I’m thinking this means I have a boyfriend.

Maybe.

I keep thinking about him. Jake. My boyfriend. Maybe.

I hadn’t remembered about the dreams he has been appearing in until he said something. Or, rather, did a mind-meld about it. And since then I’ve been remembering more and more: He’s been visiting in my dreams ever since I met him. I just wasn’t fully aware of it. But now I am. And the most amazing thing, the very most amazing thing in the entire world of all of this, is that he’s said he loves me at the end of every single dream. Like, a lot of times. And I said it back, too.

Can you really do that though, go from nothing to love as fast as I’m gunning the car to get to Anna? I want to ask her that. I need to ask her that. But I think I know what she will say already. She’ll say I didn’t ever NOT love Jake. At least, I hope that is what she will say.

I also hope she’ll explain why, and how, it is going to get hard, like he said. Why I’ll have to remember that Jake is on my side when it is so clear, right now, that he is. I have a feeling I know about that, too. One word: Helene. But maybe not. You never know. I could be wrong. Only lately, that’s not happening so much.

Ducking out on the party planning to come meet Anna was no easy feat. There are a gazillion things to do. I didn’t make it out yesterday like I hoped, but today I just had to make it happen. Now, if I don’t make the lunch timing—and if I don’t hurry, I won’t—I won’t be able to get her out for an extended walk. Unless she shapeshifts time again… but who can know how hard that is, and if it can always be done at will? I’d rather be safe than sorry. It’s the last time I’ll see her until I bring her to the house.

The thought of bring her makes me crazy excited. Not for me, but for her. She’s going to get out of this place, if only for an afternoon. It could be the highlight of her last two years. Unless, of course, it all blows up. The idea of that hits me with a thud and a pounding heart. Please, please, please let that be a simple fear, and not my “knowing” acting up.

Racing in to the door, I see someone else ahead, and make my way through without the buzzer police having to know. Somehow, I think this is good. Oddly good. But why? I take the back stairs, check the hallway before entering, and then make my way to Anna’s closed door without anyone seeing.

Why closed? Again that thudding feeling.

I step inside the and close the door behind me. I know I’m not supposed to, but it was already closed, and to leave it open would likely be a bigger error. I know better than to rush on in to where I can see Anna, so I walk slowly, my heart thumping from the run and hide, yes, but also that knowing, that something else. It’s for sure now that it will be something I don’t like.

I peek around the hallway wall to see Anna in the last place I want to see her. Flat in bed. Her eyes are half open and glazed over. She looks totally knocked out, but not asleep. UGH, I hate being right.

“Anna,” I whisper, after checking the bathroom. All clear.

No answer. This can’t be happening. Not two days before the party. No, no, no and why, why, why?

“Anna, I have to talk to you. Can you come around?”

I hear the heavy room door open behind me. Dr. Garcia, I know before turning.

“She fell last night,” Dr. Garcia says, taking Anna’s pulse and sounding like it’s bad. But I’ve been around this place enough years of my life to know if Anna broke something in her fall, she’d be in the hospital right now. I’ve also been around Anna long enough to know she probably didn’t try to get up out of her bed or chair. So if she fell, it is most likely because someone dropped her getting her in and out. It happens more often than people think, but no one on staff is going to admit it.

Immediately, anger rises from my gut to my throat. Don’t they know who she is…WHAT she is? Aren’t they taking good care of her? Do they think they can just treat her like another body here that is waiting to die? I’m too furious to speak.

Dr. Garcia must see my rage, because she puts a hand on my shoulder, which really irks me. “It happens at this age,” she says, like I don’t know that. Like I don’t know anything.

I find my voice, suddenly desperate to speak what I must. “I have a surprise party for her daughter in two days. We have permission to take her out for the afternoon.”

“Not anymore you don’t,” she says firmly, like a doctor. Not like the woman I saw nursing here all those years, who said she went on to be a M.D. to bring more caring to this place. Sell out.
“I’m sorry,” she continues, clearly watching my stricken face, “but we will just have to see. She’s weak, and I don’t think it is only from the fall.” She hesitates, then adds: “You know we have both seen this before, being around here so many years.”

I look at Anna, then up at Dr. Garcia, like I just can’t comprehend what she is saying. Because I can’t. And I won’t. Sure, I’ve been around here. But this is Anna. My Anna!

“Why don’t you sit with her a while?” she says. “It might do her some good. And you, too.”

She pats me again and it’s all I can do to rip her arm off me and out of it’s socket. Instead, I just clench my jaw until she leaves. I don’t want her sympathy, anyway. I want her help. But what can she do? What can anyone do?

With that thought, like a strike of lightning, I remember who Anna is. Who Bea is. And most of all, who I am. A bold pride rises up in me, something strange and new, yet totally needed right now. I’m here at this exact moment for a reason.

Anna gave me her power, right? That red hot burning in my hands. And didn’t Bea teach me, and remind me just yesterday, to do anything that needs strength from the belly, because that is where my power is stored?

A feeling grows inside me, something like excitement, only more physical. Like my whole body is filled with energy, raring to go. Maybe I don’t have enough of what Anna needs. Maybe I’m fighting Helene herself, a woman willing to strike down her own mother to insure her grandson’s legacy. But who would I be if I didn’t at least try?

The decision to try is a done deal. But how, exactly? Give her back her heated power? Hold her hands and run it through her? They never taught me how to do something like this.

I have to be careful. I mean, if I could break a bowl with my anger, what will happen to Anna if I send all this through me?

“Magic,” I whisper. “Help me.”

Chills run through my body, but no ideas. No magical knowing. No visions. No words. I do not spontaneously leave for the nothingness, where I might find some great power to return with.

I get the sense I will have to get rid of the anger first. I remember Bea’s lessons about that, and take several deep breaths, connecting myself to the dirt below the flooring, and the center of the earth below that. I get an imagine of hot flowing lava at the core of the earth, and allow my anger to flow into that, melting on contact, flowing away, deep, deep below me. I see the energy that was anger as pure, clean power, and, as I’ve been instructed, bring it back into me.

Still, no words of wisdom come. No images. No voices speaking. Python does not slither across the room unexpectedly. No help at all.

My stomach grumbles.

Ridiculous, to be hungry now. How deeply unimportant is that? It rumbles again, this time louder. Despite myself, I think of tomato soul and Challah bread with Dijon mustard and cream cheese. Could I hate myself more for being so distractible at such a critical time?

Wait–that’s it. I get it! The power is in the food.

Now I know what to do. Ever so gently, I put my hands on Anna’s belly and think of anything and everything I have ever put on a plate. I call up the healing powers I’ve used in each and every ingredient over the last few weeks.

Flatbread with extra virgin olive oil and thyme and lemon. As I’ve been instructed, I use all my senses. I smell. I see. I taste. All in my “imagination” so that it can be conjured up in the spaces between the atoms.

Farm fresh bell peppers on corn tortillas with drunken goat cheese. Three cheese risotto with a dash of chipotle salt.

The images are so fresh, so alive in my memory, I’d swear I could smell the dishes in this very room. I feel them moving through me, and I know they are strengthening Anna.

Apple hummus dip with warm pita chips. Dripping dolthmas. Fresh honeycomb and fig marmalade on piping hot biscuits. Spring rolls with habanero sweet sauce. Hand cut fried potatoes with rosemary and roasted garlic. Grilled eggplant in spicy marinara. Au gratin potatoes made with sharp white cheddar—no, Piedmont—cheese and barely dusted with tea smoked sea salt. Tofu in tamari. Mushroom ravioli in cream sauce.

As each dish passes before my eyes and through my nose, the feelings grow stronger between my hands and Anna’s belly. She doesn’t come around, but she does seem to relax, and her breathing feels still and peaceful.

Amazingly, I’m actually starting to feel full. Physically full, before one ounce of real food is served. I return to my “cooking” as the dishes seem to flow from one to the next…

Milk and fresh-from-the oven oatmeal raisin cookies…Angel food cake with berries…Pineapple sorbet… Dark chocolate banana bread pudding with while caramel and pecans….

Dish after dish runs through my mind, delighting my nose, filling my belly, sending power through my hands. I watch as Anna’s eyes gently fall closed. Her breath deepens even more, into what appears to be a great sleep.

As surely as I knew what to do, I know to stop. We have done what we could. The magic of the good, wholesome, delicious foods will do their work now. I pull my hands back, and see her belly shake just a bit, as if she will miss me.

“Return to your preparations,” I hear a voice say, so loud and clear I look around to make sure we are still alone. We are. “That act of faith is critical,” it adds.

Again I have to look around, so clearly did I hear it. Yet the “voice” had no specific qualities that would help me identify whose it was. Anna’s? Magic’s? Bea’s? There is no way to know. The only thing I know for sure is that it is right. Bea has repeatedly taught me that to act as if something is so is the greatest insurance policy for it being so. Not a guarantee, she was quick to add, because we do not control Magic, let alone the life force of the entire world and everyone in it. But if we don’t have enough faith to proceed as if our wishes will be heard, why on earth should they be?

I smile, thinking Bea has taught me a lot. I lean down to kiss Anna’s forehead, and whisper to her: “Get well. We need you. And I love you.” In a way, I’m glad her eyes have closed, so she doesn’t see the tears in mine. It’s embarrassing to be such a crybaby, especially at my age.

I move out the door secretly, so as not to draw any more attention to Anna’s room. Dr. Garcia knows I was there, but no one else does. From what I’ve learned about Magic, the fewer people who know you have done magic, the more powerful it can be. More important in this case, the more easily the energy can remain hidden from someone like Helene.

Which right about now is undoubtedly a really, really, really good thing.