Ella Awakened Read Online Free PDF

of it as possible.  I’ll sit with you.  I’m sure
you have questions for me.”
    Ella
returned to the bedroom while Burke went to the kitchen to get the tray.  He
had changed the sheets and remade the bed.  Her dirty clothes were gone, and he
had moved her duffle bag.  She was still standing and looking around when Burke
returned with the tray.
    “Everything
all right?” he asked her.
    “Fine, I
just didn’t see my bag.”  There was a slightly weird silence.  “I just wanted
an elastic to pull my hair back,” Ella added, to break it.
    Burke set
the tray on the bedside table, walked over to the closet, and opened it.  Her
bag was right there on the closet floor.  Ella felt silly; she didn’t know what
she had been feeling.  It was just strange having him baby her so much.  She’d
always been independent - almost to a fault.  She didn’t want to feel like she
needed anyone.  On the other hand, she really didn’t want to hurt his
feelings.  There was something about Burke that comforted her whether she was
quick to admit it to herself or not.  She decided she needed to chill out.  She
didn’t argue as he motioned her toward the bed and got the hair band for her. 
After she put her hair up, she leaned back against the pillows and let him set
the tray across her lap.
    He had made
the same tea, but it was cold this time and served over ice.  There was warm
buttered bread and some kind of soup.  Picking up the spoon, she tasted the soup. 
It was delectable.  “Is this homemade?” she asked him.
    “Chicken
soup is one of the greatest discoveries of mankind.  I always go overboard when
I make it, so I can freeze some.  Don’t look so surprised; I like to cook. 
Most healers do.  We enjoy combining herbs and spices.”  Burke noticed the
slight furrowing of Ella’s brow, and the paling of her skin. “There’s a pill
there on the napkin.  You’re being very brave Ella, but I can tell your
headache is intensifying.”
    “What is
it?” she asked, picking up the pill and turning it over in her palm.
    “Demerol. 
It’s the same thing I gave you last night.  I don’t have everything here that I
had back home, or you wouldn’t need something like that.  Combined with the tea,
you’ll sleep well, the headache will be better, and you won’t feel nauseated.”
    Ella took
the pill.
    “I know you
must have a lot of questions.  Go ahead,” Burke encouraged and he sat down at
the foot of the bed.
    “Okay, first
of all, in the picture you showed me you look exactly like you do now and not a
day older.  That picture is ten years old.”
    “We don’t
age like humans, Ella.  We live longer, and we don’t get sick as much.  I’d
never heard of cancer or many other diseases before coming here.”
    “How old are
you?”
    “Forty-three,
but by human standards I guess my body is in its early to mid-twenties.”
    “How long
will you live?”
    “Our life
expectancy is five to six times longer than that of a human.  We age similarly
through the first twenty years, but once we reach adulthood everything slows
down.  I say five to six times because the common folk don’t live quite as long
as healers or warriors.  Warriors have the strongest bodies and the longest
life expectancy with healers coming in a close second.”
    Ella almost
choked on a piece of bread.  “Wait a minute, are you telling me I’ll live to be
six hundred years old?”
    “Around six
hundred, give or take, if you die of old age.”
    Ella sat in
stunned silence.  The implications were mind boggling.  What could a person
experience and witness in six hundred years?  Not to mention lose.  She would
watch generations come and go.  “And you, you’ll live that long too?”
    “Close. 
I’ve probably got a good five hundred or so years left in me.  Five hundred and
fifty if I lay off the red meat,” Burke smiled.
    “You say you
were my father’s best friend.  Why weren’t you a part of my life growing