FORTY-SEVEN

They stayed in the shade of the tree, enjoying the warm breeze coming off the sea. Together she and Adam had eaten about six of the apples he’d picked and then shoved more in their pack to take back to Hiraeth. After the first bite she hadn’t been able to stop eating until her belly ached and her chin was sticky. Adam had planted the seeds by the creek, but Rachel didn’t know if they’d grow in the gray sand. Would be nice to think a little orchard would spring up.

Rachel looked down at Captain Lewis, impatient, ready to get farther away from the Bathhouse. He was taking longer to recover than Adam, but she wasn’t as good at healing as Nammu. She felt his forehead—normal—and checked his aura. Much stronger now and the swirling colors were green and light blue. She didn’t know what that meant, but she sensed it was a good thing.

In sleep, Captain Lewis had flung out his arms, claiming space. His chest, exposed by lack of a shirt, was muscular with a flat belly. Fine blond hairs on his forearms. Too bad he didn’t have a heart.

Watching him sleep, Rachel found herself comparing Captain Lewis to Scott. One was an athlete, arrogant and strong, thick shoulders, Roman nose, competitive with a desire for domination. The other had been a ranger, taller and lanky, red-haired and nurturing with a goofy sense of humor, playful and sensitive. One was dead and the other had killed him.

Rachel shook her head and looked for Adam, saw him sitting by the creek with the bow and arrows from the Bathhouse, admiring the weapons. He nocked an arrow and pulled it back, pretending to release. Looking away to say something to Dido, Adam accidentally let go of the arrow. It shot up into the tree. Dido stood panting at his side. They both stared up. Adam dropped the bow to the ground and scampered up the tree. Dido reared up so her front paws rested against the trunk. A boy and his dog, she thought. He should offer her some water.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm. She looked down in surprise to see that Captain Lewis was awake and staring at her.

“I can see.”

Rachel nodded, his hand heavy, but she couldn’t look away from his face. Where the archer’s eyes had been a bright blue before, now they were almost colorless, like sea glass.

He blinked. His other hand came up, hesitated before cupping her face.

“The sky’s so blue. The red in your hair. I can see everything.”

His hand left her face to touch his own neck, search the skin.

“It’s all gone.” Her voice came out raspy. She cleared her throat, moved his hand off of her arm.

“Thank you. For saving my sight.” His voice was full of raw honesty.

Rachel nodded, her feelings about the man confused. It was easy to hate an idea of a person; much harder when the person was right next to you, dependent and hurt.

“We’ll be off now, Captain. No need to follow us anymore.”

He whistled for the wolves. “The least I can do is escort you home.”

“Again, no thank you.” She raised her voice to carry, “Adam, time to go, sweetie.”

The boy was back on the ground. He’d retrieved the arrow and was shoving it into the case. “Aw Mom, five more minutes, okay?”

“We need to go while we have daylight.” We can make it to the church and spend the night, she decided.

Captain Lewis said, “I saved you from the whip-wielding crazy man. But you still don’t like me.”

If he’d smirked, she would have hit him. But, there was a question in his statement.

“No, I don’t.” Her eyebrows raised, inviting him to ask for clarification.

He got to his feet and held out his hand to help her up. “You helped me. Now I’ll help you. We’re not too far from New Babylon. I can take you there now.”

She ignored his hand. Something strange about the way he said the last word. “What do you mean ‘now’?”

He turned away, jerked a hand through short blond hair. “Just that. I’ve tracked you down. And now we can go.”

“Nope,” she said. “That’s not all there is to it.” Brown swirled through his aura. She watched, fascinated, as he struggled for calm and his colors changed in sympathy with his emotions. She heard his breath deepen at the same time light blue dominated.

“Come away from this,” he urged, gesturing at the bleak gray sand. “Contemporary America has collapsed, but my city is amazing. We have leaders who are decisive and organized. Look, we can’t use satellite technology to communicate anymore, right? But, did you know that engineers can daisy-chain microwaves to provide point-to-point communications? Did you know that car batteries can be linked together with a car’s alternator to run generators? New Babylon is setting up outposts with those big drum-shaped antennas you see on radio towers. The High Frequency 3-30 MHz band is effective for long-range communications and can reach across the globe because the radio waves bounce between the ground and the atmosphere. They’re unaffected by the cloud cover.”

He waited for her reaction.

She shrugged.

“Don’t you understand? We’re going to have a one-world government. We’ll finally, for the first time in human history, have true peace. If you live at your little homestead your entire existence is about day-to-day survival. New Babylon is about so much more.”

She said, “I’m not an engineer and I don’t know how to do any of the things you’re talking about. But, it doesn’t matter.” Rachel rubbed the mark on her wrist through her sleeve. “I’ve seen how the world has changed and I don’t need New Babylon. I also don’t think all mutations are bad. There’s a new—or old—source of energy and humans can learn to manipulate it.”

“Manipulating energy with what? Your mind, like faith healers and psychics?” Captain Lewis snorted. “That’s complete nonsense.”

“Well, that nonsense is what healed you!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you see a hospital? Do you see a pharmacy?” Rachel’s voice got louder as she gave in to frustration. “I healed you using my mind and my energy to remove the poisonous moose etemmu from your body.”

He stared at her for a moment before throwing his head back and laughing. “Where’s your magic wand? Do you have a special chant or will any rhyme do?”

“What do you think happened here, Captain Lewis?”

“Your son and I were obviously exposed to a type of virus. The virus could have been carried by the moose, maybe a flea that bit us, maybe the moose itself. After infection the virus spread through our bodies and distressed our skin and tissues creating abnormal cells that were extremely painful. The virus peaked with a fever and then our bodies were able to combat the virus and the effects.”

“Interesting theory, but I think you know that you would have died if I hadn’t healed you.”

“When I had a fever you kept me cool. I assume that’s why I’m shirtless?” He cocked his head at her and Rachel cursed herself as her fair skin showed a blush.

“Get a grip, Captain.” She took a calming breath. “I used your shirt as a rag to wipe away the black stuff after I used my etemmu to separate it from you.”

He laughed again. “Very professional description, ‘black stuff.’ After my fever, the cells were falling off because my body burned them off.”

Adam walked over from his position by the tree. “You don’t believe in mutations?”

“I believe in them,” Captain Lewis said. “And I get rid of them.”

“But,” Adam shook his head, “my mom uses energy to heal, like the goddess in the Bathhouse taught her.”

“Goddess?” Captain Lewis was on the verge of laughing again.

It sounded ridiculous. Rachel closed her eyes. At a loss, she said, “Fine, I’ll show you. Does Dido still have the wound from the moose’s antler?”

“Yes,” he answered, drawing out the syllables. “But she didn’t get ‘black stuff.’ ”

“That’s because it was a cut and not from the burning carcass. The moose had either too much etemmu, which is what happened to you and Adam, or someone deliberately made him that way. It does make sense, you just have to learn the rules. Call Dido over here and let me show you.” The words were rash, and after they were spoken Rachel wondered whether her healing gift worked on animals or if she had enough etemmu left to spend after healing Captain Lewis.

He whistled for the white wolf but kept his new pale eyes on Rachel.

“Hold her head,” said Rachel. “I don’t want her to bite me.”

After Rachel parted the wolf’s fur, she could see the cut. It was about seven inches long and scabbed over, deeper on the end near her flank, more shallow at the top. The edges were puffy and pink, suggesting she was fighting an infection.

Rachel put her hand parallel to the cut. “It’s about as long as my hand, agreed?”

“Do whatever you’re going to do.” He sounded brusque, but Rachel felt that he was becoming interested in spite of his tone.

Dido whined as Rachel spread her left hand over the cut, hovering about a half-inch off the skin. Nervous about being watched, Rachel closed her eyes, but she could still feel their eyes on her, waiting for her to perform a miracle. Warmth spread down her arm, the feeling of healing more familiar this time, but she couldn’t psychically touch the wolf’s wound. I’m failing. This isn’t working. Her warmth fizzled out.

“Come on. Show him how cool you are,” Adam said.

Without comment Rachel switched hands, but the same thing happened. The ability was there, the power was there, but she couldn’t get anything to come out. Stomach cramping with anxiety, Rachel pressed her hand directly on the cut.

Dido leaped back, tossing her head, whining as she came out of her master’s grasp, trotting over to where Caesar stared with yellow eyes. He nuzzled Dido, sending a reproachful look to the humans.

Captain Lewis rubbed his hands together, white hairs fluttering to the ground. “Is that how the healing ceremony works?”

Rachel stood there, humiliated. She’d given in to her nerves instead of staying calm and concentrating on the healing. She’d sabotaged herself. I should have concentrated on helping Dido instead of how I appeared.

Rachel glanced at Adam, but he was playing, keeping company with the wolves. She inhaled. “Captain, healing is a skill. It takes time and I’m just learning.” Fatigue settled over her like a heavy blanket.

Done with Captain Lewis and his ungrateful attitude, Rachel motioned to Adam. He read her face, coming without an argument, walking away from LaPorte without a glance back. Behind her were the sounds of Captain Lewis strapping the packs onto his wolves.

“Don’t follow us,” Rachel said.