I immediately went to my father and knelt next to him. I clutched his arm, my heart beating heavily. “The sun has set!”
He sat up, breathing heavily, and rose slowly to his feet, as did the others around him. “Then it worked?” His words came out choked with disbelief. “It actually worked?”
I smiled as stars winked into existence overhead. We could finally dare to hope. “I think so.”
But there was a hollowness inside of me that gave me pause. I knew what that hollowness meant, and I felt a sudden sense of loss. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure something, anything, but nothing happened. I squeezed my father’s hand and left him to the care and questions of the others. I had to see Caleb.
“I don’t have any abilities anymore,” I whispered, huddling next to him where he was still on the ground.
He put a hand to his head, still looking like he might pass out or throw up at any moment. “Dude, I’ve got a killer headache. And what are you talking about?”
“I don’t feel Katori’s presence in me anymore. I think she’s gone. Like, for good.”
Caleb’s forehead wrinkled as he raised his hands. Nothing happened. He squinted and tried again. “Mine are gone, too.”
“What’s going on?” Adrian said, as he and Shyla came to join us.
I shook my head as I rose to my feet. “I don’t know. But I think when Katori’s spirit left my body, it left for good. I feel . . . empty.”
Adrian linked his fingers through mine. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
But I just looked at him and began to laugh. “You’re sorry? Don’t you see what this means?”
Adrian, Caleb, and Shyla stared at me as though I’d finally gone off the deep end. “Uh, I think it means you’re certifiable,” Shyla said.
“No!” I jumped up and down and whooped with a sudden sense of relief. “That I’m normal! I’m finally normal!”
“I haven’t known you for very long, but I’m not sure you were ever all that normal,” Caleb said.
I stopped jumping and ruffled his spikes with my hand. “More normal than you’ll ever be.”
“So now what?” Adrian said, with a shrug of his shoulders.
I looked across the clearing to where my father was talking to Imogene and David, and where Meg was laughing about something Sebastian was whispering in her ear.
I smiled. “I guess we live our lives.”
EPILOGUE
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
I glanced out at the auditorium teeming with friends and parents and relatives, my heart swelling as I took comfort at the sight before me. All the people I loved were here, together: Meg, David, Imogene, Sebastian . . . my father. This was it—the first day of the rest of my life, I thought. As cliché as it sounded, it was also very true.
Adrian, Shyla, Caleb, Priscilla, and I sat among our classmates at graduation, the final performance of our high school careers. We would walk across that stage and, in another few months, head off to college. Even if Adrian and I wouldn’t be going to the same school, I still had Priscilla.
I found her in the crowd of red and white gowns—no difficult feat—and she stuck out her tongue, making a horned rocker sign with her fingers. Yeah, baby she mouthed at me, thrashing her head so hard that her cap flew off and sailed into the person sitting in front of her. I laughed and rolled my eyes as the principal walked on stage and began with her opening announcements.
I had done it. I had really done it! I couldn’t believe I had made it through the last four years, despite all that had happened. Knowing that everything I had worked for had arrived at last felt surreal and dream-like.
I wish you were here, I thought, sending up a silent prayer to my mother and grandparents. I wish you could see me now.
Although I didn’t have my mother, I now had my father. And an uncle. And a brother. And more family than I even knew what to do with.
The seven separate tribes were no more. Consolidated into one people, we were now the Onondape. Caleb and I were the youngest members to sit on the newly formed council, duly elected to give a fresh voice and perspective to the first generation of what would hopefully be many more to come. We were proof that people could change, that long-held prejudices and misconceptions could be cast aside.
“Adrian Hunt.”
I beamed with pride as I watched him walk across the stage and receive his diploma. He looked out at the crowd, lighting on his grandmother, and also Victor, who’d arrived for the occasion but sat solemnly off to one side. And then his eyes went unerringly to mine and he smiled. I smiled back. We would be all right, Adrian and I.
“Shyla Hunt.”
My eyes pricked with tears as I thought about her years of struggle and how much she’d overcome just to get to where she was today. She accepted her diploma with an air of liberation, clinging to that one piece of paper as though it were the golden ticket to a new life.
My mind wandered as the other members of my class walked across the stage. I thought about the many fights I’d had with Katie, the tears shed, and how she’d done her best to make my life as miserable as possible. But she couldn’t touch me anymore. She’d lost her power over me when I’d finally discovered that my own came from within. She would never win again.
I thought about Jasmine, how we would never be best friends, but at least now we had an understanding. I thought about Charley and how, more than anything, I just felt sorry for how bitter and resentful she’d let herself become.
And then it was Caleb’s turn to walk across the stage, my brother for always. And then Priscilla’s, whose mom had made the trip from LA.
“Sarah Redbird!”
The words jolted me from my reveries, and my heart raced as I made my way down the aisle and concentrated on not tripping over my feet. Meg, of course, would flip when she saw that I’d ditched the heels she’d bought me in favor of my ratty sneakers, but I knew there was no way I would manage otherwise. I was who I was, and I would never be anyone else.
I made my way across the stage, floating as if in a dream, and shook hands with the principal. “Congratulations,” she said to me. “And good luck to you.”
Looking out into the audience to see Meg clapping wildly, her face contorted with emotion, I locked eyes with my father. Now that he was just a man and I was just me, we would have all the time in the world.
As I returned to my seat I thought about how I’d grown up wondering about my father. And when I found out what he was, I’d refused to believe that he was the monster everyone claimed him to be.
Maybe it was my own faith in him, the knowledge that he was a good man, that had finally released him, and everyone else, from the curse. But I would never know for sure.
What I did know was that now we had a second chance, all of us. And I was going to take mine. I had to believe that this is what my mother would have wanted—to see us finally together, our people united.
Finally at peace.
About the Author
Melissa Luznicky Garrett is an author of adult and young adult novels. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, three children, and numerous animals. Melissa is currently hard at work on her next project. Visit Melissa’s blog or connect with her on Facebook.
www.MLGarrett.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/MLGarrettwrites.
Other novels by Melissa Luznicky Garrett include:
Precipice
Turning Point
The Spirit Keeper
Blood Type
Table of Contents
copyright
dedication
Acknowledgements
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE EIGHT MONTHS LATER
About the Author
Other novels by Melissa Luznicky Garrett
The Prophecy Page 21
