Cornerstone 02 - Keystone

by Misty Provencher

  “You are absolutely stunning,” is what he says.

  It’s not like a doorbell rings. Nok just disappears up the staircase and reappears with a woman. She’s as thick as a file cabinet, with square glasses and a blunt haircut that makes her look as though she’s sticking her head through a picture frame. She smiles like it aches and shakes my hand with just her fingertips, but it’s weird to see Ms. Fisk anywhere except where I’m used to her being: at the circulation desk, in the library, upstairs.

  The Addo ambles over to Ms. Fisk, his good arm extended like he’s going to take her hand and kiss it.

  “It’s good to see you again, Alo Charlotte,” he says, but before he can take her hand, she pulls it away.

  “Oh, no, no, no.” Her voice is like a doily, airy and delicate, as she touches her fingertips to her neck. “We aren’t using that terminology any longer, Addo. We’ve decided we can’t risk being identified by the old titles.”

  Addo drops his hand with a tolerant grin. “Oh no? Did someone decide it was our names that were ruining our smoke screen?”

  “Us,” she says. “All of us that are left, that is. We address one another as Sir and Madam and we no longer use first names. Only surnames now.”

  “Mmm hmm.” Addo hums. Ms. Fisk pinches her lips together as if she wants to let Addo know he’s being difficult. But he does it right back to her and says, “So the plan is to baffle the Fury with manners and surnames. Sounds like a solid plan, Charlotte, if ever there was one.”

  Ms. Fisk clasps her hands in front of her. “We simply thought it’d be best to begin fresh and have our acts together, so to speak, before we blend with the outer Curas.”

  “What’s a Cura?” I whisper to Garrett.

  “They are the twelve other communities, just like ours, that the other twelve Addos were responsible for,” he whispers back. The other twelve that are all dead now.

  “We need to make changes,” Ms. Fisk says. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You have to agree with that.”

  “Mmm.” Addo clamps his lips together. “Well, I suppose we’ll discuss this further during the Totus. Thank you for letting me know, Charlotte.”

  “Madam.” She corrects, dotting the name softly into the air with her finger.

  “Excuse me, of course. Ma…dam.” When Addo says Madam, he says it funny like my damn, which makes Brandon and Mark snicker from their seats. Although Addo doesn’t turn to look at them, his grin assures me that the next words are more for their benefit than Ms. Fisk’s. “So that would make you...My Damn Fisk.”

  This is not lost on any of us. Not even Mrs. Reese. Her lips tremble to hold down a grin. Garrett coughs a laugh into his hand. So does Sean. I put my hand over my face and pinch the base of my nose while Mark and Brandon wheeze into their collars. When they can’t hold back any longer, they explode into a fit of coughing laughter that makes Ms. Fisk wheel around to face them. It feels good to giggle behind my hand.

  “Alright then.” Ms. Fisk clears her throat with a lift of her brow. “How about if we just get started? Where is the paper?”

  Addo brings her a pen and a few sheets of plain, white paper from one of Nok’s cupboards. It’s the same kind of paper I used to bring my mom from the office supply store. I sit down beside Garrett, disappointed. No, it’s more than that. My mom and Garrett’s dad deserve parchment or something. Not cheap copy paper. Not something that could be folded up and washed in the pocket of my jeans.

  Ms. Fisk sits down at the card table before I can object. Addo sits off to the side. Mrs. Reese and Nok are in the front with Iris sandwiched between them; Sean, Brandon and Mark are in the next row and Garrett and I sit behind everyone. We’re all as still as strangers waiting for a bus, except that Garrett reaches over and takes my hand. I glance over and catch his eyes, brighter under the tears. He still smiles at me.

  Addo leans off his chair, staring at Ms. Fisk, as if he’s waiting for an alligator to surface at an exhibit. Ms. Fisk sits back and the chair squeals beneath her. She shifts around to get more comfortable and each time, the chair squeals. I want her to stop.

  Eventually, she closes her eyes. And she starts humming. Humming, not writing. Each hum drags across my ears, like sharpening a knife on my nerves. Addo settles back onto his seat, his sling resting on his belly and his eyes closed. He starts humming along with her.

  Then Mrs. Reese starts humming in the front row with Nok. Even Iris. Then Brandon. Then Mark. The sounds of them all connect; all drop into the same pitch. Holy crap. It’s like they’re doing a spiritual, humming, stadium wave.

  I glance to Garrett for answers, but he closes his eyes and then he’s humming along with everyone else. Sean and I are the only ones that are hum-less and Sean has his head in his hands like he’s praying into his palms. I can’t even ask him why they’re doing it.

  I’m totally freaked that I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I should be humming too, but no one told me to do it. I don’t want to just jump in and have all their eyes pop open and their heads whip around to see why I just ruined their tune.

  I lean forward and poke Sean in the back. He lifts his head out of his hands, but as he glances over his shoulder at me, my eyelids get super heavy. Like they are made of concrete. I squint at Sean, but my lips fill with concrete too. They are too heavy to shape into words. Sean just gives me an understanding grin and turns back to his palms like there’s nothing wrong. I stop fighting the concrete and let my eyes close.

  I don’t know if the hum is coming at me or if I’m charging straight into it. Whichever it is, it’s a massive, blooming wave of energy, that I can see inside my eyelids as it explodes right in front of me. I collide with it and it envelops me. My skin tingles all over and my eyes itch. My brain is rainbow Jell-O, spinning in a blender.

  In the back of my head, I hear my mom’s voice whisper, Don’t fight it. Let go. I do what she says and I ooze into the merry-go-round of humming colors.

  My mom is next to me. She’s doesn’t look like an unfinished crossword puzzle anymore. She looks like I remember her, except all the worry lines on her face are gone and there are no bullet holes.

  She is beautiful, with her hair tied up in flowers. She reaches for my hand and when Garrett takes my other, we’re connected to everyone else in the room, forming a large, loose circle. My mother’s touch is soft and Garrett’s is electric, but it feels like I am welded to them both, snapped in place, in a huge energy grid.

  Garrett’s gaze moves around the circle and I follow it, only stopping when we find his father standing beside his mom. Mr. Reese smiles at us and a wild current moves through Garrett’s hand to mine and I smile too. I turn to my mother.

  I thought there’d be a zillion things I’d want to say to her, but standing in this circle, I don’t feel like I need to say any of it. I can feel my mom’s emotions as if they’re words on my tongue or blood moving through my heart. She’s running through me.

  Her sadness over our separation comes through my chest in drumbeats and her disappointment in having to leave so soon tastes like salt on my tongue. But then those emotions melt away and they are replaced by something stronger. I inhale until my chest feels like it will burst open with joy. This is how it feels for her to love me.

  The touch between us empties and becomes a clear, pulsing connection. It’s my turn. Everything comes at once and I can’t slow it down. The fear and love and worry and relief and sadness go barreling out of me at once, like a tsunami washing the massive chunks of my emotions to her, along with the tiny bits of feelings I’ve had for her through my whole life. I can feel her accepting each emotion and feeling each one of them, until I am empty.

  And then she sends me back one last emotion. It swirls through me and encircles me like her arms used to. I am filled again with her love for me and it takes up so much room that my worry trickles away, my guilt dissolves, and my sadness disappears. The fear we had of being separated explodes and whisks itself out of the circle. The only
thing left is how she feels about me and how I feel about her. It’s as warm and satisfying as a chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven.

  The love my mother has felt for me fastens itself, like a tiny diamond, in the corner of my heart. And suddenly, like a light switch or an alarm clock or snapping fingers, the grieving is over. Somehow, she’s put me back together and left a little of herself so I won’t ever be without her. I am too whole now to be sad anymore.

  Our connection clears again and now the other feelings, from around the circle, start rushing through. Even without looking, I can tell who’s who as they come. Ms. Fisk comes first, picking her way along. She feels as comfortable as heartburn. Addo is next, as bulky and definite as a shovel full of dirt. I swear I can feel him becoming whole again, his wounds coming together and healing. It’s like tiny pieces of all of us rush toward him and cling to him, like quilt pieces we can spare, and it sews him back together. He fills up the connection so much that Brandon and Mark can’t squeeze past him, although they try. Once Addo passes through, Brandon bounces and Mark is a bottle rocket, only held on path by everyone else. Nok feels like everyone and everything- a smudged rainbow, a million blades of grass waving at once, a handful of snowflakes. Mr. Reese comes through like a clear moon, calm and strong. Mrs. Reese drifts through like sand between my fingers. Iris bubbles. Sean rolls through, complicated and even, and the last is Garrett.

  His energy eases into me. He swirls into my muscles and I’m strong. It’s like he’s whispering through my skin and making me beautiful. I feel him move, as if my body is a room that he’s wandering through. He pauses to study pieces of me and I try to stand still inside myself and let him. It’s not easy. But then he’s in my mind, like a handsome mirage, and with a blink, he drifts from me the way moonlight filters from a room.

  Then it’s my turn and I can hardly keep my energy from pushing toward him. I’m so excited to have him thrown open wide, to be able to move through him and feel the places too deep to ever touch with my body. I want to see everything inside him.

  But before I have crossed from my threshold to his, there is a sudden surge from somewhere else. An energy I don’t recognize and didn’t expect comes gushing around the circle. It clumps when it hits me, like barrels of cold oatmeal, dirty gray and moldy green, the feeling of jealousy left to rot, anger drowned in a deep hole, sadness so large that it crushes me beneath it. It keeps coming and coming, piling up until my head pounds with it and I feel like it will burst me open.

  And then I realize what this is.

  It’s Roger.

  I try to wrench my mouth shut to smother the hum. I don’t want Roger pouring through my veins. I don’t want to understand him. I squirm between my mother’s and Garrett’s fingers, jarring the circle.

  The energy surges up from my mother’s side, the force of it like the tip of a cracked whip. She comes roaring back into me, her brilliance slamming against the sluggish ooze of my father. Garrett is right behind her. Roger’s energy loses its grip on me. My mother shoves him right out of my skin and Mark grunts as Roger pushes backward in the circle. The hum rises, higher and higher, and with a sudden pop, I’m back in the folding chair beside Garrett.

  My head spins as I open my eyes. I almost expecting to see the brown sludge of Roger hanging off me or off Mark. But there is no ooze. No Roger.

  Garrett asks, “Are you okay?”

  I just nod. Mark dodges a glance at me, but all our eyes are drawn to Ms. Fisk. She bends over the card table, scribbling line after line. Her pen scratches so hard across the paper, it sounds like she’s engraving the table beneath her. Then she snaps her pen down and wobbles to her feet.

  “Basil Marcus Reese,” she announces. “43, Bestowed the highest honor upon us all by using his life to preserve the human race and dying in the act of saving another human being.”

  Addo rises from his seat as Ms. Fisk holds up the paper.

  “I see you,” the Addo’s voice cracks and a solitary tear drops out of the corner of his eye. Ms. Fisk picks up a second sheet. She grunts and drops down hard onto her chair again.

  “Charlotte?” Addo’s voice rises with concern, but Ms. Fisk picks up the pen and scribbles across the paper again. The sound is as frantic as an EKG needle. I realize this is not the way it’s supposed to go. Mrs. Reese is craning forward off her seat.

  Garrett and I are leaning off our chairs too, until, out of nowhere, an invisible boot hammers me in the chest. I don’t really see it, but whatever it is knocks the air right out of me. As I fall back on my chair, gasping for breath, Garrett hits the back of his chair too. We look at one another, stunned and breathing hard. Addo steps toward Ms. Fisk as she throws down her pen and pushes herself back onto her feet.

  “A message,” she whispers as if she just got pounded too. “Roger Earnest Maxwell, 42, refuses to be written…he has re-planed his energy, since he refuses to relinquish Walter Louis Fisher’s Memory. Evangeline also refuses to be written. She and Walter have chosen to break their connections and re-plane their energy, in order to pursue Roger in the different plains. They hope to bring him back to be written. God help them.”

  I push myself back up in my seat. That’s what happened. I wasn’t kicked in the chest. That feeling was my mother leaving me, breaking her connection with me. Now I’m on my own completely, without any guidance…and Garrett too. There’s so much to understand, but Ms. Fisk goes pale, holding out the paper to the Addo.

  “There is a message, Addo,” she says. “But it’s unintelligible. I’m sorry. The rest…it’s all symbols. I don’t understand it.”

  Addo steps forward and skims the page. I stand up beside Garrett and the air trips around in my lungs. Addo’s gaze finally swings to meet mine. I don’t even feel my feet move, but I am suddenly standing beside the Addo.

  “Can I see?” I ask and he hands me the paper as if that’s what’s supposed to happen. I take it between my fingertips, feeling the fibers of the wood grains and smelling the ink on it. I look down at the scrawl.

  The writing is like one long word, but with strings of symbols that loop from one line to the next without any spaces or periods. The paper seems to pulse in my hands. The letter soup swims up; alphabet noodles stirred to the top. The letters pop in my face and disappear so quickly, I can’t make sense of them. I step backward, but the letters follow, exploding in front of my nose as if they’re chasing me.

  I close my eyes, but when I open them again, the letters rise back up from the symbol shapes. I focus on them, letting them come this time, swirling until they stick together, connecting a letter at a time into words.

  And whatever air is left in me evaporates.

  The print is suddenly as familiar as my own skin.

  It belongs to my mother.

  And she has written over and over again the thing that only I would understand.

  Find it Nalena Find it...

  Mankind

  Mankind

  Mankind

  Chapter 4

  THE PAPER SLIPS FROM MY hand.

  The famous double whammy, Addo’s words form in my head. He studies my face and waits for my response.

  My mother wants me to find my grandfather’s memory. I tell him.

  I figured as much.

  You saw the words too?

  No, no. There are Addos, there are trapeze artists, and there are Tralates. Stop looking so confused; you’ll blow our cover. Addo says. He rubs his chin as if he’s trying to make sense of everything as he continues, only to me, inside my head. Tralates are the folks who are linked to the afterlife, similar to the Alo. Kind of. Tralates receive messages from the universe when it’s uber necessary to have them, via vision, via the Earthly written word. So what that means is that when there are books or written papers lying around, if there’s something you need to know, the words are going to bring themselves to your attention. You should be doing cartwheels. Only some have the gift of translative vision.

  How many?

  T
hat I’ve met in my lifetime? Uh...you. Addo’s voice meanders around my brain, but he quirks his head to the side as Ms. Fisk asks me, “Did you see anything, Nalena?”

  It takes me a minute to figure out what he wants me to say. I shake my head and say, “No.”

  “Well,” Addo sounds almost delighted. “I’ll just have another look then.”

  He makes a big show of bending over to pick up the paper and folding it in quarters. His voice pokes up inside my head. Good girl. Most likely, the Vision is a result of your momentary checkout during re-Impressioning. Or the re-Impressioning itself. Who knows? But at any rate, being a Tralate is a special gift you should probably keep under your hat, capice?

  Except for Garrett. I add.

  “Okay, Nalena,” Addo says, straightening up. It’s an answer, even though it doesn’t sound like it when he says it out loud. “Go ahead and grab a seat. I’ll let you know what this means after I take a better look, alright?”

  In my head he adds, And it looks to me that you have a choice to make.

  I turn away from him as I send my answer: No. I don’t. But my voice says, “I don’t care what it says, if it’s about Roger.”

  “If that’s what you prefer,” Addo says and then, only in my head, You can always give Evangeline and Walter a shot at taking care of Roger on their own.

  Every step back to my chair is a word. No. I. Can’t.

  This is a lot for your mother to ask of you, kiddo. Addo’s voice frowns in my head. And it’s not even likely that you’ll succeed.

  I take my seat beside Garrett and he gives me an exhausted smile. Things start snapping together. Garrett said he’d talked to his connection about me. That ‘Wally’ had said I was a good bet, that he’d bet all his quarters on me. I don’t know how I’d missed it. My grandfather, Walter, was known for slipping quarters to every child he met. My grandfather’s been with Garrett all along, with me.