Broken Circle

by J. L. Powers

  Now her curious stare turns frank as she examines my facial structure. “Well, I heard you flew here from Rome. Plus, you’re a dead ringer for the Mors clan. But you’re obviously not Italian. Not a hint of an accent and they send their soul guides to a school in Ethiopia anyway.”

  “Why does it even matter?” Rachel asks.

  “Your clan is everything,” Sofia says. “You’re tied to your clan’s territory and your clan is responsible for all the souls in your district. You can’t enter Limbo anywhere outside of your territory, even if you want to. Except here at school. They do something to change the territorial boundaries so we can enter Limbo while we’re in training.”

  Rachel mutters something under her breath.

  “Well, guys, I’m outta here,” Sofia says. “I’m going to the River Styx Simulation. Have you played it yet? It’s this computer program that simulates journeys into the underworld. I’m super excited to try it. My cousin, who runs Mexico City, says it rocks.”

  Rachel and I twiddle our thumbs while everybody else starts doing something, apparently used to this directionless type of “school.” Gen sits near us and begins playing the guitar. Sean and Emily confer, then they disappear briefly, reappearing clad in white gis. Emily has a black belt and Sean a brown. They move to a large room just off the living room and begin grappling.

  Tomás’s pencil is going a hundred miles an hour. “What are you up to?” I ask when he looks up.

  “I’m doing equations,” he says.

  “Just random math? For fun?”

  “No, I’m trying to figure out how to explain Limbo. Limbo doesn’t exist using the current physics models of the universe. But we know it’s out there so I’m trying to produce an equation that encompasses what we know is true. I like messing around with the latest theories.”

  Gen stops strumming the guitar long enough to say, “He’s being modest. Tomás is a math genius.”

  “What happens if you think you have something?” Rachel asks.

  “I write an algorithm and start testing it against simple known assumptions of the universe. Once I produce a model that encompasses Limbo, we can begin testing the model to help us understand the universe. Who knows, maybe Limbo is the missing factor that will unify the theory of relativity and quantum physics. In the future, physics departments can replace String Theory for the Theory of Limbotivity.” Tomás grins as he scratches away at a new piece of paper.

  “Can I join you?” Rachel sounds almost joyous. “I love math.”

  “Sure.” Tomás pulls out a chair and Rachel leaps up to join him.

  Gen’s long black hair falls over his face as he picks at the guitar strings with slender, nimble fingers. “Tomás loves math. I love the blues. Music with soul in it.”

  He begins singing. “Southern trees bear strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root . . . ” He has a raspy voice but if you closed your eyes, you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was feminine or masculine. “Billie Holiday,” he says.

  “So . . . this is supposed to be school?” I ask.

  He looks surprised. “Yeah. Why?”

  “I mean, you guys are just doing whatever you want to do!”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to break your brain.” He continues strumming.

  For a few minutes, Tomás and Zachary join in from where they’re sitting and they all sing in super spooky falsettos: “Have you seen the ghost of John? Long white bones and the rest all gone. Ooooooh. Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?”

  Zachary laughs uproariously and slaps Tomás on the back.

  “So if we can do whatever we want, what do you want to do?” Rachel asks.

  I’m afraid to tell her the truth, knowing how she feels about it. “Chess,” I say.

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I want to know more about summoning souls,” I mumble.

  She snorts.

  “I want to be able to protect myself,” I say defensively. “I’ve had some bad experiences.”

  Her brown-almost-black freckles look exceptionally bright against her white skin. “I’ve had bad experiences too, which is exactly why I don’t want to throw myself into situations where I have to face them again.”

  “What do you want to do?” I ask.

  “Figure out how the hell to get out of here.” She sighs. “I was talking to some of the girls last night. They’re actually kind of nice, even the scary-looking ones. So I guess as long as I’m stuck here, my first priority is finding out more about my family. What happened to my parents? And if I have a clan out there, why haven’t they claimed me?”

  “Somebody has to know,” I say.

  “Yeah, maybe they’ll let me talk to one of the Finders.”

  “But what about after that? Once you know, what then?”

  “I’m not sure. Everything else is pretty scary. I don’t want to learn how to summon souls. I just want to get back to the real world.”

  “Maybe this is the real world,” I say.

  “Yeah, don’t say that. Just don’t.”

  Eventually, teachers begin to wander in. Principal Armand surveys the room, then strides over to the table where Zachary is sitting. He bends over to whisper in Zachary’s ear. Zachary glances up and looks at Rachel and me before muttering something in response. My ears strain to hear what they’re saying but I can’t catch a single word.

  Aileen saunters in and perches on the edge of the sofa near where I’m sitting. She’s wearing jeans, a blue shirt that clings in all the right places, and black boots.

  I keep my eyes on her face. On. Her. Face.

  “Do you have plans today?” she asks.

  Rachel and I look at each other.

  “Um . . . I thought we’d be doing school,” I say.

  Aileen’s silvery laugh echoes throughout the living room. “Duh. But do you have an idea what you’d like to learn first?”

  We shake our heads.

  “I’d like to get you started on a little light reading.” She looks over to where Zachary and Tomás are wrangling over the finer points of something I can’t even pretend to understand. “Zachary, get your ass over here.”

  Zachary and Tomás bump fists and Zachary hurries over. “What up?”

  “Principal Armand said he’d like you to fill in the gaps in your learning by joining these guys,” Aileen explains.

  “I know, he told me,” Zachary says. “Do I really have to?”

  Aileen gives him a look. “It’s up to you. Are you coming or not?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grumbles.

  She sets a brisk pace while we follow her past the kitchen. Half a dozen cooks are busy poking, tasting, opening ovens, stirring pots. We continue on through a study where the second and third years are bent over books and computers, studying, typing, talking in low voices together. A guy in the corner constructs a minature building of some sort while two girls in the center of the room are playing the tallest, largest game of Jenga I’ve ever seen.

  “So I noticed everybody’s doing normal things,” Rachel says. “When do we start learning all the voodoo and hocus-pocus?”

  Aileen throws back her head and laughs as though Rachel meant to be funny. “The only hocus-pocus you’ll learn is the kind to avoid. The best soul guides are interested in just about everything. The better you are at math, for example, the better you’ll be able to help a math professor navigate Limbo.”

  If my face looks anything like Rachel’s, she’s being confronted by two blank stares. Zachary sighs loudly.

  “How do you think a math professor sees the underworld?” Aileen asks. “He sees it through the prism of his experience and interests. So to navigate that, you’re going to have to see Limbo the way he sees it—as a math problem to solve.”

  “Really?” For the first time, Rachel looks kind of interested.

  “Every soul’s journey across the underworld is a problem to solve, a puzzle to put together,” Aileen says. “Y
our job is to be good at solving problems. All kinds of problems. The more curious you are about the world, the more you know, the better you’ll be as a soul guide.”

  I think of my father. Of all the time he spends reading, studying, learning. All those classes he’s signed the two of us—or just me—up for. He’s interested in so many different things and he’s tried to create an environment so that I’ll be interested in and exposed to a little bit of everything. He must be one helluva soul guide.

  “So what if we really suck at something?” I ask. “Like math.”

  “Usually when people think they suck at something, it’s just that they’re not that interested in it,” Aileen responds. “Most people’s interests can be piqued in just about anything, if presented in the right way, or if they’re given the freedom to explore. But rest assured, we probe all first and second years for potential weaknesses. If you truly suck at something, you’re unlikely to make it to the third year.”

  “Oh. So we’re expected to know everything in just three years? Know everything and be an expert in everything?”

  “Only a newbie would ask that,” Zachary chimes in. “Some of us are already experts in everything.” He holds a hand up as if to high-five Aileen, but she ignores him.

  “Hardly,” she says. “The Reaper is a living legend and he’d be the first to admit he’s a jack of all trades, master of none. These three years are just the beginning. You’ll be learning all your life.”

  Zachary mumbles something that seems to have the words “shitty” and “Reaper” in it.

  “So what you’re saying is that we’ll have to study the same boring-ass stuff we would study at a regular high school?”

  “With one key difference. You choose what to study and when. Nobody’s going to make you do anything.”

  “Literally everything we do or learn is a good thing?” Rachel’s face is flushed.

  “Yup. If you want to learn to cook, we’ll make sure you learn to cook. If you want to build a yurt, we’ll make sure you have the materials and instructions. There’s nothing you learn that isn’t useful. In fact, all of you will add chores to your list of things you need to learn. A soul guide cannot be exempt from cleaning toilets or doing laundry.”

  She opens a narrow doorway. It leads to a curving staircase vanishing into total darkness. She claps her hands and lights turn on. We descend into a huge basement, row after row of books disappearing into the dim darkness. It’s like the New York Public Library down here.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “I’ve never seen so many books anywhere in my entire life,” Rachel says.

  “Yes, we have quite a collection.” Aileen’s boots click on the scuffed concrete floor.

  “What happens to this library next year?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My dad said that the school changes location every year.” I gulp, realizing I just mentioned my dad in front of Rachel and Zachary.

  Aileen glances at me, letting me know she noticed my slip-up. “The library goes where the school goes,” she says.

  “All these books?” I ask. “That must take an army of people.”

  For the first time since I’ve known her, Aileen looks severe. “Resources,” she says, “are not a problem.”

  Oh. Nothing like my cash-strapped public school in Brooklyn. I’m not going to lie, the librarian tried hard and she was super nice, but given the collection of books I had available to me in our apartment, tiny as it was, I knew the school’s library was super lame.

  As we follow Aileen into semidarkened rows, sensors click and lights turn on automatically. “Arms!” she barks, demonstrating how she wants us to hold our arms like baskets.

  She begins pulling books off the shelves. Some she puts in Rachel’s arms, some in mine, some in Zachary’s. Between the three of us, we must have at least fifty books.

  “Why don’t you find a comfy spot somewhere in the farmhouse?” Aileen says. “You can read alone if you’d like but I suggest you read them together and talk about what you’re learning.”

  “You call this ‘light’ reading?” Rachel asks.

  Aileen’s brow furrows. “What’s the problem?”

  “Just wondering how many weeks you’re giving us.”

  “Oh, there’s no deadline. But I can’t imagine you’ll need more than a few days.”

  When she turns her back, Rachel and I giggle at each other and I guess I’m a little too loud because she elbows me to shut up. We stagger up the stairs.

  Aileen pauses at the top. “I’ll ask the kitchen to send up a snack.” She taps her temple. “Brain food. It’ll make studying easier.”

  We find a couch in a hallway that seems fairly isolated from the bustling activity of the kitchen and the classrooms. Strains of music drift out of our classroom, where Gen is clearly still playing the guitar. Somebody else is beating drums. Wish I could join them. It seems like a great way to spend the morning.

  I pull the first book off my stack, a plain one with a gold-embossed title sprawling across it: Demons, Genies, and other Human “Myths.” I sneak a peak at the title Rachel has open: Real Magick. Zachary is perusing Sleepwalkers.

  It doesn’t take long before I’m engrossed in my book. I look up only when a cook appears before us with a large plate of cookies and a carafe of coffee arranged on a platter with thick cream and sugar.

  “Wow, I’m famished,” Rachel says.

  “Me too.” Zachary gives us a grin. “Studying always does that to me. I go into a library, first thing I do is get hungry, even if I just ate.”

  We dig in. The cookies are still warm, chocolate chips dripping hot. I lick my fingers.

  “You got a little chocolate on your face,” Zachary tells Rachel.

  “Oh, where?”

  He leans forward and dabs chocolate on the tip of her nose. He grins again. “Right there.”

  “Ha ha.” She wipes it off.

  I’m looking at Zachary, trying to figure out if that was a dick move or if he was actually just teasing her in a friendly way. Or maybe even flirting.

  Each of us makes it through several books before lunch. And I swear, I don’t skim.

  “Talk about speed-reading,” Rachel says.

  “Yeah, what did they put in those cookies?” I joke.

  Then Rachel and I look at the cookies with genuine fear. Or reverence, maybe. In my old life, that would have been a joke. But here, they really might have put something in those cookies that helps us read faster and absorb information easily.

  “Dude, they’re just cookies,” Zachary says. “It’s you that’s getting through the reading. Because you’re interested in it.”

  “What are you guys reading?” Rachel asks.

  “I’m reading about ghosts,” I say. “Souls that get stuck in Limbo. What happens to them?”

  “Some of them just go away on their own,” Zachary says. “Others become real problems. They’re stuck in Limbo but they become more and more real and create all sorts of trouble. You might think a peace treaty is signed, but a ghost will steal it and then you’re right back where you started from. Or an engineer will create plans for a bridge and the ghost will change the plans overnight. Plus, they screw around with people. People can get so messed up—you wouldn’t believe how messed up—because of ghosts.”

  “I’m reading about magic,” Rachel says. “Remember Principal Armand said magic isn’t for humans? This book claims that soul guides who use magic never recover. It warps their souls. They become total monsters, Hitlers or Stalins, and that’s when you see wars or plagues or genocides.”

  “Ugh,” I say. “No magic for me!”

  Rachel shudders. “Me neither.”

  “What’s Sleepwalkers about?” I ask.

  “Sleepwalkers are soul guides who accidentally enter random people’s Limbo when they go to sleep. Onset of sleepwalking occurs between twelve and twenty. So any of us could be struck down by this affliction. Well, it’s genetic. Runs in cer
tain families. It’s an aberration. And completely dangerous. I mean, going to a living person’s Limbo? Bad idea. You might not get back out. And what if you bring things there with you and accidentally leave them behind? It can screw up that person’s Limbo or even the whole system.”

  My chest feels like he’s hitting it, hard, with a metal hammer. Is that what I do when I go to sleep? Drop into other people’s Limbo? I have a million questions I want to ask but I don’t dare. One more secret. As if I don’t have enough already.

  CHAPTER 17

  It surprises me, though I don’t know why it would, that a dozen kids plan to go to the mainland to attend church. Sean is one of them.

  “Really? Church?” I ask. We’re chowing down on the best ceviche I’ve ever had, laying the lime-coddled fish thick across salty tortilla chips.

  “I’m Irish,” Sean explains. “I’m as Catholic as they come.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a Dullahan.” I search my memory for what I’ve read about the clan. “You think priests would feel good knowing that people die if you just say their name?” I snap my fingers. “And the whole headless horsemen thing. You guys are creepy. I bet the Catholic Church wouldn’t think too highly of your chosen, um, profession.”

  “ADAM JONES,” Sean declares, crossing his eyes. He grins. “Time to saddle that old horse.”

  I know he’s joking around but it’s hard for me to find death jokes funny. “C’mon, I’m serious. What do you think they’d think?”

  He shrugs. “So what. I know more than they do, but it’s not like I have all the answers. I still have faith that there’s something bigger than us. Than me.”

  “Think of it as a field trip,” Tomás says, coming to my rescue. “You can’t separate most people’s ideas of death from their religion. You can’t escape Rastas on the islands so I study Rastafari.”

  Sean purses his lips and makes a motion with two fingers like he’s smoking a joint. “Yeah, I’ll just bet you ‘study’ Rastafari.”

  Tomás chuckles.

  I groan. “Just when I thought I was getting a handle on things, you add religion to the mix? And smoking pot?”

  Of course, Dad took me to a number of bizarre faith-healing, snake-handling, and speaking-in-tongues services as I was growing up. I had a feeling he was raised Catholic but we only went to those somber services once or twice. Despite that, religion feels like an entirely new thing to have to know all about.