“Man, I’ve waited years to show you that!” Blue grinned.
“How . . . How are you doing this?” Ben murmured, sounding on the edge of panic.
“We just do.” Ander shrugged.
Joby had never seen Ben truly frightened before. Seeing it now scared him worse than all the rest. Ben started backing toward the logs they’d been sitting on, looking dazed and short of breath. He stumbled into them and sat heavily, as if he might lose consciousness. Before Joby could react, Jake appeared from somewhere, leaning down to grab Ben’s shoulders. Ben flinched and pulled away.
“Chill, dude!” Nacho said in obvious alarm. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”
Joby waved the others off. “Ben?” he said, uncertainly. The world he knew was doing flip-flops, just as Father Crombie had warned, but what he most wanted back was Ben—strong, sure, confident Ben. “Freaking out’s my job, remember?” he teased nervously. “You’re kind of horning in on my territory here.”
“Joby, look how they’re . . . messing with us! They’ve slipped us something! We could be into anything here!” He looked around in fear. “What do you all want?”
“Ben, it’s okay,” Joby said. “I know these people.”
“You don’t know jack!” Ben blurted out. “People can’t turn into . . . into things!”
“He’s in shock,” Jake sighed. “Just needs some time.” He turned to Nacho. “The candle trick was a little much, don’t you think?”
“Hey! He asked for more light!” Nacho protested throwing up his hands. “I was just trying to accommodate.” But Joby saw contrition on his face.
“I guess we overdid it,” Sky said, glancing at the others.
“Ben, it’s completely okay,” said yet another familiar voice, and Joby whirled to see Hawk walking toward them across the bridge. “No one’s gonna do anything to you.”
“Oh God,” Ben groaned in what sounded like despair. “Even you? Is . . . Laura—”
“Mom’s got nothing to do with any of it,” Hawk assured him, stopping an arm’s length away. “She doesn’t even know. Not much blood in me either, I guess.” He shrugged in obvious disappointment. “I can’t do much compared to the others.”
“Well, if you’ve got any at all,” said Joby, “then Laura must too.”
Hawk shook his head. “We’d have known by now. I guess it was my dad,” he said, looking even more downcast.
“Hawk,” Joby said. “What they’re telling us . . . Is this all true?”
“Far as I know,” Hawk said. “They believe it, and the things we do are real enough. I can do a few things.”
Thinking of the deer, and half-afraid to know, Joby asked, “Can you turn into . . . something else?”
Hawk looked down sadly and shook his head. “Like I said, I’m too weak.”
Ben was staring dully at Hawk, and to Joby’s relief, his panic seemed to be subsiding. When he spoke again, his voice was filled with something more like resignation. “I was wrong,” Ben said to Father Crombie. “About everything. I don’t know if I can handle . . . any of this. I should have listened to you. I’m sorry. I just didn’t—”
“I felt just as you do once,” Crombie reassured him, “but I lived, as I suspect you will. My assumptions had been hardening for even longer than yours have, after all.”
“So . . . how many more of you are hiding in the bushes?” Ben asked, trying to smile.
“Only those Joby has known best have come,” said Crombie. “We thought it would be easier that way. But there are many more in town.”
“Come on out,” Jake said to no one in particular, “but no more fancy stuff.”
First Jupiter and Swami, then Tom Connolly and his daughter, Rose, appeared from between the trees, a bit too gracefully. Rose came to Hawk’s side, smiling shyly at Joby. Then a sudden gust of wind blew up from nowhere, swirling leaves and trails of dust around Joby and Ben, and Cob was standing beside them, grinning like a lunatic.
“Asshole,” Jupiter muttered.
“A little joke!” Cob protested, hunching his shoulders in classic Bob fashion. “I couldn’t help it.” His head bounced forward as if slapped from behind, and Cob yelped as Cal appeared from thin air at his shoulder.
“Couldn’t help that either, fool,” Cal growled at Cob. “Tryin’ a give ’em both another heart attack?”
Cob gave Cal a shove, but Nacho snapped, “Cut it out, you clueless richards! Didn’t you hear what Jake said?”
“Sorry,” Cal said to Ben and Joby. “Cob don’t know when to quit, sometimes.”
Ben barked a quiet laugh, and the tension seemed suddenly to drain from all around the clearing. “Can’t be that much angel in either one of you.” He grinned wanly.
“It is hard sometimes to believe you guys are almost twenty,” Joby agreed.
“Lot older than that,” Cal bragged.
Cob ribbed him in the side.
“What!” Cal protested, rubbing at his ribs. “Don’t matter now!”
“What does that mean?” Joby asked.
Cal looked guilty, but Sky said, “Hey, it’s not exactly a secret anymore, is it?”
“Some of us don’t age that fast.” Cal shrugged.
“Ain’t that the truth!” Nacho jeered, glaring at Cal and Cob.
“Look who’s talking, ‘perpetual freshman’!” Cob jeered back.
Rose rolled her eyes and sighed.
“How old are you then?” Joby asked.
Cal shrugged. “ ’Bout thirty, I guess. Ain’t paid that much attention.”
“No way,” Ben said.
“So,” Joby asked in renewed disbelief, “you were . . . twenty-four when you started high school?”
“We go more or less whenever we like,” Cal said.
“More than once sometimes,” Cob added.
“No one notices?” Ben insisted.
“Those who pay attention see as much as they wish to,” said a familiar voice up on the rise above them. “Those who don’t wish to know, don’t pay attention.” Joby and Ben looked up to see Solomon coming down the path toward the bridge. Joby was hardly surprised to find that Solomon was fey as well. The old man waved casually, and Joby found himself waving back, as if nothing were amiss.
Joby looked at Jake and asked, “So, how old are you?”
“I’ve been seeing to things around here for a pretty long time,” Jake replied. As he spoke, the luminescence Nacho had cast around them glinted from the golden stubble on Jake’s upper lip and chin, and Joby finally knew where he had seen that face before meeting Jake at Mrs. Lindsay’s.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Joby said. “On that bench when I was here the first time.”
Jake nodded with a small, wry smile.
Joby shook his head in dull amazement, then turned to Ander. “Was that you I ran into as a kid, swimming in the bay that morning?”
Ander shook his head. “That was Blue. He got all wadded up about being seen. We teased him pretty bad.”
“Guess you won’t be teasing anybody now,” said Blue.
Ander looked abashed.
“So . . . are you all that old?” Ben asked, looking from one to the next of them.
“I’m just twenty,” said Rose, “pretty much like I seem. We all have different gifts. Some age slowly, some don’t, but we’re just human beings like you, really.”
“Who turn into birds and seals,” Ben replied. “What do you turn into, Rose?”
“Nothing,” Rose said self-consciously. “I just talk to plants.”
“Oh,” Ben said, recovered enough to be sarcastic again. “Is that all.”
“Lots of us can’t change,” Swami said. “I can’t. You’ve got to be pretty strong in the blood for that.”
“And raised to it from the start,” Solomon interjected. “Those born here are most apt to have the talent. The necessary faith is harder to learn the later one starts.”
As they’d talked, the full wonder of it all had been dawning on Joby. The
re was magic, real magic, in the world! In some ways it was as scary as Crombie had warned, but in other ways . . . “What I wouldn’t give to be like you guys,” he sighed.
“You are.” Ander shrugged. “How else do you think you caught me this morning? Some of our tricks don’t work so well on others of the blood.”
Joby stared at Ander in utter disbelief.
“You were always stickin’ your big nose where you shouldn’t have been able.” Jupiter grinned. “Like that day you saw me in the woods. Course, some of us were smart enough even then to figure out you must be of the blood too,” he said, looking smugly at Nacho. “So I didn’t mind too much. Just started training you to be a Taubolt stud.”
Joby shook his head, knowing it could not be true.
“You did it the first day you got here.” Rose smiled. “Me and Bellindi had set up a circle ward, but you heard us like it wasn’t even there.”
“Everyone thought you were some kind of spy,” Hawk laughed.
“No!” Joby blurted out. “You can’t be right! I’ve never done a magical thing in my—”
“Yes, you have,” Ben cut him off.
Joby turned in disbelief to find Ben watching him with bald envy.
“Everything you did when we were kids was magic, Joby. Whatever you touched turned to gold.” Ben looked down and sighed, “I should have known, you lucky bastard.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Joby growled. “If anyone was magic, it was you. All I ever wanted was to be what you were.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Ben smiled sadly, “ ’cause you made things happen all the time I couldn’t have thought up even if—”
“I’m sorry, but you’re all just wrong!” Joby blurted out again, feeling confused and upset. “If I have a molecule of what you’ve all got, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”
“Ambitious,” Nacho grinned, “but with practice you might pull it off.”
“More fun to be a raven, though,” Sky teased. “Don’t you want to fly?”
“I’m serious!” Joby said.
“So are we,” said Sky gravely. “You healed my legs, Joby. On that camping trip.”
“Now that’s ridiculous!” Joby scoffed. “Don’t you think I’d know?”
“Not necessarily,” Tom Connolly said quietly. “Intent by itself can be potent for our kind. How badly did you want him healed?”
“Well . . . of course I wanted him to be okay,” Joby protested. “Who wouldn’t?”
“My legs were broken bad,” Sky said quietly. “When I came to, it was all I could do not to scream. Then, all of a sudden, they got real hot and I felt too weak to do anything but lie there, and then there was no pain at all. My legs worked fine again.”
“Then obviously they weren’t broken,” Joby insisted, feeling flushed. “You were in shock. You got mixed up.”
“They were broken,” Tholomey said. “I’ve got some gifts for healing, and I could tell they were way worse than anything I had a prayer of handling.”
“I thought it was Tholomey that fixed me up,” Sky said, “or maybe the bunch of them together, but later they said none of them knew how it happened.” He smiled at Joby. “That’s when we really started wondering about you.”
“Like I said,” Ben leaned forward with an admiring smile, “you d’man, Joby.”
“But . . . how could I not know?” Joby insisted.
“How could you know what you couldn’t even believe?” Ander asked. “The Cup draws people of the blood to itself in lots of strange ways. You wouldn’t be the first who didn’t understand or even know about their gifts when they got here.”
“Ha!” Ben laughed. “You’re a goddamn wizard! That’s perfect. All that Roundtable stuff; I should’ve known. It’s in your blood, bro!”
Even Ben believed this? Joby was beginning to feel sick. First they’d turned the world upside down, and now they were insisting that he didn’t even know himself?
“You know yourself better than we,” Solomon said, as if reading his mind, “and it is altogether possible that we are wrong.” He looked around severely at those who’d been intent on convincing Joby of his kinship, then turned back to Joby with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Joby. You are too vividly yourself to be erased so easily, I think.”
“Nobody’s trying to erase you!” Ander said in dismay.
“We like you fine the way you are,” Rose said.
Hawk and several others nodded in vigorous agreement.
But Joby saw how Solomon was looking at them—as good as shouting, “back off.” They’d only shut their mouths, not changed their minds. He didn’t know what to think. It would be great if they were right. Heck! It would be unbelievable! But that’s precisely what it was: unbelievable! They were only thrusting one more impossible expectation on him. He was just about to tell them so when a slow flare of light, pink and gold and pure, washed over the palely illuminated clearing as if dawn were coming early.
“Jake!” Rose gasped as everyone turned to behold a radiant cloud that hovered toward them across the water.
In an instant, everyone was on their knees except for Joby and Ben, who stared around them not knowing what to do or think.
“God . . . Joby!” Ben gasped, suddenly going to his knees as well. “It’s real!”
Only then did Joby discern the brilliant form at the cloud’s center—a chalice that seemed carved of sunlight. Joby knelt at last, hardly aware of what he did, as, from out of nowhere all around them, came the sound of voices lifted in inexpressible harmony at some unimaginable distance. Joby’s mind emptied of words, even thoughts, but not of feelings. Those washed over him as if an ocean of warmth and reassurance had suddenly risen up and dragged him from some cold, rocky shore into its gentle depths. Joby wanted to speak—to sing—but nothing emerged within him but an unbearable longing just to touch the radiant vessel’s gleaming rim with his half-parted lips. As if in answer, the Cup within its blinding cloud began to move across the water toward himself and Ben.
“I . . . I can’t,” Joby heard Ben whisper.
But Joby knew to whom the Cup was coming, and distantly remembered that he had been frightened of it once, ought to be frightened of it still, perhaps. He hadn’t been to church in years, but that didn’t seem to matter now. Only the longing and the joy were real—possessing every inch of him. As it came to rest before his face, Joby’s hands swam forward, as if through water, to grasp the Cup and pull it toward his lips. And then—
He sat sheltered between his parents’ backyard fence and the hedge that grew against it, a crimson cape draped across his child’s shoulders. Between his small boy’s hands, the book lay open, its delicious scent rising like the hot draft from a bakery, the cool, earthy damp of a primeval forest, the incense of a great cathedral.
“My King, I would serve you with my life,” he whispered with a reverent joy long forgotten. “Only name the quest.”
And in that instant, every detail of his childhood mission, every joy and sorrow, victory and mistake he’d known in all the intervening years rushed up from those pages in a torrent of recall, not just known, but understood with impossible clarity. And amidst this nearly unendurable rush of more than memory, Gypsy’s face appeared, looking up in surprise and unbridled delight.
“I’d have never even tried, except for you,” Gypsy said.
“Gypsy!” Joby said, filled with joy at seeing him. “I thought they killed you!”
“You got somethin’ real special, man,” Gypsy said. “I mean it.” Though his face still seemed as near, Gypsy’s voice was growing pale and distant. “You got heart, man. Don’t forget it, Joby. . . . Heart.”
“Wait!” Joby called. “Don’t go yet!” Then grief hit him like a slap of cold water.
Joby gasped and dropped the Cup. It didn’t fall but hovered on the air before him as he struggled to understand all he’d just experienced. To his profound dismay, he was already losing nearly all of what he had momentarily grasped so clearly. He reac
hed out for the Cup again, but though it still seemed close, he couldn’t reach it. He stretched his arms out farther, but the Cup began to move toward Ben.
“I can’t,” Ben choked again. “Oh God, I . . . I didn’t know . . .”
“Ben, take it,” Joby said with sudden urgency, afraid that if Ben failed to share in this experience, it would separate them forever. “Don’t be scared. It’s wonderful!”
“I never believed!” Ben groaned, still shying from the Cup. “I never—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Joby urged. “Just take it!”
“He’s right,” Jake said quietly, standing calmly at Ben’s shoulder. “The Cup has made this choice, not you. Have courage. Trust.”
Rocking on his knees like a frightened child, Ben reached up at last as if to grasp a red-hot brand, and seized the Cup in both his hands, but before he could bring it to his lips his eyes flew wide, and he seemed to freeze. Joby watched in anxious fascination, wondering if that were how he, himself, had looked when he had touched it. He waited, silently willing his friend to raise the Cup and drink, but Ben remained mesmerized by something only he could see, then cried out as if in grief, and, to Joby’s great distress, began to sob without restraint.
Joby wanted to go and shake him, make him drink, but his knees had taken root and his voice had been removed. He could only kneel helplessly, and watch Ben suffer.
Finally, as if it took great strength, Ben turned his head to look at Joby.
“Oh . . . My Lord,” he groaned. “What have we done . . . again?”
Still unable to rise or speak, Joby longed to help his friend, his brother, his . . . Some fleeting insight went through him like a bolt, then vanished. He pursued the feeling, certain that he ought to understand, but not a trace remained. When he looked again, Ben was no longer sobbing, but kneeling over the Cup, eyes closed, seeming as utterly at peace as he had seemed distraught before.
“With all my heart,” Ben whispered gravely, eyes still closed. Then, with a radiant smile, he said again, “With all my heart . . . I will.”
At last, he raised the Cup, and took a hearty swallow.
The Book of Joby Page 57
