“Concentrate you guys,” said Meg, on the verge of losing her patience.
I met my father’s eyes, though. He was gazing at Caleb and me, smiling.
Caleb put his hands in mine again and I closed my eyes, trying not to keel over from his onion breath. “Okay. For real this time.”
I hadn’t had much time to reflect on the fact that Caleb was my brother. I had a brother. An actual sibling. Someone who’d be with me for the rest of my life no matter what. We were connected not only by blood, given life by the man sitting in the room with us, but we were connected by what we could do.
I took a deep breath through my nose and felt that familiar tingle start at my fingertips. When Caleb squeezed my hands in response, I knew that he had felt it, too. I didn’t speak for fear that I would break the connection. Instead, I conjured in my mind iron shackles around a pair of sturdy hands. Then I visualized a heavy mallet coming down and obliterating them to pieces, freeing my father’s people of the curse forever.
Caleb’s hands relaxed in mine and I finally opened my eyes. “Did it work?” he said. “Did we remove the curse?”
“I don’t know.” I turned to Sebastian and my father. “How do you feel?”
Sebastian sidled next to Meg and looked down at her. “I’d feel a lot better if your aunt would agree to go out on a date with me.”
Meg made a sound of irritation, but she couldn’t disguise her smile. “I think someone needs to teach you a lesson about timing.” Sebastian grinned but didn’t say anything more.
My shoulders slumped. “Did anything happen at all?”
My father shook his head. “I didn’t feel anything, but we won’t know for sure until the sun begins to set.”
I let my hands fall to my sides. “I definitely felt something, though. I think we’re on the right track.”
“Maybe we should all hold hands,” Imogene said.
“As long as no one starts singing Kumbaya,” David added.
We gathered in an imperfect circle, made difficult by so many people in such a small area all fighting for space. It was awkward, too. I glanced across the circle at David, who was obviously struggling against the urge to laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation.
“Kumbaya, my lord . . .” Sebastian began under his breath in a surprisingly nice voice. I noticed he had wedged his way in between Meg and Imogene, and was giving my aunt the same look Adrian used to give me. David noticed it too. His eyes met mine and he simply shrugged.
I closed my eyes and squeezed Caleb’s hand in my left. I held Adrian’s hand in my right. Nothing happened for a very long time. Ready to give up, I finally felt a tingling in my fingertips.
Almost immediately Jasmine said, “Did you feel that?”
“I felt something,” Sebastian said with a grin and a sideways glance at Meg.
Meg dropped his hand. “I refuse to stand next to you if you keep up with these comments.”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“He’s just flirting with you, Meg,” said David. He and Sebastian locked eyes and gave each other a nod of male solidarity.
“Good grief. I’m surrounded by children,” Meg said.
“Children?” Sebastian said with an incredulous laugh. “I’ve got a few years on you.”
“Age is just a state of mind,” David chimed in.
“And apparently the two of you will be sixteen forever.”
“Can we please keep going?” my father said, with not a little urgency in his voice. He had more at stake in removing the curse. And while he maintained his cool outward composure, I could tell he was strung very tight.
“Yes, let’s not waste time here,” Imogene said.
Meg reluctantly took Sebastian’s hand again, or so it seemed. “It won’t be on my shoulders if this doesn’t work.” Her eyes went wide as she met mine. “Oh. Sarah. That’s not what I . . . I mean, I didn’t mean to imply . . .”
“I know what you meant,” I assured her, giving both my uncles a look that clearly warned they’d better behave.
Still, I felt an incredible amount of pressure to remove this curse. I glanced at Caleb—did he feel it too? Judging by the look on his face, I wasn’t so sure. Considering there was a chance he could succumb to the same fate as my father and uncle with the very next seizure he suffered, you would think he would be taking this a little more seriously. And maybe he was. Nothing much ever seemed to bother Caleb. I was the one who was always stressing out. I was the one who was making a mountain out of a molehill. I was the one—”
“Sarah,” Adrian hissed in my ear. “What’s wrong?”
I glanced around the circle. Everyone was staring at me. Waiting. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“That’s okay, honey,” Imogene said. “Take a deep breath and begin when you are ready.”
I closed my eyes and squeezed Caleb’s hand to let him know I really was ready this time. Taking a deep breath in through my nose and letting everything else fall away, I concentrated only on the swelling warmth in my core and limbs, as well as the surge of emotion from everyone else in the room.
Love and fear and insecurity . . . it was all swirling around me, overwhelming me, wanting to be tamed. I was drawing on their energy; drawing on their spirits.
Moments passed and at last I eased my grip on Caleb’s and Adrian’s hands. “I know what we have to do,” I said.
“What?” Sebastian said.
“We have to go back.”
“Back where?” Meg said.
“To the Katori reservation.”
I turned to my father then. “But first, we have to gather the tribes.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“I wish I could go with you,” Priscilla said, working the zipper of her hoodie up and down in a distracted sort of way. “I always miss the good stuff.”
“I’ll only be gone the weekend,” I said. “Besides, you’ve got that English paper due Monday.”
She blew a raspberry. “Don’t remind me. I’m on house arrest until it’s done.”
I laughed as Priscilla held open the door and I slid into the back seat of Shyla’s car, an odd sense of déjà vu washing over me. We’d gone through this same routine just two months before, but I wasn’t any less nervous now than I had been then.
Gathering the tribes had taken longer than we thought. My father, chief of the Manaquay people, much to my surprise, had accompanied Caleb and me over a period of several weekends to speak to the leaders of the other five tribes, to tell them who we were and convince them the curse could be broken. In the meantime, Caleb had suffered several more seizures, each of them more debilitating than the last. Time was of the essence.
And here we were now, on a cold October weekend, making the long drive back to the Katori reservation. It was there where it had all begun, and it’s there where it had to end.
The people of the Katori tribe—men, women, and children alike—had gathered outside Council Hall and were waiting expectantly for us when we finally arrived. There were others with them, too—people who were our kin, even if only by a single drop of blood scattered over oceans of time. They were the others that Charley had spoken of; the descendants of Kamut who shared the same curse as my father and his people.
My father stood at the forefront of the group, along with the five other chiefs Caleb and I had previously met. Several weeks had passed since I’d last seen him, and my heart leaped in my throat. We’d kept in regular contact, getting to know each other better through the security of physical distance. I had a father now, and a brother, and I took comfort in the fact that nothing would ever change that. My mother and grandparents had been ripped from me, but I’d been given a tribe and family in their place.
My aunt, looking suddenly flushed, went directly to Sebastian’s side. I smiled internally, taking it as a good omen, a sign that everything would work out in the end. Caleb and I would remove the curse, and everyone would get their happily ever after.
Everyone, that is, except for Ch
arley.
Charley had been immediately stripped of her title upon her return to the reservation. In the interim, Imogene was elected Head of Council. At the present moment, she made her way to the front of the crowd and held up her hands to quiet the gentle susurrus of voices.
“The people of the Katori tribe welcome you as representatives of your people,” Imogene said, addressing the chiefs. Then she threw her hand to a great heap of wood that had been placed in the clearing and said, “Sarah?”
That was my signal to take over. I cleared my throat self-consciously and motioned for Caleb to follow me.
“Do you remember what we talked about?” I whispered to him when we were some distance away from the rest of the group. “First I will ask the chiefs to join hands. Then we will stand on either end.”
He nodded. “Got it. But are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he said under his breath, placing a restraining hand on my arm as I started to turn away.
It was growing dark, and I was shivering so hard my jaw ached from clenching my teeth. But I didn’t know if it was because of the cold, or because my nerves were out of control.
“For all of our sakes,” I said, “I hope so.”
With that, I turned to face the people gathered before us, clearing my throat again. “Will the chiefs please come forward now?” They did, and then Caleb and I flanked them, sandwiching them between us.
I took a deep breath and raised my voice, hoping it was loud enough to reach everyone present. “Those who have joined us here this evening, please take a hand.”
It took a moment and some maneuvering to get everyone in place, but soon we had formed a circle around the towering pile of wood. When all was quiet again, I lowered my father’s hand momentarily and removed from my jacket pocket a bundle of sage that Caleb had bound with twine earlier that morning.
Flicking my fingers, the tip of the bundle began to smoke and soon glowed red. As it did, I made my way to Caleb, slowly waving the sage around me and over my head as I walked past each of the six chiefs. I felt the weight of their expectation, as well as that of my own tribe, descend heavily on me.
Caleb held his own bundle of sage. We touched tips until his also began to smoke and burn. Together, we retraced my steps, stopping in front of each of the chiefs, the representatives of all the men who shared Kamut’s curse. As Caleb handed each one his own bundle of sage, I extended the tip of mine to theirs. At last, we came to my father.
After all the sage bundles were lit and the air was fragrant and heavy with the smell of burning herbs, Caleb and I made our way to the center of the circle. We turned and faced the six men and I said, “Please come forward.”
They did, and I gestured to the timber looming behind me like a great skeleton of wooden bones. “Do as we do.”
Caleb and I bent and laid our sage at the base of one of the smaller logs. One by one, the other men did the same, and soon the smell of burning sage grew even more pungent.
Caleb raised his hand and at once the smoke yielded to his silent command. He walked around the cluster of men, and soon the smoke enveloped them so completely it seemed they had become lost in the growing shadows. Tracing slow steps along the inside perimeter of the circle, the smoke trailed Caleb like a faithful companion while he intermittently blew it in the faces of those present.
My eye caught Nova’s, the young woman whose baby I’d helped once before. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. My eyes roamed those of the other people gathered, too. They were all there, the people of my tribe. Even Charley, looking admittedly miserable, and I wondered if she had come willingly. Neither Caleb nor Jasmine had spoken to her much in the last few weeks.
After completing a full circle, Caleb stopped at my side, and I gestured for him and the other six men to return to their spots. Turning, I held out my hand to the pile of wood, issuing my own silent command. Small flames began to lick the underside of the heap and thread their way to the top. Within minutes, the entire pile was ablaze, casting a warm glow on the darkening sky and dissipating the chill. It was my turn to return to the circle, hoping with each step I took that whatever I was about to do would actually work.
“Let us all join hands again,” I said.
I took my father’s hand in my right and Adrian’s in my left. Then I closed my eyes, the last sight being that of the setting sun on the horizon. Daylight was nearly gone. We didn’t have much time.
The scent of sage was strong, and I knew Caleb was using his control over the wind to maintain a constant wreath of smoke around the people gathered here. But it was up to me now. I had to believe that I could remove the curse. I had to want it, not just for Caleb and my father and Sebastian, but for all the chiefs gathered here tonight and for their people.
Breathing in, I let the magical, mystical properties of the earth penetrate my lungs. I held it in, allowing it to overwhelm my soul. We were all of us family here, descended from the Sun and Moon and the earthly children born to them. All of us with the capacity to love and hate in equal measure.
I released my breath and took in another lungful of air, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. Images began to dance in the fire, images of a young man—handsome and powerful—and of his sister—beautiful and kind.
Kamut and Kai, one radiating a cool and calculating appeal, and the other shining as bright as the sun itself.
What would happen if they came together?
In the flames I saw Kai wrap her arms around her brother Kamut. There was no struggle, only a relinquishing of spirit and soul, as though Kamut had been waiting since the beginning of time for this very moment, to be free himself. Kai overpowered and consumed him as she seemed to grow larger than life. When she finally released him, I saw he had shed the skin of a monster and was now a man—small, human, and vulnerable in her presence.
I felt a sudden and powerful pulling sensation at the center of my chest, where my heart beat, as though the power that resided inside me was being drawn out somehow. I felt it pulsing in my blood, surging in my veins and beating against the confining walls of my body until I thought my skin would fracture and fragment and finally explode. The feeling pulsated down my arms and into my fingers. It felt as though my whole body were on fire.
I looked down and gasped at the swirls of blue and red linking my hand and Adrian’s. One by one, the magic spread down the circle, alighting each pair of clasped hands like a beacon in the dark.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go!” I yelled, and felt both Adrian’s and my father’s hands immediately tighten against mine. It was the Spirit of Katori drawing strength from each of our souls. I knew it was working! We were breaking the curse!
The magic traveled the circle slowly until at last it linked my father’s hand to mine. Astonished, I looked around at the bond that now connected the members of seven different tribes in a way we’d never been connected before. In one great rush, the Spirit that lived inside me broke free and rushed toward the center of the circle in a great deluge of fiery power.
Flames stretched to the sky, raining down sparks. Some of the younger children gasped in fear and excitement, but everyone stood transfixed. Caleb raised his hand, and as he did so, a gentle mist began to fall, tempering the flames without putting them out completely.
“How do we know if it worked?” one of the chiefs shouted, when it appeared that nothing else was going to happen.
“We wait,” I said.
I cast my eyes to the distant horizon where the sun had become just a sliver of red and gold. Then I glanced at my father. He smiled, but I saw the fear in his eyes—fear that this hadn’t worked, after all; fear for himself and his people; fear for Caleb, his son and my brother.
If it didn’t work, what would we do? What would I do? I felt like the responsibility of freeing these people rested on my shoulders, and my shoulders alone. And that was a pretty scary thing to feel.
A groan and muffled cry escaped my father’s lips suddenly and he let go of my hand in reflex, falling to hi
s knees.
“Dad!” I tried to put my arms around him, but he pushed me away.
“Go!” He groaned again and clutched at his head.
“It didn’t work!” someone shouted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said to my father, even as the other men began to drop to their knees and writhe in apparent agony. I realized then with a start that they were going to transform right in front of our eyes.
I looked at the members of my own tribe, some of them retreating in fear, but most of them too scared to move, fixed in place by the terrifying spectacle unfolding before them.
“Take each other’s hands!” I yelled. “Don’t break the circle! You have to hold hands!”
Slowly, they started to do as I said and we circled around the six men once more.
And then down the line Caleb fell to his knees, too. “No!” Charley yelled. She tried to break free from the circle and go to him but I yelled at her to stop.
“Stay where you are!”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. We hadn’t broken the curse, after all, and I had no idea what to do now. I was going on pure instinct and could only hope what I felt in my gut was right.
Caleb rolled to his back and clawed at his skin, the sound of his screaming agonizing to my ears.
“Get it out! Get it out of me!”
“What’s happening?” Shyla yelled.
As if in answer, the spectral form of a great wolf tore free from Caleb’s body. And in the same moment, the ghostly form of Katori emerged from the flames of the fire. She pulled a shimmering bow and arrow from her back and sighted the weapon at the form of the wolf.
Then she let go.
I held my breath as the arrow, trailing sparks of fire, found its mark in the wolf’s heart. It reared on its hind legs, throwing back its head to emit a ghastly howl, and each of the men answered with a similar cry of pain.
The wolf dissipated at once, becoming nothing more than tiny bits of stardust that floated upward into the night sky and seemed to hang there. Katori turned to me then, bowed, and strode back into the flames where she disappeared altogether. The men lay silent and motionless on the ground.
The Prophecy Page 20
