20. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
E lijah was in a funk. Jon let him be, but it dragged on and started to annoy him. Three days. Four. Five. The snow sank away and another, deeper, snow came, but the chill outside the barn had nothing on the chill around Elijah.
Jon tried being a little friendlier, asking Elijah how it was going, to show he wasn't holding on to any resentment or hard feelings. But Elijah barely responded. He went about his work with a dark cloud hanging over his head, persistent as an inverted shadow.
The vet came on a Friday and examined Joy. Elijah vanished when the vet arrived, but Jon stood by as Melanie listened to the horse's heart for long minutes with a stethoscope. Jon stroked Joy's flank to keep her calm.
Finally, Melanie took the stethoscope out of her ears.
"Well?" Jon asked.
"You say she's been lethargic?"
"Yeah. She eats okay and goes back and forth to the pasture. But she moves slow and doesn't run or play with the other animals. Never has, really. Some days, she doesn't wanna go out to the pasture at all."
Melanie nodded. "I detected a cardiac arrhythmia, and she also has bradycardia. That is, her heart rate is awful slow for a horse her age."
Jon's own heart skipped a beat. "That doesn't sound good."
"It's not great, but it doesn't have to be a fatal condition. To get a comprehensive picture of exactly what's going on, I'd need to put a heart monitor on her. In the same way that heart patients can wear a monitor for a week or a month so doctors can evaluate the activity of their heart over time, we can do it with horses. There's a device that goes in a saddle pad to maintain electrode contact, so Joy would have to wear a saddle consistently for a week. I know you don't saddle the horses normally, so—"
"No. It sounds like it oughta be done. If you give me an estimate, I'll get approval from the boss."
"Great. It's not crazy expensive."
Both Jon and Melanie knew that when it came to the animals' health, Eddie was very generous.
"Is there anythin' I can do for her in the meantime?" Jon asked.
"Don't ride her."
"Yeah, we don't ride any of the horses."
"Good. And don't push her to do anything she doesn't want to do. Are there any issues with another animal intimidating or bullying her that might cause her to try to run or stress her out?"
"Haven't seen anythin' like that. Like I said, she doesn't tend to run with the other horses, but they all get along."
"Good. I'll get you that estimate."
Eddie, of course, approved the heart monitor, and Melanie promised to return with it the next day. After she left, Jon checked the chicken yard. The shelter had been newly cleaned out—by Elijah—and the eggs collected. The air was frigid, but the sky was an open field of blue, so Jon went out to the five-acre pasture and walked the fence line. The pigs, horses, cows, donkeys, and sheep were all out enjoying the sunlight and the snow, and they ignored Jon as he walked the perimeter. The fence had an electric wire running along it at two feet and another at five. Jon checked the power was on. It was necessary to keep the pigs—incredible escape artists—from burrowing out and the horses from trying to jump over it. The charge was enough to make the animals wary of it but not enough to seriously hurt them.
As Jon walked the fence, he was lost in thought. Elijah had been right about Joy. How had he known there was an issue with her heart? Jon had noticed that she wasn't as active as the other horses, sure. But he'd put that down to personality or preference or age. He'd been here when they'd brought Joy in, rescued from an old lady who had two horses she couldn't, or wouldn't, care for. Joy had lived in a dilapidated shelter and a small fenced-in yard, and she'd been skin and bones when she'd been offloaded from the horse trailer, her hooves severely overgrown. She'd barely had the strength to walk into the barn.
She'd recovered well. To look at her, you'd have no idea she'd once been starved, and she no longer shied away from Jon or from the other horses. So Jon had accepted her current state as the best that could be expected.
The vet hadn't thought to check Joy's heart either. But then, there were so many animals here. The vet did wellness checks annually, but they weren't that in depth. Obviously injured or sick animals got most of her attention.
But Elijah had known about Joy. He'd seen what Jon should have seen.
As Jon followed the fence line back around toward the barn, he approached the pig's favorite area, a swatch of the pasture they'd dug up and denuded of grass so they had a dirt area—which became a mud area when he or Elijah overfilled the large water trough or when it rained. Elijah was there, surrounded by pigs and the farm's three sheep as he filled the water trough. Priscilla was apparently his number-one fan. She pressed up against his leg.
"Hey!" Jon called out.
Elijah looked up, startled. He gave a half-hearted wave, turned off the spigot, and headed for the barn.
"Oh no, you are not runnin' from me," Jon muttered. He waded through pigs excited to see him, scratching a few heads and clucking at them, and made it to the pasture gate.
He let himself through and entered the barn. Elijah was leaning against the wooden wall of the aisle, face in his hands. He startled when Jon came in and muttered something about just resting a minute, but Jon wasn't having it.
"Come on," he said. "We're takin' a walk."
"What?" Elijah looked terrified.
"You. Me. Walk." Jon opened the door and held it wide. "Let's go."
Dragging his feet like he was going to the gallows, Elijah brushed past him and went outside, hands stuffed in his pocket.
"Where we goin'?" Elijah asked.
"I guess you'll find out."
It was damn cold, but Jon couldn't think of a good alternative. He wasn't taking Elijah into his private apartment, and there wasn't anywhere in the barn to sit and talk. So he led the way down the driveway toward the house, then turned into a cluster of huge bushes. Tucked inside them was a private little garden. Eddie called it the meditation garden. It consisted of a circle of grass about six feet wide surrounded by rose bushes, already cut back and dormant for the winter. There was a stone bench and a statue of St. Francis here. Most of all, it was quiet, blocked off from the rest of the world.
Jon sat on the bench. Elijah stood awkwardly, looking at his shoes.
"Sit down," Jon said. "I won't bite. Not unless you want me to." He hadn't meant it flirty, but it sounded that way when he said it. Jon grimaced and told himself to watch his words.
Elijah didn't seem to notice. He sat on the bench as far from Jon as he could without falling off. They sat there in silence for a bit while Jon tried to suppress his desire to pry open Elijah's mind and know everything at once. He was impatient like that.
"Melanie says there's an issue with Joy's heart," he finally said.
"Oh."
Jon gave him a raised eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Guess she'll know what to do for it," Elijah said weakly.
Jon rubbed his gloved hands together and expelled a breath that was visible on the frigid air. "How did you know?"
Elijah blinked at him innocently.
"How did you know there was an issue with Joy's heart?" Jon repeated firmly.
"I don't know."
"Ah, now, see? It's that bullshit right there that I don't like. Just tell me."
Elijah didn't say anything.
"Are you clairaudient? Clairvoyant? Claircognizant? You see spirits? What?"
Elijah frowned. "I don't know what any of that means."
Jon ticked off his fingers. "The clairs. They're kinda like superpowers. Clairaudient—you hear a voice in your head. Clairvoyant—you get visions. Clairsentient—you can sense energy and emotions. Claircognizant—you know things you can't possibly know."
Elijah's eyes got wide. "Hear a voice in your head? I thought that was just crazy people."
"Well, there are people with mental illness who hear voices, I guess. But not everyone who hears voices is crazy."
Elijah's brow furrowed, and he stared down at his lap.
Jon sighed. Take it slow , he told himself. Pretend he doesn't know about any of this shit . It was frustrating because Elijah genuinely didn't seem to. Yet he knew something , and more than a little too, Jon was pretty sure. How to bridge that cultural gap, though.
"You know it's okay, right?" Jon said. "I come from a long line of root doctors and psychics. My mama's held readin's in our front parlor since before I could walk—still does. My aunt's the best root doctor in St Tammany. Where I'm from? It's as normal as breathin'. So you don't have to be coy with me."
Elijah looked surprised. He studied Jon's face, those big brown eyes equal parts interested and wary. Jon waited. It was kinda like waiting for the last few drops of syrup from a bottle to finally reach the spout—painful. But he had a feeling it would be worth it.
"I can see stuff," Elijah said in a rush. "Dawdi called it the other eye. I see dark spots, mostly. Like around Joy's heart. Sometimes I can see colors or, like, if someone is very sick, or dyin', the colors are washed out. Like they just don't have much life left."
"Huh," Jon said. "Okay. Okay. So you see auras?"
Elijah just looked at him.
"That's like the energy around a person,” Jon explained. "Some people can see it. Try it with me."
"Nah, I—"
"Go on. Take a look. Tell me what you see." Jon sat up straighter on the bench and held Elijah's gaze.
"For true?"
"Yeah. Show me."
Elijah sighed. He took a deeper breath and rolled his head as if loosening a stiff neck. He turned a little more to face Jon, and his gaze dropped to Jon's feet. He gradually moved his gaze up Jon's calves and thighs. Up, up.
Jon's skin tingled and his stomach swooped. It was unnerving to be under the microscope that was Elijah. And maybe a little hot? Maybe more than a little. Which was a perfectly normal physiological response to being checked out by a guy and nothing personal. It had been a long time since anyone had really looked at Jon.
Damn, it felt like forever.
As Elijah's gaze rose, Jon noticed that his eyes were unfocused. Elijah's gaze continued up until it was above Jon's head. Then he turned his face away.
"Well?" Jon prompted.
"Blues," Elijah said hesitantly. "Some orange. Purples. Around your head. And—" he stopped. "You've a real strong mind. And…."
"And what?"
"The colors are bright everywhere but here." Elijah moved his hand in a circle around his chest. "They're faded here. Gray. And here." He dropped his hand to his groin and circled it. "The color's all drained out. I don't think it's a physical ailment. Not yet. But it could become one. The life force ain't circulatin' there. That's not right."
An icy chill went through Jon. He turned his own head away and forced the emotion down. He can see it. Dear God.
"Somethin' happened," Elijah said. "Somethin' bad."
"Okay! That's enough." Jon stood up.
Elijah's face fell. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't of—I'm sorry."
"No. Just… stop." Jon ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "Don't apologize. Havin' the sight is nothing to apologize for. It's… amazing, actually. And I asked you to do it."
"Dawdi said…." Elijah stopped himself.
"What did Dawdi say?"
Elijah looked down at his lap and rubbed at a stain on his pants. "Nothin'. Only I promised myself I wouldn't use it. Not anymore. And don't tell Samuel. Please. He's already scared to death of me."
Jon stared down at Elijah. It might be that he'd lost all the color in his heart. It might be that even his sexual mojo had evaporated since Trish's death, that he himself was only half alive. But something stirred inside him for this poor kid.
Man. He's a man, not a kid.
"I won't tell him. How old are you, Elijah?"
Elijah looked up in surprise. "Nineteen."
Still so young. So goddamn young. Jon himself was twenty-eight, but there might as well be a hundred years between them instead of nine. Not just the miles of bad road that Jon had traveled since his own stint at nineteen, or the hell of pain he'd borne, but their cultures too. Cajun and Amish? What could they possibly have in common?
But they were both here, now, and there were some things about the human condition that were universal.
Jon took a deep breath and sat back down, closer to Elijah now. "Look. I'm sure your grandfather had very specific ideas when it came to God and religion. But this is a big world, Elijah. And God…. He—or She—is way bigger than any of us can understand. At best, we can get a brief glimpse."
Good Lord, now he was lecturing Elijah about God. He tried again. "You don't use this gift to harm anyone, do you?"
"No," Elijah said quickly. "I'd never."
"Then there's nothing to be worried about. Some people are good at piano or baseball. You see things. It's impressive, if I'm honest."
Elijah looked doubtful, but he didn't argue.
"So that's how you knew about Joy's heart?"
Elijah nodded.
Jon hadn't planned to tell Elijah this, but he needed to hear it. "So I, uh, talked to my Aunt Jolie and sent her a picture of the herbs you put into that concoction you made. She said it was all good, that she'd use those herbs herself."
"She did?"
"Yup. So I guess you know what you're doin'. I'm sorry I doubted you."
Elijah blushed and looked away. "It ain't hard. Remedies are easy to make. I learned from Dawdi. He had a whole garden of remedy plants and a workspace where we made 'em."
"Well, that's fine. I'm sure he knew what he was doin' too."
"He learned from his grandfather. He doctored all the animals on Ma and Da's farm and others around." Something complicated washed over Elijah's face, and it struck Jon again that he must really miss home.
It was one thing to be in exile on purpose, like Jon was. He could go back to Louisiana anytime he wanted. Elijah couldn't.
"Listen: I still say it's not a good idea for you to give anythin' to the animals, or put anythin' on the animals, without tellin' me. I'm responsible for all the lives here, so I need to be in the loop. If you see anythin' you think needs doin', just come to me, okay? We'll discuss it. Somethin' like that salve you used on Priscilla, maybe that'd be okay. We just need to coordinate. How does that sound?"
Elijah stared at him, as if not quite believing what he was hearing. For the first time in days, those ridiculously pretty dark eyes had a spark in them. Hope? Excitement? The light in them cut through Jon as if it might pierce him in a place that he'd kept hidden in the dark for a very long time.
They were too close. Jon stood up and forced a smile. "I didn't hear a 'Yes, sir, Jon. Absolutely'."
"Yes," Elijah said immediately. "I'll tell you. Thank you. Thank you for… for not bein' mad."
Thank you for not being mad? Man, whoever had raised Elijah had sure done a number on him. But then, life did that, didn't it? One way or another.
"No problem. And…" Jon blew out a breath. "I'm sorry I told Samuel about it. I was just worried about the animals. You get that, right?"
Elijah nodded, and he even smiled a little.
"Cool. Now let's get back to work."
Jon led the way from the meditation garden, and Elijah slipped past him, heading back to the barn. But his step was lighter, and Jon was pretty sure that dark cloud he'd been under had finally lifted.