Page 84 of When Wishes Bleed

Wes put his small hand in mine. “Please, Miss Sable?”

When Doctor Kingston inclined her head, I squeezed his hand. “I will visit her.”

“Thank you.”

“That doesn’t mean I can help her, Wes. Do you understand?” He sniffled and nodded his head. The boy looked like he needed someone, anyone to hold him. I extended my arms and he ran into them, crying fat tears as I gently rocked him. My chest became tight, and a knot the size of the palace formed in my throat. Eventually, the boy calmed down.

Doctor Kingston introduced the rest of the children. There were eleven, ranging in age from fourteen to four. Wes was seven. His sister, Belle was ten. I learned that the apartment below theirs had caught fire, sending plumes of flames and smoke upward. Their parents weren’t home when it happened, and the two small children couldn’t get the window unlocked and opened to escape. Luckily, a neighbor heard their pleas for help and came up the fire escape to get them out. He used an axe to break the glass and helped them to safety, but Wes’s leg was burned. Belle’s burns were more extensive, and her lungs were damaged from the smoke and flame.

While the other women politely shook hands with the other children, Wes and I sat in the chair together and talked.

“I get to go home soon,” he said in a quivering voice. “But I wish Belle could come home with me.”

“I hope she gets to go home soon, as well.”

“Thanks for sitting with me, Miss Sable.”

I smiled. “Thank you for telling me about Belle.”

Something happened while I listened to Wes tell his sister’s story. Fate called me to visit the girl. “Can you excuse me?” I asked Wes, standing up and following the pull of Fate. Doctor Kingston chased me into the hallway, followed closely by Tauren. The other girls looked awkwardly at one another, unsure what to do.

“What’s the matter?” Tauren asked, waving off the cameramen.

“I need to see the girl. Belle.”

“You can’t,” Doctor Kingston said regretfully. “I only nodded to keep Wes from going into hysterics. She’s in no shape for visitors.”

I looked to Tauren for help. “Fate requires it.”

He nodded understandingly. “Please, Doctor Kingston,” he pleaded. “I give you my word that Sable will heed your every precaution.”

She pinched her lips together. “No cameras,” she ordered.

Tauren gave a relieved smile. “I’ll give the order.”

While he did, Doctor Kingston turned her attention to me. “I don’t envy your affinity, Sable, but if Belle is about to die, I want to know it.”

Fate didn’t confirm or deny the girl’s status. “I will let you know after I see her.”

She inclined her head, and when Tauren emerged from the room, the three of us jogged to the fourth floor. Half of the rooms were empty, the curtains pulled back to allow a clear view of the sterile rooms. The other half’s curtains were drawn, concealing the ill from light and intrusive stares.

Belle’s room was at the very end of the hall on the left. Doctor Kingston made us wash our hands again and don a plastic gown and mask. Then we were permitted inside.

Belle was hooked to several machines that emitted different-sounding beeps. I followed a vast array of cords and tubes to the girl. Her eyes danced beneath their lids. Her lungs expanded harshly and then deflated with a hiss. At my quizzical stare, the doctor supplied, “She’s on a ventilator.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A machine that breathes for her. Her lungs were badly singed in the fire.”

I could only imagine what she’d experienced, and at such a young age. The fingers of my right hand began to tingle, and I started to reach for her. “May I hold her hand?”

The doctor nodded and watched carefully as I took the girl’s limp hand in mine, clasping my other on top. As I closed my eyes, a scene emerged.

One of terror. Of distorted, super-heated air, of clawing at a windowsill, tears and fear for Wes. Belle tried to break the window, but she wasn’t strong enough. She even tried hitting the glass with a chair, but the wooden legs bounced harmlessly off the window before splintering to pieces in her hands. She managed to crack the window a little, but the glass was still too strong for her to break, and the fire spread so fast. She covered Wes and shoved his nose and mouth toward the crack in the window so he could drag what little fresh air was available into his scorched lungs. He screamed for help, and she screamed as the flames spread closer.

Fate stirred. He showed me how this girl was destined to help others. To learn to be a healer like Doctor Kingston, and to wear her own white coat. But first, she had to heal. She had to wake up.

I had no power to affect these things. There was no spell I knew to regenerate her lungs, or to erase the burns marring her head, face, arms, legs, and trunk.

---