It looked like hoarding to everyone, including me, until I understood why my mother was doing it. The stacks of paper had overrun our house, so we had to move into an apartment. And even then, we had to rent multiple storage sheds to hold the overflow that could no longer fit in our bedrooms, dining room, living room, and spare bathroom.
But I found out, only a week before my mom died, that she wasn’t a hoarder at all.
She was entirely dedicated to helping the human race in ways that nobody around her could appreciate or understand. To hear her called a saint now sends a tear sliding out of the corner of my eye, since she was only called names and told to stop writing, while she was alive.
“Milo hasn’t been able to write because he’s been traumatized!” Deeta thunks a metallic bowl down on the counter. Unimpressed, Zane yawns.
“Whatever you say,” he tells her.
I feel my strength returning and really get a good look around. Zane’s, parked on the arm of the living room chair. We’re in Garrett and Sean’s suite.
“How did you guys get back into the hotel anyway?” I ask. “We were on lockdown.”
“Still are,” Zane says. “But when you have the original dungeon master with you, it means you’ve also got the skeleton key.”
“Freddie.” Freddie Marcourt is not just one of the Contego that Garrett’s mom trusts to have in her inner circle, but he also designed the Hotel Celare.
“You got it. But hey, that riot we came back to—that was a lot of fun.”
“Is your mom okay, Garrett?” I ask. I think it’s my nerves that finally pull me up, until I’m sitting beside him. I don’t know if I can stand to hear the answer. We’ve already lost my mom and Garrett’s dad and we don’t know where Garrett and Sean’s two younger brothers are. I think of Garrett’s little sister, Iris, and how messed up she was by the death of her father and of my mother too, and I don’t think she can handle losing anyone else. I know I can’t. I look into Garrett’s eyes, searching for the answer, before I ask, “Is everyone alright?”
“My mom is okay,” Garrett’s voice becomes dark and deep. “But not everybody made it back. Freddie’s okay, but a group jumped him and beat him pretty badly with a pipe. Van and Trig are still missing. They might have been taken hostage or they might’ve been killed, we don’t know yet.”
“The Fury’s taking bodies and calling them hostages, so we don’t know who’s alive and who’s not, until they’re returned,” Zane says. “They’re targeting our Simple families too. They killed Shred’s wife, Lynette. We got her back yesterday and haven’t seen Shred since.”
“Shred’s wife?” I gasp. Shred’s Simple; he’s Switzerland. He’s not part of any of this mess; he opted out of the Ianua years ago. He’s just Freddie’s son, working for the extra money to support his new wife and new baby.
Garrett reaches for my hand. His touch is a very real thing, when suddenly nothing seems like it can be real at all. I know that this is the Cusp we’ve been expecting; it’s supposed to be the start of some war that will change the course of the world, but I assumed the rules of war between these ancient, hidden communities would be different somehow. More regal, more honorable, less out in the open or something. Not full of real bloodshed and real heartbreak and real fear. Not real war that drags the whole innocent world into the brawl. I feel my skin losing its color and Garrett gives my fingers a tug. I look into his eyes again, grateful to fall into their calming blue.
“I think I need a shower,” I say.
“Sure,” Garrett says. He helps me get to my feet, his touch soft and strong at the same time. I’m all spaghetti in the legs, but nothing as bad as after I’d re-Impressioned. He hobbles me to the bathroom without another word to any of our friends. Once he’s deposited me against the counter, and asked twice if I’m sure I won’t fall over, he finally turns to go, but I touch his sleeve.
“Garrett,” I say, and he turns back to me quickly, as if he needs to save me from taking a nose-dive onto the floor. His eyes are filled with concern as he leans closer to me, to hear what I need. His hair brushes my cheek as I whisper shamefully to him, “I don’t know how not to be afraid of this.”
“The shower?” he whispers back, and a tight giggle flutters out of me. He grins. He knows what I mean. The first thing I ever learned about being a Contego warrior was what I learned from Garrett. Never bring fear to a fight. The fear can be paralyzing and blot out your instincts. I should know this; I fought Chad and even ended his life when I thought he would kill Iris and Zaneen.
But this isn’t just one fight. This is the real war.
I sway beside the counter and Garrett wraps his arms around me. His lips are warm against my ear as he whispers back, “Don’t look at the big picture. Don’t. Just look at the next minute. We only have to get through the next minute, Nalena. That’s all.”
I melt against him and feel the calming energy rush between us. Garrett kisses my forehead. He holds me and we sway together for a moment, as if we’re dancing, before he leans in and turns on the shower for me.
“All you have to do is get through this shower,” he says. “And then, Deeta’s cooking.”
“You’re scaring me again,” I tell him, but my grin is stronger. After he leaves the bathroom, I undress and step beneath the shower stream. I hang onto the towel rack, so I don’t fall, and I get through this moment.
***
“You don’t have to eat it,” Zane says, as Deeta puts a plate of this pile of stuff she cooked on the table in front of me. It looks like a volcano. A bubble, at the very center of the red glop of food, pops open and steam rushes out.
“It looks...great,” I force up a smile and Deeta beams.
“See? I told you she’d love it,” Deeta sticks her tongue out at Zane. “Now that Nali’s alright, I think I’m going to go and try to get Milo writing today!”
“I’ll go with you,” Zaneen is a little too enthusiastic and Deeta smiles tightly.
“Great,” Deeta says.
“Alright, see you two later,” I tell them with a wave. My food burps again.
Deeta lets herself out and for the first time, I not only see the commotion outside, but I hear it. The Courtyard is a swarm of people, like a mall jammed with holiday shoppers. A child darts by the glass door as Zaneen closes it and I look back at the three faces around my table.
Another bubble bursts open on my plate. Zane, Garrett and Sean stare at the plate too, watching the eruptions going on in front of me.
“I’ll kill every one of you, if anybody tells her that I didn’t eat this,” I say.
“I’ll take my chances on slipping up,” Sean says. “But I think you’ll die if you eat it.”
“You’re not eating this.” Garrett gets up and takes the plate into the kitchen. He dumps the food down the garbage disposal and comes back with apple slices, a bag of almonds, and a bottle of water.
“Try this,” he says, putting the food in front of me. I take a few almonds and a bite of the apple too. I glimpse the strangers walking past the sliding glass door. There is a group huddled around one of the benches, talking. A woman goes past the door a few times, pumping her arms, and I realize she’s doing laps, for exercise. A couple stroll by and peek in, but when they see me looking out at them, they look away, embarrassed.
“We were wondering something,” Sean says, drawing my focus back to the table. “We were wondering if your Tralate abilities could help us at all.”
I shrug. “Help with what?”
“Figuring out who’s going to try to kill the Addo,” Garrett says. Sean slips a few almonds from the bag in front of me.
“Well, at least,” he grins, tossing a nut in the air and catching it in his mouth, “which one of us they’ll try to kill first.”
CHAPTER TWO
“NOBODY KNOWS I’M TRAINING TO BE AN ADDO yet,” Sean says, “but the Curas are going to want to identify all the Moxes pretty soon. So we can get all the Curas organized again.”
“
And we’re thinking that if we can figure out who is the actual target,” Garrett says, “we can concentrate protection on that Addo, instead of dividing up all the Contego. It would give us better odds of keeping the Addos safe.”
“So,” Sean says, “What I’d like to know is if I’m going to have all you guys sleeping and eating and taking showers with me or if you’re going to double down on Addo Larry instead.”
I laugh. “Didn’t you just tell Deeta not to be paranoid?”
“Well,” Sean drawls. “You know Deeta. She’s Alo. She tends to flip out a little faster than everyone else. If she thinks she can say anything she wants, she probably won’t say a word, but if she thinks she has to be secretive...”
“She’ll spill everything she’s learned since kindergarten,” Zane finishes.
“So things are worse than you made them out to be,” I say. They each answer me with a solemn nod.
“The whole first Cura—the entire dang lot of them—all went to The Fury. That’s pretty epic.”
“Historically, the Ianua has never lost an entire Cura,” Sean says. “There has always been thirteen. The closest we’ve ever come were only a few recorded instances that happened hundreds of years ago, when a majority of members left a Cura over a dispute with an Addo. But even then, the entire group wasn’t lost.”
“So, just re-distribute everybody.”
“That’s not the protocol. The rule is: if the entire Cura dissipates, then that Cura is dissolved.”
I chew on my thumbnail, like my mom used to, and a thought floats to the surface. “The entire first Cura isn’t lost, though. Milo’s still here.”
Zane blows a wet raspberry. “More like the first Cura left a burning bag of Milo on our front porch, before they all ran away. The guy isn’t recording memories even though they’re stacking up. He’s the only Alo left in his Cura to write them and he’s not lifting a finger. All the other Alo, from all the other Curas, are working twice as hard to do their share, and now they have to carry his load too. He hasn’t written one Memory yet. He’s not doing anything, besides sitting around and sucking up food. It seems pretty obvious that he’s either a traitor that The Fury didn’t want or he’s a traitor that’s just waiting for the right time to do whatever he’s going to do.”
“Except that there’s not much he can do, stuck in here with all of us,” Garrett says.
“Exactly,” Zane says. “The Fury probably wants to kill him as much as we do. The little weasel’s safe and sound right now. He’s probably just waiting until he’s got something juicy to take back to The Fury.”
“Like who the new Addos are,” I say. My insides do a heavy dry-heave that, thankfully, doesn’t surface. Milo could easily be a traitor. Everything points to it. He spilled to the Addo to save himself and he hasn’t bothered to record any memories. My skin crawls, thinking of how Milo sat beside me in the Courtyard and cried, how he looked me in the eye and told me about how my traitor of a dad raised him. And I felt sorry for him. But it could all be a set up—him working me like a bowling pin that he can just knock down.
“The good thing is that no one knows I’m an Addo yet,” Sean says.
“I can ask my father about Milo,” I offer. “He’s my Connection now, so he has to tell me the truth, right?”
“Not exactly. A Connection only has to tell you whatever he knows that is necessary to keep you safe,” Garrett says. “There’s a gray line there. If Milo’s not a direct threat to you, technically, your father doesn’t have to tell you anything.”
“Huh,” I say, as a few ideas pop into my mind. Garrett cocks his head at me, his eyes squinted with curiosity. I ignore it as I ask Sean, “So how long can we keep your Addoship a secret?”
“Well, the Addo is preparing for the Totus right now,” he says. “All the Moxes will be revealed then, but the Addo was still debating whether he was going to do the closed Totus and call in one Cura at a time or go ahead with the usual, open discussion format.”
“One at a time would be the smart way,” I say. “With all our Contego there, on guard.”
Zane gives me his nod of approval. “You’re thinkin’ like a warrior chick now.”
“It seems like the only way to go, doesn’t it?” Sean says. “Except that a closed Totus with each Cura will take forever, it zaps our solidarity, and it doesn’t keep the Addo from being a target. If the Addo meets individually with each Cura’s Procella, then there will be a lot of repeat information. And what about their other top players? The Procella would be responsible for briefing their own Curas. Information and necessary details would probably get lost in the shuffle.
“And you know how people are. Ianua or not, everybody’s just human. Closed Totuses make people wonder if there is favoritism, if someone else knows more than they do, and if there’s something the Addo forgot to tell them or didn’t get right. The closed Totus allows for too many secrets and miscommunications. And, since the Procella are going to reveal their Moxes, then it also means that the Addo is going to be have another load of desirable information. He’s even more of a target if he’s the only one with all the info.”
“We might as well bronze him and stick him on a trophy for them. Or save time and just paint the target right on his butt,” Zane says.
“Why not leave the Moxes unidentified?” I say. “Have them set up a private meeting with the Addo on their own.”
“Because the Addo is on lock down,” Garrett says. “We don’t want everyone claiming to be a Mox, just so they can get to the Addo. We also need to get the Moxes up and running, so they can start guiding the Curas and helping out the Addo. The Alo are racking up the Memories and the Addo can’t clear them away fast enough on his own.”
Zane rubs his chin. “At some point, we’re going to have to get all the Addos mobile too, so they can go out and bless the Memories that are piling up out in the Curas too.”
“One mess at a time.” Garrett smiles.
“Well, we’re assuming that all the remaining Cura’s Alo are even still out there recording,” Sean says softly. “I hope my Cura is, whichever one I get.”
My belly does another sick flop. I hadn’t really thought of what Sean’s Addoship would mean to the rest of us. It means that Garrett’s family will be torn apart even further. Our Cura already has an Addo, so Sean will have to guide some other Cura, somewhere else in the world. Addo’s don’t live next door to each other. They’re spread across the continents and they only see each other once a year, at the annual Indicium meetings. I don’t know if the Addo’s families ever get to see each other at all, especially if the family members are Contego with their own Addo to look after. I don’t know if there’s ever vacation time. But now, with shortages in all the Curas, we may never be able to see Sean again.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about it now,” Zane grumbles. “The way things are going, there might not be any Curas left when this is all over. Shoot, we might not be left when this is over!”
“Why?” I ask, my voice closing up a little. “What else is going on?”
“One moment at a time,” Garrett whispers in my ear. He grasps my hand and I feel the soothing Indigo of his touch leak into me. I repeat in my head, We’re safe. Garrett’s here. We’re all here. It’s okay. But I know I have to see the big picture too. It’s what I signed up for, as a Contego. I know I have to face it with my big-girl-pants belted on. Without freaking out. I take a deep breath and try to brace myself to hear more bad news without crumbling beneath it. Garrett gives me a tiny, encouraging grin.
“Tell me,” I say.
“The riots are world wide now,” he begins. “We thought they were only here and that it was a contained thing, but we were wrong. Remember the night we got here and what we saw on TV?” I nod slowly. Oh, do I remember. The news reports were terrifying. Murder, theft, rapes, abductions. Everything evil in the world seemed to be happening all at once. “The amount of crimes has tripled and they’ve gotten more severe. And it’s not just happen
ing here. It’s going on all over the world.”
“This Cusp is a big fish,” Zane sighs. Sean strums his fingers on the table.
“But you could be our ticket out of it, Nalena,” he says. “We were wondering if your abilities could help us root out any bad eggs in the Curas that are here. Maybe we can get some writing samples from them and you could let us know if you can detect anything.”
“I could try,” I tell him, “but I don’t think it’ll work. The words that warn me about stuff only show up when I’m the one in immediate danger.”
Sean rubs his chin in thought. “It may not even work if there are traitors in the ranks who already know you are a Tralate. Then all they’d have to do is work around you, keep away from you, and they could still get to everyone else.”
“No one knows,” I say. “Addo Chad didn’t even know I was the Tralate. He thought it was Iris. And if he didn’t know, I doubt anyone else from The Fury would know either. But the only sure way I know to make the Tralation to work, and for me to know if there’s trouble coming, is if I’m the one who’s in direct line of the danger. I should be on watch for the Addo. Everybody knows I’m a noob, don’t they? Anyone who’s going to try anything would know it’s easier to get through me than anyone else, right?”
“There’s a point,” Zane says, but Garrett suddenly slams his open hand down on the table. Sean, Zane, and I jump in our seats.
“No,” he says. “You are not bait.”
A fire jumps up in his eyes. It’s that predatory look that once scared me, when I surprised him in his kitchen, but right now, he’s aiming it squarely at Zane. And even though Zane throws up both hands like he’s surrendering, he just keeps on blabbing.
“If she’s guarding the Addo, then she’d know what’s going to happen before it happens anyway. We’d be on it like flies on stink, before anybody even knew what hit them.”
Jamb (The Cornerstone Series) Page 2
