"Oh, good. You're here, Lisa," Peter said, flashing me a smile of relief. "You're great with kids. Can you help me with this?"

"What have we here?" I asked.

A young boy of about six with soft brown hair and lots of freckles was curled up into a tight ball, his thin arms holding his belly, tears wetting his face and shirt as he wailed with pain. His mother, a young brunette, gripped the stretcher rails with white knuckles and chewed her lower lip helplessly.

"Kurt was fine until an hour ago when he said his stomach hurt," the mother said, sizing me up, uncertainty in her brown eyes.

I knew that look. Why am I talking to you and not the doctor? it said.

It was entirely my fault. I've always looked younger than my age of twenty-one. No complaint here, but this was the medical profession. Credentials on the wall and silver in your hair went a long way with patients. But one thing I've learned: Don't judge their judgment. Just do what you have to do.

"Kurt," I said, stroking the child's damp forehead. "Is that your name, honey?"

At my touch, Kurt opened his eyes. His big, brown, trusting eyes studied mine, unknowingly opening the window of his soul to me. Our souls bonded and he was mine. Calmness came over the boy's face and his crying stopped.

"Now can you show me where it hurts, Kurt?"

His eyes fixed on me with wonderment and curiosity, Kurt uncurled his arms and pointed to a spot above his belly button. "It hurts here," he said in a clear, high voice.

I touched the spot.

Kurt tensed, but didn't resist. "It hurts when you touch it," he said, tears spiking his long lashes.

"I'll be very gentle," I promised, and placed the heart of my palm over his abdomen.

The power within me stirred, coming to the fore from the depths within, taking over me entirely as if I was merely a vehicle through which it channeled itself into the world. When the boy opened the window of his soul, it was really the eye of my power that gazed through my lenses and reached out to the child. It came forward at the call of pain, not at the urging of my will—a cycle of energy that stirred from its root within me but could only be completed by the beckoning of another.