Alysson deMerel's Fiction

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High Street Miracle

I knew that I was dying. I had died before, and I knew that I would die again. It generally happened every thirty to forty years. Sometimes I died before my time, but that was all right. I died, but I never, ever took my own life.

This time, I had occupied the body of a young man who had just died of a brain haemorrhage brought on by a fever. I repaired the damage to the corpse’s body as soon as the spirit had fled, and slid into the embrace of his flesh. I wasn’t very good at hearts, they are tricky things at best, and this one was damaged. Ironically, brain damage is simple, but the heart, no.

Since being evicted from my own body I had sojourned in over a dozen of these re-animated corpses. It sounds dreadful, and perhaps it is, but the owner had left the flesh, having lived his allotted time, and before the body had started to die cell by cell, I had repaired the fatal damage and restarted the metabolism.

Some might suggest that my body was a golem, others a zombie. All I know is that it would be home to my dispossessed spirit until the end of the body’s life. In over three hundred years I had worn more than a dozen bodies. All second hand, all faulty in some way, and all male.

This irritated me beyond belief, since I had started out as a woman. I was young, I was fit, I was a warrior without equal, except for my sister, perhaps. There was a war, and a trap had been set. The only escape from the trap was through the trap. I went first in order to save my sister. I found myself cast adrift, a soul without a body. My world snatched from beneath me, I found a new place, in a dead man’s body.

This time, the body had at least been young and fairly strong. The physical memories were still fresh in the brain I now occupied. I had a place in this world, a history. Anything that was missing had been lost during the seizure, and was accounted for by the fever, and the long illness that followed. I was always careful to hide the fact that I had repaired the body I wore, even though, after taking up residence, I could heal it no more.

Now I was dying. The heart of this body was failing slowly but surely enough. I had, perhaps, ten years left before travelling on to my next fleshly residence. I had made a life, a bit mixed up, perhaps - I had, understandably, lost track of events that had occurred in different lives, and I was still covering the errors. Happily, so far, I had never met anyone from a previous existence to make life difficult.

I was working in a school. I like children, but the dead cannot give rise to new life. That seems to be one of the rules. So I surrounded myself with them, as surrogate sons and daughters. I would be sorry to see them pass beyond my knowledge, since I had no idea where I would find my next home, or when. Sometimes years would pass before I found a new accommodation.

On that fateful day I was down town during my lunch break. I passed the time with a few of the older pupils who had errands in town. I saw one of the younger girls who had been absent for some time. She looked deathly ill. Her mother was with her; I knew the family socially, though not that well. Margaret’s father had died just two years before, a heart attack at thirty five.

"Hello, Margaret, how are you?"

" ‘lo, sir," she murmured, "not too bad. ‘n you?"

"Not bad, Margaret. When are we likely to see you back at the dump?"

A wan smile flickered across her features.
" ‘prolly not, sir. They say I’m not going to get better."

I looked at the child’s mother. She shook her head. I could see the slow failure spreading throughout the child’s body, and my soul reached out to her, and her mother.

"How long?" I mouthed.

"Weeks, days, hours? They say she should have died long since," the woman murmured.

I gave the child a brotherly hug, and told her not to eat too much jelly. I gave her mother a hug, too, mentally trying to will her strength.

The two turned and stepped off of the pavement. There was a screech, and I instinctively dived forward, pushing Margaret’s mother away from the car while grabbing the girl, and rolling with her tucked in front of me.

There was a noise, and I felt something hit my back. The pain was only momentary, and not excessive. I hit my head on a parked car as we rolled, and I saw purple stars.

I propped myself, and held the child to me.

"You alright, Margaret?"

"I hurt, sir. I think I’ve hurt myself."

"Me too. I think you can call me Roger, Roj if you prefer."

"Thank you, sir. I love you, sir, thank you for trying."

She shuddered and passed into unconsciousness. What a waste of a life, I thought.

I turned my mind toward my self. Something was broken in my back, and I couldn’t feel my body below my rib cage. My legs were a mystery. My sight was growing dim, and I knew that this was the end. Something had cut loose in my head, and I was dying. I had perhaps a minute or two.

I bent my mind toward the injured and sick girl in my arms, and tried with all of my will to make her well, but it was beyond my ability. The gods had forbidden such interference. The strain dimmed my senses into premature night.

I managed to whisper, "Good bye Margaret."
... and I died.

I was aware of a body. I reached out and repaired the massive damage to its systems. There were injuries and there was a creeping sickness. I healed the body to the best of my ability, leaving only a few superficial injuries to hide the miracle I had wrought.

Then I became aware of another essence. One I felt I should recognise. It seemed distant, and I couldn’t seem to reach it, so I eased myself into the empty body I had so recently finished working upon.

I found myself sharing a body with Margaret.

*Thank you, Roger,* she said mentally, as I recoiled from the contact, leaving the body behind.

I would not, indeed, could not defile the body of another while the owner was still in residence. I felt mentally for another vacant body, but there was none. I resigned myself to limbo for the foreseeable future, giving silent thanks that I had been able to help the child that I had tried to save.

No, this was different. I felt an unravelling. I had rejected a host body, and presumably I had to take the first offered to me or die in spirit as I surely had in body so long ago.

I began to lose myself; there was a feeling of presence, as gentle as an angel’s prayer, as distant as the stars and as powerful as a supernova. I felt a warmth and a lightness I had never known before.

I felt as though a light were shining through the memory of my body, the memory, perhaps, of my real body. There was a sense of a being, so vast and powerful, yet gentle and benign. I felt as though I was being examined under a microscope. There was a sudden, dizzying shift of perception.

Someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes and lifted my head to see who had touched me, as I sat hiding my eyes from the horrible scene I had witnessed.

I looked up at Margaret, now healthy and strong, if a little bruised, and her mother, who bore a few cuts and bruises but nothing worse.

"Come on Rachael, the police will need to speak to us later. The ambulance has taken Mr K. away. He saved Mom’s and my lives, but they don’t think he’ll make it."

All I could say was, "Yes, he made it alright."

I climbed to my feet. I had a set of memories appropriate to a fourteen year old girl, Margaret’s sister, Rachael. I also recalled that until a short while ago, Margaret had been an only child.

As we sat in the back of our mother’s car, my new sister and I huddled together.

"Only we two know. They had to cover up your miracle, Roj, and it’s no more effort to cover up two miracles than one. Besides, I always wanted an identical twin sister."

"No, Maggs, Roger King died in a road accident, I’m Rachael. Now and forever."

Margaret sneezed and blew her nose. "I’ll be glad to get rid of this flu and get back to school."

"So will I," I said, daintily blowing my nose on a tissue. "I’ve never attended my own memorial service before."

We both started to cry. And that was that.