The Second Heart (14 page)

“It might, Vi.” Meredith wrapped her arms
under Vi’s jacket for warmth and was silent for a moment. She
groaned, “It’s so freaking cold.”

Vi returned Meredith’s embraced and squeezed
tightly in agreement.

Meredith’s entire body shivered and the storm
raged around them. Then she said in a shaking voice, “You were
right.”

“About what?”

“Air.” Pausing for emphasis, she added, “We
were thinking about t-tornadoes in the M-Midwest, but forgot about
us.”

“But it’s not tomorrow yet,” Vi
protested.

Meredith let out a small laugh and her body
continued to shudder uncontrollably. “So you think M-Mother Nature
lives on M-M-Mountain S-Standard Time?”

“Good point.”

Over the roar of the wind, they heard a car
honk. They ignored it, until it honked insistently, several more
times.

Meredith peered out into the brown swirl over
Vi’s shoulder and could make out the shape of a dark colored sedan
that had pulled up to the curb in front of the house where they
were taking shelter. A hand was waving frantically through the
window, beckoning them to the car.

Vi turned her face around and regarded the
car warily. “Who do you think it is?” she asked. Her voice trembled
as she forced it to work in the cold air. The temperature was
continuing to drop.

“I don’t know, but if we stay out here we’ll
freeze.”

They leaned on each other as they stood up,
knees creaking and protesting from being in their crouched position
for so long. They made their way across the lawn toward the car,
hanging on tight to each other as the wind howled in their ears and
tangled their hair into a dusty mess.

The car was a dark green Chrysler sedan from
the early eighties, and it looked its age. Meredith pulled on the
handle of the passenger side door, and after initial resistance,
the latch gave. It took both hands for Meredith to open the door
against the wind, and then they both leaned down to see who their
rescuer was.

The ER nurse, Eleanor, sat in the driver’s
seat, still wearing her scrubs and name badge from the hospital.
The red stone in her necklace glinted in the dome light inside the
car. Meredith took a step back, ready to run, when the older woman
declared, “I wrote the note.”

Meredith hesitated, shouting over the wind,
“Why?”

Eleanor gestured irritably to the weather
outside the car. A large palm frond sailed past the car,
disintegrating in the wind. “Just get in,” she snapped.

Meredith met Vi’s eyes and shrugged. It
didn’t seem like they had a better option. She slid down into the
passenger seat as Vi yanked open the back door. Once they were both
in the car, the doors slammed shut under the onslaught of the
wind.

The air in the car was still and warm, and
Meredith felt immensely relieved to be out of the elements. The
wind drummed against the side of the car, as if angry at them for
escaping. Eleanor reached down and turned the heater on full blast,
allowing them a few moments to warm up. Finally, she observed,
“Your getaway timing couldn’t have been much worse.”

“We didn’t have a choice; they moved the
surgery up,” Meredith explained. She buckled her seatbelt as
Eleanor pulled away from the curb.

Eleanor drove slowly and carefully,
accounting for the lack of visibility outside. Eleanor said,
“Normally I’d just wait one of these things out, but we need to get
you as far away from here as possible.”

Meredith turned in her seat to look at the
nurse and asked again, “Why?”

Ignoring her question, Eleanor responded with
a question of her own. “How are you feeling? Your pain should be
mostly gone now. Is it?”

Meredith turned her attention inward and then
confirmed that Eleanor was correct.

Eleanor nodded curtly. “Good.”

From the back seat, Vi asked, “How did you
find us?”

Eleanor gave her a small smile in the
rearview mirror. “I knew where to look.”

Meredith could hear Vi grumbling to herself,
dissatisfied with Eleanor’s cryptic response. Feeling dissatisfied
herself, Meredith said sarcastically, “You’ve succeeded in scaring
us shitless, so if that was your goal, congratulations.”

Eleanor glanced at her sharply. “I saved your
life,” she said.

“From where I’m sitting, you might have cost
me my life. For all I know, I need that surgery and will die
without it. You had better start explaining, or we’re heading back
to the hospital.”

They had reached the end of the street, and
Eleanor turned left onto another larger street that ran parallel to
the road the hospital was on. She drove a few blocks before
speaking. “What you were experiencing was growing pain--”

“Growing what exactly?” Meredith
interjected.

“Are you going to let me tell you?” Eleanor
growled, annoyed at the interruption.

Meredith remained silent, and Eleanor waited
until she was sure she wouldn’t be interrupted again. “You have
grown what is called The Second Heart, the first I have seen in a
long time. This organ--yes, those damned reporters were
right--allows you to exert an influence over the world that is
denied to physical strength or science.”

“What do you mean, exactly?” Vi asked
flatly.

“For lack of a better word, magic,” Eleanor
said.

Meredith cut in. “I’m sorry, but I don’t
really believe in that stuff.”

Eleanor looked at her and chuckled. “That
doesn’t seem to matter, now does it?” Eleanor’s eyes returned to
the road just in time to see another mesquite tree falling down
into the street in front of them. She slammed on the brakes and
swerved into the center lane, narrowly missing the tree.

They all paused and caught their breaths
before Eleanor drove around the tree, keeping an eye on the weather
more closely than before.

“Where are you taking us?” Vi asked.

“Home?” Meredith added hopefully.

“No more questions, now. I’d like to get us
all there in one piece,” Eleanor said, without taking her eyes from
the road ahead.

They were heading south into the suburb of
Chandler, and Meredith marveled at the destruction they saw along
the way, all as a result of the dust storm. They saw trees that had
smashed through walls and houses, an aboveground trampoline that
had ended up in someone’s swimming pool, and several car
accidents.

After a while, Eleanor turned into a modest
neighborhood that Meredith estimated was only about five miles east
of her own. The neighborhood was full of tract homes that had all
been built in the Spanish style, with red tiles roofs and stucco
walls that were painted varying shades of pink and tan. The front
yards looked like they were normally neatly tended, ranging from
lush lawns to more spartan desert landscaping, though now they were
all littered with debris from the storm. After a few more turns,
Eleanor pulled into a small single story home that had a two-car
garage. She reached up and hit the button to open the garage and
then pulled inside, closing the garage door behind them.

They all got out of the car, and Eleanor led
them through a door that opened into a kitchen. Meredith looked
around curiously. The space was small, but clean, and she detected
a slight sweet and spicy smell that she didn’t recognize. Across
the kitchen were a small breakfast nook and a set of sliding glass
doors that led to the backyard. To the left was a family room and a
formal dining area, along with a hallway that Meredith assumed led
to a couple of bedrooms.

Eleanor removed her coat and draped it over
the back of one of the chairs in the breakfast nook. Then she
returned to the kitchen and filled a teakettle, setting it on the
stove to boil. Vi and Meredith watched her silently. Outside, the
storm appeared to be abating, as the palm trees in the neighbor’s
yard appeared to be thrashing around less violently than when they
had first arrived. The dust in the air seemed less thick, too, as
they were now able to see the back of the neighbor’s house instead
of brown nothing.

Unable to stand the quiet any more, Meredith
said, “You have a lovely home.” It was an old standby, but she
couldn’t think of anything else to say that didn’t involve grabbing
Eleanor by the collar and demanding answers.

Eleanor grunted in acknowledgment. She busied
herself by removing three chipped and mismatched coffee cups from
the cupboard and placing tea bags in them. The kettle whistled, and
she poured the hot steaming water into the cups before replacing
the kettle on the stove. She offered them the tea with a slight
nod, and then picked one of the cups up for herself, swirling the
tea bag in the liquid before tossing it into the sink.

Meredith and Vi followed suit, and then
Eleanor beckoned them to the family room. A faded sofa and loveseat
set were oriented in front of a fireplace that had a few ceramic
pots and a kerosene lamp arranged on the mantel. To the left of the
fireplace, an antique teacart held an aged TV set with a DVD player
on top. A few DVDs leaned against the TV, and Meredith smiled as
she recognized some of her mother’s favorite titles.

Eleanor sat on the loveseat, and the two
friends sat on the couch facing her. Eleanor took a long sip of her
tea before setting it on the coffee table and regarding them
coolly. “Before I begin, I think we need to dispel you of any
lingering doubt. Vi, can you please fetch the lamp on the mantel
and place it on the coffee table?”

Vi did as she was asked and then returned to
her seat next to Meredith. Eleanor gazed at the lamp for a moment,
and the wick inside the glass shade lit up with flames. Vi’s eyes
lit up excitedly while Meredith’s lips parted in disbelief, though
she still felt that it could be a trick.

Eleanor noticed her skepticism. “Oh for
Pete’s sake,” she muttered, again looking intently at the lamp. The
ball of flame from the wick rose slowly out of the fluted glass
lampshade and toward Eleanor. She reached out an open hand, and the
flame came to rest in her cupped palm. She held it there for a
moment before blowing it out with a small puff from her pursed
lips. Eleanor looked at them with a smug smile tugging at the
corner of her mouth. She raised an eyebrow in question at
Meredith.

There was no explanation for what Meredith
had just seen, other than what Eleanor asserted. Magic. Eleanor
showed them her unburned palm for their inspection, and Meredith
looked at her with amazement. “How- how did you do that?” she
stammered.

“With my Second Heart,” Eleanor said gently.
“The same sort of Second Heart that you have growing inside you
now.”

Oblivious to Meredith’s shock, Vi blurted,
“Man that is wicked cool! What else can you do?”

Eleanor sighed. “Whatever I put my mind to, I
suppose.”

“So you’re a witch? Like a real-life witch?”
Vi continued excitedly. “Man, the coven is going to shit a brick
when I tell them about this!”

Eleanor looked at her sharply and snapped,
“You will do no such thing.”

Vi’s smile drained away from her face at the
vehemence of Eleanor’s response. She sat quietly, chastised but
feeling rebellious.

Meredith’s tea sat cooling in her hands as
she realized that her life had fundamentally changed. She had a
Second Heart. A Second Heart that meant she was a real-life witch.
She thought about the dinner she still owed Miguel, and the
homework she had left to do. She felt far removed from the person
that had worried about those things, and wondered what sort of
person she would become. She wasn’t sure she wanted to give up the
woman she had been planning to be. In a quiet voice, she asked, “So
if I don’t want to be a witch, can I go back to the hospital and
have them remove it?” She couldn’t bring herself to say its name
out loud.

Eleanor looked at her sadly. “No, my dear.
Your Second Heart is now as important to your continued life as
your first heart. It is an integral part of you now. If you were to
remove it, you would die.”

Meredith blinked furiously, trying to hold
back the tears that blurred her vision. “Then can I just ignore
it?” she asked forlornly, though she feared she already knew what
the answer would be.

Unable to contain herself, Vi turned toward
Meredith and exclaimed, “Why would you want to? Just imagine the
possibilities! You literally can have anything you want.”

Meredith frowned at her friend. “I’m not like
you, Vi. I want a normal life. School, a job. Maybe marriage and
kids someday. This is the opposite of normal.” Noticing that
Eleanor seemed to be waiting to speak, Meredith turned back and
looked at her expectantly. “So? Why not? Tell me why I can’t just
ignore it.”

A wave of pity washed over the nurse’s face.
“Because, you have power. And just as there will always be people
who have power, there will also be people who want to take it.”

“The queen of the cryptic strikes again,” Vi
sneered.

Eleanor reached down and drained the last of
her tea. “It is very late, and the story I have to tell you is a
long one.” She looked from Meredith to Vi, who were both wide-eyed
and hanging on to her every word. She smiled resignedly. “I can see
that you aren’t tired, so let me get some more tea and we can
begin.”

Nate Dowering
came out of the double doors of the hospital lobby, his eyes
scanning the parking lot in search of the two girls who had just
left. He spotted them running across the parking lot toward the
freeway.

“Damn, they’re fast,” Nate’s cameraman, Lenny
observed.

“Let’s go,” Nate said. He jogged toward his
car, which was parked a few rows deep in the parking lot. They
jumped into the gray Ford Explorer and Nate navigated the vehicle
out of the parking lot while Lenny kept a close eye on their
quarry.

Nate allowed a car to pass before turning
right toward the freeway. The red haired girl was well ahead of her
friend, who had stopped in the middle of the overpass to look at
something in the distance. Nate’s eyes followed her gaze, and he
balked.