The Star Group (12 page)

I looked at Gale. There was red showing through her bandage, she must have hurt her hand worse than she wanted to say. But what else didn't she want me to know? We had slept together the previous night but we had not made love because we were both zonked out. Sitting close to her now, it was hard not to reach and hug her and kiss her. She seemed to read my mind because she gave me a sweet smile.

“I have sprouted wings,” she said.

“You have always had wings.” I paused. “Anything different?”

She considered seriously. “Like the others, I can't point to anything definite- But I woke up this morning feeling clear. Like a mental fog I had been carrying around for years was gone. Then, a few times today, I have known what someone was going to say before it was said.”

“Intuition,” I muttered.

“That's your department,” Gale said.

I sat back and shook my head. “Mentor said powers would develop in each of us. Who's to say they cannot overlap?”

Teri was doubtful. “You're saying what we did last night made a big difference?”

“Yes,” I said.

Gale sighed as she put her uninjured hand to her head.

“I take back what I said a moment ago,” she said. “I don't feel so clear right now. When I slipped and fell I landed on my butt and I think the force jammed my spine into my skull. I feel a nasty headache coming on. It hurts much more than my hand.”

Teri was sympathetic. She set down the medical tape and put her hand on Gale's forehead. Sal said Teri had the greatest hands in the world. According to him, she could give a massage like nobody else. Teri softly stroked Gale’s forehead while Gale sat back and closed her eyes.

“You might want to lie down and rest,” Teri said soothingly.

“Hmm,” Gale murmured. “That feels good.”

“I'm sorry,” Shena said to me. “I don't know if that much happened for me last night. I liked listening to that guy you were talking for and all. I got real relaxed and felt peaceful. But then I think I passed out, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Daniel, but I didn't have any major revelations.”

“You're not hurting my feelings. I didn't have any revelations, either.” I paused. “At least none that I can remember.”

“So
you
don't feel any different?” Shena asked, and there was an edge to her question that I found odd. She was staring at me intently with her right brown eye. Her left eye, which had been permanently stained a yellow color, drooped off to the side. She was losing motor control in it, possibly from lack of use. It was difficult to sit beneath her scrutiny and not think about her face. Indeed, Shena was studying me closely; it made me uneasy.

“I have a ton of images and feelings inside me that I can't put together,” I said carefully. “A part of me feels I glimpsed Mentor's home world last night. I know that rounds crazy, but that's how I feel.”

Shena seemed disappointed. “What was it like?”

I shrugged. “I can't remember.”

Gale opened her eyes and sat up. Teri took back her hand.

“I feel better,” Gale said suddenly.

Teri smiled. “I'm glad.”

Gale paused. “No. I mean, my head feels perfect.”

Teri flexed her fingers. “Sal says I have the magic touch.”

Gale put her uninjured hand to her head. “You sure do. It's amazing.”

My girlfriend – dare I call her that? – seemed stunned.

“What is it Gale?” I asked.

Gale frowned. “Something changed in the last minute. It's weird, I can't…” She paused, and then began to unwrap her bandage. Teri tried to stop her.

“Don't do that, dear,” Teri said. “You have to let it heal. It's a scratch but it can become infected just the same.”

Gale shook her head. “I want to see it.”

The blood on the bandage made me not want to look. I had never been good with blood, it always made me sick to my stomach to be around it. Yet I continued to watch because Gale was clearly confused about something.

As she pulled the gauze away, we gasped.

There was blood on her hand but only on the surface.

Her scratches were gone.

“Wow,” Gale said. “It healed.” She turned to Teri. “You healed it.”

Teri pulled back and shook her head. “I didn't do anything.”

“But I felt something when you had your hands on my head,” Gale said. “Like a mild current going into my brain. Then my headache vanished and my hand got better. You can see my hand with your own eyes. You know how bad it was cut.”

Shena's eyes were huge. “Can this be true?”

I tried to stay calm. “Did you notice any power flowing from your hands, Teri?”

Teri obviously did not want to be anointed the next healing messiah.

“No,” she stuttered. “I mean, yes, I felt something. But I have felt it before when I worked on Sal.”

“What did you feel?” I asked.

Teri shrugged. “Good old-fashioned vibes. I don't know what New Age people would call it. My hands always get warm if I rub someone. Only this time, when I had my hand on Gale's head, it got real hot. It felt like it was burning. I would have said something, but I didn't think it was significant.”

“Your healing gift was probably latent,” I muttered. “Maybe all these gifts are latent. The session merely woke them up.”

“I’m not a healer,” Teri protested. “I'm a teenage girl.”

Shena stood, “Can you put your hands on me?”

Teri stared at her uneasily. “Oh, honey, I can't help your face. I'm sorry, but I don't think that's possible.”

Shena was animated. “Don't say that. You can help me. Gale had a bleeding wound and you healed it. My face has already healed. You just have to get rid of my scars, and fix my eye. I know you can do it.”

Teri shook her head. “Don't ask me that.”

Shena slammed her foot down. “You have to help me! Somebody has to help me!”

I stood. “Shena. We have to examine this calmly.”

She turned on me and her working eye glared.

“You want me to be calm? If she can heal me, then she has to heal me! It's because of you guys that I'm this way in the first place!”

“Shena,” Gale said. “Sit down and relax. Daniel is right, getting upset won't help anything.”

Shena ignored her and stepped to within inches of Teri.

“Put your hands on me, please?” she implored. “I can't go through life looking like this. I'll die if I have to.”

Teri was scared. “This plastic surgery will help a lot. You have to give yourself time to get better.”

Shena was hysterical. “I'm not going to be better! I need a miracle!”

I don't know why Gale and Teri appealed to me right then. I was no leader, I didn't know what to say. Perhaps they thought I had Mentor on tap in my brain. I wished I had; I felt anything but clear.

“If you want to put your hands on her, Teri,” I finally. “Do it. We can see what happens.”

Teri shook her head. “I know this isn't going to work. I know it in my heart.”

Shena wept. “Can’t you try to help me? Do you hate me so much that you won't try?”

Teri lowered her head. “No one here hates you, Shena.”

Shena closed her eyes and trembled. “That's a lie. You all hate what's ugly. It’s human nature.”

Teri looked up. “OK. I'll try to help you. But I can't promise anything.”

Shena knelt on the floor before Teri. She grasped Teri's hands, her own shaking with hope. It was pitiful to watch. If Shena did not get her miracle, I worried about the fallout. Across the lake, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the old man by the water.

I thought of all the pain that lay buried all around us.

Teri put her hands on Shena's face and spread her fingers over the scarred area. Both closed their eves and strove for calm, but Gale and I couldn't take our eyes off them. The whole time I kept thinking that what we were doing was wrong. We needed to sit quietly, take stock of the situation. But already Sal was flexing his muscles and Jimmy was collecting gold. I felt as if I were on an asteroid spinning out of control through deep space.

Teri sat with her hands over the left side of Shena's face for five minutes, and the seconds moved more slowly than those on a broken clock. Both sat still, yet both seemed to be straining. Finally a noise from the side of the lake distracted Teri, and she opened her eyes and glanced over. Jimmy was returning with Sal, who was now carrying the ravaged leather bag that contained the gold dust. Even from a distance we could see their idiotic grins. Jimmy waved; he sure had a bounce in his step.

Teri took her hands off Shena.

Opening her eyes, Shena grabbed her friend’s hands back.

“Don’t stop!” Shena pleaded.

Teri was anxious. “Nothing's happening.”

Shena's eyes were huge. A tear rolled down the side of her face. The scarred side. It was almost as if it were a drop of acid; her flesh twitched. There were no good vibes in the air. The situation could not have been more tense.

“You have to try harder,” Shena said, almost choking on the words.

Teri fidgeted and glanced at me. “I'm sorry, the juice is not there.”

Shena pounded Teri's lap. “Make it be there! Don't quit! Please don't quit!”

Gale stood and stepped to Shena. She put an arm around her.

“Let's not push this,” Gale said softly. “Maybe Teri can try later, when you're both more relaxed.”

Shena shook her off and jumped up. She went to scream something at all of us, but then the life seemed to go out of her and she sank down into a chair and lowered her head and wept quietly. Gale knelt and stroked her right arm. Teri clearly felt in a difficult spot.

“I'm sorry,” she said again.

“It isn't your fault,” I said.

“No heat came into my hands. I couldn't make it come.”

“No one is blaming you,” I said.

Jimmy and Sal arrived a minute later. They were both burning with enthusiasm, so happy they didn't even notice that Shena was in a bad state. Sal dropped the bag of gold dust on the wooden table on the center of the porch. Eagerly Jimmy tugged at the stiff leather string that held the bag shut. In seconds a huge pile of gold dust stood on the table. It did not sparkle in the afternoon sun, but none of us doubted that it was the real thing.

“Who's the man?” Jimmy asked, obviously assuming I had told the girls how we had located it. “Who's the man?”

Sal slapped him on the hack. “You're the man!”

Jimmy gave him a high-five. “I'm the man!”

Sal grinned as he looted around. “Isn't this an incredible day?”

“Why don't you guys have a seat,” I said. “We have things to talk about.”

Jimmy blinked as he surveyed our less than excited expressions.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “But we need to talk. Please?”

Sal was disappointed. “But what about this gold we found?”

“Hey, I found it,” Jimmy interrupted. “It's mine.”

“The gold isn't going anywhere,” I said.

Jimmy and Sal shrugged and pulled up a couple of chairs.

“At least I could be congratulated on my find,” Jimmy mumbled.

Once again all eyes were on me, even Shena's. I had started the ball rolling, I suppose it was natural for them to think I knew where it was going. My only worry was that there was a cliff up ahead that Mentor had not told me about.

As a preliminary, I brought everyone up to date on what I had observed; Sal's knee; Jimmy's supernatural vision; Teri's healing ability. Sal and Jimmy got excited about what had happened to Gale's hand, but I pointed out that the ability had not yet worked on Shena's face. When I was through I turned to Sal.

“Are you noticing anything else besides an improved left knee?” I asked.

He hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“I picked up that bag of gold for a moment,” I said. “It was heavy. But from the other side of the lake to here you carried it like it was a bag of popcorn.”

“I carried it part of the way back,” Jimmy piped in.

Sal was annoyed. “What is it with you, Daniel?”

“I just want to know if you have developed extra strength in the last twenty-four hours?” I said.

Sal snorted. “Yeah. I'm Superman.”

I persisted. “What is with
you
? Why don't you answer my question?”

Sal eyed me real slow as he had at the stream.

“I have noticed that I feel stronger, yes,” he said finally.

“How strong do you feel?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don't know, like I could play football again and be a winner. Does that answer your question?”

“Honey,” Teri said. “Daniel is just trying to understand what’s going on. We all are, you don't have to snap at him.”

“I don't like being interrogated,” Sal said.

I sighed. ““All these things that ate happening sound good and somehow we are making a mess of them. Maybe I'm to blame, I don't know. Maybe I’m being too serious and we should just enjoy these miracles. But besides trying to figure out how each of us has changed, I want to discuss where we want to go from here. But I don't want to talk about it alone. These things are supernatural – I think we need supernatural input.”

“You want to talk to Mentor?” Gale asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Gale surprised me. “I don't know if that's wise, at least at this point. Another session might accelerate what is happening. Already we're having trouble controlling the changes the group is going through. I would rather we use common sense to plot our next move. We can always talk to Mentor later if we feel the need. There is no reason to rush anything.”

I eyed her. My trust in her was not at an all-time high. The suspicion might have been an overreaction. I think she sensed that my feelings toward her were unsettled. Still, more than anything, even in the midst of everything else that was going on, I was still desperate to touch her.

“I disagree,” I said firmly. “Mentor is the only one we can turn to for guidance. He is the only one who understands what is happening. How can we plot our next move using common sense? The idea is ridiculous. Common sense would tell us that none of these things is happening.”

Gale did not back down from my strong words.

“I don't think Mentor is opposed to common sense,” she said. “All I'm asking for is a break. Let the atmosphere settle. We have the rest of the weekend.”