backwards. A crazy urgency filled her chest and she stood up, nearly smashing her head on the ceiling.
God is calling for you. God is there, with Alejo. He gave him back his sight. And He wants you to go.
“I’m coming back,” Wara said into the phone, then closed it tightly. She staggered down the aisle, ignoring the curious glances of the other seated passengers. There was just one thought ransacking her brain the whole time, speeding her heart into overdrive.
Who is coming?
Wara exited the silver elevator on Alejo’s floor at Univalle, tiptoeing across the polished tiles. The nurses’ station was silent and empty; a phone rang insistently on the desk, but no one ran to answer it. She inhaled raggedly and pushed open the heavy wooden door to the room she had left just a few hours before.
Wara immediately noticed that Doña Filomena was gone, but two strangers clustered around the hospital bed. One was a tall, lanky guy with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, buzzed sandy brown hair, and a hooked nose. At the other side of the bed stood an attractive lady, older than Wara, with two short black braids and fair skin. They were both dressed in cheap clothes and black rubber flip flops with a healthy coating of dry mud. As Wara drew up next to them, the woman was pulling off the last of Alejo’s bloodied bandages.
His hazel eyes flickered towards her as she entered, and she immediately knew he could see her. That crazy grin spread across his lips as he said, “I can see you, Wara.”
She gaped back at him, still not quite believing this. “You can really see. Did you tell Dr. Ortega?”
“Well, I was about to, but then I got some more visitors. I think it’s time for check out.” Alejo’s eyes shone, and Wara stared, speechless. The two people who were making themselves at home in the room seemed as happy about Alejo getting his sight back as he was. The two just stood there, nodding and grinning as if there were nothing strange about a man getting his sight back by the power of God.
Suddenly Wara’s knees buckled. There were two of them?
“There isn’t much time.” The man with the wide shoulders and military haircut clapped Alejo’s shoulder with slender fingers. His eyes drooped slightly, but the corners of his mouth were lifted in a smile. “You must be Wara.”
Wara nodded dumbly, still struck by the fact that there were two of them. These were the messengers Alejo had been told about? Who were these people?
“We would like you and Alejo to come with us,” the strange man was addressing Wara. “There’s someone who would like to talk with you. Alejo told me that both of you are believers in Jesus? Well then, rest easy. The man who wants to see you is a believer as well, your brother. But if you will come, we have to hurry. There isn’t much time.”
The stout woman with the two braids turned towards Wara, and she found herself looking into deep eyes the color of chocolate, rimmed at the edge with a touch of turquoise. “Will you come with us?” Wara noted that her Spanish was accented, as was the man’s. Something she couldn’t place.
Instinctively, Wara’s gaze flew to Alejo. It was because of him that she was standing here in the middle of this craziness. He nodded at her and winked. “O-ok,” she agreed in a daze. “I’ll go.”
The two visitors grinned a little, and the woman motioned towards Alejo. “Quick, come see this!” Wara took a few steps forward and saw that she was pointing to the spot where Alejo’s bandages had been, the wound from the bullet. Wara’s eyes popped to see that where Alejo’s curls were shaved away there was only healthy, mocha-colored skin. No trace of a scar.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen a healing?” the man asked, turning towards Wara with that lazy half-smile. She nodded mutely, and he nodded back at her kindly, as if to say, We all have to start somewhere.
“Alright, then. Time to change,” the woman ordered, guiding Wara forward with one hand on her back “Both of you, in the bathroom. We paid about ten patients to keep the nurses busy, but we should hurry.”
Wara felt very hot, sure sweat was dripping down her backbone under her t-shirt. Into the bathroom?
“You, over here,” Ms. Braids motioned Wara towards one of the bathroom corners. “We’re going to get you into