“You haven’t served your apprenticeship on Earth,” Nahum explained. “You need hands-on experience before you can move on to the next level of protectorate.”
Jared returned the parchment to his superior. “I’ve walked among humans—I’ve seen how they are.”
“But you’ve never been one. In all your previous assignments, you’ve remained invisible to your protectees, which means you’ve never had to learn to interact with them—communicate on their level.”
Jared started to interrupt and explain that he had spoken to his human charges on a number of occasions when he’d whispered warnings to them, but Nahum stilled his protest with an upraised hand.
“It is impossible to truly comprehend them until you’ve experienced their challenges and limitations—such as their inability to become invisible or to transmogrify themselves through earthly barriers. But you will see what I mean once you take human form.”
“Oh, no, you don’t! You’re not going to send me down there to go through the poopy diaper stage and have parents who tell me what to do all the time. You know I don’t handle restrictions on my freedom very well.”
“Which may have been why you were overlooked for apprenticeship all this time. There were no parents who deserved such a test.” Nahum leaned back in his chair, the winged back obscuring his face from all but the one directly in front of him, and thoughtfully stroked his long brown beard. “There is an assignment I’d like for you to handle.”
Jared breathed a long sigh of relief, then regretted his action when he realized the disorder it might cause in the form of hurricanes and twisters down below. If Nahum was giving him an assignment, it meant he wouldn’t be forcing him to go through the childbirth process and schooling and such.
“There is a young woman who needs your protection.”
Jared arched one eyebrow. He’d do his best, but if she was clumsy, she’d best stock up on bandages and ice packs. “Give me five minutes to put on a fresh robe, and I’ll be ready.”
“You won’t be needing it,” Nahum said. “You’ll be working as a protectorate while also serving your apprenticeship in human form.”
Jared’s mouth opened. He wasn’t being let off the hook after all. “How am I supposed to protect someone while I’m squalling for a baby bottle?”
Nahum steadied a look of infinite patience upon him before answering. “There is a soul whose hourglass is almost empty. You will inhabit his vessel when he leaves it.”
Jared rubbed his ears as if he might have misheard his supervisor’s words. “You mean...no spitting up and no fighting schoolyard bullies?”
“You will be a thirty-two-year-old male, living in Chesden, Illinois. That’s the United States, of course.” The supervisor added, almost as an afterthought, “Perhaps the only country that would put up with your unorthodox ways.”
“What about the woman? How am I supposed to protect her?” If he went into this assignment with a firm idea of what to expect, perhaps he could be better prepared.
Nahum closed the folder in front of him. “I don’t have all the details. You’ll have to find them out once you get there. But I do know that the woman is in danger of leaving her earthly body approximately fifty or sixty years sooner than her scheduled departure. Your job is to make sure she comes to no harm.”
Jared shook his head in amazement. “Only fifty years? What’s the big to-do about? In the overall scheme of things, fifty years is just a blink of an eye.”
Nahum gazed down at the worker before him. He’d grown accustomed to the oversize wings he wore, not to mention the golden braids on his sleeves that signified his exalted status. He was also counting on moving up to that big throne on the next level up. If this mission failed, he could be stripped of his hard-earned rank quicker than a thunderstorm in July.
On the other hand, if Jared could somehow manage to harness that creativity and energy of his, he—Nahum—might find the rewards well worth the risk.
“I believe your experience on Earth will change your mind about many such misconceptions.”
By the time Kim reached the hospital’s emergency room, Gerald’s condition had worsened. Her mouth unaccountably dry, she stopped at the water fountain near the ER receptionist. The water tasted stale and lukewarm, but the hesitation had allowed Kim a brief moment to gather herself together. For some reason, her thoughts kept returning to the feeling she’d harbored as she had watched Gerald drive away: She’d hoped she would never see him again.
Guilt plucked at her heart. What he’d done was despicable, but no one deserved this.
In the emergency room, Kim passed several curtained cubicles, some of which stood empty. One revealed a mother standing beside a bed whose occupant must have been no more than two years old.
Walking faster, she came to the nurses’ station where the hall broke off into more passageways with still more curtained cubicles. She paused, unsure which curtain Gerald was behind.
A bespectacled nurse glanced up from the rack of charts she’d been looking through. “May I help you, miss?”
“I’m looking for Gerald Kirkland.”
“You his wife, honey?”
Kim paused. Would she be allowed to see Gerald if she didn’t have some sort of family tie to him? “Um, fiancée.” It was only half a lie.
“Well, come on, then,” the nurse said, stepping out from the station. “They’re prepping him for surgery. Maybe you can see him for a moment before they take him in.”
Gerald looked almost as pale as the bleached white sheet beneath him. Two plastic bags hung suspended above him, one dripping clear fluid into his veins and the other replacing the blood he’d lost. An airway tube made a hissing sound as it pumped oxygen into his lungs.
Kim caught her breath at the sight of him. Only when she began to feel slightly faint did she make a conscious effort to breathe normally. It wouldn’t do him any good if she flaked out now.
“You okay, honey?” the nurse asked her.
Kim nodded. Another half lie.
She stepped closer, trying to ignore the various tubes and wires attached to Gerald’s body. His was a large, strong frame accustomed to vigorous activity. His body was the first thing she’d noticed about him. The reason she’d first been attracted to him. And perhaps the reason that other woman had been attracted to him.
She tried not to think of that now. Instead, she concentrated her effort on offering emotional support. She took his hand in hers and gently squeezed his fingers. He did not squeeze back, and Kim began to realize with a horrified understanding that there was nothing she could do to help him. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled onto his hand.
“He’s not able to respond,” said a man in scrubs, “but it’s possible he can hear you. It might help if you tell him how you feel about him.”
Tell him how she felt about him? As in, I don’t love you anymore, but I don’t want you to die, either? No, she couldn’t be so cruel.
When at last she spoke, her voice cracked. “Hang in there.” She squeezed his fingers again, as if the gesture would impart all the sincerity she was unable to put into words.
Blip, blip, blip. The only response she got was the unsteady beep of the heart monitor. Another man in green scrubs entered the tiny cubicle, and a woman in white followed.
Releasing his hand, she stepped away from the gurney and started out the way she’d come. She went out into the tiled corridor, determined to wait