Destinies Trigger; overwhelming evil

Destinies trigger

 

The room was full of people, her mother, father, older brother and miscellaneous Doctors and Nurses.  All of them seemed to be in a huddle like a football team readying for the next play.  There were no white coats or suits and ties like Kayla would have imagined there to be.  In her books and movies all the Doctors wore some kind of white coat, but not here.  Here the nurses wore multi colored scrubs and so did the Doctors.  Even though they all were dressed similarly you could still tell who were the physicians and who were the nurses.  It was in their demeanor, how they held themselves.  The nurses sometimes seemed hurried or just the opposite.  They scurried around getting supplies or turning switches.  The Doctors on the other hand were all matter of fact.  They all seemed to be studying the charts and the readings. It was as if the child laying in the bed were a freak or some other oddity to be examined and detailed.  If it weren’t for the nurses you would not even know that anyone actually knew there was a person in the room. 

“I don’t know what to tell you Mrs. Eaves.  He is doing well now, we have his blood pressure stabilized but he has lost a lot of blood.  He should recover fully if he can make it through the next couple of hours.” 

The Doctor in a matching set of multi colored happy face scrubs told Kayla’s parents just outside the sliding doors to Zane’s room.

“He should be able to live a fairly normal life without a spleen, only a few minor problems along the way but it should be nothing you have to worry about too much.  The worry is the puncture to the intestinal wall.  It seems that a complication during surgery caused a small hole that took the surgeon a while to repair.  It bled so much that we had to give him two pints during surgery.  He should be ok but he will have to stay here for a day or two at the very least.”

Her mother was sobbing into her hands and her older brother had his arm around her as a husband or a father might have.  Her father began to pace back and forth from the nurses’ station to the room. 

Kayla looked at her brother and thought about what happened that night.  How she yelled at him and called him names.  How she wanted to hurt him for stealing her bracelet she now held in her hands.  Its silver and grey metal covered in dried reddish brown blood freshly drawn from her brother earlier that night.  Or should I say late last night for now it was almost two thirty in the morning.  Her brother had been in surgery almost all night and the family was just now allowed to see him.  As she replayed the events in her mind she began to think as most humans do.  She began to believe that she was the cause of the accident.  She was the reason he ran, to escape the wrath of a sister with blood in her eyes.  This age old process of blaming oneself for the actions of another.  Its twisted reality of guilt and shame began to overwhelm her and take over her conscious mind.  Kate’s body began to tremble at the prospect of being the true villain in this terrible accident. Tears began to well up in her eyes, dripping onto her hand and the bracelet.  Kayla took a deep breath and summoned up the spirit within her to ask a question.  Her voice felt like it would break as she spoke, trembling as she asked the question. 

“but he is going to be alright, right”

The Doctor looked at Kate and smiled,

“He Should Be.  Let’s just give him a couple of hours just to make sure.”

Kate looked at the Doctor with his multi colored outfit and felt a little better till she saw the look her father was giving her.  It was as if he would crush her with the anger inside his mind.  His eyes penetrating into her brain screaming at her soul.  He didn’t have to say anything for the human body is more talkative when no one says a word and this was one of those times, although this time the body was lying.  Her father really wasn’t mad at her, he was scared out of his mind.  Racked with fear and shame for not being there himself.  He was going through the same thing Kate was.  It is, after all, human nature to believe that we caused the thing that brought terror to our lives.  We have all experienced it, it is nothing new.  But Kate did not know that, just like her father did not know.  Kate looked down quickly to release herself from the torture of her father’s gaze misleading or not.

Tears started flowing freely now from her eyes.  The guilt and pain surrounded her like the seas of an angry ocean taking its victim where it wants.  Kate looked at the bracelet and gripped it as hard as she could.  No longer could she sit there and look at the boy in the bed. The boy that she almost killed with her anger and words the night before.  She could feel now the hatred flowing from her family towards her.  Even though none existed, Kate could feel the cold despise ebbing in her direction.  It seeped into her mind, filling each thought.  She was now in full cry mode.  Short shallow breaths almost like a hiccup became vocalized interrupted by sobs and sniffs of the nose.  A nurse came over with a cold wet towel to put on her face but Kate jerked away from her.  She stood and gave the petite nurse a firm shove and ran out of the small room filled with equipment meant to keep tabs on her little brother, past the nurses station and out the door into the waiting room.  Kate found herself running now, running toward anywhere that wasn’t where she is now.  She ran through the halls of the hospital, past waiting patients in wheelchairs and through empty halls painted white with their cheaply tiled floors and florescent lights.  Past another nurses station and down another hall.  Kate found herself at a dead end.  Nowhere to go but back the way she came or through the emergency door.  She franticly looked for another way out, still breathing hard from the run but no longer about to hyperventilate.  She began pulling on doors, looking for an open one.  All were locked.  She kept trying more and more as she went back down the hall she just ran down.  None would open.  All were locked.  Door after door.  She turned the corner and found herself facing what appeared to be the emergency room nurses station.  An elderly man lay in a bed to her right and across the hall another room lay empty.  She took another deep breath and began to walk down the hall trying to almost sneak by the nurses’ station without being noticed.  She clutched the bracelet even tighter in her tear soaked left hand as she began her walk.

“May I Help You” said a heavy set nurse who looked like she was right out of a television doctor show like House or ER.  “Do you have family here?  Are you OK” the nurse grabbed a clipboard and a pen from the station and clutched them against her large breasts. 

“Yeah, I.. I’m, uh, I’m fine. I was…  was just looking for the chapel”  Kate came up with the only thing that she could think of. 

“Well that’s definitely not around here dear” the nurses’ voice was deep and accented heavily keeping with the stereotype “if you want the chapel you are just gonna have to go upstairs to the third floor and take a left.  There are signs along the way.  Just keep looking up” the nurse pointed a stubby thick finger in the air and motioned with her eyes for Kate to look up to the ceiling where the dark red signs told where everything was supposed to be.

“Oh, um ok.  Thank you”  Kate followed the arrow that pointed to the elevators.  The halls seemed even more empty now.  Maybe because she was walking now instead of running she noticed the smell of chemicals and bandages in the air.  It didn’t really stink but it made her wish she was somewhere else.  She pushed the up arrow for the elevator lighting it up.  The floor said five and began to descend to the second where she was.  The doors opened and revealed no one.  She had the car all to herself. 

Kate followed the signs to the chapel.  Even though she made it up to satisfy the nurse, she went anyway.  A good place to hide from her parents and the world.  The entrance to the Chapel was meek and plain.  No cross or adornments shown on the entrance just a sign.  Inside she found pews.  Five on each side with an alter at the head of it.  Just off to the right of the alter a brass bowl sat on a pedestal shadowed by the dim light of the room with no windows.  To those who know these things it would have been obvious that it was a baptismal vessel with its lid removed but to Kate it was just a bowl.  She wondered why it is there.  What it is used for.  She walked to it and looked down upon it to find crisp clear water.  She ran her finger through it rippling the cold water breaking its surface for just a second then settling back down to its original clear crisp state.  Kate could not fathom what it was all about so she left it and sat in the second pew close to the isle.  She fumbled through the blue hymnal resting in the back of the pew then the red.  Looking at the words and services.  Wondering what they were for.  Now she found herself physically worn out.  Tired from the run, the crying and being up all night, napping only for a few minutes here and there on a hard straight backed chair in the waiting room outside of the recovery area.  She found her eyes growing heavy and her mind getting dark.  She slowly fell asleep where she sat.  Finally calm and at peace so her body could recover from the trauma of the day.

She was almost to the point of dreaming when the door opened and the big overhead florescent lights came on startling her so bad that her heart tried to jump out and run down the hall without her.  She turned around to see a man dressed in black and a crew cut walking in.

“Oh!  I didn’t mean to startle you!” the man was carrying a robe and a book. “I guess this could be a great place to get a little shut eye, nice and dark and all”  he walked up to the alter and made a motion with his hands and bowed ever so slightly.  He turned again to look at Kate.

“we are about to hold a baptism! You’re welcome to stay if you want.  I just need to prepare some things.  The family will be here in just a minute.”

“Should I go?” Kate slipped the bracelet on her wrist and began to get up.

“Oh No! Not unless you want to! Your most welcome to stay.  We are going to baptize a newborn.” The man set down his books and began to put on his robes over his black suit.

“I thought you had to do that when you were like a teenager.” 

“Well I guess you can, but Lutherans, like myself, prefer to baptize as soon as possible”  Some other folks, like the Baptists, do it later in life but we do it first thing!”  He said as he adjusted his green sash hanging around his neck.  “I am actually supposed to have this on already but this one is such short notice that it’ll just have to do.”  Just then the door opened and a very tired looking woman came in with her husband and about 10 others in tow.  It got crowded but Kate’s curiosity had been stirred so there was no way she was going to leave now.

“Ah,” said the pastor “ Mrs. and Mr. Green!  Is this Jeremiah?  What a beautiful baby.”

Kate began to think of her brother again, wondering if this was done for him.  She watched as the family and the pastor exchanged names and whimsies before gathering quietly around the receptacle flashing pictures of the baby.  She began to listen to what the pastor was saying…

“our lord commanded Baptism, saying to his disciples in the last chapter of Matthew; “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age” The holy apostles of the Lord have written: “the promise is for you and your children” and; “baptism now saves you. We learn from the word of god that we all are conceived and born sinful and so are in need of forgiveness.  We should be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation.  But the father of all mercy and grace has sent his son Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sin of the whole world that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” 

The pastor then turned to the child embraced in his weary mother’s arms and touched his forehead startling the newborn causing his arm to move, making Kate smile.

“Receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified and now because the child cannot answer for himself, we shall all, together faithfully speak on Jeremiah Green’s behalf in testimony of the forgiveness of sin and the birth of the life of faith which God our Father bestows in and through baptism.” 

The pastor looked up at the small crowd of people looking intently in on the circle. “Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways”

The crowd of people then spoke together startling Kate who had begun to slightly fall back asleep

“I do renounce them”

“Do you believe in God the Father Almighty”

”Yes, I believe in God, the Father maker of heaven and earth”  Once again the crowd spoke in unison.

Kate watched the women cry and the men feign steadiness as the pastor went on with the ritual.  Holding the infant over the basin he continued by pouring the water from it over the head of the infant three times with a golden brass seashell, soaking the child and the mother with its contents.  He then took a white handkerchief type garment from a small table just behind the alter and began to wipe down Jeremiah.

“Receive this white garment to show that Christ has taken away and borne your sin and put upon you his perfect righteousness.  So shall you in faith ever stand before him”

As he wiped down Jeremiah’s dry newborn forehead with the course garment he began to cry that familiar yet quiet whimper that only a freshly hatched baby could produce.  Kate realized that in the midst of all this she had begun to cry, again.  But this time it was a good cry.  Something that made her happy amidst this day of tragedy.  This baby, his life fully ahead of him now surrounded by his family was possibly the only thing that could have taken Kate from the depths of darkness to the edge of joy.  She watched as the ceremony comes to an end.  The family slowly leaving the pastor and the proud parents behind holding their newly born son, crying and smiling the whole time.  Kate sat there with the tears of joy still in her eyes, and for the time being, forgetting about her injured brother lying down stairs and focusing on the new person in the chapel.  She looked as close as she could from the other side of the room squinting her eyes, straining to see his face and his tiny hands.  She thought about getting up or saying something to the family but kept to herself.  She was a stranger to these people, peering in on what she thought was a personal and private moment to be shared with only those selected and not those who might be strangers.  She began to attempt to memorize the moment.  To keep it in her mind and cherish later on a day that needs cheer.  She was concentrating so hard on the moment that she didn’t notice the mother looking over at her. 

“Have you ever been to a baptism before?’  The mother asked as she began walking toward Kate.

“No.  I haven’t” Kate’s cheeks began to flush.

“It’s a wonderful thing.  He is our first.  I just had him.  He is such a good boy.”  Mrs. Greene looks down at little Jeremiah and rubs her nose to his like an Eskimo kiss.

“Would You like to hold him?”

“oh no, I couldn’t, he’s so small and..”

“No, that’s ok! He’s a tough little boy” Mrs. Green almost forced Kate to take her baby causing Kate to become even more flustered.  Kate felt the warmth of the child in her arms, his body wiggling ever so slightly.  The water still contained within the child’s clothing began to seep onto Kate’s left arm getting the both Kate and her bracelet slightly wet.  He looked up at her with his sea green eyes as if to say “who are you!”.  His perception of the world around him astonishingly mature for a person only a couple of hours old.  His demeanor changed a bit from startled to happy and then to content as Kate stared into his eyes and took in his scent bringing her most powerful maternal instincts to bear.  As she held the new born she found that all her troubles were stripped away and happiness like she has never felt before took its place.  His rose colored chapped cheeks seemed to be the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. 

“He is a beautiful baby.  You are so lucky.”

“Yes we are.  Jeremiah is so precious…”  the mother reached over and tickled the baby in Kate’s arms.  “yeah, you are.”  And as if a cold wind blew through the chapel Jeremiah’s mother looked at Kate with only half a smile.

“Jeremiah is sick with a heart defect.  The doctors think he will live only a few more days at best.  So.., we thought it would be best to get him baptized as soon as possible.”  Mrs. Green reached in and took Jeremiah from Kate and held him as close as she could to her bosom.  Kate just looked at Mrs. Green in shock.  She could not move from the revelation of the news.  Her body frozen in time.

“it’s ok, we will be ok.  We just needed a little time with you, that is more than enough”  She said to the baby as she turned and walked out of the chapel holding back her tears.

“What a shame”  the pastor all but snuck up behind Kate.  “He is such a good baby, and Beautiful.”

He went back to putting his things together, collecting the books and papers he laid out before Kate entered the Chapel. 

“they wanted to have the baptism before he passes so we rushed up here as soon as the Dr’s discovered the problem.  She’s so happy.  It’s sad to see someone so nice have something terrible happen to them” he sighed “well, that’s the breaks you know.”

Kate turned to look at the man busily arranging his items, putting them in a small cart.

“how does she stay so happy.    With something so terrible happening?’

The Pastor stood up straight fully showing his height

“Motherhood does that to you.  The introduction of a new life, something so precious and small.  So delicate of a thing.  It is more joyful than anything else.  At least it is for me…” he looked at the door as if to see through it, again seeing the smiling face of the new mother. “that is as a father.. Not a mother of course..”  He smiled at Kate trying to tell her with his expression that he was making a joke, she made a small noise and smiled back. 

“Hey… That’s a nice piece of jewelry.  Wow, where did you get that?”  he reached out and grabbed her wrist delicately bringing it closer to his aging eyes “Wow!  That’s really old!”

“My mom gave it to me, she found it in some antique store she goes to all the time”

He turned her wrist over and side to side to look closer at the symbols.  “Hmm, that is an old symbol for protection and the other one here, the one with the numbers in it is an attack, no..”  he put his other hand to his chin “ah!  It is to help the wearer destroy evil, I think.. Does it have any other inscriptions on it? Maybe something written on the inside?”

Kate thought for a second to herself wondering if she should trust the man before her and since he was a pastor or a priest or something she took the chance.

“yeah, yeah it does.”  She took the bracelet off her arm scraping her skin in the process and gave it to him. 

“oh… Latin I see.  Interesting. “ he squinted his blue eyes to see the writing clearer. “to put Latin and Celtic symbols together it must be somewhere around the roman empire, But I am no expert in antiquities.”  He looked closer at the writing on the inside of the bracelet attempting to translate the ancient language.  “ I think it says something like blood tears and water?” he said questioning his transcription “Protect the hunter…”  Then he said the Latin phrase out loud “cruor lacrima quod unda suo protego venator”  and gave it jewelry back to Kate.  “That is an ancient peic eof jewelry my dear, quite interesting.  It may have been an old talisman that people thought would protect them from evil things they didn’t understand.  Quite A Find!”  And quite an experience for you, Your first baptism! Wow!”

“yeah, my first, are you sure that’s what it says?”

“Pretty shure.  I thinks, its been many years since I took Latin.” 

Just about that moment the door to the chapel opened and a small blonde woman dressed in Scooby –Do scrubs and needed sun worse than anyone in the history of the world stuck her head in the door, “oh excuse me Pastor, we are looking for a young lady, she may have come in here”

Oh! What’s her name?”

Kate, her parents are worried sick, seems she ran out of the ICU about an hour or so ago and no one can find her”

“I’m Kate”  she said realizing at that moment that her parents must be going crazy looking for her.