A Shift in the Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

body strained against her own skin. Stop! Focus! She held up her hand. Swallowing hard and shaking her head to rid herself of whatever was going on with her hearing, she looked the doctor in the eyes. “How long?”
    “Four months. Maybe five if we’re lucky. We’re not giving up, but you should . . . make arrangements. If you’ve ever wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, go skydiving, or take a cruise, now would be a good time.” Doctor Pendergast closed the folder with Mara’s test results. “I’m sorry.”
    Mara didn’t cry. She’d known. She saw death all the time in the neonatal ward. Babies born prematurely, birth defects. They all had a way about them—as if their tiny souls knew they weren’t long for the world. Mara could sense it. She and her coworkers always knew when a baby was about to die. She hadn’t voiced it to anyone, but late at night when she was alone in her bed, her soul hurt. Death hovered outside her door, waiting for her to succumb to the inevitable. “Will the transfusions keep me functional for most of that time?” she asked quietly.
    “Yes. At least through Christmas I’d say. After that . . . I can promise you that the end will be quick. When we can’t keep up with the degradation, it’ll be a day or two at the most. And it’ll be relatively painless. You’ll be too tired to get out of bed. Then too tired to stay awake. Then . . . it’ll be over.” Doctor Pendergast stood and came around to the other side of his desk. He knelt next to Mara’s chair and took her hand. “And I’ll promise you one other thing.”
    “What?”
    “You’ll spend the least amount of time possible in the hospital. We’re either going to solve this or we’re not. There’s no in-between. I won’t prolong your life unnecessarily unless you want me to.”
    “Okay. Thank you. I’ll update my living will. Make it easy on everyone. But right now, I should go. I’ve got four hours left on my shift and then I’m going to go out drinking. I’ve barely touched alcohol in the past few months and Zig Zag has one of the best scotch selections in the city.”
    Doctor Pendergast smiled. “That’s good. Get out and live. I want you back here in nine days this time. Agreed?”
    Mara squeezed the doctor’s hand. “Agreed.”

    Katerina paced the living room of the small house on Orcas Island. Autumn was fading into what promised to be a dreary and cold winter. The first few weeks of November had been nothing but rain, wind, and fog. It dampened her natural flame and weakened her. She missed Phoenix where her element burned bright and hot. Jeremy kept the fire in the bedroom stoked twenty-four hours a day and the sauna in the basement was well over one-twenty. It was the only way she could survive.
    She played with the pendant that hung between her breasts. It had been her mother’s—the only memento she had of Kylie. For the first twelve years of her life she’d been happy. They weren’t rich, but they’d had a nice apartment, food on the table every night, and love. Her father played the guitar in the evenings, her mother sang her to sleep when she was frightened, and her baby sister, Mara, was Katerina’s whole world. After Mara’s birth, the four of them had six perfect months together. Their father, Phil, was building Mara a new crib. Kylie worked as a glassblower and made beautiful sculptures aided by her fire element.
    Katerina had watched Caldwell Bowman kill her mother. Kylie had brought her into the desert that night to introduce her to her element. Katerina remembered the thrill of the elemental song filling her ears. A low-pitched melody, it had become a part of her that night and she’d spent the next few years desperately trying to recapture it. Without a mother to teach her, she’d struggled, and hadn’t worked her first successful charm until her twenty-first birthday.
    Now, she was one of the most powerful fire elementals in the southwest—perhaps one of the strongest anywhere.