Shaxoa's Gift

by Gladden, DelSheree

  I gathered every grain of courage I had left. Before getting into everything else, there was one answer I needed more than any other. “I want to know where Uriah is.”

  “He’s travelling right now. I’m sure he’ll call when he can.” There was a certain edge to Quaile’s smug defiance, but I had no idea what it was.

  “Where did you send him, Quaile? I have the right to know,” I said.

  “If he wanted you to know where he was, he would have told you himself,” Quaile said. She shifted her skirt unnecessarily.

  “He thinks he’s protecting me by not telling. That was your idea, no doubt,” I said. “I need to know, Quaile. I have to be with him right now.”

  “I didn’t persuade Uriah into keeping what he was doing secret. He made that decision on his own and I will respect his wishes, Claire,” Quaile said.

  “But he doesn’t understand, Quaile. He doesn’t know how hard this is for me. He’s always thought I was stronger than I really am. I can’t do this by myself,” I said.

  “The strength to withstand the Twin Soul bond has to come from you, Claire. You can’t depend on Uriah to pull you through this. You have to do it on your own. I told you that already. Nothing has changed.”

  “What do you know about this?” I shouted. “Nothing! When was the last time you had to force yourself to go against what every cell in your body was telling you to do? When was the last time you spent every second of your days and nights holding back tears because you couldn’t face another minute of the battle raging between your head and your heart? What gives you any right to tell me how I’m supposed to handle this?”

  Quaile stared at me. Lips pressed into a thin line, Quaile brought her hands together for a brief moment before returning them to her lap. “I know more about this situation than you ever will, Claire,” she said.

  “I’m losing, Quaile. I’ve been trying so hard to hold on to Uriah, but it’s not working. I won’t last very much longer without him. I know Uriah was trying to protect me from whatever he’s doing, but I don’t care what he’s doing. I need him. Please tell me where he is,” I asked.

  “I don’t know where he is,” Quaile said.

  “You’re lying, Quaile. You said something to him and he left.”

  “He was leaving before I ever got to him, and where he was planning to go, he would not have come back from,” Quaile said. The defiance in her voice was grating. “I gave him something to do besides kill himself.”

  “Tell me what you told him to do.” She was skirting around every question, answering them in only the vaguest way. She knew exactly what I wanted to hear, and she was purposely side-stepping the answers.

  “What do you think I sent him to do?” Quaile asked.

  “I think you sent him off to find a way to break the bond,” I said. Quaile’s expression was as flat as could be.

  “And do you think there really is a way to break the bond?” Quaile asked.

  Anger welled inside of me. “If you sent him on a mission he has no hope of completing, I will throttle you, right now,” I said. I was up out of my chair, shoving my finger against her withered chest. Quaile’s eyes never left mine. She ignored my finger and moved her face closer to mine.

  “Do you think there is a way to break the bond?”

  I considered what she was asking me. The pressure in her words pushed me back into my chair. Did I believe there was a way to sever the bond between me and Daniel? I had been hoping that there was, putting all my trust in the belief that Uriah would find a way to rescue me, but did I really believe? So much of what I did and did not believe had been turned upside down. If there really was a bond that could bring two people together, no matter the distance or circumstances, there must be a way to break the bond as well. Everything had its opposite.

  “Yes,” I said, “I do believe there’s a way to break the bond.”

  “Do you believe Uriah will be able to find the way to release you from Daniel?”

  “Absolutely. Uriah, before anyone else, would be the one to find the way. That’s what you sent him to do wasn’t it?” I asked. Quaile said nothing, but her face softened and gave away her answer. “I know he’ll find it, and as soon as he does, I’ll jump at the chance to get rid of these awful feelings. But for now, Quaile, I can’t keep going like this, wondering what he’s doing or whether he’s found the way yet. Please tell me where he is.”

  “Claire, I honestly don’t know where he is right now,” Quaile said.

  “I have to get away from these feelings. I need a way to break the bond. I need Uriah,” I said. I had come to her with the hope that she would lead me to Uriah. I knew that if I could reach him, I could hold on a little longer, and maybe I could even help him in his search. My hopes were fading rapidly. Tears ran down my cheeks and washed away my dreams as well.

  “If these feelings are so hard to resist, perhaps you shouldn’t try to beat against them anymore,” Quaile said.

  My tears changed into a tidal wave. I was crying so hard I could barely choke out the words. “How can you say that to me? I love Uriah. That will never change. Even if I gave into the bond, I would never be happy, not knowing what I gave up,” I said.

  “You are honestly willing to give up the joy and total completeness of the Twin Soul bond for Uriah?” Quaile asked.

  “Yes. I would give up everything to spend the rest of my life with him.” I knelt down in front of Quaile and clasped her hands in mine. “Please help me, Quaile. Please, I’m begging you to help me.”

  Quaile watched me without speaking. She looked as if she was considering her answer very carefully. “Uriah was just here,” she said.

  Ripping my hands out of hers, I stood. “What? You said you didn’t know where he was!”

  “I don’t,” Quaile snapped. “I have no idea where he is right now.”

  “Why was he here? Why didn’t he come to see me?” I asked. My voice came out as a childish squeak.

  “I suppose he didn’t want to see you for the same reason he didn’t tell you where he was going in the first place,” Quaile said. “He wants to protect you.”

  “What about my other question? Why was Uriah here?”

  Standing up from her chair, Quaile walked away. I wasn’t sure where she was going, but I followed her anyway. Quaile shuffled into the kitchen and stopped at the counter. She touched a metal thermos that sat on her counter top and turned to look at me. “Uriah brought me this.”

  “Uriah brought you a thermos?” I asked.

  “When I stopped Uriah, I sent him to Hano, Arizona,” Quaile said.

  “That’s where the other Tewa live, right?” I asked. “Why did you send him there?”

  “I had heard rumors that the Shaxoa in Hano knew things that no one else knew. I heard that she was very powerful. I sent Uriah to her for help,” Quaile said.

  I drifted toward the silver thermos. My hand reached up, brushing the metallic sides. “He found it,” I whispered. Turning to Quaile, I begged her to confirm my suspicion. She nodded. My hands began to tremble. My whole body was shaking. I grabbed the thermos with both hands. It was all over.

  I moved one hand to unscrew the lid, but Quaile’s sudden touch stopped me. “Wait, Claire,” she said.

  I ignored her and tried to remove the lid. Tightening her grip, Quaile forced my hand away. I didn’t understand. This was what I wanted. I was desperate to be free of the Twin Soul bond. “Why? Why can’t I drink it?” I asked. “I want this. I need this, Quaile.”

  “There is something you need to know first,” Quaile said.

  “I don’t care what the consequences are, Quaile. I want Uriah. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Let me have the thermos.”

  “I know you want Uriah, Claire, but I can’t let you drink this yet, not before you know the truth,” she said. “I sent Uriah to Hano, yes, but I never expected him to actually come back with this. I hoped he wouldn’t.”

  “What are you talking about? Why would you send him t
o get this if you didn’t really want him to come back with it?” I asked.

  Her old body leaned against the counter as if she was quickly losing what remained of her strength. “I needed to keep him from killing himself, and I knew he would jump at the chance to save you. I never would have sent him to a Shaxoa if it weren’t so important he stay alive. Even though this woman in Hano turned out to be a naïve young girl who believes what she studies can be used for good, Shaxoa cannot be trusted.”

  “But…Uriah wouldn’t have brought it back if he weren’t sure it was safe,” I argued. Uriah would never do anything to hurt me.

  “Uriah does believe the potion is safe,” Quaile assured me, “but he’s wrong.”

  30: Easy Way Out

  “What do you mean he’s wrong?” I asked.

  Shuffling over to a chair, Quaile clutched the thermos in her hands. She sat down and held it to her chest. “The woman who helped Uriah make this isn’t really a Shaxoa. She has the power to be one, for sure, but she will not use it to hurt anyone. She has learned everything she knows on her own, which means she can only know as much as the previous Shaxoa’s wrote down. She thinks dark magic can be used for good if the reason for using it is pure, but she is very wrong. You can’t take poisonous chokecherry and use it as medicine and expect it not to kill the person simply because you want to help. Nothing good can come from dark magic. This woman does not understand that.”

  Desperate to get the thermos out of her hands, I refused to believe her. The bond had been growing steadily all morning. It was getting close to overwhelming me completely. “You don’t know everything, Quaile. How can you know whether or not dark magic can be used for good?”

  “Because I have known about this potion from the day I started training to become the shaman. I know exactly what it will do to you.”

  The absolute firmness of her voice strangled my next objection. Quaile often proclaimed that she knew the answer to a problem, but through her bluster and arguments it had never been hard to find the uncertainty. I agreed with most people who believed Quaile had very little real talent, but I didn’t doubt her now. Surety held her calm and steady.

  “What will it do?” I asked quietly.

  “This potion,” she said, setting it on the table, “will break the bond just like Uriah said it would, but instead of having no negative side effects as long as it is taken willingly as he believes, it will take away the bond, and with it your ability to love. If you drink this, you will forget about Daniel, but you’ll forget about Uriah, too. You’ll never love another person again.”

  “I won’t…” I couldn’t even repeat what she had just said. Hopelessness closed up my throat, stealing my breath and bringing on a quivering dizziness that dropped me into the chair next to me. It was the tea my dad gave me all over again. He tried to make me forget Uriah, but instead of leaving me unharmed, it replaced it with a life threatening need for Daniel. You could get the result you wanted with dark magic, but I was beginning to understand that the price was never going to be worth it.

  Quaile pushed the thermos toward me. “I promised Uriah I wouldn’t try to influence your decision on whether or not to drink the potion, and I’m sorry I had to break that promise, but you had to know the truth, Claire.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Uriah?” I asked.

  “Because it would have stopped him from leaving again, and I couldn’t let that happen. He has a more important destiny than marrying you, Claire.”

  The other half of my reason for coming here slipped through the devastating news that Uriah’s gift would not save me after all. I needed to get to Uriah for myself, but even more, I knew he was going to need me at his side by the end.

  “Tell me, Quaile. Tell me why you didn’t want him to stay here,” I said. The bond swelled inside of me, growing stronger with every passing second. I was going to scream if she kept dragging everything out. If I couldn’t have the potion, I at least needed to find Uriah. I needed to help him. And I needed a few more answers in order to do that.

  “Uriah is not here,” Quaile said cryptically.

  “I already know that, Quaile.”

  “Why would he bring you the Shaxoa’s gift and then suddenly leave again?” Quaile asked.

  Her question was irritating because she obviously already knew the answer, but the question was still a very good one. Why did Uriah leave again? Twisting the leather bracelet around my wrist, I considered the possibilities. Dreams from last night shut away everything else. My throat constricted. Breathing suddenly became incredibly difficult. “Tell me,” I begged.

  “The Matwau has captured Uriah’s Twin Soul and is holding her as bait. Uriah is on his way to rescue her,” Quaile said. “He will have to destroy the Matwau in order to save her life. That is his destiny, and I couldn’t let anything stop him from fulfilling it. Uriah is…”

  “I already know who Uriah is,” I said impatiently. “He’s the Qaletaqa and he’s going to have to destroy the Matwau. All the strange things I’ve seen in him, all his gifts and abilities, he has them all so he can rid the world of that creature.”

  “How do you…” She couldn’t even finish, she was so shocked.

  “I told you, you and Lina weren’t the only people who knew about Uriah.”

  Her jaw clenched and she spat her next words out angrily. “Your father! How could he?”

  “Because he finally found something more important to him than his pride,” I said. “He told me to save my life, Quaile.”

  She stuttered out confusion and denial, but I didn’t have time for her babbling. There was still so much more I needed to know. Starting with the simplest question, even though I was afraid I already knew the answer, I asked, “How does he know the Matwau has her?”

  “He can feel her fear through the bond.”

  “The bond is already forming?”

  “In a way. If he walked away from her now, the bond would never truly form,” Quaile said.

  “He would never do that,” I said. Uriah would never leave someone in danger. He couldn’t live with himself if he believed he had caused this woman harm. I thought of Uriah facing down such a terrible beast. “When did the Matwau take her?”

  What I really wanted to know was how much time Uriah had left. Would this rescue take days, years? Uriah was one hundred times stronger than I was, but eventually the bond would overtake him. I had learned for myself that no one could fight against the bond forever.

  “The Matwau took the girl early this morning,” Quaile said.

  Uriah would leave me behind to rescue the girl, no doubt fearing for my safety, but first he brought me the potion. It was selfish, but I was glad that he had thought of me before rushing off to save a woman he had never met. My satisfaction did not last long. Uriah was racing away from me once again. This time he was not on an errand for me, but running head first toward the one thing that could tear us apart. I knew my dream was wrong. Uriah would fight, but he would need my help.

  I glanced at the silver thermos wishing there was any easy way out like I had hoped. Quaile followed my gaze and took my hand gently in hers. The motherly gesture surprised me, and I almost pulled away from her. Her hand tightened slightly and held me.

  “Claire, there is no way for you to break the bond, but just because the potion won’t work in the way you want, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to suppress the bond.”

  “What?” I gasped, the words lurching out of me in unadulterated hope. She didn’t say I could break the bond, but suppressing it sounded pretty good, too. “How? What do I have to do? I’ll do anything, Quaile. Please just tell me what to do!”

  “I already told you how to suppress the bond, Claire,” she said as if it should have been obvious to me. I shook my head in confusion. I had no idea what she was talking about. “I told you that you had to do this on your own. It’s the only way to get any kind of relief from the bond. You have to make the choice. You have to put the bond away yourself. No one else can do
it for you. There’s no easy way out. If you truly want to be with Uriah, and not spend the rest of your life pining for Daniel, you have to bury the desire to have him deep inside yourself.”

  “Make a choice? I’ve already made my choice!” I argued. “If I hadn’t chosen Uriah, I would be suffering like this. I. Want. Uriah. Not Daniel. What more do I have to do?”

  “You have to face Daniel and convince him that you don’t love him.”

  The idea of being anywhere near Daniel started my entire body trembling. I couldn’t face him. Daniel’s image danced in my eyes, the bond piercing me so thoroughly with its jagged hooks that I didn’t think there was a single part of my soul left unmarred. There was no way I would survive the pull if I were face to face with him. “I…what? I don’t…I don’t have time for that. I have to find Uriah,” I said weakly.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to wait very long for the opportunity,” Quaile said.

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you felt it, Claire? The bond has been growing stronger all day, hasn’t it? I can feel it getting worse as we sit here. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it too,” Quaile said.

  “But…” It had been growing stronger all day, but that was just how the bond worked, wasn’t it? It grew stronger every day. Today had been worse than usual, but I thought I was just slipping faster than ever. My body convulsed as I realized what Quaile was saying. “He’s on his way here. He’s coming.”

  A harsh knock bounced off of Quaile’s front door.

  “I’d say he is here,” Quaile said.

  31: Time to Find Out

  Quaile stood up to answer the door, but I grabbed her wrist. “No, Quaile, don’t answer it!”

  “Do you want to be with Uriah?” she asked.

  I sobbed, agony pouring out with every teardrop. “More than anything.”

  “Then I need to answer the door, and you have to face him, Claire. It’s the only way.”

  My eyes drifted back to the thermos. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it would work just like Uriah said it would. Quaile’s knobby fingers wrapped around the thermos and placed it in front of me. “The choice is yours, Claire. Drink it and risk losing them both, or face Daniel and find out just how strong your love for Uriah truly is.”