Chapter 42: Action

Author’s Note

As always I would like to thank my editor Dr Mark for his help advice and expertise.

When I got up the next morning, there was a spider in the bathroom sink. I watched for a moment as it tried to run up the porcelain, all eight legs pumping madly, and yet getting nowhere. I was starting to feel like that. I had so many things going on in my life just now, that I seemed to be spinning on the spot, not knowing which way to turn, and yet not progressing in any way.

It was an illusion, I realized. Time was passing, albeit with glacial speed. Having to drive up to the Steadman ranch had seemed a pain at first, but in reality, it had been a blessing. It had taken up almost the whole weekend, meaning there was only a week to go before our exams, and less than two weeks before Ness, Dean, and Cheryl would be coming down. I was looking forward to that immensely.

What I hadn’t been looking forward to, as we drove home on the Sunday night, was getting back to the house and spending time there. The presence of Dylan in my home had made it a place I no longer wanted to be. I had an unreasonable and unreasoned hatred of him. I didn’t understand it, but there it was. Hopefully, as soon as Gracie was back on her feet, he would be leaving, and I could have my home back. A month, no more. I was counting those days also.

It was after nine by the time we got home. We had stopped off for something to eat on the way. Josh and Louise were in the living room watching television. I presumed Gracie and Dylan were in Gracie’s room. I didn’t ask.

“Hey,” said Josh as we entered the house. “Good trip?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but long. I’m just going to grab a drink, then I’m for bed.”

“How’s Ness?” asked Louise. “You all okay now?”

I smiled at her. “Yes,” I replied, “we’re all good.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

After a quick drink, I had a shower and went to bed. Mary came to bed with me and held me until I fell asleep.

Monday passed as Mondays do – starting at the dojo and going on to spend time in class, and then onto an afternoon in my ‘office’ at the range. Three hypnotherapy appointments. After an early dinner, I went to meet Jeevan at the church hall where I had first seen him performing as the Maharishi Guptal-Pah.

He was half way through his set, when I realised that the woman in the third row, with the red jacket on, was the woman we had cured from pancreatic cancer.

I examined her and saw that her tumours were all gone. There was still a little way for her body to go to be completely back to normal, but I expected that another week or so would see it done. I wondered why she had come back.

I pointed her out to Jeevan.

“I saw,” he sent. “Let’s see what happens.”

There was nobody that really needed healing in the audience. For some reason tonight’s crowd were in extremely good health, apart from one guy who had a pilonidal sinus, a very painful condition, which we resolved easily for him.

As the audience filed out, I noted that the woman was hanging back, waiting to speak to Jeevan.

Eventually, she was the only one left. Security was heading for her, to ask her to leave, but Jeevan indicated to him to let her be. He was as interested to see what she wanted as I was. Strangely neither of us had thought to look into her mind. I guessed that we both thought, that since she was healed, we had no reason to do so.

She approached and spoke to Jeevan. I hung back.

“Hi,” she said. “I wanted to come and thank you.”

“Thank me?” asked Jeevan, his Indian accent still thick.

“I felt it,” she said. “I didn’t realise at the time what I was feeling, but I felt your power.”

“I don’t...” began Jeevan.

“You healed me,” she said. “I don’t know how, but you did. The doctors say I am in full remission. They don’t understand why, since I was only getting palliative care. They cannot find a trace of a tumour in my body, and I was riddled with them.”

“I think you must be...”

“You know what I think?” she said, noticing me for the first time. “I think that you are someone with real power, pretending to be a charlatan to hide the good you do. And you,” she continued turning to me. “You were there also. I felt you too.” Her phone beeped in her pocket.

“If you have a minute,” she said. “There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

Jeevan and I looked at each other. He shrugged. We followed the lady outside. There was a minivan a little way from the door, a man in the driver’s seat, and two young teenagers in the rear.

“Nick,” she said. “This is the Maharishi Guptal-Pah, and...” she looked at me.

“Mister Kay,” I said. She half smiled.

“Mister Kay,” she repeated. The man looked at us. I could see he was conflicted. She had obviously told him that she believed that Jeevan had been responsible for her healing, but he was having a hard time believing it. However, he couldn’t deny that she was, indeed, healed, and the doctors had absolutely no idea how that had come about. “This is Nick, my husband, and my two kids, Deborah and Sam. This is my family, the reason I am so thankful for your help.”

“Hi,” Nick said. “Nicola is convinced that you are responsible for her cancer going away. I don’t know if that’s true, but I have read that the human body can do wonderful things, if you believe. Sometimes miracles happen. Whether you did, or did not, heal her, you made her believe that she would get better, and she did. For that I will be forever grateful.”

I looked into the back seat of the minivan, where the two children a boy and a girl were gazing at Jeevan with wide eyes.

“If,” Jeevan began, “what you suspect is true, then a lot of attention would be the last thing that I would desire, no?”

Nicola looked at him and gave a small smile. “I understand,” she said. “I promise that nobody will hear your name from us. But no matter what, Maharishi, Mister Kay, if there is EVER anything my family or I can do to repay you, you only have to ask.”

“Thank you,” Jeevan said. I nodded to her, when she turned her eyes to me.

She climbed into the passenger seat of the minivan, and they drove off.

“Well,” said Jeevan. “That’s a first. I have had children feel the healing before as you did, but that is the first time an adult has felt it. Maybe it is your power that she felt. You are so powerful that perhaps it is more discernible when you use a lot of it to heal.

“You are now two for two. Two major Healings and two patients who felt it. Perhaps we need to be more circumspect in future.”

I thought about that as I made my way home. I wasn’t sure just how we could be more circumspect than we were already being, but I would leave that in Jeevan’s hands. We had another two sessions before I would be heading up to the ranch, so I would see what he had in mind.

The house was in full darkness when I got home. That was unusual since normally the girls went to bed after me. I went in, to find the girls in the bedroom, talking quietly.

“What’s going on,” I asked. “How come you’re all in here?”

“We were disturbing Gracie,” said Amanda. “Dylan asked if we could keep the noise down. So, we decided to come to bed.”

“Noise?” I asked. “Were you having a party or something?”

“No,” said Jules. “The girls were in the living room watching television. I was in my workshop. I had my music on but not loud.”

“I see,” I said, turning back to the door.

“Caleb,” said Mary. “Don’t.”

“I’m just going to have a quiet word,” I said.

“Please,” said Mary. “It’s just for a little while.”

I clenched my jaw.

Even with Amanda’s power playing over us it took me some time to get to sleep.

Tuesday morning in the dojo, Kevin and I were sparring. It gave me an opportunity to work out some of my aggression.

“Okay,” Kevin said, the third time I had put him on the mat. “What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“You’re working out some aggression,” he said. “I don’t mind, since it gives me a good workout, but I’d like to know exactly why I’m getting my ass kicked. Normally when someone fights angry, they become careless, but for some reason with you, it focuses you. You become even more effective.”

“We have someone staying with us,” I said, “that is proving to be difficult.”

“Then kick them out,” he said. “Problem solved.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. “He’s looking after Gracie. The girl that got attacked.”

“And does she actually need looking after?” he asked.

I thought about that. Why was Dylan there? Mainly because Gracie was still in full leg casts, which the doctors didn’t think they could remove for another three to four weeks. But I knew that she would be fine. Her legs were strong enough for her to walk unaided. And would be back up to full strength within another week. She didn’t need the casts, nor did she need Dylan.

After training, I went home, and made breakfast.

I said nothing to Dylan, even when he came out to get a couple of plates for him and Gracie. He nodded his thanks and returned to her room.

“Only another few weeks,” whispered Mary into my ear. She could see I was bristling.

Once again, I made an early dinner, since I was due to be teaching at the dojo.

When Dylan came into the kitchen, he looked at what I had cooked, and shook his head.

“I’ll order something in,” he said, turned around and left. I began to count. I was up to sixty-three before I could think of anything other than snapping that prick’s neck.

Mary and Amanda just sat at the kitchen table, watching me. I had felt their power washing over me, but it had made absolutely no difference.

Wednesday morning was ethics again.

Once more, it seemed the Professor had been bugging my house.

“Some Native American tribes,” he began, “believe that if you save someone’s life – you then take on responsibility for that person for the rest of their life. Conversely, Adomnan of Iona speaks of a man who was saved from a death sentence. He swore an oath of slavery to the man who saved him. In each instance the person who did the saving ends up becoming responsible for the person they saved, albeit in a very different form.

“There is, obviously, another position that argues that saving someone’s life has no binding effect on either of the parties involved. This final proposition seems to be society’s position today. In fact, as many rescuers have found to their cost, saving someone’s life can be fraught with peril. An ever increasingly litigious society means that saving someone’s life could end up in a lawsuit for anything from broken ribs to lost spectacles.

“I would like you to consider each of these positions, but also the overriding question: If presented with an opportunity to save a life, do you, or do you just pass by? Now I am obviously not talking about those with a duty of care, such as medical staff, and first responders. I am talking about bystanders. Do you intervene, or do you walk away?”

“That surprised me,” said Dana as we walked to lunch after the class.

“What did?” I asked.

“You, saying that you would seriously consider not getting involved,” she replied. “You have always struck me as someone who would help anyone they could.”

“Sometimes helping someone can come back to haunt you,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, her face falling. “Did I...”

“It’s not you,” I said. “We agreed to let Gracie come and stay at the house and her new boyfriend, the nurse, is being a real pain in the ass. You, are awesome.”

She smiled a little at that.

We ate lunch with the girls and then I went to class. I had a couple of hypnotherapy sessions, the latter of which didn’t start until four, so I was late getting home.

When I got home, I could hear Dylan talking in the living room. I looked in to see him standing in front of a seated Jules.

“It’s the noise you see,” he said, “that buzzing.”

“That’s my fume extractor,” she said. “I need that to take away the fumes when I’m soldering.”

“It disturbs Gracie,” he smiled at her. “I’m sure you understand.”

Jules heaved a sigh. “Okay,” she said. “I can do my project at college.”

“Perfect,” he said beaming. “Thanks.” He saw me and gave a bright smile. “Hi Caleb. What time’s dinner?”

“About an hour,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said bustling out of the living room and into Gracie’s room.

“Where are the twins?” I asked. “On the deck?”

“In our room,” she said. “Apparently them being out on the deck is too noisy for Gracie.”

Once more I bit my tongue.

I went into our bedroom. The twins were both sitting on the bed reading.

“Hi,” I said.

They looked up and on seeing my face grimaced. “It’s only for a few more weeks,” Mary said. I hmphed and went into the bathroom to get a shower.

After dinner, which once again Dylan came and collected before disappearing into Gracie’s room, I cleaned up and then decided to go and sit out on the deck with a beer.

I sat on one of the lawn chairs, sipping at my beer, and playing idly with my phone.

When I had finished, I went back into the house, and into the living room where Jules and the twins were watching television. This was unusual. Normally Jules didn’t watch too much television. Most evenings, if she was not doing her homework, she would be in her workshop tinkering. It’s what she loved to do.

I dropped into a chair, and Jules came over and curled up on my lap.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I guess,” she said dully.

I sat and idly played with her hair as we both stared at the television. We were watching something that just didn’t register, at least with me. I wondered how much longer we were going to have to put up with Dylan.

I found out about half an hour later.

“It’s ten o’clock,” the voice came from the door to the living room.

I had been daydreaming, and was, actually, considering taking myself to bed.

I watched Mary and Amanda both stand up. Mary reached for the remote control for the television, presumably to turn it off.

“I’m watching that,” I said. “Leave it on please.”

Jules, who had felt me tense, sneaked her hand into mine and squeezed.

Amanda looked from me to Dylan and back again.

“Gracie needs her rest,” said Dylan, “And the noise...”

“Gracie has been in bed all day,” I said. “She’s had plenty of rest. She’ll be fine.”

Dylan snatched up the remote control and turned off the television.

“She needs quiet,” he said.

I nudged Jules, who for some reason didn’t want to get off my lap. She wasn’t for moving.

“Jules,” I said. “Let me up please.”

“Caleb,” she began.

“Let me up,” I repeated. She looked at me.

“No,” she said.

“If you don’t let me up,” I sent to her. “He is going through the window in 3-2...”

Jules slid out of my lap. I stood.

“Dylan,” I said, he smiled at me.

“Yes?”

“Get out,” I said quietly. “Get all your shit together and leave, now.”

“Caleb,” Mary began. I silenced her with a look.

“No,” he said. “Gracie needs me.”

“You have been asked to leave my property,” I said. “You are now trespassing. You either leave under your own volition, or I will use force to remove you.”

He looked at me, his eyes beginning to widen.

“But ... Gracie.”

“Gracie will be fine,” I said. “You, however, will not, unless you are out of this house in the next five minutes.”

He scuttled back toward Gracie’s room. I heard the door close.

“Caleb,” said Amanda. “We agreed to let him stay.”

“No,” I said. “We agreed to let them come. They came. It didn’t work out. Now he is leaving. Gracie doesn’t need him in any case. The only reason he’s here is because she is in full leg casts. The only reason she is still in casts is that he is here. He’s slowing her recovery by being here. The ‘care’ he is offering is all to maintain a lie.”

After ten minutes, Dylan hadn’t emerged from Gracie’s room. I guessed that he thought if he stayed out of my way I would cool down. It was a good plan, but it wouldn’t work. I was about to go and chase him out, when there was a knock on the door.

I opened it to find two police officers on the porch.

“Hi,” I said. “Can I help you?”

“We’ve had a call for help from a Nurse claiming that he is being threatened.” I smiled.

“That will be Dylan,” I said. “I asked him to leave my house and he refused. I told him that he was trespassing and that unless he left, I would use reasonable force to remove him.”

“He claims that he is here looking after a patient,” said the other officer “and that she would be at risk if he were forced to leave.”

“She isn’t at risk,” I said. “She is bed bound, her legs in plaster. Other than that, she’s fine.”

“Are you qualified to make that determination?” said the first officer.

“Why would the hospital allow her to be discharged,” I asked, “if she was at risk? She needed some domiciliary care is all. The nurse came to provide that care, and now I want him to leave. Gracie will be perfectly safe until other arrangements can be made.”

“I think it would be better,” said the officer, “if he stayed.”

“Your thoughts,” I said. “Are appreciated, but irrelevant. He is trespassing on my property. I am now asking you to remove him.”

The two officers looked at each other.

“Can we talk to him and the person he is here to look after?” they asked.

“Certainly,” I said. “Come in. They are down the hall in her bedroom.”

I showed them and they followed me to Gracie’s room. I knocked and Dylan opened the door. He smiled when he saw the police.

I looked into the room and saw Gracie. She was looking worried. I went back to the living room so they could talk to them. I could hear everything.

“Sir, Ma’am,” said the first officer. “Sir, the owner of this house says that he has asked you to leave his property. As the owner he is perfectly within his right to do that.”

“He threatened me,” said Dylan, “with violence.”

I had heard enough. I had to defend myself, so I returned to the bedroom.

“I told you I would use reasonable force to remove you from my property,” I said. “You are trespassing and refusing to leave.”

“I’m here looking after a sick woman,” he said. “She needs me.”

“If she is that sick,” I said. “Why was she discharged from the hospital? The only reason you are here is because she has leg casts on, or so you claim. I know the real reason you are still here. You are trying to pursue a relationship with her which, if I am not mistaken, is prohibited by the NCSBN. Dating a current patient is not allowed.”

“She’s not a current patient,” he said. “She was discharged.”

“So, if she’s not a patient, why do you need to be here?” I asked.

“I...” he began “She’s not able to get out of bed. She needs looking after.”

“Either she needs nursing care, in which case you are her nurse, and in breach of your own code of practice, or she doesn’t in which case you don’t need to be here. So, am I reporting you to the state board, or are you leaving?”

The two police officers were looking between us like they were watching a tennis match.

He looked to the officers for help.

“Are you here as her nurse,” asked the officer, “or as her boyfriend?”

Dylan looked at Gracie. She didn’t speak. He sighed and began gathering his things. It took him a few minutes to get everything together. Every so often he shot daggers at me with his eyes. Finally, he turned to Gracie. “I’ll call you,” he said. I noticed he didn’t attempt to kiss her.

The police officers followed him out of the house.

“Thank you, officers,” I said politely. “You were a great help.”

I watched as Dylan got into his car and pulled away then closed the front door.

Both Amanda and Mary were glaring at me as I walked back toward Gracie’s room. Jules looked amused. All three followed me. I knocked on the door jamb of the open door. Gracie looked up at me as we all entered.

“Gracie, I’m...”

“Is he gone?” she asked interrupting me.

“Yes,” I said. “he...”

“Thank FUCK for that,” she said.

Both Mary and Amanda gaped.

“He’s been fucking suffocating me,” she said. “I tell you if my gun hadn’t been out of reach, I’d have probably shot myself by now.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” asked Mary.

“You were being so accommodating,” said Gracie. “I knew you guys didn’t have time to look after me, so I thought I could suffer it until I was back on my feet.”

“Which he was preventing,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Gracie.

“Your arms are completely healed,” I said. “Your legs are strong enough to support you. As long as you don’t jump out of a second-floor window you will be fine. Another week and they will be as good as they ever were. The only reason you’re still in the casts is because he was here.”

“Now you fucking tell me,” she said.

I split both casts on her arms with TK and gently eased them away from her.

Slowly and carefully, she moved her arms, flexing the muscles. There was some wasting but nowhere near as much as there could have been.

“How does that feel?” I asked.

She rubbed at her arms, sighing in pleasure. “So good,” she said. “They’ve been itching like a bitch.”

She threw off the bedclothes. She was naked from the waist down, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

“Now these,” she said.

The casts creaked as I split them down both sides and eased them away from her legs. She sighed in pleasure as she started to rub at her thighs and then squeaked, pulling the covers over her. “Don’t look,” she said, “They’re all hairy.”

I laughed.

I threw her a pair of jogging pants, and she slipped them on under the covers.

“Want to try and stand?” I asked. She nodded.

She scooted over to the edge of the bed and sat up. Then, with me on one side and Mary on the other, she stood.

“How does that feel,” I asked.

“My legs feel weak,” she said, “But it doesn’t hurt.”

“You need to take it easy for another week,” I said. “After that you can start exercising to build up your muscles again. I’ll help you along a bit. Couple of weeks you should be back to the way you were.”

“I need a bath,” she said. “I smell like a fish market.”

Jules chuckled – “I’ll go run you one.”

We walked with her to the bathroom, more for moral support than for any other reason.

“I’ll help you into the bath,” I said. “Your legs are quite strong, but slipping and falling would be a bad idea.”

“You just want to see me naked,” she said and I smiled.

“Okay,” I said, “that too. But my argument is still valid.”

“Don’t look at my hairy legs,” she said.

“It’s your ass he’ll be watching,” commented Jules.

Once the bath was ready, I lifted her in using TK. Mary and Amanda stayed to help her get clean. I’m certain that there was more cleaning in certain areas than was absolutely necessary, but I didn’t begrudge any of them that. They called me back in when it was time to lift her out of the bath. The girls helped her get dry. I walked with her back to her bed. Before she sat on the edge of the bed, she threw her arms around me.

“I still need to thank you for saving my life,” she said, “And also now for saving me from that guy.”

“No,” I said, “You don’t.”

“Yes,” she said. “And once my legs are better, the girls have said I can have you for a whole night to show my appreciation.”

“Did they now?” I said, amused.

“Of course,” she said. “They did kind of suggest that they might like to join in the thanking. They apparently feel that they owe you too.”

I helped Gracie to sit on the edge of her bed. And then slide onto it. I had stripped and remade it while she had been in the bath. She sighed in pleasure at the cool clean linen.

“Thanks, Caleb,” she said again. “For everything.”

She pulled me down and kissed me softly.

“Goodnight Gracie,” I said pulling her covers up and tucking her in. We turned the light out as we left the room.

I went into our room and was getting ready for bed. Mary and Amanda came in, followed by Jules.

Jules opened her mouth.

“Yes,” I said. “I would have.”

She closed it again.

Mary and Amanda looked at her.

“I tried to stop him getting up,” she explained. “I wouldn’t move off his lap. I thought I could get him to cool down.”

“So why did you move?” asked Amanda.

“Because he told me that if I didn’t,” she said. “He would use TK and throw Dylan through the window – he gave me a three second countdown.”

Both Mary and Amanda looked at me slack jawed. Then Amanda giggled. “You should have stayed where you were,” she said. “That guy was a dick.”

Mary looked at Amanda, then at me, and then she too began to chuckle.

“I thought he and Gracie were really getting along,” she said.

“She was putting up with him, for our sake,” I said. “And we were doing the same, for hers. I wish we had spoken to her about him days ago.”

“That reminds me,” Jules said to Mary and Amanda, “you each owe me five bucks.”

“What for?” I asked.

“We took bets on how long it would be before you finally snapped and threw him out,” said Amanda. “I have to say that Jules had the most faith in you. I said the end of last week. Mary said Monday. Jules was the only one who thought you would make it all the way to today.”

I looked between them.

Mary came over to me, followed closely by Amanda and Jules.

“Thank you,” she said. “You tried. You really tried hard to honor the group decision.”

“I think he deserves a fucking medal for putting up with that prick for so long.” Sent Ness. “Jules – I’ll give you your five when I see you next week.”

“I had Tuesday,” she directed at me, “but only because it was the only day left when I found out about the bet.”

“What about later on in the week?” I sent to all of them, so Ness would be included.

The looks on all three girls faces, along with the feelings coming from Ness told me how likely any of them thought it was, that I would last that long.

I shook my head, laughing ruefully, before climbing into bed.

“It’s late,” I said. “I’m going to sleep.”

All three girls clustered around me. Jules snuggled into me, while I felt both Mary and Amanda flex their power. I was asleep in minutes.

Josh and Louise gaped as Gracie came to breakfast the next morning.

“Morning,” she said to them.

“Where’s Dylan,” Josh asked.

“He left,” I said. “Last night.”

“Left?” asked Louise.

“Caleb threw him out,” said Gracie. “Finally. He was becoming more and more insufferable by the hour.”

“And you’re up?” said Josh. “How?”

“Caleb had already Healed me,” said Gracie. “My legs are not one hundred percent yet, but I don’t need the casts anymore. Dylan being here was holding me back.”

“What are you going to do today?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I...

Her phone rang. She looked at the screen and scowled. “It’s Dylan.”

“You’d probably best answer it,” I said. “If you don’t, he may turn up here with EMT’s or police claiming that you are in danger.”

“Hi Dylan,” she said. “Yes, no, I’m fine. Just having breakfast with Caleb and the guys. No, I don’t need anything thanks. No. No I wouldn’t come here. Caleb has said he doesn’t want you here. You don’t want to get arrested for trespass. No, I’m perfectly fine. No, they are looking after me. I’m good. Okay – no, I’ll call you if I need anything. Thanks – bye.”

“The sad thing is,” she said, “is that he’s a really sweet guy. He’ll make someone a lovely mother someday.”

“You have all our numbers,” I said. “If you need anything text. We’ll be eating early tonight because we go to the range on a Thursday.”

“Which range?” she asked. I told her. “Excellent – you mind if I tag along? I could do with getting some practice in.”

I looked at the girls who all nodded. “Sure,” I said.

I made up something for Gracie to have for lunch before I left for class.

I was driving away from the house, when I noticed a familiar car parked down the street. I pulled over and picked up my phone.

“Frank Howe,” he answered.

“HI Frank, its Caleb.”

“Hey Caleb, what’s up?”

I explained about Dylan, and how I had had him removed last night, and that he was currently watching our property.

“My problem,” I said, “is that I’ve healed Gracie. If he gets to see her, and sees the state she is in, it will cause all kinds of issues.”

“Maggie said that you and another healer actually saved Gracie’s life,” he said. “So, thank you for that. Give me a description of the car?”

I told him the make, model, and license plate. He rang off.

Fifteen minutes later, a black SUV pulled up behind Dylan’s car, red and blue lights flashing. I smiled to myself and went to start my day. I was a little late, but I was happy that Gracie would be okay.