The Touch (Healer Series) (17 page)

  
She took his hand and led him to the front
yard where she climbed up on the hood of her truck. She patted the spot next to
her, signaling for him to do the same. She laid back, her eyes gazing up at a
cloudless night. The stars seemed brighter than they had in ages and there were
so many, she couldn’t count.

  
AJ followed suit. He hadn’t seen anything
that beautiful in a long time. The sky in the city was clouded by smog and
haze, and stars weren’t nearly as visible as they were here.

  
“I could start with my mom.”

  
“What about her?” AJ asked, settling onto the
hood. He knew about her mom from her Gram. He wanted to hear Addie’s side of
the story.

  
“She was crazy, completely and totally crazy.
It was so embarrassing growing up. Everyone knew she was a nutcase. She didn’t
love me or she would have tried to get better. She just sat in that home,
rocking herself back and forth all day, every day, whispering about how she
couldn’t save the world.
Just downright crazy.”

  
“What did she have?”

  
“I don’t actually remember,” Addie said,
thinking about it. She wondered if she’d ever actually asked.
“Hmmm.
I’m not sure. I spent most of the time trying to keep
away from her, to not be associated with her. Everyone in town talked about
her. I always wondered how long it would be till I ended up like her.”

  
“You don’t seem all that crazy,” AJ said with
a smile. She smiled back.

  
“Yet.
Not yet.
There’s always tomorrow, though. I don’t know. I loved her because she was my
mom. But I didn’t like her. I didn’t have a dad. That I knew of, at least. And
when she went crazy I was so little, so I didn’t have a mother either. Gram is
the closest thing I have. I was a bit wild in my teenage years and I found a
guy I thought loved me. Actually, I know he loved me. I loved him, too. One of
those once-in-a-lifetime, romance movie
type
loves.
When I found out I was having a baby we made all these plans. He helped me
paint the nursery, picked out clothing for the baby. I finally settled down
thinking I was going to have this beautiful family and give my baby the life I
always wanted but never had. Rose came and in no time, Robert – that was his
name – he was gone. He left us both with no explanation other than goodbye. He
was the only man I had ever trusted and when he left, he just destroyed my
heart. I had put everything into him. He broke my heart twice though; once for
me and again for Rose.”

  
AJ listened intently. She wanted to tell
someone. Her body language and cracking voice made that apparent. He wondered
if she had ever actually spoken about her mother with anyone else.

  
She paused, realizing she had just spilled
years
worth of history to a stranger. “What about you? Why
are you such a loner?”

  
AJ was used to telling his story. He’d had to
rehearse it long ago so that he had something to say if anybody asked. While
the details were true, it somehow always felt like a lie when he heard the
words come out of his mouth. It was never the whole truth.

  
“I didn’t know my dad either,” he began,
swirling the tea around in his cup as he looked at it. “I was closest to my
Uncle. He died when I was little. We were in a car accident; I survived and he
didn’t.”

  
“That must have been horrible!” Addie
replied. Each time she heard a story like his, she realized that life can
always be much worse than the hand she was dealt. It reminded her of something
her Gram always said: if everyone tossed their worries in a pile and you saw
what they were, you’d pick your own back up in a heartbeat because they’d
probably be the easiest.

  
“It was. It was just me and my mom then. It
was good, the two of us. We didn’t have much but we made do and I never wanted
for anything. She was beautiful, sweet, and loving.”

  
“She’s not around, I take it?”

  
“No,” AJ said, preparing himself for saying
the words that he had yet to get used to. “She died a few years back.
Cancer.
She was really sick, so it was…a blessing.”

  
That was a lie. It was a lie when other
people said it to him and it was a lie when he said it. He didn’t think of it
as a blessing.

  
“I’m so sorry, AJ.” She meant it. She reached
out and put her hand atop his.

  
“It’s okay,” he said, pulling his hand back
to his cup. She looked disheartened. Even as friends, it didn’t seem as if he’d
let anyone close. “I’ve got Max. I’m not a total loner. It’s just really hard
for me to get close to people. It’s hard to lose them.”

  
And, he wanted to add, it would be even
harder to get close and have to leave, only to do it over and over again as he
aged.

  
“Not everyone is
gonna
leave,” she replied.

  
“We all leave, Addie,” he said, looking right
at her. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  
She felt chills. The comment nearly seemed to
be a threat of some sort. Not that he’d harm her. It almost sounded as though
he had plans to only be there for awhile.

  
“Just keep Rose in mind,” she said, focusing
her attention back on the tea. “She’s gone without a lot in life. She doesn’t
get close to people either. For some reason, she’s taken to you. Just be
careful of that, please.”

  
“I will Addie, I promise,” he replied,
meaning it with all of his heart. “Look at all the stars. It’s amazing.”

  
“They really are. This is what I do when
things get rough. I come out here and look up, imagine that every one of them
is something I’m supposed to accomplish in life.”

  
“That’s a lot of things to do,” AJ laughed.

  
“I’m serious! It gives me motivation to keep
going. The big stars represent all the things I’m supposed to do for Rose – get
her to graduate, get her into ballet class. I didn’t say they’d be life
altering things. Just things I want to do for her. I check them off in my head
when I have.”

  
“What are the smaller stars symbolic of?”

  
“The things I want to accomplish for myself
and my life. Smaller in comparison to what I want to give my daughter. I know
I’ll never get them all done but I like to keep them all out there just in
case.”

  
“You’ll do great things, Addie.”

  
“I hope.”

**************************************************

  
Max traveled the road, feeling like a father
protecting his son. He had taken to AJ and just as the kid wanted to protect
Addie, Max wanted to protect him. Any threat - big or small - was not one Max
would take lightly when it came to the kid he’d found alone one day and taken
under his wing.

  
He’d been doing this a long time and had
taken many new Healers and worked with them to hone their capabilities. He
taught them the right and wrong ways to do things, the laws that they had to
abide by. He taught them about the threats and how to handle all they
encountered in their lives. He’d seen them live and he’d seen some die. All
were scared when their lives were first turned upside down at the start of
their gift, and as they grew comfortable, they’d all moved on to fulfill their
destinies.

  
He found it strange that people would be
handed such a gift and still be given free will. It was the same as meeting
different siblings from the same family, all of whom were completely different.
Some were good, some were wicked. Though brought up in the same home, they were
all vastly different. It was the same with the Healers; some were good and some
were different. There were those that couldn’t take the task put before them
and so they hid away to live out their days in exile, alone. There were those
with hearts so big, they’d killed themselves in days trying to do what they
thought they were supposed to.

  
And in his time on earth, he’d encountered
the same when it came to
Grims
. While he was always
wary of the group, the majority he’d encountered belonged to the original tribe
and was taking lives according to the laws that needed to be fulfilled on their
end. Some were so desperately guilty at having to take lives that they did the
same as some Healers – hid themselves away to live out their days.

  
It was free will and it was granted to every
soul that graced the earth, good or bad. Anyone could make any decision and
that’s what made life so unpredictable.

  
He’d been younger than AJ when he discovered
his gift, having found his father in the midst of war on the battlefield with a
gunshot wound piercing the older man’s side. While Max wasn’t a doctor, he knew
it was bad; there was blood everywhere. In sheer panic, Max had placed his hand
on the wound to stop the bleeding, thought subconsciously he was trying to
cover it up and pretend it didn’t exist. He had been in pure panic mode,
gasping for breath at the thought of losing his father. His father screamed,
winced, and went limp in Max’s arms. Tears began streaming down his face for
the loss of his father. That is, until the boy’s father sat up a little in Max’s
arms, looking in shock at the area that had moments before been a wide-open
gash spilling blood out onto the ground.
 
Max moved his hand to reveal there was nothing there except blood stains
left to prove that any wound had ever existed.

  
Instead of looking at him with thanks, his
father stared at him with disgust and fear in belief that his son was a
sorcerer. He pushed his son away and Max, out of pure fear, ran wildly into the
trees. Days later he returned to his home, where his father answered the door
and sent him away, threatening that Max should either leave or face being
reported to the authorities, who would not have mercy on what they would
consider his devilish soul.

  
As Max backed down a step, he saw his mother
behind the tall, foreboding man. Tears enveloped her face. When he caught her
stare she turned away, unable to look at the son she was no longer allowed to
see.

  
Max watched his family for awhile after,
hiding in the trees so as not to be seen. His father would stop on occasion and
look around as though he knew someone was out there. When Max’s mother died, the
Healer watched the funeral from afar and, with a heart full of anger and
sadness, left his town for good. He found refuge with a Native American tribe
at the time and their belief in healing combined with their spiritual lives
allowed him a venue to open up without being ostracized. This tribe described
to him his calling and taught him of the legends. He made it his mission in
life to not only heal those who were sick, but heal the souls of the Healers
who were lost within this world. Especially men like AJ, men that hadn’t had
the love of a father. He wanted to provide love and guidance to them and
prevent the new Healers from feeling so alone.

  
Since AJ had lost his mother, Max had a
special place in his heart for the kid as he understood what that loss felt
like.

  
As the minutes on the clock ticked by during
the dark hours of night, Max packed for the B&B. He left home early that
morning since he’d stewed just about long enough at the rickety kitchen table,
drinking the same cup of cold coffee as he watched the overhead clock move in
slow motion. He knew the need to rush was minimal yet he couldn’t suppress the
urge. Something just hadn’t felt right for the last few days.

  
The ride was shorter than before, perhaps
because Max pressed the pedal closer to the floor with each passing mile. He
pulled up to the B&B just as the sun broke the horizon, signaling morning
for the town in unison with the roosters. The feeling of dread was dwindling to
almost nonexistent as he pulled up. Perhaps the worst was over.

  
Helen was already up, as was Matthew, getting
ready to feed the chickens out back. They had acres of farmland that they long
ago rented out to folks who could do the work as age began catching up with the
duo.

  
“Hi Max!” Helen said
,
a gigantic smile plastered onto her face. In some cases greetings that joyous
would appear phony and almost condescending but on Helen, it was genuine and he
knew it.

  
“Hello there!” he waved back, his ratty old
duffle bag tossed over his shoulder. The straps were frayed almost clearly
through and patches were sewn all over it. Max was from the school of
fix-it-till-you-can’t-anymore. Plus, it had been the only thing he had left
from home so many years ago. His mother had made it for him.

  
“Go on in and get settled. Any room you want!
I’ll be up to cook breakfast in a bit.”