Charley put her hand to her chest, her long, slender throat bobbing with each convulsive swallow. “And neither am I!”
Imogene blinked in confusion. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
Charley’s chest heaved once more, her hand dropping to her side. “Nothing. Never mind.”
She forced another smile and smoothed her hands down her denim skirt, leaving the rest of us confused and wondering what had just happened.
“Now, if you’ll get in your cars and follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”
FOUR
Jasmine lay stretched in a lounge chair, waiting for her friends. She’d changed into a pair of shorts that barely covered her essentials, and a bikini top smaller than a square of toilet tissue. Lowering her sunglasses, she wiggled her fingers at Adrian as we walked by, and I took no small amount of pleasure in visualizing breaking every one of her perfectly manicured digits.
We followed Charley in our cars down the main road, driving past what appeared to be the reservation’s business district, if that’s what you could call a few souvenir shops and an ice cream hut. Finally, we bumped along a dirt road down to the edge of Blue Mountain Lake, coming to a halt in front of a rectangular brick building that had been painted a vibrant shade of yellow.
“This is Council Hall,” Charley said as we gathered around her. “You’ll sleep here tonight, and this is where we’ll hold the meeting in the morning.”
Imogene put her hands on her hips and looked around, scowling. “Do you intend for us to sleep on the floor?”
Charley seemed offended that her hospitality had been called into question. “Exactly what do you take me for?”
“Well—” David started to reply, but both Meg’s elbow and Charley’s quick reply cut him off.
“We’ve set up cots in the back room,” she said. “I think you’ll find them perfectly adequate.”
“Cots?” Imogene’s voice rose as she shook her snowy head. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am much too old, and big, for a cot.”
Charley continued as though Imogene hadn’t said anything. “There’s a bathroom and kitchen, as well. Fully stocked for your brief stay.” She emphasized the word brief. “I’m sure you’ll find everything you need to make yourselves comfortable.”
“And what should we do in the meantime?” Meg said.
Charley removed her sunglasses from atop her head and slid them back into place on her nose. “Well I don’t know, Meg. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to keep yourselves occupied until the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back and prepare for the meeting. Caleb,” she said, addressing her son with a snap of her slender fingers, “let’s go.”
Caleb cast his eyes to Adrian and gave a half-hearted wave. Then his eyes caught mine and lingered. I almost looked away, but held his gaze until he broke the connection first.
After they left, David breathed a sigh of relief. “I have no idea what Melody ever saw in her.”
Meg sighed as she popped open the trunk of the car and began pulling out the overnight bags. “She’ll never win a Miss Congeniality contest, that’s for sure.”
Imogene clapped her hands. “All right. Enough chit-chatting. Let’s get settled and then we’ll fix a late lunch. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving.”
The idea of getting settled did little to calm my nerves. I felt myself slowly unraveling like a threadbare rug the more I fixated on what might happen at tomorrow’s meeting.
“Let’s get out of here,” Adrian suggested, running his thumb down my bare arm and trapping my hand in his.
He led me to the shade of an overgrown lilac tree where he kissed me firmly on the mouth, rocking me off my heels and taking me totally by surprise. I broke off the kiss a moment later and put my hands to his chest, pushing him away so that I could catch my breath.
“Slow down,” I laughed. “We’re gonna get caught.”
Adrian shook his head, a wry smile on his mouth. “Sorry.”
His breathing was erratic, though, and I noticed he didn’t look the least bit sorry. Our make-out sessions had become increasingly hot and heavy over the past few weeks, and I knew it was only a matter of time . . .
“Do you think it’ll come true?”
“Do I think what will come true?” I said, as I smoothed the wrinkles from my shirt.
“You know . . . the part about us getting hitched one day.”
He mumbled this last part and I looked up, touched by the unfamiliar shyness in his voice. My own cheeks flamed and insides twisted, but differently than how they had earlier in the car. That was just nerves. But this, being here with Adrian, felt very good and . . . right.
I hooked my fingers in Adrian’s belt loops and pulled him close, wanting to capture that feeling. I wrapped my arms around his waist and lay my head against his chest. His heart was beating quickly.
The Conditional Blessing attached to me becoming Spirit Keeper stated that I had to marry a member of the tribe and produce a child with him. It was a trade-off for Shyla saving my life that day, a few months ago. There was something more to it, however; some other reason why my life had been spared. I hadn’t a clue what it was, though. None of it made any sense to me, or to my family.
Adrian and I had never discussed the Conditional Blessing in-depth before. But I’d privately given it, and what we would eventually have to do in order to fulfill it, plenty of thought. After all, I had a pretty vivid imagination.
“It has to come true, right?” Laughing, I kissed him on the chin. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to settle down yet. I mean, I just turned seventeen. We’ve got lots of time.”
To my surprise, Adrian didn’t laugh or even agree. Instead, he wiggled from my embrace and turned his back to me as he made his way along the path leading to the edge of the lake. I followed a few paces behind, confused by his sudden change of attitude. When I caught up with him, I slipped my hand in his. He squeezed it in return but didn’t say anything.
I watched his jaw clench and unclench as he warred with his thoughts. Finally, I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
Adrian withdrew his hand and half turned away. “What if it’s not me? What if it’s someone else you’re meant to be with? What we have is really good, but what if it’s not in the cards for us?”
Although the possibility that we might not end up together had never occurred to me, I realized then that he must have thought about this outcome before. I chose my next words carefully.
“I might be young, but I’m not so stupid or naive to think that every aspect of my future has already been set in stone. I’m still free to make my own choices, and I will always choose to be with you. Nothing and no one will ever come between us, especially not some so-called Conditional Blessing that I honestly don’t put a lot of stock in.”
Adrian turned back to me, but the crease between his brows remained. “Really?”
I willed the right words to come to mind that would put his heart at ease. “Really. I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
Raising his hand to my face, I brushed it against my cheek before kissing his rough knuckles. He smiled, though I could tell the apprehension had not totally lifted.
“I think there are a few bikes in that shed over there,” Adrian said, pointing behind us. “Wanna get some lunch and go for a ride?”
And just like that, all talk of the future was over.
We walked back to Council Hall and got our lunch to go, and it didn’t take much coaxing to convince Shyla to come along with us. After dusting off the bikes and finding a pump to inflate a dead tire, we set off down the rural road to the main strip leading to town.
The Katori reservation was admittedly nothing like I’d envisioned. I’d based my assumptions on stereotypes gleaned from books and television, in which tribes of savages lived clustered together in tepees made of tanned animal hides. The Katori reservation was laughab
ly small, but quaint. The houses were unimpressive but well-cared for. Not one of them had peeling paint or moldy rooftops. No plastic toys littered the front yards. The people we passed were mowing lawns and watering flower beds, the same mundane activities my neighbors back home might be doing.
We rode until we reached the General Store and then stood straddling our bikes as we decided where to go next. People were coming and going, and many of them regarded us with openly curious glances. They would certainly remember Adrian and probably recognize Shyla, but I was an obvious outsider.
“So what do you think?” Shyla said. Adrian was looking at me, too, waiting for an answer to a question I’d apparently missed.
“About what?”
“Riding closer to the lake. We want to see our old house. There’s a park down that way where we can eat lunch.”
High-pitched laughter drifted from the General Store entrance. Turning to see who it was, I saw Jasmine step from the shadows of the building’s overhang, flanked by another girl and boy. It was impossible to hide or otherwise avoid being seen by them, given that we were standing in the middle of the dusty parking lot.
“Sarah!” Jasmine waved and trotted over. She threw her arm around my shoulder and gave it a familiar squeeze, which instantly put me on edge. “How are you? Nice day for a ride, huh?”
Jasmine twined a strand of glossy raven hair around her finger and winked at Adrian. To her friends she said, “Astrid. Will. This is the girl I was telling you about.” She was being suspiciously nice, and I didn’t know why.
Shyla rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Jasmine? We’re sort of busy.”
Jasmine smiled, her eyes lighting on Adrian. “Just to say hi and that I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right. You’ve said hi. Now go away.” Shyla made a shooing motion with her hand.
Jasmine and her friends walked away then. But at the edge of the lot, she pirouetted and called out loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s nice to see you again, Adrian. You look really . . . good.”
I watched in disbelief as her eyes ran the length of his body before narrowing at me. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder and then spun again, walking off with an exaggerated twitch of her hips. The blood rushed to my face, and my fingertips burned with a furious need to reduce her to ashes.
“That was disgusting,” Shyla said.
“What was?” Adrian asked.
Shyla thwacked him against the chest. “Jasmine, you nimrod. What a—”
“Come on,” I interrupted. Breathing deeply in order to get my volcanic feelings under control, I pushed off on the bike, taking the lead for a change.
The house stood vacant. Although its exterior looked as nice as all the others, an overall feeling of dejection hung about it, as though its heart had been ripped from the protective walls a family had once called home. My throat closed as I glanced at Adrian and saw the tight expression on his face.
“It’s been so long, but it looks exactly the same as I remember,” Shyla whispered beside me.
“Someone’s been here,” Adrian said. “The broken window’s been fixed, the one that Dad—” He paused, seeming to remember that he hadn’t spoken of Victor at all since the day he’d ambushed us in the woods. “Forget it.”
I pointed to a real estate sign propped by the front door. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”
“It’s for sale?” Adrian said, his voice rising in disbelief. He dismounted from the bike and jogged up the driveway, stopping to cup his hands and peer in through the front window. Shyla and I looked at each other and then quickly followed.
I tried the knob, expecting to find it locked, but it turned in my hand. Pushing open the door, the overpowering scent of lemon Pine-Sol assaulted me. Plastic runners had been laid down to protect the wood floors from prospective clients’ dirty shoes, and they squeaked underfoot when I stepped on them.
Adrian charged through the room and around the corner without regard to the newly polished floors, though. I followed and found him standing in the doorway of a small bedroom, staring. He breathed heavily, his eyes open wide and fixed ahead. He blinked several times.
“This one used to be mine.”
I stood quietly by Adrian’s side, trying to imagine what he had been like in this other life. Had he stayed up late at night building LEGO cities and playing with his action figures? Did he used to crawl under the sheets with a flashlight to read comic books when he was supposed to be sleeping? Had his mother rocked him in her arms as an infant in this room, once upon a time?
“This one was mine.” I hadn’t heard Shyla walk up behind us. Turning, I found her staring into the room across the hall. “It used to be pink. Adrian’s was blue.”
The two rooms now stood identical with bare walls still smelling of fresh white paint. Shyla’s eyes roamed the room, as though she was picturing where her bed used to stand and visualizing the posters that had once hung on the wall.
It occurred to me then that theirs might not be the only empty house with but memories and ghosts to keep it company. Somewhere on the reservation was proof that my grandparents and mother had existed here among their own people; proof that they had once belonged. More than anything, I wanted to see that house.
I needed to see it.
My heart raced at the prospect of walking through the same rooms in which my family had eaten, slept, and lived together, and I knew I couldn’t leave the reservation without seeing that place. I trembled at the anticipation of being so close to my family once more, even if I would never again be able to actually see or physically touch them.
Adrian’s quiet voice broke my reverie. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”
FIVE
We ate lunch under the drooping branches of a willow tree at a lakeside playground. A few parents sat on splintered picnic benches watching as their kids tried not to scorch the backs of their legs going down an old metal slide.
Adrian and Shyla chewed their sandwiches in silence—each of them deep in thought. I stared out at the gentle waves rippling on the lake’s surface and the purple-grey storm clouds rising up on the distant horizon.
The crushed sandwich in my hand tasted bland, but I choked it down anyway, bite by little bite. The longer I sat shoving bits of torn-off bread into my mouth, the longer we could put off heading back to our make-shift camp and acknowledging the reason we had come to the reservation in the first place.
I hadn’t anticipated that being on the reservation would have such a strong emotional effect on me, and yet it did. These were my people, whether they despised me or not. This was my past—the place of my origin—and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. At the same time, everything about being here felt foreign to me. I would never truly call this place my home.
Desperate to break the silence, I turned to Adrian and Shyla. “So what’s the story with Jasmine?” Curiosity about her past maybe-relationship with my boyfriend, even if it was old news, had become too much.
Adrian broke off a piece of bread and flung it in the middle of a flock of geese, which attacked it at once. “She’s a pain in the butt,” he yelled over their loud honking.
“She was checking you out.” I studied him from the corner of my eye to gauge his reaction, but his expression remained frustratingly neutral.
“She’s always been a pain in the butt,” Shyla said, echoing her brother. “Even when she was younger.”
“It’s because Caleb’s the favorite one,” Adrian said. “Charley doesn’t even try to hide the fact.”
My stomach tightened, but I remained quiet. From the tone of his voice, it sure sounded like he was defending Jasmine. Just like an ex-boyfriend might do.
“Whatever,” Shyla said. “Jasmine’s just a whiny, spoiled little brat. Who wouldn’t prefer Caleb?”
Adrian tossed another breadcrumb to the geese, a little harder this time. “Jasmine acts the way she does because she doesn’t know how else to get Charley’s attention.”
Shyla snorted, but I saw amusement turn to incredulity as she realized Adrian wasn’t joking. “Since when are you an expert on Jasmine’s motives?”
“I’m not. I just know how it feels.”
Shyla slapped her sandwich to the plastic bag between her feet and glared at her brother. “What are you talking about? You know how what feels?”
Adrian shrugged but didn’t meet his sister’s eyes. He muttered under his breath, “You were always Gran’s favorite.”
Shyla’s mouth popped open. She shook her head, laughing. “You have got to be kidding me. After everything that has happened, after knowing what I went through and all that Gran has sacrificed just to make my life a little easier . . . Don’t you think she would have done the same for you had the roles been reversed?”
Adrian didn’t answer, and he and I sat in silence as Shyla continued.
“Gran loves you just as much as she loves me, and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise. Do you know how many times I overheard her on the phone pleading with Dad to let you leave the reservation and come live with us? She saw how unhinged he became after Mom died, and it killed her to leave you there with him, but her hands were tied. I saw her crying for you when she thought no one was looking, so don’t you dare say that you know how Jasmine feels. She’s nothing but an ungrateful little brat. And so are you!”
Adrian kept his head down as he ripped fistfuls of grass and cast them aside. Whether he did it in anger or embarrassment, I didn’t know. A fat tear swelled and spilled onto the back of his hand, and he quickly wiped it against his jeans. I looked from him to Shyla, who sat with her back turned to him as she stared off in the opposite direction.
They were both too obstinate to break the silence. I sighed, knowing what I had to do. I placed one hand on Adrian’s leg and the other on Shyla’s shoulder. Closing my eyes, I focused on filling them with positive energy from my own Spirit. Feelings of understanding and compassion swelled like an ocean’s wave from my heart, cascading over them in a storm of powerful love. Adrian, and then Shyla, shuddered and relaxed under my touch.
The Prophecy Page 3
