Qaletaqa

by Gladden, DelSheree

  “It’s all about the power, Claire. You will have to give it up, sever the link between soul and power.”

  “But…” I had heard stories of such a thing being attempted by other shaman. The accounts always ended in death. Uriah was the one who told me about the young shaman who tried to transfer her power to her lover in order to save his life. They both perished in the effort.

  “I’ll die if I try to give up my power.”

  “No one has ever been able to successfully cut away their power, but you are different, Claire, special. You can do this if you are truly the chosen shaman. It’s the only way. Only a sacrifice worthy of the gods notice could ever have the power to break the bond. The bond is power. It feeds off the gifts every person is given by the gods. Most gifts are small and have little power at their core, but heroes and shaman have so much more. A regular person could never break the bond because they do not have the power it would take inside of them. Even most shaman and heroes don’t, but you, Claire, if you truly are the chosen shaman, you will have the power. You’ll have what it will take to break the bond forever.”

  “How?” I asked, hope nearly lifting me off the floor.

  That was when Quaile faltered. “I don’t know. It has never been done before. Never successfully attempted, but I know it’s possible. After the Matwau is defeated you can use your power to break the bond between Uriah and his Twin Soul, between you and Daniel. Search the book, Claire. There is so much contained in the shamans’ words.”

  “Then why don’t you know how I can give up my power? You know everything in there!”

  “I know the words, yes, but I have so little talent. I cannot understand most of what is written. I know the words, but I cannot use them, cannot comprehend the meaning behind the power involved. You must have power to know power, Claire. And I do not.” She closed her eyes, whether in shame or relief to be handing off the responsibility to someone else, I didn’t know. “You have the power, Claire. You’ll find the right path.”

  I supposed I should have felt hope at her words, but I didn’t then, and I didn’t now. Now I felt even more dismayed than I did standing in her home. After the Matwau was defeated. That was what Quaile said. I had to use my power to help Uriah, and then I would be free to give it up. When the Matwau was gone I could use my power to sever bond, give it up and kill the source that fed the bond.

  After reading Yungé’s letter, I saw now that Quaile’s hope had crumbled to bits of sand. After the Matwau was defeated I wouldn’t have any power left. Yungé said I would lose my power fighting the Matwau with Uriah. She said it would be a difficult choice. Giving up power I never even knew I had wouldn’t have been a hard choice for me. Choosing between killing the Matwau and holding onto the man I loved more than anything in this world would be agony.

  If I didn’t help Uriah kill the Matwau, the creature would kill him. If I did help him, I would lose Uriah forever. Despite everything I said to him the night before, despite the bracelet I had given him to remind him of our future, I knew the power of the Twin Soul bond. Reality shivered through me like ice. Uriah would never be able to resist without my help.

  12: Brittle Yellow Pages

  I thought Phoenix traffic was bad. Denver was ten times worse. I sat at the edge of the hotel parking lot, the engine idling loudly as I waited for a chance to merge into the onslaught of dancing cars. Looking far down the road, I spotted an opening and hoped it wouldn’t be swallowed up before it reached me.

  The gap edged closer. I jammed the accelerator down and leapt onto the street. Even then, the driver of the car I pulled in front of waved his hands angrily at me. I wasn’t trying to irritate him, but I was pretty sure I would have spent the whole day waiting if I hadn’t cut him off. I tried to wave an apology to the driver, but he was already ranting at someone else.

  “What was with the driver behind us?” Claire asked.

  “I guess I cut him off a little,” I said. “I couldn’t help it, though.”

  Claire looked up with a frown. “No, not that guy, the one behind us in the parking lot. In the blue sedan. When we pulled out he tossed his hands up and slammed them back down on the steering wheel.”

  “He was probably just ticked off there wasn’t enough room for him to get out too.”

  Claire was still staring out the window at the parking lot behind us. She smiled. “He finally got out.” Turning back to me, her smile disappeared. “So where are we headed?”

  That was the question. Harvey had called earlier, but the list of places where the forest met the desert was so long he’d given up naming all of them halfway through. He promised to keep working, but I wasn’t sure how fruitful his search would be. I could tell he was jumping out of his skin for news of Melody, so I told him about my seeing Melody the night before. He wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, but any news was better than sitting and waiting. It took some effort to get him to hang up. I think he would have tried to stay on the phone the entire time we were searching if I would have let him.

  The information Melody had been able to give me really wasn’t very helpful. She thought they had gone down in elevation, but Estes Park was right in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Pretty much everything was lower than that. I was forced to rely on the pull of the bond, something I really did not want to do. Following the bond around blindly meant walking into whatever traps the Matwau was busy laying for me. Still, I had no other choice.

  “Uriah?” Claire asked.

  “North,” I said. That was the best I could do.

  “North.” Her frown deepened. “I wish we had some idea of what he was planning.”

  “So do I.”

  Claire sat in the passenger’s seat, our backpacks occupying the space between us. I wanted her closer. Reaching out, I tugged on her hand. Claire understood what I was asking for and started moving the backpacks. My bag made it to the floor without incident, but when Claire reached for her own bag, she didn’t realize it was open. The front of the bag lurched open and spilled out its contents.

  “Dangit,” Claire mumbled as she started picking up the items. Socks, toiletries, a hairbrush, it was all dropped back in the bag.

  When she started to shove an old leather book back in I grabbed her arm. “Is that it?”

  Claire hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “Have you looked at it yet?”

  “A little, while you were taking your shower. I’m not sure what it is. Quaile didn’t bother to explain it, of course, but it isn’t a journal. At least I don’t think so. It looked more like she was rewriting someone else’s words.”

  She turned to look at me with an odd expression. Fear, or maybe wariness. “The little bit I read didn’t make a lot of sense, but Quaile seemed to think it was important.”

  “Well, I have no idea how long we’re going to be wandering around Colorado,” I said, “so we might as well start reading. Is it even in English?”

  “Most of it,” Claire said. She opened the worn cover, her eyes darting over the poorly scrawled words. “Some of the words are Tewa, but I recognized most of them thanks to my dad forcing me to learn.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that there’s a map to where the Matwau’s going in there somewhere?”

  My attempt at humor went unnoticed. Claire’s eyes flitted back and forth as she read the words. She saw nothing else. Several minutes passed before she looked back up. I met her gaze, curious and a little amused at her sudden studious attitude. We spent countless afternoons at my kitchen table doing homework, but Claire always had a hard time focusing. There were always too many other things she wanted to do.

  “Sorry,” Claire says. “It’s…barely comprehensible, but somehow still fascinating. It talks about you.”

  “It does?” Could it really hold some of the secrets I was searching for? I got a quick stranglehold on my hope. Trust that anything involving me could be that easy evaporated as soon as it had formed.

  Flipping back to the front of the book
, Claire noticed something scrawled inside the cover and pointed at it. “I didn’t see this earlier. I think Quaile must have come back and written this here later on. The first pages are old, prophecies, but this Quaile wanted right at the front.

  “What does it say?”

  Claire answered with Quaile’s words.

  “He has finally come. The promised Qaletaqa was born today. I was called to attend the birth of Notah and Lina Crowe’s child, their first. Their last as well. This couple will not be blessed with any other children. The infant, Uriah, is enough.

  “I have carried the secrets of our tribe with me these long years. I will finally have peace when the day comes to tell him of his destiny. So much of our history has fallen into myth and legend, bedtime stories for children. This child will bring it all back. What others call myths will rise to challenge him, but I truly believe he will prevail. I have to believe. The Qaletaqa is here.”

  I pounded my fist against the steering wheel in frustration. “Why didn’t she tell me? All this knowledge, all this wisdom, and she never said a word to me before I left to go find Daniel. And even then it was as little as possible.”

  “I think she was waiting for some sign that you were ready. She kept looking for hints of your power, but she was too blind to see it.”

  “I’m supposed to defeat the most evil, horrible creature on this planet, save countless people from being killed by the Matwau, and I get stuck with Quaile as the shaman that’s supposed to help me!” I shook my head in frustration. Claire withstood my tantrum, only grimacing and tucking herself into the seat more deeply.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to her, “I didn’t mean to take my frustration out on you. I just would have thought the gods would have planned this better, given me someone who was actually going to help me through this instead of Quaile.”

  “Maybe you’ll have more help than you think,” Claire offered quietly.

  I looked over at her, and finally saw the strange, huddled quality to her posture. Always so strong and ready for a fight, this new side of her frightened me. If Claire lost faith in me, I didn’t know if I would be able to get through this. Slipping my arm around her shoulder, I pulled her closer to me. “I’m sure you’re right. You never know where help is going to come from, I guess. We’ll find a way.”

  The only response I got from her was a nod.

  “Why don’t you read more of the book? Maybe we’ll find something useful,” I suggested. Even just looking at the book gave me more hope, but Claire seemed less enthusiastic. I watched as she flipped chunks of pages aside. Curious about why she wouldn’t just start at the beginning of the book, I was about to ask her when she spoke.

  “Whoa, look at this, Uriah. This isn’t the first time your family has had a run-in with the Matwau.”

  “What?” If that was true, why hadn’t I ever heard about the Matwau before running into him in Phoenix?

  “Yeah, your grandparents, the ones that were Twin Souls. Listen to what Quaile says.”

  “I admit that when my predecessor, Orenda, first told me the secret of Bhawana’s vision, I was slow to believe. I had never faced the Matwau. I knew of no one who had. He truly seemed unreal to me. It was not until the only two people I have ever known to find their Twin Souls, Chua and Saqui Crowe, found each other that I began to understand the importance of finding the Qaletaqa.

  “Chua and Saqui, the grandparents of the Qaletaqa, met when Saqui came to visit relatives here in San Juan. Chua saw her from a distance and his soul immediately recognized her. He started moving toward her, but so did something else. I was walking with Orenda when it happened. A large wolf crept up behind Chua. I turned to Orenda to tell her what I saw, but she was already running forward.

  “Before the wolf could reach Chua, Orenda held up her hand and commanded the animal to leave. It snarled and snapped its teeth at her, but it did not advance. Chua continued on, his eyes fastened to Saqui. The second they touched the air changed around us, thick and right. Everyone seemed to feel it, especially the wolf. It howled and growled its frustration, but after another word from Orenda, it raced away from the village.

  “Orenda confirmed to me that the wolf was truly the Matwau in disguise, and that if she had not been there to stop him, Chua would have been torn apart before my eyes. Since that day I have waited for the Guardian of the People to arrive.

  “The second I touched the infant Uriah, the vision of his life unfolded in my mind. I knew his purpose and praised the gods for his arrival.”

  Claire at back in her seat, letting the book drop to her lap.

  “Did you know any of that about your grandparents?”

  “No. It doesn’t sound like they even knew what almost happened. I had no idea my family had such a long history with the Matwau. I wonder if he remembers.” Somehow I was pretty sure the Matwau’s memory stretched back very far. Given what I knew about him, he would not have forgotten a shaman standing in the way of him reaching his prey.

  Claire didn’t answer my question. Instead, she looked over at me. “Quaile and my dad weren’t the only ones who knew about you.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. This was something I had tried not to think about too much. The letter from my father that had been in the box with the leather bracelet hinted that he knew I was about to face something dangerous. My mom had on several occasions passed off my abilities as nothing when they clearly were unique. They both knew who I was, but they never spoke a word of it to me. When my mom read my dad’s letter she even got angry that he had said as little as he did.

  There was something else…something important, I think. But I can’t remember. The day my dad died, I ran up to the barn, pulled open the door…and nothing. The next thing I remembered was being shaken by Sophia as I cradled my dad’s head in my lap. In my soul I know he had tried to tell me something, did tell me something very important, but I couldn’t force my memory to let go of it.

  “Why didn’t they tell me?” I asked.

  Claire’s hand wound around mine. “I don’t know about your dad, but your mom didn’t because of a promise she made to Quaile. She said it was because she respected her, but I think she was really just scared of what she would do if she ever told. You know your mom believes in the myths and legends. She probably thought Quaile would turn her into a rattlesnake or something if she broke her promise.”

  I could believe that. My mom was devout in her tribal beliefs. She poured them on me every night when I was little. I knew more about our myths and history than any other kid in school, and I resented that fact. Although I realize now how selective my mom was in her story choices, leaving out any reference of the Matwau or details about Twin Souls. I supposed she was trying to prepare me in her own way, but even still, I refused to admit it for a long time I knew there was something different about me. Legendary warriors and heroes plagued my dreams, taunting me. I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be like my dad, that was it. He didn’t tell me either, though.

  “My dad was traditional, but I would have thought he’d tell me about something like this. He taught me to fight and be a good person, but I needed a lot more than that.”

  “I don’t know, Uriah.” She squeezed my hand, her expression more optimistic than I had seen in a while. “Do you mind if I read to myself? I read a lot faster that way.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Whatever gets us through it faster.”

  If Quaile thought the book would help, I was hopeful she was right. That wasn’t something she had been very often, but I held to the idea that she was planning to teach me certain things when the magical “right time” came. Those lessons must be in the book somewhere. But as Claire settled in to read I found my mind drifting to something else. I saw myself racing up to the barn, to my dad, over and over again, only to have everything evaporate as soon as I reached the door. Whatever the brittle yellow pages of Quaile’s book held, the pressing feeling of needing to uncover what my dad wanted to tell me seemed infinitely more importan
t.

  13: Exempt

  Uriah stayed completely silent as I read. He didn’t seem to notice when I turned back to the front of the book. I had tucked Yungé’s letter away in my backpack where Uriah wouldn’t see it. I didn’t like keeping anything from him, but I felt that I needed to sort a few things out before telling him about my part in this mess. I was afraid that if I didn’t wait, everything would simply become more complicated and difficult.

  I turned back to where the letter had been and read through the account of Nampeyo’s vision. After my dad’s words and the letter, I didn’t learn anything knew. It appeared that the only thing the shaman had kept from the chiefs were the signs that would point out the chosen shaman. They clearly felt that fell under their duties, not the chiefs’. I carefully read the next several entries, finding them decidedly unhelpful. They had nothing to do with Uriah.

  When I opened the book to find Bhawana’s vision on the first page I had mistakenly assumed the entire book would be dedicated to the Qaletaqa. What it actually seemed to be was a compilation of prophecies arranged from most to least important. Most of them were interesting, but had all been fulfilled decades or centuries ago. I started skimming them more quickly, fearful that the entire book would be nothing but old, useless prophecies.

  I turned the page, sighing at a minor prophecy about where to find water during a year of drought, and started reading the next page. It took me a couple of sentences to notice the tone had changed. The writing was no longer the formal, vague words of some dream or vision. The barking tone was a familiar one. These were Quaile's own words now.

  “Now that I have finished writing down the prophecies Orenda has given me permission to write down, I am moving on the most important information, the Qaletaqa. In the following pages I will outline everything the Qaletaqa will need to be taught when he arrives. I have no knowledge of when he will be born. I highly doubt it will be in my lifetime, but to those who come after me, take great care to memorize these words. Even though I have been allowed to break tradition and keep a written copy, you must commit every detail to memory. When the time comes to use this knowledge there may not be time to stop and consult a book.”