Qaletaqa (17 page)

“I was on my way to speak with Uriah’s
parents when I happened upon the pair. I was immediately struck by
the change in Uriah. He had always been such a serious child,
thoughtful and reserved. I found those to be good qualities for the
one destined to be the Qaletaqa, but it had been something of a
concern to me that he often gave the impression of being
unhappy.

“The honest smile on Uriah’s face as he sat
near Claire in a patch of grass next to the ice cream parlor slowed
my pace. He seemed so genuinely relaxed and happy. I had never seen
such utter contentment on his face. He looked over at Claire, and
wore an expression I had only seen on couples who had been together
for decades. He looked at her with clear devotion and love.

“I knew in that moment it would take much
more to break him away from her than a simple conversation with
Notah and Lina.

“I did not know what to do. I knew that
eventually Claire would be torn away from him. He would find his
Twin Soul and break her heart, and by the look of it, his own heart
as well. Most believe that Twin Souls bond and never look back, but
there have been a small number of individuals that have fought
against it for a time before finally giving in. Their struggle was
painful and unrelenting, and even after giving in to the bond they
lived their lives with a shade of regret.

“It is a horrifically painful ordeal to try
and battle something as strong as the Twin Soul bond, but I knew
Uriah would do just that, and harder than anyone else had ever done
before. It made my heart ache to think of the pain this budding
relationship would eventually cause the two of them, but I could
not bring myself to do anything to stop it.

“Perhaps the joy they shared until then would
be enough to get them through the pain of losing each other
forever.

“I walked away from them, fearing I was
making a terrible mistake, but finding myself powerless to do
otherwise.”

I stared at the page. Quaile may not have
thought she was doing the right thing, but silently thanked her for
not interfering. I couldn’t imagine how different my life would
have been had she decided to do something drastic. Just the thought
of having never shared so many wonderful moments with Uriah brought
up a host of emotions. A tear slid off my cheek and splashed onto
the page, instantly ruining a few words and warping the aged paper.
I quickly dabbed at the spot with the edge of my shirt and wiped
away any other tears.

I was about to close the book and take a
break when the smudged words caught my attention again.
There
have been a small number of individuals who have fought against
it.

“They fought against the bond,” I said
looking at Uriah.

He glanced over at me. “What?”

“Quaile, she knew others before us had fought
against the bond. We weren’t the first people not to want our Twin
Souls,” I said. I wasn’t totally sure why the words seemed so
significant to me, but it felt like something was hiding in those
words.

“Well, did any of them actually beat it?”
Uriah asked.

“No. Not that she knew of, but I don’t think
that’s the point.” Something was there, just out of reach.

“Then what is the point?” He looked back at
the road. “If she really thought we would never be able to win
against the bond, then that explains why she was so adamant about
us not getting married.”

“Yeah…” I agreed. Why couldn’t I understand
this? “It’s just that I thought we were the only ones, that all the
other stories were true about Twin Souls. Why wasn’t Quaile more on
our side from the beginning?”

“I guess because fighting had never worked
before. Why would she push people toward something she knew would
only hurt them?” Uriah asked. His brow pulled together, as if he
was unsure of why he was offering a defense for Quaile.

My frustration slipped out in the form of a
quick growl. “But it doesn’t make sense, Uriah. Maybe if we were
the only two people in the world, in all of known history that
didn’t want our Twin Souls, Quaile would make sense, but we weren’t
the only ones.” A crumb of understanding found its way into my
mind.

“Why didn’t she try to find out why some
people don’t want the bond? Why didn’t she try to figure out what’s
wrong with it?” I asked.

“Find out what’s wrong with the bond?” Uriah
questioned. I watched his eyes narrow as he thought about my
questions.

“What if the bond isn’t really what she
thinks it is?”

Uriah’s eyes popped open and he turned to
look at me. I almost expected him to shake his head and dismiss my
wandering thoughts, but in that instant it was as if he finally
caught the itching worry I felt in my mind.

“You mean like the bond is a trick, or
something bad instead of a good thing?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” What did I mean exactly? “I
can’t be something bad I guess, not when so many others have found
such bliss after experiencing it, and I don’t know if it’s even a
trick, but something doesn’t feel right about it. Does that make
any sense?”

Uriah’s agreement was slow and thoughtful, a
careful nod. It was a small gesture, but he made it with a level of
commitment I knew meant he would not back down until he knew the
truth.

“Maybe we should call Kaya,” he suggested.
“Unless you think Quaile would be more helpful. She is the one who
gave you the book.”

I snorted at that suggestion. Yes, Quaile
gave me the book, but if she really wanted to be helpful she would
have just told me what I needed to know before I left her house.
Uriah dug his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and tossed it to
me.

“Kaya’s home number is in the contacts menu.
Number one,” he said.

“You want me to call her?” I had never met
Kaya, or her sister. Although I was curious about the two women
Uriah had just spent several days with, I wasn’t sure what to say
to her. Thanking her for watching out for Uriah and helping him
even if the potion didn’t turn out to be what they thought it was
would be a good start, but I still hesitated making the call.

“What do I say to her?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. I already talked to her
yesterday, remember? She already knows you didn’t drink the potion.
You don’t have to explain anything, just ask her about the bond,
and maybe if she’d be willing to teach you,” he added.

“The bond first. I’m still not sure about
anything else.”

“Go ahead.” His teasing smile bated me. “Kaya
has been dying to talk to you. They made me promise that I’d bring
you to meet them after we’re done with all of this. You wouldn’t
mind a slight detour on our way home, would you?” Again he smiled,
but this one was filled with a promise that we would take that
detour together.

Glad he sounded a little more optimistic than
I had heard him in a while, I found Kaya’s number and made the
call. The first ring didn’t even have the chance to finish before
Kaya answered.

“Uriah? Is everything okay? Where are you?”
she said.

The concern in her voice and the rapid-fire
questions caught me off guard. She sounded as if she was worried
sick about Uriah. The apparent closeness of the relationship they
had formed would have made me jealous if didn’t know Uriah as well
as I did. Shaking away my wandering thoughts, I tried to formulate
an intelligent response.

“Kaya? It’s Claire. Uriah’s Claire.” I
grimaced at the last sentence. What other Claire would be calling
her on her own phone?

“Claire? Is Uriah okay?” Kaya asked.

“Oh, yes, he’s fine. He’s driving so he asked
me to call you for him,” I said. “We had a question.”

“A question about what?” She sounded oddly
excited that we had a question. I had thought Uriah was kidding
when he said Kaya and Samantha were the reason for the saying
“curiosity killed the cat.”

“Um, a question about the bond, about what it
really is,” I said. I knew how dumb that sounded, given that every
child in our tribe grew up hearing stories of Twin Souls. Before I
had a chance to explain what I meant, Kaya launched into her
answer.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that too.
The bond never really sat right with me or Sam. It takes away your
free will. How could that be right?” Kaya asked.

“That’s what I thought.” I was so relieved
she hadn’t given me the standard answer, but knew what I was
getting at right away. I looked over at Uriah to see him laughing
quietly.

“I told you she was an interesting shaman,”
he said.

I nodded and turned my attention back to the
phone call. “Well, the reason we were asking was because we’ve been
reading a book Quaile gave me…”

I didn’t get a chance to finish.

“What book?” Kaya demanded.

“Um, I’m not sure if it has a name. She said
it was a record of all the prophecies and stuff shaman usually
passed down orally. She convinced her teacher to let her right it
down since less and less people bother to learn their native
language.”

Kaya gasped. “You’re kidding! When you and
Uriah come to visit you have to bring that book with you! I’ve been
dying to get my hands on the San Juan shamans’ history. Will you
bring it?”

Wow. I had never met anyone so enamored with
books and history. “Um, sure, we’ll bring it,” I answered. If we
survive the Matwau.

“Fabulous. Now tell me about what you found
in the book.”

“Well, the book talked about other people
who’ve fought the bond. Unfortunately it never worked, but…we’re
not the only ones. I feel like something about what Twin Souls are
isn’t quite right. Do you know what I mean?”

I ended my rambling and waited for her
response.

“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want the
bond until Uriah, but then again I’ve never met any Twin Souls
before,” Kaya said. “I’ve never actually heard of someone who
didn’t want the Twin Soul bond, but the woman who taught me
sometimes hinted that there might be. She never put much stock into
Twin Souls to begin with, though.”

“Did she ever say anything about Twin Souls
that seemed against the usual stories?” I asked. After everything
Kaya and Samantha had been able to find out about Uriah’s destiny,
I was hopeful that she would be able to answer my question.

“The only thing she ever said against the
bond was that she thought it was odd that there was no origination
story for Twin Souls,” Kaya said.

In Native American mythology there was an
origination story for just about everything. I thought back to the
dozens of Twin Soul stories I had heard growing up. As I did, I
realized Kaya was right. I had never once heard the story of where
Twin Souls came from, of why the soul was split before entering
separate human bodies. The pat answer I’d heard all my life was all
I had ever been given to explain what a Twin Soul was.

In a culture where we were taught that
rattlesnakes were given their rattling tails to warn the legendary
Nah-chu-rú-chu when his traitorous friend who had once turned him
into a coyote was near, the lack of a story was more than just
bothersome. Everything in our culture had a story and explanation.
Why would Twin Souls be any different?

“I’m guessing you looked for an origination
story?” I asked. “Did you ever find one?”

“No. All I ever found were the stories we all
know about Twin Souls. Even the answer we give now, that Twin Souls
are two halves of one complete soul split apart before birth has
never actually been recorded or attributed to anyone.” Kaya’s
irritated sigh reached out over the phone, matching my own
feelings.

“Sam and I have been searching for the answer
since we were girls. Even when Uriah was here and we read just
about every scrap of paper we had about our beliefs, we found
nothing about the origin of Twin Souls,” Kaya said. “There is
something not right about what we’ve been taught.”

“But why would the Elders deceive the people
about something like that? What difference could it possibly make
whether Twin Souls were different from what we thought? The effect
the bond has on people certainly can’t be denied.” I blanched as
thoughts of the past few days tried to resurface. Placing a hand on
Uriah’s leg was enough to calm my mind and pull me back to my
conversation.

“The bond is real. We know that. So what
about the origin of Twin Souls could cause the Elders to lie about
it for hundreds of years?” I asked.

For a few seconds Kaya was quiet. I could
hear the gentle clicking of her footsteps as she paced. I
waited.

“It can’t be destined. The bond can’t be
something ordained by the gods. If it was, there would be no reason
to lie and say it was,” Kaya said. Her tone told me she wasn’t
happy with the incompleteness of her answer, but it was all she had
to offer.

“Somebody must have known the truth.”

It wasn’t written anywhere? Surely it was. I
just had to find it. Could it possibly be in this book?

As if reading my thoughts, Kaya spoke again.
“The problem is that even if someone did know the truth, it was
probably someone who lived centuries ago. And unfortunately, Tewa
have only been keeping written records for about a hundred years.
If someone did know, there secret most likely died with them.”

That was it? There was nothing to find? It
was only fear that had kept Bhawana’s vision from being lost to the
past, and fear was what was keeping this secret hidden. It had most
likely never been written down in the first place. There was
nothing to find if it wasn’t in Quaile’s book somewhere.

“Well, thanks for your help, Kaya,” I said.
It was hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“Sam and I will keep looking,” Kaya
offered.

I was about to say my goodbyes and hang up
when Uriah tapped my shoulder.

“Hey, let me talk to Kaya. I need to ask her
something,” he said.