Shaxoa's Gift (21 page)

“Which do you think it is?”

“I think the Matwau will break the laws.”

“Why?”

“Like Quaile, I can determine who will meet
their Twin Souls and who will not,” Kaya said. “Unlike Quaile, I
don’t learn this only when a formal question is asked. Nobody
actually asks permission to marry around here anymore. I can feel
the truth about a person’s Twin Soul the second I touch someone.
Also unlike Quaile, I can sense how soon the person will meet their
Twin Soul. The first time I shook your hand I knew that you were
destined to meet your Twin Soul, but not for at least ten
years.”

Her words brought a wave of resentment
directed toward Quaile. If I hadn’t been destined to meet my Twin
Soul for ten years, how long might it have been before Claire met
hers? If Quaile had been more honest, or had more talent-I wasn’t
sure which-the past five days could have been completely avoided.
If we had simply been given the choice, to marry or not, we could
have prepared ourselves for meeting our Twin Souls, rather than
running back and forth across the desert to save lives and rescue
souls.

“What else did you find?” I asked. I was
still thinking about what she had already told me, but I hoped
there was more.

“The creatures in the vision that were
helping the Matwau do not belong to the Matwau, but to the dark
gods. He can only call them when the dark gods’ plans are in danger
or threatened. You must be some kind of threat to the dark gods’
plans,” Kaya said.

“Well, I never asked for this. I would stop
doing whatever it was if I could,” I said sullenly. I could hardly
argue with her anymore. The facts were piling so high that nobody
could deny them now. I was
not
just a rancher anymore.

“Would you really?” Kaya asked. The
seriousness of her question hit me. “If you were the only one who
could stop something evil, would you turn your back?”

I went back to staring out the window. I had
never thought of the situation in that light. “No, I guess not,” I
said, less sullen and more resigned.

While my main concern had been Claire for the
past several days, my Twin Soul had been carefully stored in the
back of my mind. The fact that Kaya believed my Twin Soul was about
to become involved in a battle against evil beings, forced the
woman forward in my mind. Her determined face and frightened eyes
stared back at me. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else
being hurt because of me.

Kaya broke into my thoughts as she pulled
into Samantha’s driveway and turned off the engine. “Sam has a
pretty good sized library herself. If she doesn’t need me for
anything I’ll spend some time searching her books while we’re here.
I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“Thanks for all your help, Kaya,” I said.

Kaya laughed. “Not at all. Like I said, this
is the most exciting thing I’ve done all summer,” she said. “I
should thank you.”

I knew she was only partially serious. Her
curiosity was amazing, but she was also very worried about me. I
followed her into the house. This time Kaya didn’t bother to knock.
We stepped into the little stucco home where Samantha was waiting
for us. The home looked exactly the same as it had the day before,
the same calming yellow paint and woven rug, but the atmosphere
brought goose bumps to my arms. Even Kaya glanced around
warily.

If the atmosphere had simply changed,
Samantha was practically a different person. Strong and confident
the day before, Samantha greeted us with her face twisted in worry,
her hands twitching constantly. Kaya was the first to recover from
the change in her sister, wrapping Samantha in her arms for a
brief, but strong hug.

Samantha took my hands in hers. Her eyes
closing, her breathing seemed to calm as if she needed to touch me
to remind her of the reason she was delving into things she had
never meant to practice. “Let’s come into the kitchen,” Samantha
said. Her steps were quick, and I had to hurry to keep up with
her.

The kitchen table was piled with books and
scribbled notes. The counter tops were lined with clear mason jars,
each one filled with a different herb or ingredient. Judging by the
dark circles under her eyes, Samantha had been up late preparing
for the day. These sisters barely knew me, but already they had
done so much to help. I wished that I had some way to repay even a
small part for what they had done.

“So where do we start,” Kaya asked, breaking
the silence.

“Well,” Samantha said, “I gathered everything
we need, but that’s all I can do. Uriah will have to be the one
preparing the herbs. The preparation isn’t very complex, but I
think it will take most of the day. Then it will need to be left
overnight. Uriah’s blood will be added tomorrow morning. And then
it will be finished.” Samantha whispered the last words, her voice
begging to reach that end quickly.

I could see how hard this was for her. Yes,
she had spent her life studying the dark lore, but she had promised
herself that she would never put a single bit of it into actual
use. Her curiosity had drawn her to explore what she believed to be
pure at one time, twisted into evil over centuries. The thought of
actually harming any living creature made her cringe. Only her
belief that I was truly seeking her help out of love, and not a
desire to hurt Claire, was keeping her from throwing away
everything she had gathered.

“Okay, let’s get started, Uriah,” Samantha
said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to the stove. “Kaya,
I pulled out the books you wanted, too. They’re on the table there.
I’ll help you in a few minutes.”

Kaya nodded and set to work on the books.
Samantha turned her attention back to me. At first glance, the jars
on the tiled counter top looked to have been placed haphazardly,
but Samantha placed her hands on the first three jars and pushed
them toward me.

“We will start with these three, or you will,
actually,” she said. Samantha pointed to each of the jars as she
spoke. They were filled with dried yellow flowers, wrinkled green
leaves, and leaf-covered twigs. “These are arnica flowers,
chamomile, and creosote bush. You need to crush the leaves and
grind them into a fine powder.” Reaching for an oblong stone with
an oval shaped rock resting on it, Samantha continued her
instructions. “Use this to grind the leaves. When you finish those
let me know and I’ll tell you what to do next. I’m going to help
Kaya while you work.”

Glad that I was not being asked to do
anything more difficult than crushing and grinding leaves, I
settled into the work. I was more accustomed to handling sheep or a
rifle than the delicate work of preparing herbs, but I trusted my
need would balance out any of my shortcomings. As my fingers began
their work, Kaya and Samantha began theirs.

Their discussion started off quiet as Kaya
reported what she had learned the night before, then receded into
silence as the women set to searching out more answers. I had no
worry in my mind that Kaya would hide anything from me, so I turned
my attention back to the herbs. I grabbed a handful of the little
yellow blossoms and minced them between my palms before letting the
remnants fall onto the stone.

The grating noise was soothing as I ran the
smaller rock back and forth across the flat stone. Samantha had not
given me a specific amount to crush so I quickly emptied the first
jar. Moving on to the chamomile leaves, I repeated the sequence
again and again until that jar was completely emptied as well.

The creosote took a little longer because I
had to pick the dried leaves off individual twigs before moving on
to the grinding. I thought I had been working fast, but when I
turned to ask Samantha for the next step, I saw that crushing the
leaves had taken more than an hour. Glancing at the counter full of
jars still waiting to be prepared I groaned inwardly. I had to move
faster.

“Samantha, I’ve finished with these,” I said.
“What should I do next?”

Leaving the table, Samantha came to inspect
my work. After nodding her approval she motion to a small cooking
pot. “Fill that with water and set it to boil,” she instructed.
“When it starts to boil, turn the heat down low and put in one
scoop of the herbs you just crushed.” Stepping back to the counter,
she pushed the next set of jars away from the others.

Handing me something that looked like a
cheese grater with very tiny holes, Samantha pointed to the
ingredients. The jars I was supposed to work on next held varying
sizes of colored lumps. One I recognized as ginger, but the others
were a mystery to me.

“Oh and this one too,” Samantha said adding a
jar to the bunch. “This is yerba mansa. Just run each of these down
the grater until you have enough to fill one of these cups.”

I was relieved to see the small cup she held
up. I had been afraid that she would ask me to empty the jar. That
would have taken me the rest of the day. I was already annoyed with
myself that I had most likely wasted time crushing too much of the
first set of ingredients.

“Do I put them in the water when I’m finished
with them?” I asked.

“Yes. Fill the measuring cup and go ahead and
add it to the water. Let me know when you’re done,” Samantha said.
She went back to the table, her mind already back on her
research.

Grating the small knobs and roots proved more
difficult than I expected. After scraping my knuckles a few times I
started to get the hang of the rhythmic work. Samantha and Kaya
continued their own work quietly, jotting down notes in their
matching yellow notepads. I wondered what they were writing, but
the watery popping of boiling water drew my attention away.

Picking up the plastic scoop Samantha had
given me, I filled it three times, once with arnica, once with
chamomile, and once with creosote leaves. The ground up herbs
swirled in the water, calming only once I remembered to lower the
heat. Glancing at the still busy sisters, I went back to work.

By the time I finished grating enough of the
four hard lumps to fill the smaller cup once for each ingredient,
the sisters were getting up from the table and rummaging in the
fridge. Staring at the remaining ingredients, I wasn’t sure how to
proceed with them. I turned to find Kaya right behind me.

“We’re going to break for lunch, Uriah. Will
you help Sam clear the table?” Kaya asked.

“I can keep working,” I said. I didn’t want
to waste any more time.

“Uriah, you need to rest your hands before
they cramp up. You won’t finish this today if you can’t move your
fingers in half an hour,” she said.

I stretched my fingers. My red knuckles
cracked. My cramped muscles ached. Looking at the myriad of seeds
and berries still in the jars, my hands ached even more. There was
plenty of time to finish the rest. I was almost halfway through the
jars, and the mixture still had to be left overnight.

“I’ll help with the table then,” I said.

The books and notes were set carefully to the
side. Samantha made sure I kept the piles just as they had been on
the table so they didn’t end up rereading a book they had already
checked. Kaya had lunch ready by the time we finished. The cold
roast beef sandwiches were piled high with vegetables grown in
Samantha’s garden. I wondered to myself if there was anything these
two women couldn’t do.

“You’ve done a very good job so far, Uriah,”
Samantha said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I just wish it
didn’t take me so long,” I said. My fingers were already itching to
get back to work.

“You’re doing fine,” Kaya said. “Remember
patience. You wouldn’t want to start over because rushing caused a
mistake.” Samantha nodded in agreement. I realized my hands were
balled into tight fists and my legs were shaking impatiently. It
took considerable effort to relax my hands and calm my bouncing
knees.

“Did you two find anything interesting in the
books?” I asked. The sisters glanced at each other eagerly. My next
question would have to be whether their discoveries had anything to
do with me. Certainly the ridiculous amount of notes they had taken
had not all been regarding the Matwau, or every question I had
would now have an answer.

“We found quite a few interesting things
actually,” Kaya said.

“Did any of them have anything to do with the
Matwau or the dreams?” I asked.

Kaya dropped her eyes guiltily. Her curiosity
must have let her investigation wander, even if only slightly. I
knew she was committed to helping me.

Samantha cleared her throat. “We did find a
few things, Uriah. I’m confident we’ll find more before you
finish.”

“What did you learn?”

“Kaya found another story that confirmed the
laws binding the Matwau,” Samantha said. “This story specifically
mentioned that the Matwau cannot harm any person until they’ve been
struck with the pull of the Twin Soul bond.”

It was good to have Kaya and Talon’s theory
confirmed, but I needed more. Thinking of Talon, I wondered where
he was. Not feeling his calming presence, I reached out to him.
“Where are you?”

“Checking the lines.”

“I thought you weren’t worried he would come
after me yet.”

“That was before. Kaya is trying to tell you
what else they found. Listen.”

Pulling away from Talon, I realized that Kaya
was indeed trying to talk to me.

“Uriah, are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorry, I was talking to Talon. I
didn’t hear you,” I said. “Did you find something else?”

“Yes, we found one other thing,” Kaya said.
“In a personal journal from a shaman in the nineteen thirties we
found one other story. It was not pleasant.”

“Just tell it.” There was little that would
surprise me at this point, and I felt sure I could handle any gory
details.

“Normally the Matwau doesn’t become aware of
who Twin Souls belong to until the pull of the bond begins to draw
them together,” Samantha began, “but in this journal we have reason
to believe that the Matwau has other ways of finding out who a
person’s Twin Soul is. And while he is still bound to the laws, he
can seek them out and wait for the pull to begin. Once he feels the
pull, he will claim his prey.”