We arrive in a curtained-off section of the Emergency room together. A young woman reclines on a trolley bed while a nurse cleans a gash on her forehead. Her fair hair is matted with blood and her eyes are glazed in confusion, but she chatters to Nurse Susie, who is attending her.
"I can't stay here. My son's still at school. I'm feeling much better now."
"Sorry, Mrs Saunders, but we'll have to keep you here."
"Can I call my husband then? I need to see if he can pick up our son. I was running late. I didn't see the truck enter the intersection."
"We've already called your husband. He's on his way. Just try to relax and let us do our jobs."
"But my son?"
"Everything's been taken care of. Now we just need to take care of you and your baby."
Mrs Saunders' hands reach to her swollen belly.
I look around the ward but can't see any other patients in worse circumstances. I look at Niklaus but his focus is on the pregnant woman on the bed.
I lean over to him and instinctively use a hushed voice. "What are we doing here? I can't hear any bells."
"Ava, death happens all the time. You are only called to spirits that need your help to cross over. You won't hear the bells every time someone passes." Niklaus speaks in his usual tone and I'm reminded there was no need for me to whisper.
"So, is she dying?"
"Not yet, but she may soon. All I can hear right now is a dull ting, it will become louder depending on the choice she makes.
"Choice?"
People make choices every day that have the capacity to change the future for better or worse. Some moments are more significant than others."
"How is this moment significant?"
"It doesn't matter if she dies, but her baby must live. I don't just reap souls. Sometimes I get orders to manipulate a situation to save a life if the future hangs in the balance."
Matthews appears from between the curtains and strides up to the end of the bed. She tucks some paperwork into the back of the chart.
"What's the problem? Why can't I go home?"
Matthews cocks her eyebrow at the chart then looks at the patient. "We've confirmed you have a placental eruption from the trauma to your abdomen from the accident."
The woman tenses and cradles her stomach. "Is my baby going to be ok?"
Dr Matthews takes a consent form on a clipboard from a passing nurse. She closes the chart and places it at the foot of the bed. "We can save you both by delivering your baby via C-section and removing the damaged placenta while we stop the internal bleeding."
"But my baby isn't ready, I'm only 8 months."
"That's still a viable foetus. The baby will be cared for in our neonatal ward and should be fine to come home in a couple of weeks, maybe even less time than that if it's strong enough. This is the safest option, so long as you're willing to accept blood transfusions."
The patient bursts into tears and looks down at her stomach. "My religion forbids it." The woman leaves her stomach unguarded for a moment as she wipes away tears that had welled in her eyes.
"If you don't opt for surgery, you and the baby are likely to die."
"I know!" the woman cries.
Dr Matthews puts the clipboard on the woman's lap, takes a pen from her breast coat pocket and places it with the board. "Take a moment to think about yourself and your baby. Both of your lives are medically preventable deaths."
The woman sits and thinks for a moment, her chest heaving with repressed sobs. She pushes the clipboard away to feel where her bump is.
"Where's my husband? I need to talk to my husband!"
Nurse Susie puts a reassuring hand on hers and leans over the bed. "We've called him Mrs Saunders. He's on his way."
Matthews is watching the scene with an inscrutable expression as she taps her pen against the reclaimed chart. "Every moment counts Mrs Saunders – we don't have time to wait for him."
Mrs Saunders' eyes look around the room and her arms flail frantically. She can no longer contain her sobs and is on the point of becoming hysterical. I love watching Matthews when she's under pressure like this because I never know which way she's going to react.
"Nurse! Go to the nurses' station and see how far away Mr Saunders is. Now!"
Susie scurries away with a last sympathetic glance towards her distressed patient.
Matthews is beside the patient in an instant, leaning over her and speaking in an urgent whisper. "Listen, I know you think I don't understand, but I do. My family shares your beliefs, but when my father needed an urgent transfusion we decided to choose life. Nobody has to know. We didn't tell the congregation and he's alive and well today. It's your choice – even your husband doesn't need to know if you don't want us to tell him."
Mrs Saunders is no longer sobbing. Her eyes are wide, her breaths short and she's looking at Matthews in astonishment.
Niklaus strides over to the pregnant woman's side takes hold of her arm lightly and whispers something in her ear. In this moment the woman's face goes blank and she stares off into the distance. After Niklaus releases his grasp, she picks up the pen and scribbles on the consent form without really looking at it. As she hands it back to Matthews she murmurs, "I don't want my baby to die. Please do everything you can to save both of us. Try to avoid giving us blood, but I understand if you have to. Leave it to me to tell my husband. Or not." Niklaus leaves her bedside and comes to stand by me again.
Matthews grabs the clipboard and flings aside the curtains then she heads to the nurses' station. I follow her with Niklaus on my heels. Matthews snatches the consent form from under the clip and summons Susie to her side. "I'll arrange an operating room as soon as possible. Run some blood work on Mrs Saunders and mark it critically urgent. I want to get this surgery done as fast as possible, she's bleeding internally and I don't want her to change her mind at the last second about the surgery." The nurse nods her head and turns to leave. Matthews stops her at the last second and leans towards her ear.
"Also, put Mrs Saunders on suicide watch after the surgery, and arrange a councillor to go and see her after she wakes up."
Susie looks up in surprise. "Is that really necessary?"
"Yes, and we need to be mindful of confidentiality. She's risking being cast out of her religious community if they find out she's accepted blood. For some people, it's worse to be the living dead than dying a martyr for your beliefs."
Niklaus takes my hand and leads me down the corridor towards the lift. He pushes through the veil and presses the up button. The doors open and we enter. Niklaus inputs a floor and we begin our ascent.
I look up at him and see him in a new light. "So, you do try to save lives occasionally."
"Very occasionally. It's not something that is my choice, it is more of an order from those above me. Like I said, it doesn't matter if the woman dies, only that the baby shall live."
We exit the lift on the maternity ward, and I'm surprised to see that the sun is up and it's late afternoon. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust.
"Why? What's going to happen in the future?"
Niklaus is walking ahead of me towards the large window that displays all the newborn babies. He pauses and holds out his hand towards me and I take it instinctively.
"Come on," he says, "I want to show you." He leads me through the window in between the cribs till we come to a humidicrib holding a tiny baby. The nameplate reads 'baby of Mrs Julie Saunders'. Niklaus puts his hand through the plastic and rests on the baby's arm.
"Touch him, and I'll try to show you what I see."
I push my hand through the plastic humidicrib and touch the soft, warm skin of the baby.
"Now close your eyes and focus on the baby," Niklaus says as he places his hand on my cheek, perhaps in an attempt to transfer his power to me.
I close my eyes and feel the warmth of his touch. I hear the sound of distant cheering and through the mists of my mind I see an enormous crowd. I sense they are all here to see the baby, except that he's a grown man now, and he's at the centre of it all. Tall and dark with wavy hair and the look of victory beaming on his face pumps his fist high from behind a podium. An older version of Julie Saunders is sitting near him, clapping with tears of joy on her beaming face. As suddenly as it appears, the vision is gone.
"Did you see?" Niklaus peers at me intensely.
"I saw a big crowd, and a podium."
"Is that all? That was only the beginning. That's what's going to happen now the baby has been born. You didn't see the alternative?"
"No, just the crowd and Mrs Saunders looking at her son."
"In my vision the baby grows into a man who becomes a politician. He prevents a great war that would have caused an atomic catastrophe if it were to go ahead. Instead of tearing apart each country, he will unify them all under one centralised government. You only saw his election victory."
"Why can't I see all that?"
"Probably because you're not like me. You're in my domain, my plane of existence, so you must be absorbing some of my power. But you're not one of us – you were human."
"Us?"
Niklaus, perhaps realising his debt to me for the brief intimacy we shared together has been paid, withdraws into his usual cool demeanour.
"Yes, there are others like me."
"What about others like me?"
Niklaus sweeps his hand through his hair. Hedraws me close and kisses me lightly. "No. There's nobody like you." And hevanishes.