Ambrosia Shore (22 page)

I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT YOUR DILEMMA WITH THE COUNCIL THE ENTIRE DAY, TRYING TO COME UP WITH A WAY TO HELP YOU AFTER YOUR FATHER GETS ME OUT OF HERE. IF WE DON’T WANT THE COUNCIL TO ERASE YOUR MEMORY, AND YOU DON’T WANT TO LEAVE YOUR MOM BEHIND, THE ONLY SOLUTION I CAN COME UP WITH IS TO TAKE YOUR MOTHER AND RUN. WE COULD DO IT. THEY WOULD TRY TO COME AFTER US ONCE THEY REALIZED WE WEREN’T COMING BACK, BUT BY THAT TIME, WE COULD HAVE NEW NAMES AND NEW LIVES, HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD. I KNOW IT’S NOT IDEAL. I JUST CAN’T THINK OF ANY OTHER OPTION. I MEAN, THE ONLY LEGITIMATE WAY FOR ANYONE TO PASS BACK AND FORTH FROM AMBROSIA TO EARTH ON A REGULAR BASIS IS TO BECOME AN AGENT OR A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL, AND THE LAW CLEARLY STATES THAT YOU MUST BE A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN OF AMBROSIA TO EVEN BE ADMITTED TO THE ACADEMY.

I stopped and stared at the page. Rayne’s idea about running and hiding wasn’t a new one. I had thought about the same thing many times. It was his statement at the end about being an agent that had me reading over his words for the tenth time in a row. Rayne’s whole point for mentioning the idea was to explain that it was not a possibility, yet I couldn’t get the notion out of my mind. I would never want to be a Scout, but if I could become a Water Keeper, or even a Backer, I could stay in Banya with Rayne while traveling back to see my mother and friends whenever I wanted. It seemed like the perfect solution, if only the Council wasn’t so strict when it came to breaking the rules.

I wrote Rayne back, but I didn’t mention what I was thinking about wanting to become an agent. Instead, I just told him I agreed that running away was a possibility. Then, I spent the rest of my math class daydreaming about the life of a Water Keeper. Rayne’s experience as a Keeper wasn’t typical, the way he lived in California for years as my personal guardian. From what I understood, a normal Water Keeper would go off to some exotic place on Earth for a week or two, find a well-deserving sick person to help, probably in between adventurous excursions to nearby points of interest or tourist attractions, and then they would cross back through one of the Thresholds to Ambrosia, ready to enjoy their real life with the people they loved, all while receiving an enormous paycheck. It sounded like the greatest job in existence.

I also couldn’t forget the added perks of living on a planet where nobody ever got sick, and they all lived for over two hundred years. Plus, I could live there with Rayne… We could plan an actual future together, without the stress of him trying to protect me, or one of us running out of Healing Water without a way to get more. Maybe we could be Water Keepers together, go out on healing missions as partners and travel the world together.

When the bell rang at the end of class, I almost didn’t want it to be over. I wanted to stay in my dreams. Right then, I decided I had to find a way to make it happen. There had to be a way to make this perfect dream a reality.

Even though Heather already purchased a prom dress last week, she still insisted that she needed to shop for a different one.

“I like it, but I don’t know if it’s
the one
,” she tried to explain.

However, I knew Heather well enough to see through her charade, especially when she insisted that I find a bunch of dresses to try on with her. She was trying to talk me into going to the dance, even though Rayne wasn’t here to go with me. When I mentioned the dance to Rayne through the diary earlier that day, he encouraged me to go as well, but it wouldn’t be the same without him. A big part of me wanted to go. It was senior prom. Heather and I had looked forward to this event since the day we started high school.

I, of course, gave in anyway and tried on a bunch of dresses with her. Even if I wasn’t going to go, I could still take a moment to imagine what it would be like. Heather brought me a floor-length blue dress to add to my pile. It was a pretty dress in an elegant powder blue with a sash around the waist, but as I held it up to look in the mirror, I had a flashback to an unpleasant memory. It was too much like the dress I wore as I stood in front of the Council, trying to plead Rayne’s innocence. I hung the dress aside and started trying on the others.

Half the time I hardly noticed what I was trying on, my mind still lingering back in my dream of becoming a Water Keeper someday, and looking forward to the moment I could read Rayne’s newest message in the diary. But when I tried on the next dress on the rack, my mind shifted back to reality.  It was just another dress on the hanger, but when I looked at myself in the mirror, surrounded by a full skirt of bright fuchsia tulle, I suddenly felt like a teenager again. The shorter, knee-length dress was cheerful and flirtatious, light and free. There were fun, shiny sequins across the top of the bodice. The dress was everything I had forgotten about myself, everything I missed about myself.

I was fighting back the urge to twirl in my dressing stall when Heather poked her head into the tiny room. I turned to her and grinned. “Maybe I do want to go,” I said.

Heather’s face beamed. “Oh. My. Gosh. That dress is one hundred percent adorable on you. It’s so happy it’s like you’re wrapped in a thousand smiles or something. You are
so
buying that dress, and you are wearing it to prom.”

I smiled. Maybe I just needed one last chance to be young and carefree before I went off to all my big decisions.

After Heather’s sneaky dress-shopping plan was a huge success, Agent Duke’s black SUV followed discreetly behind Heather’s car as we headed back to her house to make something to eat. Ever since Heather’s mom was given a pizza baking stone as a Christmas gift a few months ago, her entire family was basically addicted to homemade pizza. So I wasn’t surprised when that was exactly what Heather wanted to make. Her mom even kept balls of dough ready to go in the refrigerator. All we needed to do was roll it out and throw on the toppings. Heather worked on the dough and the sauce while I started chopping up toppings.

We were both feeling kind of giddy and upbeat, so we turned on some music in the kitchen while we cooked.

“Guess what…” Heather said with a giggle. “I totally knew you were going to change your mind about the dance, so I talked to Nick last night about all the guys’ plans, and Darrin doesn’t have a date yet.”

I held up the huge knife Heather had given me to chop and waved it playfully in the air. “Aren’t you forgetting something? Darrin is Julie’s ex. That would be totally awkward for her.” The knife suddenly slipped from my grasp and clanked onto the counter.

“First of all,” Heather laughed, “try not to stab yourself, because that would really mess up the plans I just made for you. And second of all…I already talked to both Julie and Darrin, and they said it wasn’t a big deal.” Heather shimmied up beside me and spoke in a teasing tone. “Darrin sounded pretty excited when he heard you were available…”

I shook my head with a chuckle and went back to cutting a tomato. “Well, you know I’m still not
really
available, but I wouldn’t mind going with Darrin—”

Before I could finish my sentence, Heather jerked behind me unexpectedly. “Wait! I love this song,” she exclaimed. At the same time, her hand flew up and hit my elbow, just as I was forcing the knife down to slice.

“Ow!” I cried. The sharp blade pierced through my skin. Heather stared at my hands in horror as I clutched my finger now covered in blood.

“What should I do?” she asked frantically. “Is it bad? Should I take you to the hospital?”

By the time Heather stopped to take a breath, I could already feel the pain disappear. Then I remembered the Water Briolette in the back pocket of my jeans, with the button secured shut so it couldn’t fall out.

“No, it’s fine,” I insisted. “I don’t think it’s bad. Just get me a Band-Aid or something.” I continued to hold my finger, trying to conceal the fact that there probably wasn’t even a scratch left.

“Whatever,” Heather protested. “Your hand is dripping with blood. Here, let me see it.” She reached for my hand, but I pulled away.

Her brow pinched together, and she reached again. “Come on; let me see it,” she said as she yanked my wrist. I tried to pull back, but Heather was surprisingly strong. “Which finger is it?” she asked.

I knew she was having trouble finding the cut because I knew there wasn’t one to find, just a smear of blood over perfectly healed skin. I wasn’t sure what to do. What was I supposed to tell her? Part of me wanted to gush to her all about the Water Briolette and this amazing power I had right at my fingertips. It would blow her mind. But something told me that I couldn’t take the risk.

“It’s my thumb,” I blurted out.

“Where? I can’t see it,” Heather said, twisting my hand to look.

“That hurts,” I lied. “Stop moving it. If you can’t even find it, it must not be that bad. Just get me a Band-Aid while I wash off the blood.”

Heather sighed. “Okay fine, if you say so.” Then she went off to the back of the house.

Luckily, Heather didn’t push the subject when she returned. I wrapped the small bandage over my thumb, still pretending I was babying a cut, and then we finished making our pizza as if nothing ever happened.

Once we had a few slices on our plates, Heather pulled me in front of her laptop.

“Let’s look at some condos near UCLA,” she said eagerly. “My dad said he might buy one for us to live in together. He isn’t even going to charge you for rent.”

I tried to look happy. “Wow, that’s nice of him,” I said. But the excitement wasn’t there. A lot had changed the week I was gone. Now, the chance of me staying in California after graduation was next to impossible. I watched Heather’s face grow brighter with each listing she viewed, imagining our lives together as college freshman in the fall. I knew I would have to tell her the bad news. I would have to break her heart and ruin all her expectations and plans.

I just couldn’t do it. Not today.

Heather flipped through pictures of condos happily, rattling on about the pros and cons of living off campus instead of the dorms, while my thoughts drifted down. A new reality was settling in. Not only would I have to kill my best friend’s college-freshman dreams, I would probably lose our friendship forever. And not just because she would be crazy upset with me—although she definitely was going to be—but because I realized that no matter which path I chose, I would have to leave her behind. Even if I found a way to become a Water Keeper, I couldn’t be a part of her life the way I was now. After graduation, our relationship would never be the same.

I tried to memorize her face while she talked. Heather certainly had her moments of being selfish or immature, just like the rest of our friends, just like I was sure I did as well, but Heather was also an amazing best friend. She was a part of almost every important milestone or pleasant memory in my life since the day we met in second grade, and no matter where my future took me, she would always be a part of me.

***

Before I left for school the next morning, I pulled Orion aside to ask him for a little advice. I already knew Rayne’s opinion on my choices, but Orion was an important member of the Council. He might have a different perspective. My newfound dream of becoming a Keeper—if it was even a possibility, which Rayne insisted it wasn’t—sounded exciting, but also scary and overwhelming once I had time to think about it. Today, I realized I just wanted to go to college like a normal person, and somehow bring my boyfriend along with me, without some secret government organization knocking down my door to fry the memories out of my brain.

“Can the Council really erase all my memories of Ambrosia?” I asked Orion with concern.

“Yes, I’m afraid they can,” he replied. “And they will follow through with it if you choose to come back here permanently, by force if they have to.”

“But, I’m here now with my memory intact, so it’s obviously possible.”

Orion shook his head. “Yes, but only under the pretense of being investigated. The Council is expending valuable resources by sending us out here. They won’t agree to continue that for anything long-term.”

“Couldn’t you find some way to talk them into it?” I asked. “If we could come up with a good excuse, I’m sure they would listen to you.”

“I may be smart, and well-respected,” Orion said, chuckling to himself, “but I’m not a magician. It would take an extremely good argument for the Council to agree. You would have to convince them that it would be worth the expense, that there was something in it for them, so to speak.”

“Well, what if I had something to give them in return,” I said hesitantly. “Something valuable. Do you think they would be willing to make a deal with me in exchange?”

Orion’s brow lifted. “Why? Do you have something valuable they might want?”

My thoughts shifted to the Water Briolette in my possession. I shrugged nervously. “Um, I don’t know… What kind of things would they think were valuable?”

“Well, unless you have access to government secrets, powerful weapons and technology, or information regarding possible threats to Ambrosia, I’d say your chances of impressing them are slim.”

I nodded in defeat, but I still had a feeling the Water Briolette could be valuable to the Council. Even though they didn’t need it in Ambrosia to heal, it would give them the power to go to Earth whenever they wanted without needing to use Healing Water, and without the threat of getting injured or killed.

I kept the idea as an option in the back of my mind—use the Briolette as a bribe to get the Council to let me return home with my memory intact. Of course, that would require me to give the stone away, and I wasn’t sure it would be easy to part with. I had become rather fond of knowing I didn’t need the Healing Water to survive, and the fact that Voss couldn’t hurt me or my mom was reason enough to keep it a secret as long as possible.

I also realized the plan could backfire. The Council could confiscate the stone while still forcing me to do what they wanted. For now, I decided trading the Briolette was only a backup plan.

My fingers moved rapidly, subconsciously through the strands of hair hanging down the front of my shoulder. “I heard somewhere that only people born on Ambrosia can be admitted to the Ambassadors Academy. Is that true?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s true.” Orion replied. “You also have to be a natural-born citizen to hold any public office in Banya. I don’t think the law has come up in the last century or two, but back when the leaders of Ambrosia were still recruiting new citizens from Earth, it had become a bit of a problem. There were issues with loyalty. It almost started a war.”

I looked down. “I guess that’s why the Council is so strict about that kind of stuff.”

“Exactly,” Orion agreed. He smiled at me knowingly. “I don’t suppose you had hopes of possibly enrolling at the Academy, did you?”

“It had crossed my mind,” I admitted. “You don’t think they would make any exceptions for, I don’t know, the Ambassador’s daughter?”

Orion chuckled. “Sadie, if the Council knew that the Ambassador was your father, there would be a whole new set of complications to worry about.”

I shook my head and pretended to laugh with him. “Yeah, I know. I was just joking.” I started to turn. “Well, I better get going; I don’t want to be late.”

“Sadie, wait,” Orion said, reaching for my shoulder. He paused as I looked back at him. “I just wanted to say…that I realize your predicament is partially my fault, and I’m going to make every effort to persuade the Council to find a fair solution. Your father and I will both do our best to help you through this. It’s going to be okay.”

“Thanks,” I nodded quietly. “I’m sure I could use the help.”

I turned and left for school, feeling somewhat lost. I was hoping Orion would have concrete advice for me to follow, but all he basically said was that none of my ideas would work, and not to worry because everything would be okay. It felt like empty promises. How did I know Orion and my father would smooth everything over in my favor? They were certainly taking their time with helping Rayne. Orion’s sympathy was a nice gesture, but I wanted a plan. I wanted a list of steps to follow that would ensure a positive outcome. This was the whole rest of my life we were talking about.