I shrug and Sean bounces on the balls of his feet, until I answer, “How many?”
“Twice!” Sean booms. “The tunnels are all rigged so that a Veritas can collapse them at any time and re-route in another direction. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Yup. Sure is,” Brandon deadpans.
Mark rolls his eyes and mumbles to me, “Just say it’s amazing so he’ll stop.”
But there is no stopping Sean now. That’s obvious.
“Has anyone even explained to you how essential the Veritas are to the Ianua?” Sean dumps himself down beside me so hard that the mattress jumps and I bump against Garrett. My mind wanders and the only reason I can re-focus and even pay attention to what Sean is saying is because Garrett’s gaze is glued on his brother with such pride.
“The Veritas listen to everything happening all over the world. Everything!” Sean blabbers. “It’s amazing isn’t it? But their primary job is to keep the energies balanced. They spend their entire lives in intervals of meditation. Energy keeps the world in balance. Energy!”
Sean pauses, searching my face for a reaction. I get the feeling I should be blown away or awed or something, but I’m just stuck on what he said about the Veritas hearing everything and what that means exactly. Sean’s eyes are wide as he stares at me, but whatever expression I’ve got hanging there just makes him run a quick hand through his hair and try again.
“The Veritas are Equalizers. They stabilize the energy flow. Disproportionate amounts of energy could...” I don’t mean to yawn, but I do. Sean’s hands drop to his sides and he gives me a tolerant grin. “Well...never mind. I could talk about this stuff for hours. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the only one in your family that’s never received a sign. It makes it all the more fascinating.”
“I told you my brother was seriously stocked.” Garrett taps his temple. “I swear, Sean knows more about the Ianua than any of us.”
“Besides Dad,” Sean corrects quickly. The four Reese brothers go silent and I give them a second before I clear my throat.
“Well, it sounds pretty miraculous,” I say. “What were you saying about the Veritas being able to hear everything?”
“Yeah, well,” Sean says, coughing softly into his fist. “They do. Most of them live in underground homes, like this one, because energy waves conduct more efficiently through moist soil. Although, some Veritas have homes in close proximity to tree roots in order to ground themselves and mute the communication for a while.”
Everything he says drops right out of my head, except one thing.
“Underground?” I say. “Wait. Where are we?”
I look around the room and it finally sinks in that there are no windows. There weren’t any in the bathroom either, just a fan in the ceiling. It didn’t seem strange until now. What kind of place doesn’t have windows?
“Library.” The pebble voice drifts in from the doorway.
The doorframe makes the itty-bitty man standing there seem even tinier. His face is round and flat, but his eyes are just slits without lashes and each have a glittery black marble inside. He’s wearing a spotless white shirt and khakis, with creases ironed all over the place, so when he moves, he resembles a wavy potato chip.
“Hello.” I say and a little grin seeps across the tiny man’s face. “I’m Nalena Maxwell. My mom is...she was...my mom is Alo Evangeline Maxwell. Thank you for letting me stay here...”
“Take a breath all ready, Nali.” Mark laughs. “It’s just Nok. He’s no big deal.”
Nok smiles, rolling from the balls of his feet to his heels and back again, as if he doesn’t have any problem with being considered trivial.
“No,” Nok tells me, as if I’ve asked him something. I look to the other Reese’s, wondering what someone said that I didn’t hear, but no one else seems to have said anything. Nok stops rolling on his feet and says, “Nothing.”
I look again to the Reese’s, but there’s still no response until Sean asks Nok, what he’s making for dinner. Then Sean adds, in my direction, “You’re going to be amazed. Nok’s a great cook.”
“Veg-tables,” Nok says.
“Don’t worry about what it’s called. It’s always good,” Mark says.
“Yes.” Nok says, but he’s looking at Brandon as if he was the one talking instead of Sean. I figure his strange eyes might make it hard to see properly in the light.
Suddenly, Nok’s eyes are on me and he says, “No.”
“Um...I didn’t say anything.” I smile apologetically. “That was Sean.”
Nok’s eyes flicker away from me, to Brandon again.
“Secret!” Nok’s laugh booms as if he’s eight feet tall. Then he turns to Mark and says, “No.” and whips back in Brandon’s direction and laughs, “Nev-her!”
Nok’s head jerks from Brandon to Mark, back and forth like he’s shooting at them in some turbo-paced gun fight, but instead of bullets, he’s rifling answers as fast as he can move his head: “Poke.” “Maybe.” “No.” “Wij.” “Me-ball.” “Drujstore.” “Tomarwow!” “Yes.”
I listen to Nok’s odd accent and how none of his words seem to fit together and even weirder, how he seems to be answering Brandon and Mark even though they aren’t talking. Brandon is just staring at the wall over Sean’s shoulder and Mark is studying his fingernails with a smirk on his face. I finally turn to Garrett, who’s watching with amusement instead of confusion, which is even more confusing.
I nudge him and whisper, “What are they doing?”
“None! Like! Ha! Majic? Poke!” Nok is still spraying the silent room with answers.
“Mark and Brandon are trying to drive Nok nuts,” Garrett whispers. He leans back, his hand on the mattress behind me, close enough to run sparks up my spine. I relax beside him and Garrett says, “Nok hears everything. Including what we think.”
He can’t hear everything.
Nok suddenly catches my eye, tipping his chin down and eyebrows up. “Everything,” he says.
“What we’re thinking?” I hardly move my lips as I whisper it back to Garrett.
Nok pauses in the middle of his barrage of answers to tell me, “Yup.” Then he resumes firing his one-liners at the younger Reese’s.
Garrett laughs. “Mark and Brandon like to see if they can overload him and throw him off tilt.”
“Can they?” I ask.
Nok pauses again to answer me with a cocky smile, “Nev’her!”
I scoot back, running into the diagonal of Garrett’s arm. He moves over to give me more room. Ugh.
I start to consider what ‘everything’ really means. The zillion thoughts I think about being a coward, about what a weakling I am without my mom, and about how scared I am of being the Ianua’s lousiest warrior. I go clammy, remembering what I thought about the Great-Pumpkin-sweats that Nok gave me, and what I thought of how he looked when he was standing in the doorway just a couple of seconds ago.
But then my mind skitters to all the thoughts I have about Garrett.
All of them.
Everything…about Garrett...and about Garrett and me together. The collage of kisses. How much time I spend in my head, retracing the weave of veins in his arms. All the really specific daydreams about things I’ve never even done before, but have been trying to figure out how to do well, for when the time comes. I am overwhelmed with shame for every petty, dirty, or mean thing I’ve ever thought quietly inside my head, knowing now that someone might’ve actually heard it.
I try to make my mind blank. But I can’t stop thinking the wrong thoughts. Garrett leans toward me until his face is nearly touching the skin of my cheek.
“You’re thinking, oh crap, aren’t you?” he says.
I swallow. Nod. Gulp. “Yeah.”
Garrett laughs and Nok slaps down the air toward the boys and says, “Sill’ness.” He looks at me one more time, his face as open and inviting as a meadow.
He says with a shrug, “You. Fine.”
Then he turns on his heel an
d leaves.
“Oh...did you see that?” Mark pipes up. “Nok’s got a crush on Nali. You got two whole words out of him!”
Mark tries to kick my ankle from across the bed divide, but Garrett intercepts with his own leg and shoves Mark away.
“Shut up all ready,” Garrett says, but Brandon joins in, singing about Nok and me in trees, making kissing sounds. Sean bashes him with a pillow, which only muffles Brandon for a second. But then Garrett jumps to the edge of the bed and that’s enough to send both the younger Reeses scampering out of the room.
When they’re gone, I ask Garrett, “Does he really hear everything? Are you sure? Because Addo said that nobody can hear my thoughts unless I project them.”
“Well, you do have to project with Addo. The Veritas are different though. I know it seems impossible at first, but try not to let it bug you.”
Sean adds, “Think of it this way, Nali. What if you heard every single thought of everyone around you all day long? How important would any of it really be after a while?”
I swallow hard. “Can anyone else hear what I’m thinking?”
“Nope,” Garrett says and he shoots me a smile. “Dang it.”
From down the hall, I hear the tinkle of a ceramic bell and Nok calls only once, “Fud.”
I follow Garrett and Sean out of the bedroom and down the hall into a long and narrow room that reminds me a lot of the Addo’s old trailer that was just one enormous kitchen. There are no partitions in this room either and, even though everything looks outdated and used, it’s all meticulously clean.
From end to end, the floor is covered in large, white tiles, without any rugs. The opposite wall from where we’re standing is actually a flat kitchen, with a row of white cupboards, a white countertop and white appliances, all lined up, like clean and ready soldiers.
Sean and Garrett take a seat at the tiny card table in the middle of the floor and the seat I slide into faces the only other furniture in the room. A black futon and a ragged, leather chair are at the far end, ten feet away from a darkened opening to a staircase and a corridor that leads somewhere I haven’t been.
Nok is standing in front of the stove, scooping some kind of bright vegetable dish out of a steaming pot. He looks over his shoulder, smiles, and goes back to loading a plate, but the idea of him listening to everything I’m thinking sends a jagged shot of panic zipping through me again.
I shift around on the creaky chair, trying to make every observation in my head sound polite.
Weird kitchen. Wait, scratch that. I didn’t mean that.
Wow…he keeps everything sooo clean.
It’s creepy clean. How can he stand living down here? Ugh! I didn’t mean that either-
You…he…he gets to use the library whenever he wants. Lucky.
There’s no TV or radio or anything. The furniture is falling apart…Oh my gosh, no.
This place is so…tiny? Ugh...tiny.
Cozy. This place is super awesomely cozy. Man, is this place nice and cozy.
I feel like my brain is climbing over itself as I try to censor everything. I repeat cozy, cozy, cozy to keep my thoughts under control until Sean jiggles the table and I look up and run right into Garrett’s eyes.
Then I forget all about cozy and go into hyper-mode, trying to zap all the inappropriate thoughts about Garrett that shoot up faster than dandelions.
Nok sets a plate in front of me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Fine,” he says, but the word is a whole conversation in expression and tone and in the reassuring pressure of his fingertips. I steal a look at Nok’s smooth face, thinking of what I’d want to hear if I could listen to anything. Then I glance at Garrett and get lost in the whole daydream of wishes before I remember Nok again. Nok doesn’t even glance at me as he puts a dish in front of Sean and then I wonder if Nok actually listens to everything I’m thinking anyway.
“No,” Nok says and this time he glances at me with a grin. I hope he’s telling me the truth because Garrett winks at me and all the inappropriate thoughts pop up again.
Nok’s cooking is beyond amazing. I finish one plate and am working on my second when the Addo shuffles in from around the corner of the living room and groans himself down onto the chair across from me. I can see that just walking in has worn him out and when he sends me a thought, it is so weak, it teeters on the tip of my brain. I have to work to pull up his words the same way I used to struggle to pull up dates on history tests. I keep concentrating and the Addo’s words finally pop up.
How in the world did you do anything wearing this contraption, he says, shifting his arm in his terry cloth sling.
All that work to hear him complain. I giggle and Addo smirks at me from across the table. Garrett sees it, but keeps eating, without comment. I doubt Sean even notices. His eyes are clamped shut as he mmm-mmm-mm’s his way through his own second helping of food. I try to send a thought, feather-soft, back to Addo.
Why don’t you ask Garrett to heal you? He helped me when I broke my arm. I don’t send the last part of my thought, the correction, that I didn’t actually break my own arm, but that my father broke it for me.
The Memory ceremony will take care of it. Addo sighs. When he does, his whole chest seems to sink even lower. Garrett needs all his energy right now.
I nod. I have a question, Addo. About Roger.
Your father? What about ‘em? Addo asks.
Roger…he’s not going to be written, is he?
Cheez whiz and bananas…how do you itch the back of your arm when your ribs are busted?
I push my fork across the table to him a little more forcefully than I should, but I know the Addo and I know he’s avoiding my question.
Just stick a fork in it, I tell him.
That makes him chuckle, but he grabs the fork and scrapes the back of his arm with the tines. All the bruises on his face melt with relief as he moves the utensil around. Sean finally looks up and catches the Addo blissfully prodding himself with the fork. Sean just goes back to eating.
Addo sets down the fork and thanks Nok for the plate he deposits in front of him. But Addo doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he poises a fresh fork over the steaming veggies.
Addo, I send the thought like a lightening bolt and the Addo winces at his plate. What about Roger? He doesn’t get to be written, does he?
Well…
When Addo looks up, instead of answering, his eyes sweep over my emergency-orange, fleece disaster. He grins a little and motions with the fork tines to his own sweatshirt.
“Comfy, isn’t it?” he says out loud. He’s really not going to answer. At least he’s going to try not to, but I’m not giving up. Not now that I’m worried about what the answer is.
I look like a traffic cone. I don’t care about the clothes, Addo. Roger killed my mother. Tell me he doesn’t get to be written.
Here’s the funny thing, Addo’s eyes flick up with a grin, but I glare at him.
No, I answer, Nothing about this is funny if Roger gets to be remembered.
Addo lays his fork on the edge of his plate and looks me straight in the eyes. His voice swells up in my head. The thing is, my dear, everyone has a purpose. Even if it seems to be to walk in circles and spit on you, everyone has a use to us in this world. And that’s just the aftertaste. The real, bitter pill is that every moron you encounter is actually here to make you less of one.
Not him. I set my jaw even as I think it. Not a murderer. Roger left us…he killed my mom! The thoughts build in my head and steam out toward the Addo. I can’t even stop them when I see him cringe on impact. He doesn’t deserve to go anywhere good! He deserves to rot…forever.
Where he goes, Addo’s brows curve with sympathy. It’s not up to us, kiddo. But the knowledge he has and what he’s taught each of us is still valuable and we need to preserve that.
We need to know how to murder innocent people? I rise up out of my chair, plant my hands on the table and lean across, toward the Addo. I want to b
e bigger than him. I want to make him shrivel in his chair. I want to make him tell me that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep Roger away from my mother.
But Addo doesn’t sink. His expression of sympathy stays put and instead of smothering my anger, the fury boils up inside me. Garrett and Sean and the entire room disappear as I narrow my eyes on the Addo. I lift one hand and bring down my fist hard on the table as my pressure valve bursts open. My thoughts spew across the table in a direct, hard line, aimed straight at the Addo.
What could Roger possibly know that any of us would need? He killed my grandfather! He tried to kill me! He set up Garrett’s dad and HE MURDERED MY MOTHER!
Addo braces as my thoughts roar into his head. His face remains smooth for the most part, except that he closes his eyes and the muscles jump in his jaw, underneath his bruised skin.
“Hey!” Sean yelps and reaches for the Addo as the old man sways on his chair. Garrett jumps up and pulls me away from the table.
“Nalena.” Garrett’s voice is surprisingly soft and it snaps me out of it. Nok stands beside me, a hand on my shoulder. I’m not sure if he is there to calm me down or to keep me from diving at the Addo, but the realization of what I just did and how I attacked the Addo, comes barreling at me.
Addo rights himself on his chair and when he opens his eyes, brown and forgiving, my own fill up. I take a step back toward him and drop at his knees. The Addo’s distorted, sandaled feet swim against the tile, beneath my tears.
I’ve attacked the Addo. I am no better than my father.
“Wrong,” Nok murmurs. He squeezes my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Addo.” My voice breaks. My heart sinks into my feet.
“It’s okay, kiddo,” Addo says. “Some things you just can’t understand until the moment that you do.”
Addo finishes his food and excuses himself, with a forgiving pat on my back that makes me feel worse. He and Sean go off to talk in private and leave Garrett and I at the table, because there’s no place for us to escape to.
Cornerstone 02 - Keystone Page 3
