Legacy (15 page)

Trevor nodded, not even thinking the words.

As we got closer to the infirmary, I focused in on Matilda’s thoughts. She visualized with her ability as she directed the scalpel around the tumor. The meticulous work focused her concentration sharply, as though her mind cut into the tissue along with the blade.

I flipped channels, finding Heather next.
This area’s not doing well. I gotta get the blood supply back to this tissue A-sap.
I felt her energy pull on the tiny capillaries and they seemed to flush and warm.

Hannah stood at Archer’s head. Her hands touched his temples, ensuring that he remained deeply unconscious. The prayer in her thoughts was as automatic as breathing.

Morris’s thoughts felt gritty and dirt-brown.
We’ve been at this for hours. How much more can this old man handle? How much more of this can we do to him?

The pressure of Trevor’s grip on my hand pulled my focus back outside. The blood had drained from his face.

You caught all that?
I asked, already knowing that he’d followed along with me. This sharing abilities thing—well, if I’d heard all that solo, I would’ve softened it up a bit before relaying it to Trevor. He didn’t need the raw version right now.

We picked at flavorless food in the dining hall for a while, and then a silent cheer made me glance toward Blake House, like a dog hearing one of those whistles.

Heather’s gleeful thoughts became clearer with every bounding step she took toward the main building.
We cured cancer! TERMINAL cancer! We ROCK! I LOVE being a healer!

I pulled Trevor up, abandoning our trays on the table. Once I had a hand on his arm, Heather’s thoughts became clear to him, as well. Joyful relief spiked through him. Heather met us on the steps with a huge grin and we all ran back over to Blake House without a word.

Green elation and amber giddiness swirled through everyone in the infirmary. Matilda surveyed the people gathered around Archer’s annex bed with a teal-blue glow of pride.
We did it. This was the right call.

Hannah smiled with closed eyes as she said a silent prayer of gratitude.

Archer looked up at Trevor with a tired grin. “Well, my boy. Looks like I’ll be sticking around for a while.”

Trevor swallowed hard and tried to make words come out, but then gave up and just put a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder.
He’s okay! Oh, thank God!
Joy, love, and relief kaleidoscoped out of him. I held back my overwhelming reaction with a hand over my mouth.

In contrast to the exuberance around him, Archer seemed drained and weak, but the sudden release from constant pain made him feel like he was floating. A slap-red patch of newly-healed skin on his neck faded to pale within a few minutes.

Not a mark on him.

Archer’s eyelids drooped and he stopped following the conversation. We left him alone to sleep in the annex. He had a slight smile on his face, like he was in on a private joke.

In the next room, Morris gave a wistful sigh.
If only we could write this up in one of the medical journals. Fame, fortune, and glory.

Heather’s thoughts still danced with glee.

Williamson touched in mentally.
What’s all the fuss about?

I grinned.
Miracle cure.

Excellent.
I felt his satisfaction.
Carry on.

Our relief gave way to exhaustion. Trevor and I stumbled back to the church. He collapsed face-down across his bed and was asleep by the time I came out of the bathroom. Sleep pulled at me as well, so I dragged myself up the ladder to the loft and threw a pillow over my head to smother the daylight.

The phone in the church rang just after 5 p.m., startling us both awake. I kept forgetting that we had a phone here. It’d been installed during the security upgrade—after I’d lost the power of speech. Drizzly little currents of anxiety ran through Trevor as he picked it up. I reached the bottom of the ladder just as his world tilted.

Oh, no.

I wrapped my arms tightly around him as the ache that started in his heart overflowed his entire frame with pain.

Matilda’s voice carried to me. “—your grandfather’s heart stopped. His body’s ability to heal would no longer respond to our ability. We think the repairs from removing the tumors took too much from him. We worked to restart his heart for nearly an hour but he didn’t respond.”

Archer was dead.

Trevor sank to the floor and I slid down with him.

No, no, no.

He started to tremble.

I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,
I repeated, uselessly. I held on tightly and wished I could do something to make everything better.

The afternoon light faded around us.

CHAPTER 8

She’ll probably call the police.

I stared at the little yellow pool of light under the desk lamp while Williamson considered my words. The world seemed strangely flat and colorless—Trevor’s grief had left me drained and weak. I’d come to Williamson’s office in the middle of the night, once Trevor had faded into an aching sleep. It seemed somehow disloyal to be discussing his family problems with someone else, but those problems might just show up at our gate tomorrow—with a police escort.

Every charm we had in the Midwest is now here.
Williamson didn’t look up from his computer screen.
I don’t have anyone to send to talk to her
.

Too bad mind control doesn’t work over the phone.
I never thought I’d be disappointed by the limits of charms.
Lilith Laurence needs to know that her husband died.
If I could, I’d call her myself. She doesn’t like me anyway.

I worried about how Lilith would treat Trevor if he called. Would she hold him responsible for Archer’s death? We needed an option that both left Trevor emotionally unscarred and protected the secrecy of Ganzfield. Could we risk sending someone out to Michigan? Should we? I normally felt so sure of the right thing to do, but tonight my mind felt muffled in a fuzzy, dull-grey blanket that frayed around the edges. I just slumped in my chair and wanted someone else to solve this problem.

Two other exhausted people filled in for Trevor and me on patrol. Everyone was getting overworked and ragged, and fear nibbled at the edges of all of our thoughts. We had to do something to change the situation with Isaiah. We couldn’t go on like this indefinitely.

Go home, Maddie. Get some sleep. We’ll deal with the rest of this in the morning.

Déjà vu hit me as the church came into view, glowing faintly in the moonlight—a strong flash of the first night I’d come here, escaping the dorm where I’d been throwing nightmares. I’d accidentally trespassed into Trevor’s life that night. I watched his sleep-slackened face with dark-adjusted eyes. A coil of energy wound within me. I wanted to soothe his pain—find a way to fix it—and keep him from being hurt again. Trevor deserved to be happy.

But I had no idea how to make that happen.

Dr. Williamson and I floated high above Ganzfield as we debated the true nature of soulmating.

“I contend it is a literal connection of souls.” I smoothed my white satin choir robe and adjusted my halo. “We’re essentially beings of energy who can leave the shells of our bodies.”

Williamson’s black velvet robe and mortarboard absorbed the light around him. “I postulate that our minds interpret the sharing of energy that way because we lack the proper mental framework or sensory receptors to understand its true nature.”

I woke up with a snort. Since when was I on the side of the angels? And when did Williamson “postulate?”

Trevor held a book in his hands but he wasn’t reading. “I’m with you,” he called up, meeting my gaze with a tired smile. “I think we’re actually souls.”

You caught that?

He nodded.

I gave my dreamcatcher a drive-by hugging on the way to the bathroom, and then came back and joined him in the big bed, wrapping my arms around his waist and snuggling my head against his shoulder.

“I’m trying to work up the courage to call Lilith, but—” His voice broke.
I just don’t know how to tell her
.

I talked with Williamson about it last night, after you went to sleep.
I felt like I was confessing something.
But he didn’t have anything useful to add.

Maddie?

Um-hmm?

Did I—? Is it my—?
He couldn’t finish, even in his mind.

I hugged him tighter
. NO. It’s NOT your fault. NO. When Archer got here, he knew he had terminal cancer. You gave him an option he never knew existed. You did everything you could to help him, and it worked! You made the right choice. His body just wasn’t strong enough to take it.

But he would’ve had two more months if I hadn’t said anything
. Trevor’s anguish bled from him.

Two more months in pain. I felt it yesterday, Trevor. It was bad. And he knew it was only going to get worse.

He rubbed his hand though his hair. Dark strands fell over his ears and threatened his eyes. I reached up and pushed them back from his forehead. A deep wave of silvery tenderness filled my heart and swelled up into my throat.

Let’s go see Williamson before you call so he can set charms at the gates for when Lilith calls the cops on us.

He gave a mirthless laugh.
She probably will, won’t she?

We’ll deal with it.

Trevor pulled me closer.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.

You’d talk out loud a lot more
.

Lilith called the police.

Trevor had phoned her from Williamson’s office less than an hour ago, and now two of North Conway’s Finest were buzzing in from the front gate. I sighed. So much of my life these days seemed to involve acting normal in front of law enforcement officers.

Dew still clung to the grass, wetting our shoes as Cecelia and I escorted the cops into Blake House. I listened for the officers to notice anything strange. I’d give Cecelia a mental heads-up if she needed to charm them.

Tag team.

“We received a phone call from a distraught woman in Michigan. She claimed the people here at Ganzfield had killed her husband.” The older man seemed apologetic. “It sounded crazy, but we have to check it out.”

“Of course you do,” said Cecelia.
And with a few words from me, you’d confess to murdering him.

I raised my eyebrows at her but she just smirked.

Archer’s body still lay in the infirmary. Matilda had called the coroner last night, but they’d had no reason to send someone after-hours…until Lilith’s phone call. The ambulance pulled slowly up the driveway and the medical examiner joined us as we entered Blake House.

The report said the deceased had end-stage cancer. Is this a case of assisted suicide? I’ll need to run a tox screen.

No problem. Archer’s bloodwork would come back clean.

Trevor ached as he finished filling out the paperwork, making arrangements for the return of Archer’s body to Michigan.
Oh, God. I can’t even attend the funeral. I can’t risk bringing Isaiah down on the rest of my family.
Dirty-yellow guilt flared through him.
I can’t even show my respects properly. Lilith, Laurie—they’ll expect me to be there.
He glanced at me.
Maybe if I went alone—

Cold horror trickled down my neck and I shook my head at him.
No! If Isaiah caught up with you—
I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Trevor, unshielded and vulnerable, as Isaiah closed in on him… Even the idea kicked me in the gut.

An invisible arm wrapped around me protectively.
Sorry. I won’t go alone.

I took a shaky breath.
His body is still here for a few more minutes. Do you want to say goodbye? Maybe we could have a small ceremony or memorial here.

He gave me a sad smile as he remembered my dream.
We’re souls, Maddie
.
He’s not in there anymore.

Once the police and coroner had gone, Trevor went back to the church alone. I ached to comfort him—to take his pain away—but Trevor actually wanted his grief for a while, to roll it around on his tongue and get the ashy taste of it. It was a way for him to honor Archer: to miss him, to feel bad because he was gone, to mourn him.

Come find me when you don’t want to be alone anymore.

He squeezed my hand, and then released it.
Always
.

The dining hall still had breakfast stuff out and I tried to remember the last time I’d come solo to a meal. The thoughts of the people at the other tables pressed much more strongly into my mind without Trevor’s comforting presence. I tried to find someone’s thoughts that were worth listening to.

—
but she’s so smokin’ hot. I totally want to—

—
and I’m going to fail thermodynamics and probably burn the place down after—

—
seeing someone else. He’s totally ignoring me now. Maybe I should—

—
dead guy in the infirmary. I’m surprised the cops aren’t here more—

—
after she got naked and started touching my—

—
such a bitch. I should charm her to shut the hell up! I don’t care if she is my sister, if she—

—
Katie should play goalie again today. She’s better than Mel, and Mel can work on her—

—
so sexy, I lost my mind. I can’t believe I got to do it with an older woman. She must be…what? Twenty-five? And when she—

Ugh. It was like flipping TV channels and finding a bunch of porn. Half the guys in here seemed to have Belinda on the brain.
The male minders have it so much easier
. The obscene thoughts we picked up all the time didn’t bother them the same way they upset me. I didn’t want anyone else’s erotic images thrust into my head…except Trevor’s.