Page 53 of The Moonlight Healers

The memory flashed again in her mind, from when she was nine years old. The feral alley cat, its blank, vacant stare, how she had pressed into it until crackles of energy exploded in her hands like fireworks, the way it sprang up from the ground at her touch, nuzzling itself into her palms. And her mother’s voice in her ears.

“That’s not what we do,” Agnes had told Helene as she gripped her so tightly it hurt. “That’s not the game we played with roses. That poor creature had died. It was at peace. But you brought it back like it was just a toy. You have to promise me. Never do that again.”

But as Helene looked at Thomas’s face, at one more thing that had been taken from her, the only beautiful thing left in her life, his vision of the future, her mother’s warnings faded away. Maybe just this once. Just this boy.

Helene placed her hands on Thomas’s chest. She closed her eyes and waited, but she felt only a few faint traces of electricity, like the last rumbles of a storm.

“Please,” Helene heard herself say. “Please.”

Then she felt it rush into her, an anger so consuming that it devoured everything, the war that had stolen everything from them, the German soldiers like Vogel who regarded them as kindling, the leaders in her country who let it happen. Herself. For not being able to save her father. For all those years when her gift was dormant, trapped inside of her.

Every second of shame and guilt swirled into her body like a storm.

As Helene exhaled, she felt she would break from the weight of her emotions, and a surge of energy ripped through her body. Her arms shook but she steadied them on Thomas’s chest, heat rushing outward down the nerve endings in her arms.

Thomas was there. He was so close she could hear his voice, see his gray eyes on her, as though she mattered to him, more than anyone.

“Please.”

Helene’s fingers jumped as she sensed a movement so faint she was sure she’d imagined it. She held her breath, and the heat of her palms suddenly receded. A faint but incontrovertible heartbeat pulsed.

The door behind her swung open just as Thomas’s chest heaved with a first, perfect breath. Helene didn’t turn to see who was there. She didn’t care. The only thing that existed in the world was the breath in Thomas’s lungs, the contractions of his heart, the proof that he was whole again.

“No, Helene.”

Cecelia’s voice was sharp as it carried across the operating theater. Helene remained where she was, her hands still on Thomas’s chest, as though her touch were the only thing keeping him there.

Footsteps came to a stop directly behind her.

“I found him like this,” she said quickly, groping for an explanation. “I only wanted to say goodbye, but when I pulled back the sheet his skin was still warm. I felt a pulse, a weak one, but it’s there.”

“I’ll be taking him now, to the morgue,” Cecelia said loudly.

Helene turned to her in shock. Thomas was alive; she had brought him back. There was no need for the morgue.

Cecelia bent her head down until her face was only inches from Helene’s, and squeezed her arm. “There is a guard outside,” she whispered. “Do not say another word—do you understand me?”

Helene nodded and Cecelia released her.

Cecelia positioned the sheet back over Thomas, whose breathing was shallow but persistent, his eyes still shut.

“I’ll be taking him now,” she repeated. “Down to the morgue.”

“I’ll go with you,” Helene said. She needed to be there when he woke up, to explain, to reassure him it was going to be okay. “I can help.”

Cecelia calmly circled the stretcher to unlock each of the four brakes on the wheels. When she finished, she leaned in toward Helene again. “No, no, you won’t,” she said. “You’ll go back to your dormitory, say nothing to anyone. Pack your belongings. I’ll arrange for someone to take you to the train station this evening.”

Down the hallway they heard the distant sound of the guard’s boots. Helene couldn’t believe Cecelia would send her away for saving a man’s life. She didn’t want to leave, not yet, not before she had a chance to talk to Thomas one more time, to tell him he was going to be okay, that the future would be beautiful. She lifted her chin. “You can’t just dismiss me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“There are consequences to your actions,” Cecelia hissed. “And you would know that if you had listened to me, if you weren’t such a selfish child.”

“I was trying to help him.”

“No, Helene, you did this for yourself.”

Thomas stirred slightly under the sheet. Helene took a step forward involuntarily.

“Goodbye, Helene,” Cecelia said, her voice returned to a normal volume.

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