffel Tower as the hole-in-one.” I looked at Teddy wide-eyed, and he just laughed at me.

  “When in doubt, honey, look at a book. For goodness sake, we’ve got plenty of them up there in the Archives. Next question.”

  “Okay, so when I’m on Earth, but I’m not in my human form, what senses can I still use?”

  “You will still have your sense of sight and sound while you’re invisible. Your sense of touch and smell can only be triggered when you are in your physical form. And your sense of taste … well, Petey should have told you by now that your sense of taste is pretty much shot.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” I mumbled. I was busily thinking of what to ask next when Teddy sighed, as if somehow disappointed with my questions, and then cleared his throat to get my attention.

  “Are these really the things you want to ask me about, Eve?” He said my name again—I must have been overlooking something.

  “What do you mean?” I was clueless as to where he was headed.

  “Petey can answer these questions for you. And here we are on Earth, deep in a canyon where no other Shepherds can read our thoughts or hear our conversation … even if he wanted to … and you can’t think of any other questions you wanna ask me?” Teddy looked at me, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

  I couldn’t believe it. Was he really going to give me the dish on Peter? Fine, I thought, let’s see how willing Teddy is to play ball.

  “Okay then. Tell me about him. Tell me about Peter,” I dared. “He mentioned that he met you when he first became a Shepherd—when was that?”

  “A while ago—just over a couple centuries ago now if memory serves me. I was his mentor.”

  “But … that would make Peter over two hundred years old!”

  “Well, not exactly. He died when he was twenty-eight. He’s existed as a Shepherd for two-hundred-and-some-odd years, but he’s never aged beyond his mortal years of twenty-eight.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, feeling awkward and foolish. I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that I existed, but I was no longer alive … I could no longer age. No Shepherd could.

  Teddy looked impatiently at his watch, and I knew my time with him was almost at an end. Nevertheless, I still wanted to learn more about Peter.

  “So tell me more about him,” I pressed.

  “What else do you want to know?”

  “Why did you give him that look when you met me … right before I offered a penny for your thoughts? What was that look?”

  “Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “The thing is, you remind me of someone, a young woman Petey and I knew a while back. It’s not so much that you look like she did; I think you remind me of her because of the way Petey looks at you.”

  “How does he look at me?”

  “Like he cares,” Teddy responded, somewhat perplexed.

  “I don’t understand … He’s my mentor. Isn’t he supposed to care? Or is that not okay?”

  “It’s not a question of being okay or not okay inasmuch as it’s a question of why Petey chose now—why he chose you—to start showing emotion towards someone again. It’s just that the last time I saw Petey show emotion towards someone was with her—that is, until you showed up.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Madeleine was her name. She was a human, and she was Petey’s last assignment. He fell in love with her, and she with him. He found himself going to extreme lengths to protect her; he was taking unnecessary risks, including revealing himself to her.” Teddy paused for a moment. “You see, Petey not only let Madeleine see him, he also showed her what he truly was—a Shepherd. As you can probably guess, Madeleine had a hard time accepting the truth, and their relationship ended shortly thereafter. Petey was devastated when things didn’t work out. But what could he expect? She was a human, and he wasn’t. Not exactly what I’d call a match made in Heaven.

  “Now if that would ha
ve been the end of it, if Petey could have just walked away from her and never seen her again, I suspect things would have been fine … He would’ve gotten over her eventually. But it wasn’t the end. Petey’s assignment wasn’t over yet. He had to continue protecting her; he had to see Madeleine every minute of every day while he remained invisible, broken, and alone.”

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “The Council felt it necessary to intercede,” Teddy said. “Certain Council members were worried Petey would be incapable of successfully completing his assignment. As his mentor, I was instructed to act as his chaperone throughout the remainder of his assignment—something that rarely, if ever, has been done before or since.

  “Thankfully, he admirably carried out his assignment without a glitch and that was that. He’s never spoken of her since, but I could tell that the pain of losing her still lingered. Time heals all though, and Petey’s no exception to the rule. Still, he’s never quite been the same since then.

  “And then you came along … It would seem that there’s something about you, little lady, that has given Petey a swift kick in the rear, catapulting him back from the land of the lost. I don’t know what you did, but I guess I should be thanking you—we all should.

  “Anyway,” Teddy said, switching gears, “Petey never again took on another assignment. Oddly enough, the Council never pressured him to do so either. He was offered a few cases here and there, but he continued to decline. Now, he’s one of our top mentors. In fact, he’s the head of all of us mentors, which technically makes him my boss. So, with that said, we had better return you to the Archives before Petey puts my head on a platter. Just think about having to teleport your way out of that one!” He crinkled up his nose and then winked at me.