“Hey.”
I looked up at the sound of Ren’s voice. He walked toward me, and I waved slightly. I was still in the same clothes I’d been in the last time he saw me. I was going to have to figure out my cold shower soon, because otherwise, I would start to smell.
He knelt down. “What are you doing on the stairs?”
“Oh.” I really wished it had been anyone else who found me sitting here. I didn’t know Ren yet, and while he’d always been nice, he had once suggested I might have horns. I couldn’t figure out if he liked me or hated me. “Just taking a minute.”
He shook his head, his long, black hair falling around his sculptured face. “You can’t get back up the stairs.”
“I think I might have overestimated my body. I’ve never been wrecked like this before. But I saw that dead child, and I lost my mind. I just went at that chaos demon like I had no tomorrow to worry about. This was the result. I didn’t center, I didn’t go numb. I attacked him with anger. Paying the price.”
Ren narrowed his eyes. “There are dead children out there? Or there were? Daniella’s husbands spent the morning burning the dead.”
That was good. We didn’t want another demon raising them up like zombies. “There were children.” And teddy bears. I sucked back my tears, keeping my face passive. Feeling too much emotion and—worse—showing it was how I ended up with people hating me. The Guards at the other Sisterhood had laughed at my pain.
I’d learned how to be what people needed. And that was why I smiled at Ren. “Having a good day?”
He seemed to ignore my question. Instead, he lifted me in the air, spinning me mid way, until he carried me up against his chest. “I’ll take you back upstairs. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
That was a complicated answer. Who should I have asked? Anne and Daniella would have helped me, for sure. But they had children to take care of and business of their own. Which one of their husbands should I bother? Krystal was shut back in her room. “I didn’t have anyone to ask.”
“The missing Guards.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to see why you’re not supposed to fight without them.” Ren opened my door with one hand and gently set me on the bed. “Here you go. Rest for a bit. What do you need?”
I rolled over, placing my face in my pillow. “Hot water. I need hot water. A bath. That’s the only thing my body wants right now.”
I knew it was terribly unfair. We were weeks away from hot water, if that. Ren was one of the plumbers. I wanted to impress upon him just how much I was looking forward to the day he got the hot water working.
He knelt down next to the bed, placing his hand on top of my head. “I’m going to get you hot water, beautiful. I promise.”
I rolled over to look at him. “I never said I was sorry to hear your parents are gone, Ren. When you were all telling your stories that day, I never responded. I am sorry. I never knew mine, but I imagine knowing them and losing them must be horrific.”
“You’re a strange duck, Mika.”
I didn’t understand. “Duck?”
“It’s affectionate from me. Not an insult. I like ducks. They’re strong. They always know how to come home. Just when I think I understand you, then I don’t. Strange duck.”
I rolled my eyes. This was what happened when I let people in and tried to make conversation. They insulted me and they ended up holding me in disdain. “Strange duck with horns.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t know better. Honestly, some of the folklore about you guys says that you develop horns as the years pass, that it’s a sign of how powerful you are and that’s why you use hoods.”
“The hoods are to protect us. We can’t go in public showing our face with these white eyes. They can’t know who we are beneath the hoods.” I pointed at them. “That’s how you can tell how far along we are in our abilities. The color in our eyes goes away. Although, we can get that back if we co-join with our Guards.”
Ren shook his head. “What?”
I waved my hand. There was no need for him to know the intricate details of the bonding between Guards and Sisters. “Never mind. It’s a lot to digest. What are you working on?”
“I helped them get the loft room back up and running. Nothing is going to come down now. Tomorrow, we’ll get the plumbing in the guesthouse up to par. Have to start there. It’s a smaller project. The next day, we’ll all start tackling this house that you and Bob love and don’t want to part with.”
I had a question, and before I had to go back to sleep—when this time was over I might never nap again—seemed like a good idea to ask it. “Why weren’t you afraid? Most people run from demons, and they’ve lived with them around their whole lives. Why aren’t you terrified of Bob under the house?”
Ren’s smile was slow. “Not a lot frightens me. I don’t go looking for trouble, but when I have to deal with it, I’m not usually worked up. That being said, I was scared seeing you fight that demon at the gate. If I had been here to see what Wayne saw, I think it would have scared me, too. You said you’d protect us from Bob. I believed you. Why be scared? From the little I’ve observed, you keep a lot of things to yourself, but when you say something, you mean it.”
“Thanks.” I nodded. “I actually don’t talk to a lot of people. Mostly, I keep to myself.”
He patted the side of the bed. “Then we have that in common. Those four other people I’m with? They’re pretty much it for me.”
I yawned. Okay, the need for sleep was coming back. “You’ll have to get over that. You need to go back to Peter’s Isle and have a family there.”
His laugh shocked me. What was funny? Yet, there he knelt next to my bed acting like I’d said something really amusing. “Do I? Thanks for the update. There’s still more world to see.”
“That’s funny. I’ve seen a chunk of the world.” Although how I had gotten from Katrina’s Sisterhood to this one remained a mystery. “I’d rather be where you left.”
No more demons. No more pain. No more battles.
I was asleep by the time he closed the door.
I ran down a long, dark path. Oh no, I knew this place. This was the curse. Trapped in my mind where I couldn’t get out, endlessly running and never getting anywhere. In the distance, a baby cried. I stopped running. Well, that was new.
I rushed toward the sound. A woman rocked an infant. She cried, holding a hand out, pushing against something, but there was nothing in front of her. What was happening? I approached her slowly. “Hello?”
“Don’t take my baby. Don’t take her. She doesn’t have to be a Sister. She belongs here with me.”
Wait. What?
I jolted up in the bed. My heart was in my throat.
“Whoa, sorry we woke you.” Neil and Ren were both standing next to my bathroom. “We thought we could get in and out without waking you up.”
My head was foggy, but I wasn’t on that path and there was no one holding a screaming baby. Had that all been just a dream? “I… What are you doing?”
Ren motioned toward the room. “I can’t get the pipes and hot water all repaired by tonight obviously, but I kind of put together a device that will heat the water in the tub for you. It’s a steam thing. So leave it in the water I just filled until morning, and then it should be… ah… kind of warm. Better than the cold baths you’ve been taking.”
I jumped out of bed. The movement was too fast for my current condition, but I wrapped an arm around each of their necks, holding on like they might anchor me to the world. They wouldn’t let me float back into that dark night on the path to nowhere with the woman who was losing her baby.
“Are you okay?” Ren squeezed my back. Neither he nor Neil made any moves to make me release them.
“Yes. Thank you for the warm bath.” That was all I could say. I couldn’t tell them what I was trying to deny in my own head and heart, that Bob had called me Oracle. The Oracle found the babies born to be Sisters. She saw them in visions. And when she reported their births
, they were taken from their parents.
If I was the Oracle, then soon I would be responsible for the destruction of families. No matter how important it was, how vital it was for our movement to continue to fight the darkness, how much I understood that a Sister had to be trained to be protected from the demons she would draw to herself, I still believed that we were not meant to be as alone as we were.
Even if in some other world, some other time, place, existence, we had chosen this life.
I wondered if they’d really explained the emptiness and if they had why, on Earth would they have chosen me? I was clearly not cut out for this.
If I was the Oracle, the Sisterhood was in trouble. I couldn’t ever be responsible for taking anyone from their family.
“I told you she’d be really happy with the water.” Ren squeezed my side.
“I guess so,” Neil answered, he sighed, his body pressing against my own.
I let go of both of them. They were soon going to think I was a lunatic. “When I’m not feeling this blah anymore, I am going to make such a great dinner for you five. How’s that?” Friendly people did that without dragging the recipients into demon battles. I could feed them without making them replacement Guards. That had to be possible.
“Actually”—Neil grinned—“we have food for you. And we’d better use it soon before it goes bad. Feeling up to eating?”
Ren elbowed him. “It’s two in the morning. It’s not exactly a feasting time.” He rolled his eyes, turning to me. “Neil is a night owl. Like you, he’s a strange duck. Boy doesn’t seem to ever need to sleep.”
“I meant tomorrow.” He elbowed Ren back. I’d never seen them so easy with each other before. Maybe it was because there was nothing scary happening at the moment and they weren’t having to take care of me. “He calls everyone a strange duck. As far as I can tell, the only non strange duck in the universe is him.”
Hearing that actually eased some tension in my back. “He called me a strange duck, too.”
“You called her a strange duck?” Neil pointed at me and looked between us.
Ren grinned. “She’s a beautiful strange duck. But a strange duck just the same.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and it seemed to make them both smile broader. This was a great moment. I wouldn’t soon forget it.
I was awake, and it was the middle of the day. If I could remain this way, I’d get to have dinner with the contractors that evening. No one had ever done this for me before. I always just ate whatever was served.
I turned the page in my book about Oracles. I was going to try to see how the kids were doing with their studies. Try being the optimum word. I felt better, but Anne was adamant I not overdo it. I also wanted to check on Krystal. Neither Anne nor Daniella had seen much of her after they’d talked to her about her powers problem.
I might not be good with people, but we were in this together. I wouldn’t leave her alone on a dark path… not when we’d both suffered that already. I just had to keep my energy level up to do so.
Gordon plopped down next to me in a chair. We were both in the garden, Anne having insisted that the fresh air and sunshine would do me good.
“Hey.” He glistened with sweat. Still, the scent that drifted over to me was sweet. He liked me the least, I suspected. And he’d be glad to move on from here. He’d said as much and was right to feel that way.
I thought I might be able to look at him all day every day. His limbs were long and lean but he was strong. I’d seen him lifting and hauling materials that should have taken two people to move. He had a gracefulness for a man as tall as he was, and his face, right down to the cleft in his chin, seemed to have been carved out of stone.
When they were making men on Peter’s Isle they really knew how to make them beautifully.
“Hi,” I finally answered. My pause was probably odd.
He cleared his throat then stretched his long legs out in front of him, taking up most of the space between the chair and the table. It had to be hard for him to fit places. “Are you doing okay?”
“Sure. How have you been?”
“Fine.” He shook his head. “Look, you ran out a week ago.” Had it been that long? “Because I said some stupid shit and I was out of line. I was tired, terrified for you and Wayne, and frustrated that I wasn’t here to help. I like to be in the center of things. I like to know that I’m helping.”
I could understand that. “I’m the same. I’m a pretty mid-level Sister. I’m never going to be as talented as some, but I like to know I’ve helped, somehow.”
He leaned forward on his knees. “What you did the other night is considered mid-level?”
“Yes. Anne and Daniella could have done that with their eyes closed and not ended up burned out.” They wouldn’t have gone in hot and angry either.
But I’d been punished for my mistake, and I wouldn’t forget the lesson anytime soon. “I doubt that.”
I sat up straighter. “Why would you say that?”
“Because they’re all walking around in awe of you. I listen to what people say when they think others aren’t paying attention. The general consensus is that not one Sister in a thousand could have taken care of an Original, met with Bob, then ousted a chaos demon in the same week. Sounds like you’re pretty tough.”
I sunk back in the chair. “Sometimes we just do what we have to do.”
He nodded. “So, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I was having trouble following this conversation.
“For the things I said that drove you to leave in the middle of the night when you were so sick.”
Most of what had happened over the last week was a blur, but I did remember what he’d said. “You were speaking your truth, and you were right. You don’t belong here. You’re helping us, and then you should go. The five of you back to your island. Go back to your wives and girlfriends. To your lives.”
He shook his head. “No wives or girlfriends. We couldn’t be out here doing this if we did.”
“Boyfriends? Husbands?” I didn’t know why I was pushing at him like this except Gordon wasn’t someone I felt like I could make small talk with. If I wanted to know things, I was going to have to just ask. They were five guys traveling around together without wives and girlfriends. They might very well be involved.
He shook his head. “No. We’re just single. I rarely meet a woman who holds my interest very long. Maybe that makes me uninteresting or an asshole.” He looked me square in the eye. “If you weren’t a Sister and going to be doing this for the rest of your life, if you were a woman on Peter’s, I would have pursued you hard. I like bravery, Mika. I like the way you face problems head on. I like how you smell.”
The last bit was so abrupt I nearly laughed. But he looked so serious that I forced myself not to. “How do I smell?”
“Like sunshine.”
I closed my eyes, letting the heat of the day beat down on my skin. “That’s good because I live in the darkness. I do have to stay here. Go home. Find a brave girl there. I promise there is one. In all the places I’ve traveled, all the people I’ve met, I’ve never known a woman who didn’t, in some way, battle demons. Her own, or otherwise. Somewhere is the girl for you. Try not to think about this place too much. We who live to block the darkness often fall into it ourselves.”
He was so quiet I wondered if he’d left. Then when he spoke, I opened my eyes to regard him.
“Where are your Guards? You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”
“We all made choices. Perhaps mine was to come here, help for a while, and not have soulmates to do it with. Perhaps there is a reason.” I pointed up where the ravens danced in the sky, cawing. It was more than Brother Raven and his white feather today. They were swarming. My guess was Teagan would be back soon. The birds were letting us know. Some of the Guards could understand them. The spirits were out, too. They spoke to some Sisters but never me. “Only the birds know.”
And for now, that was enough.
6
Cheese. Grapes. Crackers. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Where had they come up with all of this? Even though I wasn’t a hugger, I threw my arms around each of them. They’d worked all day and still put together a feast for me.
Wayne squeezed me back the tightest. “I thought maybe you were angry with me.”
“Why would I be?” Why had he been worried about that? I hadn’t even seen him in a week. Had I somehow given that impression?
He shook his head. “I let you leave. I was the only one who saw what you went through. I should have pushed harder to make them understand…”
I shook my head, effectively stopping him from speaking. “Understand what? That you’re the bravest person I’ve ever known? That you charged to help me when you should have run in the other direction? Gordon was right, by the way. You all need to get out of here before this place kills you.” But I didn’t want to think about that right then. I clapped my hands together. “You guys, seriously, where did you find this stuff?”
Lennon’s face lit up. “You just have to know the right people. Or, say, have fixed stuff for the right people. Then they help you out.”
Dinner was easy after that. They laughed at each other, poking fun, telling stories, and I happily sat and quietly listened.
“So I understand that where you’re from is very small, but how did you all meet? Or is it that you just knew each other always and you don’t remember?”
I was fascinated with the idea of growing up with people. We went from the nursery where we were barely managed to the school halls where we were encourage to leave each other alone to our own rooms in the Sisterhood. There hadn’t been… friendships. There had been spying and mistrust and secrets.
Neil grinned. “I lived on the east side of the island. It’s the most remote. Faces the ocean instead of inland. My father’s a fisherman. I spent most of my early years on boats. But then it was time for school, so I showed up, totally having no idea what I was supposed to do there. I mean, my mom had taught me to read but I was…”
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