All right, I’d have made the same decision, because nobody wants to die at twenty-six if there’s a choice in the matter. But I didn’t want to be a shaman. The whole idea that there was a magic-filled alternative to our world made my skin itch. I like rational, sensible explanations for things: that was part of why I was a mechanic by trade. Or had been, anyway. Vehicle diagnostics were simple and straightforward. Follow a certain set of steps and the vehicle runs better. Et voilà. Normal.
Having an insistent, fluttery coil of power centered right below my sternum, impatient to be used to right the world, is not normal. And that bubble was what shivered in me every time I saw Gary, partly because he was still healing, and partly because his illness really had been my fault.
I’d spent most of the past six months ignoring my power as best I could. It turned out that had been a massive error in judgment. Among other things, it let a very nasty person induce a heart attack in my closest friend so I’d be distracted while the world went to hell in a handbasket. It had worked extremely well.
I was capable of learning from my mistakes. After six months of strenuous denial, I finally realized I was going to have to suck it up and learn to use this power, because otherwise I was going to be used and taken advantage of. Worse, my friends were in danger, and that, if nothing else, was enough to convince me to pull my head out of my ass.
I put my hand over Gary’s heart. A little thread of glee burst free from that coil of power inside me, silver-blue light splashing up my arm, under the skin, as if it followed the blood vessels. It probably did. Through that spatter of power I could feel the steady, comforting strength of an ancient tortoise, sharing its spirit—and, I hoped, its longevity—with Gary. It was the one thing I’d done right recently, bringing a totem animal back to help heal my friend.
The tortoise accepted my offering of vitality, though I got a sense of amusement from it as I worked through my favorite analogy: cars. To me, patching up a heart that’d had an attack was like changing out bald tires. They were worn and tired, just like an attack made the heart, but you couldn’t just switch out one heart for another. I liked the idea of working from the inside, like I could slip a new tire around the hub and slowly inflate it, strengthening the old muscle with newer healthy cells. Every time I saw Gary I threw a little of that idea into him, trying to help fix the damage I’d allowed to be done. I expected his next annual checkup to determine he had the heart of a twenty-five-year-old.
“How could you forget?” he demanded as I let my hand fall again. “We been doin’ this every day for the past ten days, Jo. And your eggs are gonna burn.”
“What’s ’this’?” Mark came out of the kitchen, all full of tenor good cheer. “Crap, Joanne, are you seeing somebody? I’m sorry if I screwed—oh.” He got a good look at Gary and evidently categorized him as too old. That was new. Half the people I knew were convinced I was involved in a lusty May-December romance.
“The eggs aren’t going to burn,” Mark added with a broad grin, and offered his hand to Gary. “I’m Mark.”
I wrinkled up my face, afraid to look at Gary, but one eye peeped open, unable to look away, either.
He’d all but dropped his teeth, jaw long and eyes googly. He was staring at Mark, but somehow managed to encompass me in that stare, making me squirm. I felt like a teenager caught necking with her boyfriend. Gary put his hand out and shook Mark’s without winding his jaw back up, and Mark gave him another broad smile. “You Joanne’s dad?”
“No!” Gary and I said at the same time. Mark’s eyebrows went up and he rocked back on his heels a bit. “Just a friend,” I muttered. Gary transferred his googly-eyed stare to me, and it was a lot worse than when he’d managed to pull off gaping at me without actually looking directly at me. I squirmed again. “I, um, yesterday was the department picnic, and, um…”