02 Awaken-The Soulkeepers

by Adams, Lori

  I open my eyes and look at Rama seated across from me. He speaks from his meditative state, through his Ascended Master voice.

  The answer is ready on my tongue; it came without hesitation but I’m ashamed to say it aloud. I am afraid to kill. I am afraid of the beasts that Michael and the warriors fight. I am afraid to fail. I am afraid of the dark side that Dante brings out, and I am forever afraid of what is truly inside me.

  I stare into my lap. My hands are as tightly coiled as I imagine my spiritual energy to be. I’m furious with myself. I know I want to do this. I want to be a spirit walker, but I’m afraid to release the familiarity of my fear; we’ve been together for so long, I would feel naked without it. To surrender it doesn’t feel like freedom but subjugation, a terrible weakness.

  Rama opens his eyes and leans back on his hands. He regards me thoughtfully and then nods. “Don’t fret, wahine. It’s not uncommon to flounder at the end of the ride. But the spirit is like steel; it’s gotta be tempered with fire. And nothing takes it to dah macks like spiritual warfare. Some people need slaps upside the head to get their courage, and some need to take tea with demons.”

  “Tea with demons?”

  “Face your fears. You dig?”

  “Uh-huh.” I think about La Croix. It was crawling with evil and I was petrified. I felt safe only because of Dante. When I watched him kill to protect me, I was scared but excited, too. The fact that I felt safe with another demon is more frightening than all of my primordial fears combined.

  Rama tells me there is plenty of time and I shouldn’t worry. I should never rush this part of the process. It’s too important. My courage will come when all is ready within me.

  “In the meantime,” he says, standing up. “I’ve got something for you.” He goes to the rucksack he’s taken to carrying around. He reaches inside and withdraws a handful of braids. They are long, crocheted dreadlocks. Kanekalon, he tells me, while arranging them carefully on the bed. They’re beautiful and match my dark brown hair. He explains that he gives these to all his students who reach the rainbow state.

  “Take as many as you like.”

  I look them over but they all look the same. Still, I’m drawn to four in the middle and one on each end. He smiles with satisfaction and then stuffs the remaining ones in his sack.

  “Yeah now,” he says, taking them from me. “You’ll be marked as my lani wahine. My heavenly girl.” He lifts them up like an offering to the lightshade over our heads, mumbles something, and then lowers them again. Then he uses some supernatural hairstyling technique as he wraps his hands around the dreads and my natural hair and fuses them together: two on the right side of my head and two on the left. He runs one down the middle in the back and then looks at his handiwork.

  “And this one for the master.” He takes the last dread and adds it to his own head. I realize that his dreadlocks aren’t just a hairstyle but a show of his accomplishments, one for each student.

  He turns me to the mirror, and we watch as the dreadlocks he has attached to my head and the one to his gradually begin to glow. At first they appear bright like lightning but eventually fade into what Rama calls their lani color: indigo.

  My eyes are huge with wonder, and my mouth falls open. Of all the choices, Rama says I have chosen a very unique color.

  “Indigo mean anything special to you?” he asks, and I quickly shake my head. No way am I telling him how Michael’s eyes churn to this exact color when he’s aroused.

  Instead, I ask about Ka. People will see the difference in us if I wear these. Rama says the dreads will appear brown until I’m infused with spiritual energy. Then their true colors will ignite. Even as we stand there, the indigo is returning back to dark brown. I smile. For the first time, I’m feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward Rama. I have a unique bond with my Ascended Master, and I clutch his shoulders and kiss him on the cheek. I really want to make him proud.

  * * *

  The weekend is finally here. It’s the last night of the Winter Carnival, and time for the formal dance. Ka and I have been coming and going on different schedules so she brings me up to speed with myself. She says my finals went well; my grades have been successfully resuscitated, and she sent off all college applications even though she was not pleased with my school selections. She believes we should’ve aimed higher.

  She also had a follow-up meeting with the school counselor and thwarted any further concerns on that end. But she is worried about something else. Something that has plagued her for a few days now.

  “It’s this feeling that I’m being watched. I mean, beyond the lesser demons pacing on the rooftops. They can’t sense anything ’cause you don’t have the Chelsea Light yet, but I’d swear, Sophia, someone is watching me. I feel it when I walk through the square and it makes my skin crawl.”

  “Someone like who?” I ask as I wrangle into a new pair of jeans. Ka has proven to be a handy personal shopper as well as a doer of all things academic and domestic. We are not longer fighting over the “good pair” of jeans.

  “Someone from the spirit world. And not just one person but a few. I sense them lower to the ground. Lurking.”

  “It’s not Dante?”

  “Of course not.” She laughs and opens a bottle of nail polish to touch up her toes. “I can sense Dante a mile away.”

  I whirl around. “What?” I yell, and she flinches.

  “Jeez, Soph, it’s just a figure of speech.”

  “But you can sense when he’s around?”

  She gives me a patronizing look. “You don’t have to keep testing me, you know? I get it. And of course I can sense when Dante’s around. It’s just intuition or something, right? Isn’t that what you feel?”

  I turn away before she can read my face; I don’t sense when Dante is around. He is forever sneaking up on me.

  My hair has gotten so long that it nearly reaches my waist, so I gather a section around my face and clip it to the back of my head. The four dreadlocks on either side hang freely with the rest of my hair.

  “He’s so hot,” Ka continues, leaning over and blowing on her toenails.

  “He’s from Hell. They’re all hot.”

  “Don’t be obtuse. I mean seriously hot. Especially when he does that lazy sideways grin. Mmm. He asked me to this dance thingy but I had to tell him I was going with someone else. He didn’t like it.”

  “Too bad, ’cause I’m not … I mean you’re not going with him.”

  “That’s what I told him. But he was antsy all day. Like he was dying to tell me a secret but kept changing his mind. Oh, that reminds me; he invited me out to his place.”

  “What? When? What did you say?” Damn, this is unexpected. I’m starting to think I need to keep an eye on her, me—whatever.

  She gives me the pouty look that I perfected a while back to get what I wanted from Dad. “Well, I said I would go. After I take photos and all the hoopla of the Winter Carnival dies down. I’ll have some time before J.D. gets here. You still want me to go to the dance, right?”

  I move into the closet, giving myself time to think. I change shirts and consider. Why would Dante invite me to the mansion? And tonight of all nights? He knows the dance is tonight, so what is he up to?

  “Has he asked about any past-life memories?”

  She scoffs. “Only every freaking day. I finally told him I remember a field with red poppies and white and yellow broom flowers. I said there was a low rock wall and a brook running alongside it.”

  I gape at her. How did she know?

  “What?” she asks. “That’s what we remember, right?”

  I think back to the night of the spell when Rama spoke of Fields of Peace. That was the vision that came to mind, but where had it come from? It had seemed familiar.

  Ka comes over and holds my shoulders. “You look pale. You gonna faint?”

  I turn away because it gives me the heebie-jeebies standing so close to myself. “Where’d you get that memory?” I ask, and she say
s, “From that night in the haunted mansion. The music box.” She picks up the box that Dante left on my desk and flips it open. It starts the familiar tinkling tune while I search for the memory. There is it, just as Ka described. I don’t like that she made the connection before I did.

  “You can’t go to Dante’s tonight,” I say, snapping the box closed. I drop it in a drawer and slam it shut. “And please don’t listen to that anymore. In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t want any memories from Dante’s past life.”

  “You’re gonna break his heart all over again.”

  “Don’t care.”

  She flops onto the bed and regards me curiously. “Are we sure about that?”

  “I’ll take photos of the carnival tonight. You can stay here and rest up for the dance. If Dad gets home before I do—

  “I know. I know. Don’t let him hear me getting ready. I’ve kinda got this down.”

  * * *

  I’ve bundled up in the new Slovak clothes that Ka bought and had planned to wear tonight: furry valenki to warm my feet and a vintage 1970’s Russian coat of brown suede and thick wool lining. It’s embroidered with red, white, and yellow flowers on a green vine. The buttonholes are large, leather loops with wooden toggles for buttons that look like spikes. It’s über warm.

  I walk into the town square, or St. Petersburg, same diff. The place is packed with people in faux fur and some variety of boots. Everyone who is anyone is here tonight. I heard that the senator and several celebrities were expected, and some famous actor of Russian descent is already here.

  The trees are decorated with giant neon Hula-hoops of yellow, red, green, and orange. The ice palace is aglow with exotic towers clustered together as if in a family photo of onion-shaped domes. They radiate all the colors of the rainbow. Across the square is our version of St. Basil’s Cathedral. It’s a vibrant mix of gingerbread columns topped with swirling soft-serve ice cream heads. Old-world Santas and nesting dolls are posted out front like playful guards. The gazebo is stuffed with a Russian folk music ensemble playing “Russian Dances,” a heart-pounding song for the limber dancers bouncing and squatting and kicking in the traditional kozachok dance. It makes my knees hurt just watching them. I frame up and take photos of everything.

  All around the square, the troika sleighs glide over the snow-packed streets. The horses trot and bells jingle, whizzing passengers off to the mayor’s mansion to view more decorations. I’m in search of Bailey, so I wind my way through the crystal tree forest that has been relocated from the gym. I exit the other side and crash into Duffy. His shoulder bangs against mine and knocks me sideways. He came barreling through the trebuchet snowball launchers and disrupted the competition without a second thought.

  “Hey!” I yelp, and he looks back, eyes blazing.

  “Better watch yourself, Sophia. It’s almost time.” He has a dark look that stops my heart. What the hell does that mean?

  He doesn’t explain but shoves his way into the crowd and disappears. I can’t figure what’s gotten into him lately.

  “Comrade tchotchke!” Bailey wails, clomping over in furry Chewbacca boots. She’s sloshing a cup of something in the vodka family and looks pleasantly dense.

  I’m so happy to see her. I haven’t seen Bailey since the night we made Ka, and I throw my arms around her. “Merry Christmas, comrade!”

  We hug, and then she raises her cup. “Mazel tov!” She takes a swig and offers it to me. I shake my head. Gotta stay alert. I glance along the rooftops; some of the lesser demons are still pacing while others are sitting down and dangling their legs over the roofline. I suppose they’re getting bored because comrade tchotchke is a little slow in the Kundalini department. Some of them are laughing and pointing at the pathetic mortals romping in the snow.

  “They still there?” Bailey asks, looking up. “I can’t see them but your DoOver says they’re always there.”

  “My DoOver?” I cock an eyebrow and she laughs.

  “She didn’t like me calling her Comrade KaKa so …” She shrugs.

  I tell Bailey the lesser demons are still there, and then I mention Duffy’s bizarre behavior. “Oy vey.” She sighs. “He’s been acting so weird lately. And not just around me. I caught him following DoOver around the square the other day. Like he was stalking her. I told him if he didn’t cut that shit out he was gonna have a very Police Navidad. Durachit.”

  I wonder if that’s who Ka felt watching her. But didn’t she say there was more than one, and they felt supernatural?

  Besides, Duffy wouldn’t have any reason to stalk Ka, or me. Right?

  As we stroll around, I have the growing sensation, too, that we’re being watched. I glance at the crowd but no one is paying attention to us. The lesser demons are starting to fight among themselves and have no idea that the one they’re after is right under their noses. Then why do I feel like I’m being watched?

  Bailey is going on about what Ka has been up to at school. “Spending a lot of quality time with Dante. He’s under the impression that Rama cast the memory spell. He’s expecting you, or DoOver, to remember your past life.”

  “I know.”

  “No, Soph. I don’t think you do. Now, don’t take this wrong but you’re not one to accessorize with a Scarlet Letter, so I’m gonna tell it straight. Your DoOver got all your sexual chutzpah. Like, she’s not acquainted with Dear Prudence. She and Dante have been sneaking around for some private groping. I caught them in the girls’ restroom, and once in his Escalade.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Ka couldn’t have gone all the way because I would know if I’d lost my virginity, right?

  “DoOver doesn’t really talk to J.D., so he asked me if he was still your date for the dance. I told him yeah, but …”

  “Yes. I am. I mean, Ka is going with him. I need her to be at the dance so I can be elsewhere.” Or maybe just invisible. I can’t let myself remember that romantic night at the waterfall when Michael asked me to the dance. I really wanted to dance with him and now everything is ruined.

  A lump forms in my throat while my eyes sting with tears. The pain is fresh all over again, as though everything fell apart only yesterday. I blink back the tears and swallow the lump, letting it return to the pit in my stomach where it’s been for weeks.

  Bailey and I round the edge of the ice palace and walk through a tunnel of looming ice sculptures. They are massive and beastly, probably from the Frost Giants or White Walkers evolutionary chain. The back lighting throws eerie shadows across their faces and gives me the creepy shivers. The painful distraction of losing Michael is replaced by the sensation of being watched, again.

  Damn. Thanks to Ka, I’m now being paranoid.

  Bailey is jabbering and oblivious, so I loop my arm through hers and guide her out. I tell her that Ka will go to the dance with J.D. while I have a chat with Dante—and just like that, I’m having tea with demons. I never wanted to set foot back in the mansion, but I have to undo some of the damage Ka has done. She’s taken my relationship with Dante in the wrong direction. I know he can be charming and seductive, and I should’ve warned her. I’ll put a stop to it tonight.

  * * *

  Ka has bought herself a stunning winter gown of red velvet and a white fur wrap. It’s off the shoulder with a tight bodice and daring neckline. Her hair is piled into a loose bun with tendrils framing her face. I’ve been staring in open admiration; she has far better fashion sense than I ever did.

  When she’s finally ready, we stand in the middle of the room and I take her hands. “Be careful,” I say earnestly. “But have fun. J.D. is a nice guy. Go easy on him.” We laugh and sound exactly the same. I’m almost envious, seeing her in the gorgeous gown while I’m wearing black pants, boots, and a tight black turtleneck. I could be robbing a bank and she could be wearing a crown.

  “You be careful, too,” she says as we hug good-bye. With J.D. waiting downstairs, she grabs her wrap and slips out the door. I listen from the hallway, hearing the oohs and ah
hs as she enters the living room. I imagine they are posing before Dad’s camera, so I grab my coat, sneak out the bedroom window, and drop down at the back of the house. The jeep is parked on the next block, and I’m shivering by the time I get there. I climb in, blast the heater, and head to the mansion.

  The drive seems darker than I remember. Probably because Haven Hurst is sucking up all the electricity in the county. I wouldn’t be surprise if the Winter Carnival could be seen from space.

  It begins to snow as I turn down the long, narrow drive leading to the mansion. The looming forest is white with the stuff, but I notice a flock of black crows perched in a giant dead tree. I remember them from last time; they look unearthly and evil.

  I park next to the Escalade and climb down. The mansion rises three stories above me but only the bottom floor shows signs of life with glowing yellow windows. Heat radiates from the house. A five-foot barrier around the perimeter is bone dry as though snow isn’t allowed to cross it, or risk melting.

  I glance around, nervous. I remind myself that Wolfgang isn’t here. Dante and Vaughn don’t want to hurt me. Bailey thinks she’s in love with Vaughn, so there must be some redeeming quality in him. Somewhere beneath the mounds of scars.

  I knock softly and barely have time to lower my hand before Dante pulls open the door, beaming at me. “Buon Natale, cara mia!”

  I give him a perturbed look and then remember that Ka has been overly friendly. I have to pretend that I’m her, and the irony is pissing me off. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Dante.” I smile pleasantly. He grabs my hands, kisses both of them, and then pulls me inside. He hugs me tightly, and I force myself to return the affection.

  “I am so glad you came,” he whispers, and then leans back and spreads my arms to look me up and down. He seems pleased but frowns, as though I’m lacking something he wanted to find.

  “I can only stay a minute,” I say, moving away from him. I look around the place to ensure that nothing nefarious is lurking in the shadows. Just Vaughn peeking around a high-backed chair before a blazing fireplace.