Manifest (The Darkening Trilogy) (21 page)

Now, I wasn’t one to vent my frustrations.  I had never really had any… so I guess it wasn’t much of a trait of mine – but I wasn’t above seeking a little council myself when things got as tough as they were.  I found unlikely confidants in Corbin and Roger as they had been among the first to warm to the boy.

“He just sits in his room and stares out the window into the park,” I told them, when they hadn’t brought it up.

“It’s normal, Mom,” Corbin said.  Roger remained too shocked to speak.  For the first time,
I
was the one looking for a shoulder and an ear. 

“He stares at himself in the mirror a lot, right?” Corbin asks.  “He does when we’re here anyway.”

I nod, but for the first time in ages, I’m uncomfortable with the expansive, suddenly intrusive, senses my children possess.

“I mean, it’s tougher than most kids go through, but it’s still in the same ballpark.  He’s just trying to get a hold on who he is,” Corbin continued.

“But he has so much more to contend with,” I say defensively.

“On the inside.  But it’s always better to get your shit straight on the inside then to have to hope shit’s cool on the outside.  You know what I’m saying?”

I nod again, but the thought stays with me for a few days.  Ezra is trying to find himself just like anyone else, but he is at odds with his very own body.  Not displeased with it, but opposed to it.  His pain – my pain – always found a way to push itself to the forefront of my mind.  It popped up like an incessant mole in my vegetable garden till out of the corner of my eye, every leaf in the breeze looked like an intruder. 

Two days later, Miquel visited and I didn’t hesitate to bring up my concerns. 

“What about a journal?” Miquel offered.

“No, he says he isn’t comfortable with one. 
And who could blame him?  With all we tell him about the power of thoughts and manifestations, why would he want to make his fears any more real?”

“I thought you said the boy was fiercely skeptical.”

“He is, but of distant things.”

“I see.  Skepticism is a luxury afforded only in the absence of fear.”

I frowned, not yet aware that those words would one day be my end.

Miquel nodded to himself.  “He will just have to wait for his companion.”

But what good was that?  Telling a mother to wait for something her child needed was just the same as telling a child to wait for something he wanted.  “I know, Miquel, but it could take years.  He needs it
now
.”  But what was the use?  If it was within Miquel’s power he would send an angel for Ezra.  But it was not.

“What form do you think it will take, anyhow?” he asked.

“Heavens…  I hadn’t thought about that.”

“It didn’t even come up at the selection in Pantheon,” he noted.

I suddenly became petrified.  “Will he get one at all?”  The thought was overwhelming.  The companions, mine being Pumpkin, were consciousness-sent to protect the library and to fill the void of motherhood unfulfilled in the Anatheas.  But without that void, why would fate send a presence to fill it?

“We will have to wait and see.”

Shortly before Miquel left, he had a brief conversation with Ezra.  He told the boy that he was proud of him.  On his way out the door, though, when Miquel stopped to give me a hug, he whispered something in my ear. “Watch out for him,” he said.

I knew what he meant and assured him I would.  Miquel’s relationship with Ezra was a very complex one.  There was mutual admiration but also deep ambivalence within Ezra.  Miquel was the closest thing he knew to a father but also the man who kidnapped him and threw him into this dungeon of books and riddles.  It was anyone’s guess how Ezra would take anything Miquel said. 

Sure enough, feeling like he was unworthy of a parent’s pride, or like it was out of pity and not love, Ezra spiraled downwards.  The following evening, as the sun was setting early in the rainy sky, I heard a smash from the bathroom.

Rushing over to the door, I found the handle locked.  “Ezra?” I said calmly at first, but after another smash, shouted his name.  He was about to be confronted with a harsh truth, one I had hoped to introduce him softly to in years to come.  Fate was not adhering to my neat little plans.  A moment or so later, amidst sounds of thrashing and crying and the shower curtain being yanked one ring at a time from the rod, I found a screwdriver and returned to the locked door.  By the time I jimmied it open, the noises had stopped, all except for a desperate whimpering, like a wounded hound. 

The interior looked like a hurricane had passed through.  The wall mirror was in shards in the sink and the hamper was over-turned with several gashes in the thin plastic.  Ezra lay on the ground by the tub.  His over-sized shirt, the kind he used to disguise his body, to drape it in ambiguity, was in tatters.  He clutched a large triangular glass shard in his hand.  Not a scratch was on him nor a drop of blood in the entire scene.

“What’s wrong with me?” he wailed.

“Not a single thing in the world, child.”  I took the glass from his hand and held him.  He started to pull at the skin on his face.  “I want this to be me!” he cried.  “I just want to look like I am.” 

Later when he had calmed down, I explained to Ezra what had happened.  It was the first time I was able to give him a lesson on something he himself had experienced firsthand instead of something he read about or that I told him.  I hoped it would help lend some credibility to our other lessons.  As the Anatheas, I explained, he and I were simply too important to the system.  In a strange way, we represented the entire weight on the other side of the seesaw.  There was us, and there was the rest of Gothica.  So much ignorance had to be grounded in the faintest bit of truth or else that ignorance would have nothing to be measured by and become truth itself.  We were among the anchors that kept Gothica possible, the necessary antithesis to all that surrounded us.  One day we would die, and though we would feel tiredness in our bones long before kicking the bucket, until that time, no disease, no stray bullet, and no
self-inflicted wounds would do a lick of harm to us.  And so long as we did what we were here to do, we would remain physically invulnerable.  

I’d be lying if I said he took it well.  It was quite a blow for him.  Heavens, how could it not be?  And how could you blame him for losing hope?  Not everyone could be like Delano. 

I would also be lying if I said I wasn’t pacing in worry for days after.  Ezra wasn’t eating or sleeping or reading.  He was in a deep depression and his will to live was fading, something his invulnerability could not protect against.  At least at the time it looked that way.  I can scarcely remember those hours and I tell myself not to try.  All that matters is that a little black cat named Boo saved his life.

E
zra was taking out the trash when it happened.  He was lugging a bag full of corn husks out to the dumpster after dinner when he thought he heard something.  It was then that a little kitten emerged from a trash can, balancing the lid on its head like a big straw hat.  “Boo!”  she said, startling Ezra in no small way.  I saw the rest of their initial encounter unfold from the kitchen, though the door.  The cat proceeded to greet Ezra in lispy, broken Spanish.  I wish I were lying, but that feisty little rodent was prone to long tirades of cartoonish sputtering.  The first thing Boo did after saying hello was discard the lid with a crash and then wiggle her little bum, the way cats do before they pounce, and jump out of the trashcan, prancing into the house like she owned the place.  Ezra came rushing in where he saw me exclaim.  “My me!  It came at last!”

“
Hola
,” said Boo.

“
And it speaks!  What a blessing,” I said at the time.  Let me tell you… it wasn’t.

Ezra’s face was beyond description.  A talking cat, and an
expected one
, no less.  Suddenly Pumpkin came scampering into the room, taking a wide corner on the smooth floor and skidding to a stop in front of Boo.  He let out a burst of shrill barks while Boo stood up like a human would and raised her front paws like a magician, swirling them in the air, all the while insulting Pumpkin in broken Spanish.  “¡
Huir y comer chocolate, usted cobarde de un cerdo! ¡Besaré a su madre y daré una palmada a su padre porque usted es grasiento!
”

“Hey!  You two behave!”

Ezra tried to make sense of the scene before him, bless his heart.  

B
oo was indeed Ezra’s consciousness-sent companion.  What else could she have been?  And for all her sassiness she was Ezra’s savior.  He quickly found the strange and extravagant feline to be his new and most trusted confidant.  She was as loyal as a post and affectionate too, and in return Ezra showered her in constant attention. 

To the sentiners, Boo remained a mystery.  No one understood how Ezra could put up with the cat’s antics, let alone love the trying thing.  She was boisterous and challenging, always trying to show off or protect Ezra.  But Ezra knew that it was a big show.  Especially the part where Boo introduced herself to new comers, as a rancher of a thousand acres and four hundred cattle.  It took this level of absurdity to show Ezra the folly in believing the surface of things.  She was just a little cat in a big world and seeing her two sides allowed Ezra to explore his own facets.

Of course, as the years went on and Boo matured out of her “kitten stage,” one that lasted nearly five years, tempers flared between Ezra and her, sometimes resulting in hisses and claws on both sides.  The way I looked at it though, how fun would life be if people only ever got along?  They each had things to teach and things to learn and that was the way life was supposed to be.

There was one thing, though that did remain constant in Boo, and that was her relentless tormenting of my precious pug dog, Pumpkin.  At one point, a visiting sentiner was left speechless as he witnessed the cat ride Pumpkin like a bull, squealing
andale!
as the dog bucked through the living room.  At Halloween I got her back though, capturing Boo and ensnaring her with a crimson headband.  Unable to remove it, she was forced to roam the house wearing two red foam horns.  In frustration she clawed Pumpkin’s pumpkin suit up over his head, blinding the poor pug who promptly and frantically ran into a wall.

For all the chaos that the mischievous addition to Alexandria brought, Boo also added some unpredictability to an otherwise mundane existence, and when combined with her soothing effect on Ezra, I was grateful.

By the time Ezra was twenty, he had grown significantly; more than one matures in a hundred immortal years.  This was no better summed up than by my poor misguided children’s’ efforts to comfort Ezra.  A decade too late, Corbin and Roger thought they would offer Ezra some consolation.  By now, Ezra was very tall and slender with a narrow face, etched chin, long wavy hair and cheekbones that rivaled my own.  It was actually uncanny how similar we looked, almost like biological parent and child.  We even used the same eye liner, though his was applied more subtly and was the only hint he added to change the appearance of his gender – besides his fabulous hair.  Maybe that was what had started Roger’s train of thought, wanting to encourage Ezra to be comfortable with himself.  God only knows what goes on in Roger’s precious little noggin.

“No one cares who you want to fuck,” Roger said out of the blue.  I spit tea halfway across the kitchen.  Back pedaling, he tried to clarify what he meant as Ezra cocked his head inquisitively.  “I mean, everyone older than a hundred-fifty is a total hypocrite for talking
any
shit about you.”

Oh dear Christ.  I tried to hurry into the library where the three were talking.

“Well thanks Rog,” Ezra said, taking it all in stride.

“No problem,” he said as if finished, but then began again.
  “I mean seriously.  We’re
all
perverts.”

“It’s true,” Corbin added sticking his head out from behind a book shelf.

“Like
whoa
.  I mean, shit, Corbin, what
haven’t
you fucked?”

He paused and tapped his chin as I came rushing into the room.  “I never fucked a monkey, while driving a car.”

Roger beamed.  “Epic words my friend.”

“Hey mom,” Corbin said as I came to a horrified halt.  “Can that go in the divine record?”

I sighed, beyond exasperated.  “I’ll put it on a sticky note, hun.  Now come on, let’s get to our meeting.”

They both looked at Ezra, each other, and then me.  “That’s what I thought we were doing,” Corbin said, setting a book back on the shelf.

Whatever damage they had good-naturedly caused was undone with this gesture of trust and I saw Ezra smile bashfully.  “Can you make us some tea?” Roger asked me.  Corbin hit him across the arm to his utter surprise.  “That’s rude,” Corbin scolded.  “Say, please.”

“I’ll be back in a few.  Just try to stay on topic, will you?”

“Yes mom,” the three droned.

E
zra would grow up to become the best Anatheas Gothica would ever see.  I knew that.  I saw it in my dreams.  But I also saw something else.  I saw myself as failing him.  Of course I cared for him, loved him, and prepared him.  Of course I was to blame for being over protective, for losing my temper occasionally, or making mistakes.  I understood that.  I accepted that.  But what nagged at me like the hiccups, interrupting every thought and breath, was what I had forced the boy to believe – the very same things I had forced myself to believe.