Pulse of Heroes (24 page)

“Waves do act like giants at times,” he
replied.

Elliot led Michelle into the kitchen where
she met Öndóttr. He shook her hand and introduced himself. “But you
can call me Ando, they all do,” he said looking at Elliot and Kahl.
They nodded in agreement.

“Would it be rude if I asked where your
accent is from?” Michelle asked Ando. He answered proudly that he
was Scandinavian, originally from Norway, and also the talented
chef for the night. Michelle told him that she could smell whatever
it was that he was cooking all the way upstairs. She marveled to
herself that despite almost drowning in the sea, she still hadn’t
lost her craving for seafood. Ando told Michelle that he would be
honored if she would eat with them, and asked Michelle to come see
what he had been preparing. Michelle joined him, walking away from
Elliot and Kahl as if they weren’t even there. The two looked at
one another, amused, and Kahl spoke to Elliot in Aramaic, teasing
him that Michelle was not in the palm of his hand as he thought she
might be. Elliot answered back that he didn’t even want her there
to begin with. But Kahl didn’t stick around long enough to hear
what Elliot had to say, leaving him as he turned to follow
Michelle.

Ando was showing Michelle how he had
marinated fish in white wine and cider vinegar, telling her that
the dish would not be ready until it was very cold. He then showed
her the three large abalones that Elliot had brought back with him
from the beach. Michelle looked back at Elliot who was leaning
against the kitchen entryway, obviously entertained by Ando’s food
show. Michelle raised her eyes questioningly, but Elliot just
smiled and she smiled back. It was obvious that everything felt
different when there was a woman around. Elliot loved his friends
and had known them for many years, enough years to feel that they
were his family, but with Michelle’s energy in the house it
actually felt like home, a real home. Was he crazy for even
thinking such notions, he wondered to himself? Hadn’t he lived
through enough misery?

On any given day the guys ate whenever they
were hungry. No one sat together for a meal unless it was planned
ahead. But with Michelle there, Ando wouldn’t let any of them touch
the food, insisting that they had to sit at the table and eat like
a real dinner. Yes, there was something about women that brought
light into a room, an excitement and cheerfulness. Had he missed
it, Elliot asked himself as he sat down across from Michelle, who
was glowing despite all her bruises. Ando brought over the abalone
chowder while Kahl was still deep-frying battered abalone steaks.
Once everyone finally sat down to eat, it felt natural for all of
them, Michelle included, to talk about ordinary things like the
latest movies or music. Every once in a while, Michelle would look
up at Elliot and he would do the same to her, but they didn’t say
anything to one another.

For Michelle, things couldn’t have been more
fantastic. She was well fed and cared for, sitting amidst the most
handsome guys she had ever seen, anywhere. And best of all, Elliot
seemed more relaxed and he even smiled at her once in a while. Ando
was something of an enigma to her. He was a bit stiff, but when he
talked about fish and cooking it was like watching a small child
describing the first ice cream sundae they have ever had. She
should have guessed he was Scandinavian, as he was unusually tall
and wide with cool blue eyes, and light blond hair. He also had
exceptionally fair skin and a pronounced angular jaw. Michelle
thought that he was like a model for the Nordic god look, even if
she was just generalizing.

Once the meal was finished, Michelle helped
Ando with the dishes while Elliot took out the trash. He enjoyed
fish as much as any of them, but didn’t like to let its smell
linger for too long. While helping put the dishes away, Michelle
suddenly remembered that she hadn’t fed Crumb.

“What day is this?” Michelle asked Ando in a
worried voice. He had to think about it for a while before he told
her that he thought it was Friday, but he wasn’t sure.

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” a very
confused Michelle asked him.

“Well, it could be Friday, but it could also
be Saturday.”

“Saturday!” Michelle cut him off. “I need to
go, now! My cat hasn’t eaten since Thursday morning when my parents
left.”

Michelle ran upstairs, grabbed her backpack
and sped back downstairs ignoring everything, even her own pain.
Elliot asked her what all the running was about, especially in her
condition? Michelle answered that Crumb hadn’t eaten for two days,
and how scared and lonely he must be. She had to go, now.

Elliot explained to her that it was only
Friday evening, and asked her if she was planning to walk home
barefoot. That’s right, Michelle thought, she had lost her shoes in
the water. Could he maybe give her a ride, she asked? But Elliot
told her that Xander had taken the Thunderbird and he had no idea
when he would be back, so either she would have to wait or borrow a
pair of shoes from him.

“Don’t you have your own car?” Michelle asked
Elliot as they walked back to her house. Elliot told her that he
had sold his car a month before moving to Willow’s Creek, and he
was gearing up to buy a new one soon.

“Where did you move from?” Michelle wanted to
know.

Elliot told her that he and the rest of the
guys at the school had lived in Italy for about three years.
Michelle was confused about why all of them would live together
over there? By this time, she had realized that the
Hekademos
Learning Center
was no ordinary school. Elliot described it as
a safe house of sorts, where students and past students could
always stop by and stay if they liked. They all moved around a lot,
he explained. But Michelle was still thinking about the ‘safe
house’ statement, meaning safe from what, she wondered? Elliot knew
that it would take time for Michelle to understand the whole story
and its complexities; it wasn’t going to be a ten-minute talk. He
decided to save the more intricate facts for another day, or maybe
he could still get away with giving her only part of the whole
truth.

By the time they reached Michelle’s house she
was weary and sore. She had refused to let Elliot carry her through
the woods, and suffered for her stubbornness as she walked slowly
and in pain wearing a pair of his boots. Michelle needed to rest.
Her body had been through so much abuse the previous day that it
was going to need bed-rest for a few more days to fully recover. As
they entered the house, Michelle went straight to the kitchen and
gave Crumb food and fresh water. Elliot stood by the front door and
seemed to feel uncomfortable stepping inside.

“You can come in. It’s not like you haven’t
been here before,” Michelle said to him. Elliot walked into the
living room and looked around while Michelle watched him intently,
slowly lowering her bruised body into her dad’s favorite armchair.
Elliot’s boots slipped off her feet and made a loud thud sound as
they hit the floor.

“Elliot, I thank you for everything you’ve
done to take care of me, but are you ever going to tell me the
truth, or is lying one of your hobbies too?” she asked without
betraying any of her emotions. Elliot swallowed hard and sat down
on the corner of the couch to face her. He knew that he had to make
a choice, to either tell her everything, or just walk away and
never see her again.

“I’m not like you Michelle. I am very
different from most people,” Elliot said, looking straight into
Michelle’s eyes so she could see that he was being sincere.
Michelle wasn’t surprised; she already knew that, but to hear
Elliot say those words gave her great relief. She wanted to know
how and why he was different. He told her that he and everyone at
the school had physical abilities that other humans did not
possess. She asked him if he was gifted, or if he was even human at
all?

“I don’t know what I am, any more than you
know exactly what you are,” he answered. Michelle gave out a little
nervous laugh and replied that she knew exactly what she was.
Elliot asked her to tell him.

“I’m a human being. A girl living in
California.”

“So you have been told and labeled, but by
who? By other humans such as yourself,” he answered for her. Elliot
asked that if people knew exactly who and what they were, then why
did they constantly continue searching for more and more answers.
Why did archaeologists and paleontologists search the vast world
for evidence of the so-called ‘beginning’ of humanity? Why were
bones of ancient hominids studied and scrutinized to see where they
fit into human evolution. Why the search for the elusive missing
link? Why did historians keep probing further and further back into
time? Why did theologists and other religious scholars search the
Bible and other ancient texts, even clay tablets? What were they
all looking for if the answers were already known? Michelle had
never thought about such subjects in quite those terms. She had
always assumed that people searched for things out of curiosity. It
was what they did for fun, for their job, for…

Michelle looked at Elliot. “I understand what
you’re saying, but what does that have to do with you?”

“I’m still searching, just like everyone
else. All of us at the school are, and there are others out there.”
Now Michelle really didn’t understand. Was Elliot an archaeologist
or a researcher? What did he mean by ‘searching’. Elliot stood up
and walked over to where Michelle was sitting. He asked her to give
him one of her hands, and she did. Michelle was curious and a
little apprehensive about what was going to happen next, but she
was also just happy to be touching him. He was back and he was with
her. Elliot raised her shirtsleeve to uncover a large bruise on her
forearm. In an instant his eyes began to change their hue, and
Michelle saw his pupils radiating iridescent sparks of color. She
had seen the strange sight before, but never so close up; it was
mesmerizing. Elliot closed his eyes, and after a few seconds
Michelle began to feel a warm sensation traveling from his
fingertips to hers, then all the way up her arm. She remembered
that he had done something similar to her leg when she hurt it from
the fall. The warmth lessened Michelle’s pain. The bruise was still
there but it was no longer causing such discomfort. After a few
seconds, Elliot let go of her hand and looked at her.

“How did you do that? What did you do?”
Michelle asked in amazement.

“I instructed your blood cells to release
more oxygen around the bruise, which will accelerate the healing. I
also ordered your brain to release larger amounts of pain reducing
neurotransmitters like endorphins, enkephaline, and GABA.

“What do you mean instructed them? Like they
speak English?” she wanted to know. Elliot explained that he wasn’t
really talking to them; it was more like willing them. He had
studied medicine and knew the essentials of human physiology. But
it was his own body that could pick up on the different energies of
the neurotransmitters. He just stimulated the sites with
electromagnetic energy.

“Aren’t you too young to be a doctor?”
Michelle asked. And Elliot told her that he wasn’t. “So you’re some
kind of super healer. Wow. How did you find out you can do this?
Wait, shouldn’t you helping everyone?” Michelle said excitedly, and
got off the armchair as if she had healed completely. Elliot told
her that he had helped plenty of people already, but it wasn’t him
that healed the body; it was the body’s own remedial mechanisms
that did the job. He told her that he did have some control over
living organisms, and even some other things that contained immense
amounts of energy, but he couldn’t cure someone from cancer; that
was beyond his powers. Michelle started to get a little
uncomfortable because everything he was telling her was all
starting to sound like madness. She backed away, and Elliot showed
a twinge of sadness.

“Are you an alien?” she asked, freaking
out.

“No!” Elliot answered, stepping towards the
front door.

Michelle knew that she had hurt his feelings.
She followed him. “Are you just psychic or something?” she asked,
grasping at his shirt. Elliot looked at Michelle’s hand on his arm
and felt conflicted. Part of him wanted to stay with her and tell
her everything, but another part of him could see that she was too
young to deal with his reality. Without turning to face her, he
told her that he wasn’t psychic. He couldn’t read people’s minds,
although he could sense their general state of being. Michelle took
her hand off his arm. “Then what are you sensing from me right
now?” she asked, nervous that he might sense that she didn’t want
him to leave.

“You are scared, scared of me, but you are
curious, and your heart is beating faster then a few moments ago,
which means that you’re nervous, and slightly panicked.” Elliot
turned to face her. Michelle felt self-conscious because he was
right. She was scared of him, even though he had saved her life
just one day earlier. She tried to calm herself down and think more
rationally. She didn’t want to hurt Elliot’s feelings, not
ever.

“I guess I am a little nervous,” Michelle
said, apologizing.

“And why shouldn’t you be? I am, after all,
not like you, and I do things that are impossible for normal
people. I’m not like other human beings, and I never will be, so I
guess you’re looking at a creature different than yourself.”

“Then what are you?” she wanted to know.

Elliot looked at the floor, then back up at
Michelle. He had already said more than he had meant to for one
evening, and he didn’t want to give the poor girl nightmares,
especially after all she had already been through. He gently placed
his hands on Michelle’s shoulders. “Michelle, I don’t want you to
be scared of me. You can call me a freak, and it wouldn’t really be
wrong because compared to you, I am. But don’t think of me as
something frightening, like a monster. Honestly, I really don’t
know exactly what I am. None of us at the school has ever come up
with a solid answer. And I… I have personally been searching for
that answer for thousands of years.”