Before I can settle back against the seat, Ani hooks the collar of my T-shirt, pulls off the bandage completely, and exposes the skin where the Cataclysm fed from me. It’s too pale, like the rest of me, but is otherwise unblemished.
She looks shocked, then utterly pleased.
“Now,” I say, slightly shaken by the intimacy of the moment. “Give me that phone and a name.”
Ani laughs, pure joy threaded through the sound.
It takes one utterance of my name, one transferred call, and thirty minutes for the Healers Institute to eagerly offer a placement at their California facility, including housing, wages, an expense account, and the assurance that Isaiah and Ani can work in tandem and have their pick of patients. I also get the director to cover our lunch bills, along with a generous tip, because I once again have no other way to pay. He was rattled enough by the conversation that he had to get his assistant on the phone with the diner’s manager to figure out how to do that.
I had interrupted his golf game, but it was the director who remembered the favor and why he owed it to me. He thanked me again, so profusely that I was worried it might reinforce the favor owed rather than letting him pay it off. Apparently, I’d found his runaway niece, through Coda. She was in the wrong place — Indonesia — at the wrong time, embroiled in a drug ring. And I redirected her path.
The aftermath of that ‘fix’ had flitted through my mind less than an hour before — me alone, and the phone ringing in a middle-of-nowhere cafe with Coda on the other end.
After the call, Isaiah, Ani, and I sit quietly around a picnic table at the side of the playground area, just letting the early-evening sun warm our skin. The wait is long enough that I consider going back for another milkshake.
There’s no need for more words, more chatter between us. No permanent bond has been formed. No tangible tie, to me at least. But the three of us will never forget this moment.
My only remaining ache is hooked around my ribs over my heart — my tie to Rought, and the empty spots where two other ties are supposed to be anchored.
A gray luxury sedan pulls up about fifteen minutes later. The driver wears a uniform with the Healers Institute logo subtly embroidered on the cuff of his left sleeve. Ani pops up from the table — all weary smiles now — and helps the driver pull their bags out of the trunk and back seat of the Benz. I’m fairly certain it’s everything they own.
It’s odd how the universe seemingly stripped everything away from them before it offered it back manyfold. That … disparity? Injustice? It’s not my purview though. Not remotely in my control.
I slide my hand into Isaiah’s warm palm where he sits next to me, not looking at him, but needing the contact one more time. He squeezes my hand, then presses the keys to the Benz into my palm.
“I’ll have it shipped back to you,” I say, swallowing around the lump in my throat. It’s gratitude, not sadness that’s lodged there. A realization that I’d thought I understood my place in the world, and how I was to function within the confines of my destiny, but Isaiah has swept in and given me an entirely new perspective.
He chuckles. “I’m not supposed to be driving it anymore. Though I feel better than I have in years.”
“Did you ever see the seer from the carnival again?”
He frowns. “Not with my own eyes, but …” He clears his throat. “She must have revealed too much to someone that summer, because the town formed a mob …”
My heart hollows. She had fulfilled her purpose, setting Isaiah on his path. I’m not certain why she needed to be punished for it afterward. That’s for the universe to know, I suppose. “Did they cremate her?” I ask, my voice steady.
“After a fashion …” He clears his throat again, and I know then that they burned her, likely alive. “That power scared them.”
“It’s better for it not to fall into the wrong hands after her death,” I say, trying to not hold onto grief that isn’t mine.
He nods. “They all died. The ringleaders at least. In a flood the next spring. The wife, who’d taken the reading of the flood to her husband, was never right in the head afterward.”
“Just as the seer foretold.”
“As she foretold.”
Bags transferred and with the back door to the sedan standing open, Ani looks over at us. The driver stands sentry by the front door. Or rather, the security officer serving as a driver. The Healers Institute isn’t taking any chances with Isaiah’s and Ani’s safety.
The institute’s training facilities might be a better fit for Presh. She could touch many more people there than she ever will if I keep her with me. Help them, heal them on a level no other healer can. If I can let her go.
Isaiah squeezes my hand, pulling me back into the present. “Help an old man up,” he says.
He doesn’t remotely need my help standing, but he also doesn’t want to leave me just sitting there, alone.
I help him up. We’re almost the same height.
He rests his hand over my shoulder, where the wound was. “My second-proudest accomplishment,” he whispers reverently.
I reach up, touching his face with just my fingertips as I whisper back, “An even longer and healthy life, grandfather. You will see your great-grandchildren grow tall and strong. When you are ready to rest, just lay your head down, and the universe will welcome you back.”
