Page 63 of The Moonlight Healers

“You went home,” he said in a congested voice as she approached his bed. “I watched you go, yesterday, from my post.”

Helene tried to steady herself as she set the tray of thermometers on a small table by Vogel’s bed. “I came back.”

Vogel cocked his head, his small eyes watchful, the muscles in his jaw taut. But he only nodded. His features were as sharp and unpleasant as ever, but he looked different out of uniform, as though it had never really fit him.

“I heard the boy died,” he said. “The one from the beach.”

Helene balled her hands into fists but released them before Vogel could notice. She picked up one of the thermometers. “He did,” she said carefully, shaking the thermometer back and forth to distribute the mercury.

“I also heard his body went missing,” he said quietly, emphasizing each word.

Helene placed the thermometer under Vogel’s tongue. His eyes probed hers, but she refused to look away.

“How strange.” She let the image of Thomas’s survival, the hope for his future life, glow inside of her like a flame.

“Yes, a strange accident, I suppose,” Vogel said once Helene had removed the thermometer. “Unfortunate for his family, whomay never get his body. Maybe it would have been for the best then, if you hadn’t stopped me on the beach.”

“Yes, sir,” Helene said, a calm washing over her. She didn’t have to be afraid of him, and that knowledge expanded inside of her, until she could feel her power over him in every cell. “Maybe it would have been.”

Vogel opened his mouth to speak again but coughed instead, grimacing with the movement. “You don’t have to be polite to me, you know. You can say how you really feel.”

Helene set the thermometer back down and picked up the chart attached to the end of his bed. “We both know that’s not true,” she said as she recorded the numbers into a little black box.

When she glanced back up at Vogel, he was smiling. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I think that’s the first honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

His face contorted again, his body wracked with another coughing fit. In one swift motion, before she could change her mind, she knelt by his bed and put her hands on his chest. She closed her eyes so that she didn’t have to look at him, so that she could focus only on what Agnes had taught her, a tide receding, a pull instead of a push. She felt his heart beneath her hands, heard his breaths change instantly, from rough and labored to smooth and peaceful.

In that fraction of time, Helene could see the future unfold exactly as it should, Vogel cold and lifeless as he always should have been, Thomas alive, his gray eyes holding hers. There would be an after for both of them, and nothing in the before would matter, not the guns or the soldiers or the bodies on the beach. All that was taken would be restored. Irene’s mother and her grandfather and uncles, a million souls returned intact. All that was broken could be healed. And Helene knew it, for one gorgeous moment, she knew a world that was better.

Her arms began to shake uncontrollably, great currents of electricity running through them. She opened her eyes as Vogel’s mouth widened, hungrily searching for oxygen. She could feel the shape of his life, the basic elements of his existence, the weight of his soul. His memories, one after the other, raced through her consciousness. For one endless, shuddering breath, Helene held that extraordinary force, and the power to erase it.

Helene saw a fear in his eyes that felt like victory, like she was taking back all that was theirs, but suddenly, she could sense an opposing tide fight against her. He wasn’t like the boys on the beach, who weren’t going to make it and surrendered to the peace she gave them. He was sick with pneumonia, but he was otherwise healthy, and he began to fight. She knew this act was necessary, but the pain in her own body was becoming nearly unbearable. She had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out, and she pleaded with herself to not let go, to not fail.

“Helene!”

At first she was sure the voice was in her head. It sounded like her mother.

But then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Helene!” The voice was in her ear now, a harsh whisper.

“No,” Helene managed to say. “Please.”

But even as she heard herself beg, the tide in her hands rushed back out to an invisible sea. She felt Vogel’s heart accelerate, the rhythm frantic and urgent.

Thomas’s face flashed in her mind. Irene’s voice when she talked about her family. She shook the hand off her shoulder. She had to try again.

“Come with me now, Helene,” Cecelia said firmly. “It’s over.”

“What did you do?” Vogel asked, his chest heaving as he looked up at Cecelia. “What did she do?”

Helene reached her hands back toward his chest, but when Cecelia pulled her back again, she had no energy left to resist.

“She’s not well. I’ll take her off the wards now.”

“Tell me, what you were doing…what that…that was?”

“You’re feverish, sir,” Cecelia said to Vogel. “I’ll make sure to send a nurse over.”

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