Redemption (11 page)

“I should thank you,” she said.

“Thank me?” I tilted my head.

“Well, at first I was less than enthusiastic about having you tag along … ” Her eyes met mine, and there was something in there that pulled me in, like power calling to power. “But, I’m enjoying this. It feels nice to have someone new to talk to.”

I didn’t know how to feel about this, so I nodded at her. In a way, I’d set out with that exact purpose in mind. The plan was to get close to her and learn her secrets, but I never stopped to think of what getting close to her could mean. I never stopped to think of how dangerous it could be if she ended up having the power she seemed to.

17

Aude

I can’t keep my eyes off him as he eats. His face is angular but not sharp. And though he’s not smiling right now, I know he gets deep dimples when he does. I smile to myself as I think of it.

His eyes flicker in surprise when they meet mine and he tilts his head to the side. I’m once again captivated by the depth of his gray eyes. I try to pull myself away, but there is something about him that attracts me. We’re staring at each other. His brow furrows.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, I swear,” I say, laughing now.

He shakes his head slightly and returns my smile. It highlights the very dimples about which I was thinking.

We return to our floor seats after dinner. And though I look forward to the evening session, I’m also apprehensive. There’s a lot of weirdness and I don’t want to face it head on. But Guillaume is here and it seems that, unlike how it’s become with Lucy, I know how to talk to him. It must be the reason I feel disappointed that the day is passing by so quickly.

After our last session, Guillaume and I make our way to a table display of water drums for sale. The shaman joins the other Native man behind the table and smiles at me. “It is good to see you exploring your heritage, child.”

“My heritage?” What’s with everyone suddenly thinking I’m Native? I mean, I know the sperm donor (as Mom calls the man who fathered me) must have had a different ethnic background because she’s white—the red head, pale-skin type, and I’m not quite like her. But I always assumed I was half Asian, Spanish, or maybe even Middle-Eastern, something like that. I guess it could be Native, though.

He looks right into my eyes. “You are of the seventh generation, and I can see the potential power in you. There’s something else though … ”

He pauses, still looking at me, the lines in his face creasing, and then he shifts his observations toward Guillaume. His eyes widen and he gasps.

“I didn’t think your kind—”

Guillaume interrupts him with a shake of the head.

“But the stories mention a curse … ” His eyes flash on me again but I hardly notice. I’m watching Guillaume now. There’s something about his face, the way his lips are pressed tight together, the hard look of his eyes as he stares at the old man. The old man’s lips tremble slightly. Finally, he looks away.

Guillaume turns and examines me. I don’t know what he sees, but his expression softens.

“You wanted to buy a drum, didn’t you?”

I nod, acting like a five-year-old child whose parent is trying to coax into speaking to the nice stranger. Swallowing hard, I point to the drum whose wooden base is painted a glossy black. The one whose ring holding the skin taut over the drum’s opening is woven in colorful thread and has a strand of beads and feathers hanging from it. It had captured my attention when we first walked over the table—before all the weirdness.

I pay the man. It isn’t cheap but I knew it wouldn’t be. Guillaume buys one too—“As a souvenir,” he says.

I turn to walk away. This day has been too weird and I’m feeling wary, but Guillaume is still speaking to the shaman with the drums.

“We’d like to talk to you about something,” he says.

I turn around and tug at his sleeve. I no longer want to tell him about the voices. I’m freaked out. Mostly by the man, but a little by Guillaume’s behavior as well.

Guillaume looks down at me, and using my eyes, I plead with him to stop. His brow furrows and his lips purse slightly. His hand reaches gently toward mine and he apologizes to the man behind the table as he backs away, leading me out of his hearing. His hand still holds mine and we stand face to face.

“I thought you wanted answers,” he says.

“I do … it’s just that I’m scared,” I admit.

It’s the one thing I never tell anyone. I’m not fearless. I’m maybe not even brave. There are things I might not be able to handle and in this case, it might include the truth.

“Scared? What is there to be scared of?”

“The voices, the chanting … it’s not normal, Guillaume. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m sick and something is really wrong with me or if … well I don’t know … if there’s some other … mystical reason for all of it. Whichever it is, it scares me.”

“I won’t let any harm come to you, Aude.”

“I’m a little bit scared of you too … ” I say ever so quietly, my eyes downturned, my voice catching. What is it about him that allows me to make myself completely vulnerable? I tell myself it’s because I don’t know him, because he doesn’t have a preconceived idea of how I should be and I don’t have to worry about disappointing him. I know there’s more to it. That, more than anything, is what scares me about him.

He lets my hand drop and nods.

“There’s no reason to—” He stops himself, takes a deep breath, and changes the subject. “So you do not want to talk to this man about it?”

I want to say no. I want to put my hands over my ears and shout “tralalala” until all the scary nonsense stuff disappears. But by this point, I have to come to the conclusion that this is either really happening, or I am a lot more crazy than I thought I was. I should talk to the man about it. I need to find the answers. Don’t I?

“I don’t know,” I say.

“What if we ask him the meaning of the words without telling him where they come from?”

“I could handle that.”

He smiles at me, but it’s an absentminded smile with no warmth. We walk back to the man, who is looking between Guillaume and me in a strange manner.

“You and her; I don’t think it is such a good idea,” he tells Guillaume.

“It’s not what you think.”

The man shrugs. “It’s not my business.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. What do they call you?”

“I am Robert, though my people often refer to me as old man Robert.”

“Old man Robert, we’ve come to you with a question.”

He nods.

I recite the gibberish—that I now know to be Mohawk words—etched in my mind.

The man’s eyes open wide and he looks at Guillaume.

“Where did she learn it?”

“Not from me, but you recognize it, don’t you?”

The man appears serious. His eyes look dark and he strokes his chin. Finally, he lowers his voice to speak. “I need to look into this … to verify something. Could you come visit me on the reservation?”

Guillaume and the man make plans as I stand a few steps away, clutching the drum I purchased. I feel lost and frightened. I just leave.

18

Guillaume

Once I realized she was gone, I thanked the old man and quickly got on a train to Aude’s house. A blast of cold air greeted me when I stepped out of the metro station. The bitter chill suited my mood. I walked toward her house at a quick pace and was about to climb up on the roof of the house across the street when I saw her through her front window.

She stood in front of a red-haired woman, and laughed. At first, I concentrated on her, the way her eyes squinted, and her lips curled up. The relaxed position her shoulders were in and the way they shook slightly when she laughed. Something about the scene framed in that triplex’s window soothed me.

Then my eyes moved to the figure in front of her. It was that of a middle-aged woman, probably in her early
to mid-forties, still very young by my standards, but all mortals were. My eyes took in her facial features, and my heart dropped.

Standing in front of Aude was a matured version of Marguerite. I knew my imagination played tricks on me. It was the red hair and some similar features, maybe wishful thinking since we would all have loved for her to reach that age.

I released the breath I’d been partially holding since I had noticed Aude’s disappearance. She was safe. I would still get the answers I wanted. The game wasn’t finished.

On my way home, I went over every detail of my day with Aude. The power I had seen in her eyes and her being able to hear my mind voice both gave me the most hope and the biggest concern. I walked faster and wondered when I would start feeling the drain on our life energy, our essence. It was a matter of time until we did, first fading into normal fatigue cycles of a human being, and then worse. Right now, it was hard to imagine, because I somehow felt more alive than I did before the workshop. I could swear I had experienced a renewal of sorts. Could it have happened? Could she have transferred essence to me? Or was I just imagining it? I was getting so close to the answer, I was starting to declare victory before I had even reached it.

When I walked in, the whole family was gathered around a kitchen table examining a laptop computer.

I frowned. “What are you doing?”

“We’re trying to figure out this Internet stuff, but I’m not sure we are doing it right,” Garnier said.

“How many gargoyles does it take to connect to the Internet?” I say as a joke.

“I may have seen many people using computers and the Internet in the past few years, but I haven’t learned much about this home networking stuff.” Antoine holds up a small plastic box with a bunch of wires sticking out of it. “Why do they call this wireless?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” I said. “But I made some progress today.”

They all looked up at me. Well, at least they cared a little bit more about our plight than it had originally seemed.

“Well?” Vincent asked.

“I don’t know why you guys are suddenly interested.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that after the initial shock of our awakening, we may have decided to pursue our own investigation? You’ve been so busy doing things your way, you haven’t even bothered to check in with us and see what we might be up to. Do you think this computer is for? Playing World of Warcraft?”

“Playing what?”

“Have you even listened to what people have been talking about for the past few years? Never mind, it’s not important. Please tell us about your progress.”

I scrutinized his tone for any trace of sarcasm but found none. “All right. Aude and I went to a drumming workshop today.”

“Oh yes, your rendezvous. How did it go?” Garnier grinned.

“It was not a rendezvous of any sort. I joined her because it seemed it would be great place to start getting answers, and it was.”

“What did you learn?” Antoine interjected.

I thought about how upset Aude would be if she were to learn that I told them about the chanting, so I kept my mouth shut.

“We’ll be talking to a Kanien’kéha:ka medicine man,” I said instead.

“I don’t know why you don’t call them Mohawk, everyone does.”

“It isn’t the name they call themselves, but really, that’s beside the point, Garnier.”

“Well then, I’m happy for you that you’ve managed to secure another rendezvous. I take it the first one went well. Did you see her home? Was there kissing at her doorstep?” Garnier winked at me and laughed.

“Enough Garnier,” Vincent warned.

I admitted to them how our evening really ended.

“She took off. I couldn’t find her anywhere. I panicked. Something could have taken her. I’ve seen her attacked twice before. We need our essence back.”

Garnier shook with laughter. “It went
that
badly?”

“She didn’t leave because of me.” Did she? I was certain I hadn’t said anything offensive to her. I shook my head. This wasn’t the point.

“Garnier, someone was able to walk away from me and I wasn’t aware of it. This isn’t right.”

I addressed everyone. “We’ve almost always had an Essentialist with us in the past, but now that we don’t, we are fading fast.” Every time I neglected sleep or nutrition, every time I pushed myself further than my mortal body allowed, I pulled from my essence, and I just didn’t know how much longer I could push myself.

I went to apply for the music teacher job first thing the morning after the workshop and returned home. I met with Garnier on the way to the kitchen to get breakfast. I was still energized from the previous day’s workshop and felt like I didn’t need breakfast or sleep anymore, but I knew better than to risk it.

“You look chipper this morning,” he said.

“I’m feeling revitalized. I think she’s what we’re looking for, Garnier.”

We still stood in the hallway where I leaned against one wall, completely relaxed.

“How can she be? You know other witches can’t help us.”