Page 19 of Nineteen Eighty
Cassius.
He gave the list to Maureen. “Call the ones who aren’t crossed out. They have to know. There has to be someone.”
Maureen took the list and disappeared to do as asked.
When she was gone, Augustus remembered something else.
It wasn’t one thing, but several.
Ana, tripping over the upturned sidewalk outside their house, which had been pushed up by the knobby roots of the old oak holding court on the corner. He’d rushed to her side, but she had both hands on her knee, grimacing. When she pulled them away, there was nothing. No wound. No blood. No evidence.
Ana, accidently pressing her hand to a hot burner on the stove. Elizabeth ripped her hand away quickly, but not quickly enough. And yet, she’d had no burn where her hand connected with the heated metal.
Ana, falling off the swing set at City Park.
Ana, crashing into the side of the house after too many cartwheels.
Ana, getting pushed to the pavement by a bully at a class party.
Ana, who had, until today, never had a wound last more than a day.
Has she come into an ability yet? Colleen had asked, on her visit home over the winter.
Not that I can tell, he’d answered, though on some level had known it to be a lie. Perhaps he’d wished she might just be ordinary, at least in the way other kids were. That she wouldn’t have to live with something that couldn’t help but define her.
But he knew then.
And he knew now.
Denying it could kill her.
Accepting it might save her.
Augustus moved his chair closer to his daughter. His reason for living. The sun in his dark world.
Was this his punishment, for believing he was ready to raise her alone? For daring to?
“Heal, Ana,” he whispered in her ear, resting his head next to hers. “You know what to do. You’ve always known, and now you need to do what you did on the playground, and when you touched the stove. Do what you did when that kid pushed you. You need to do that, but more. A lot more.” A sob caught in his throat and came out like a soft moan. If he cried now, it would be an acceptance of his lost hope. A harbinger of an end he would never accept.
Maureen watched him from across the room. Slowly, she rose from her chair and pulled it to the other side of Ana’s bed. She rested her hand gently atop Ana’s and said, “Heal, Ana. We’re all here, darling, and we’re ready to see your smile again. Heal.”
Augustus’ mouth parted, in an attempt at gratitude, but again only a desperate sound escaped. Maureen nodded at him. He nodded back.
“Heal,” they said together. “Heal, Ana.”
Charles arrived with Colleen just after the witching hour. They came in the middle of the doctor squaring off with Augustus; the former, saying I don’t get it. It’s not possible, and the latter focusing to distract the doctor with some illusion or another.
Charles considered asking Augustus if he wanted the doctor knocked off permanently, but it didn’t seem like the right time.
Colleen dropped to Ana’s bedside and took her tiny hands into her palms. To others, it might look like she was praying, but she was doing exactly what she’d come to do.
“Come on now, Doctor, let the family rest a bit. You can pull out your microscope later,” Maureen was saying, laying on the charm as she looped her arm around his, running her fingers over his white coat. She’d been a godsend to Augustus, in a way he could never repay. She’d spent hours making calls, and now there were other healers coming, too. All of them, probably.
Irish Colleen drew the blinds.
“Heal, Ana,” she said from the other side of the room.
“Heal, Ana,” Augustus begged, though he knew now that she had. That she could. That she’d continue to, with their gentle encouragement. Somewhere in her slumber, she could hear their pleas.