Soul(s) (6 page)

“
I like it up,” I
recanted.

“
Ah, see,” the vendor
cooed. “Men change their minds like the wind changes direction. But
yours seems pretty easy going and it’s a pretty piece in your hair.
Keep it if you like.”

“
I don’t have any money,”
Sariah said as she reached to undo the clip from her
hair.

“
Money?”

“
Yes, money.” Sariah
repeated.

It took a moment but then the meaning of the
word clicked into the vendors mind.

“
Money
—I know what you mean. I haven’t heard that old first world
slang used in a long time. You must be newlies. Well, let me tell
you, we don’t do that whole money business here. I make these
because I like too, and the person who cultivates the raw materials
does that because they like to. Whatever you want you can just
take, we have more than enough.”

“
I thought that was just
at the Abstract, I didn’t realize the whole town was the same way,”
Sariah explained.

“
What if people want the
same thing and there is only one?” I asked.

“
First come, first served.
Why?” The woman winked at me before she continued, “Is someone
after your pretty venku?”

Baffled, I stared at her. I had been
thinking of Ajani a little when I asked that but I hadn’t
particularly meant that with my question.

“
Even though we awaken
with our soul mate,” she explained, “it’s not like we’re blind to
other attractions. There will always be chemistry with other souls,
just only one optimal solution.”

“
I thought we didn’t have
a choice and that our venku is predestined.”

“
Anomalies happen, my
dear.”

I looked over at Sariah but there wasn’t any
real hint to what she was thinking, but I got nothing. She was a
poster child for the old expression, cool, calm and collected. I
wasn’t, the last thing I wanted was for her to be an anomaly and
fall in love with someone other than her venku, like Ajani, for
example.

“
Do you know where the
Abstract is?” I asked trying to change the subject.

“
Yes, of course! Just a
little further ways down this very road. Better hurry they close at
dusk and there is so much to look at in that store.”

“
Thanks,” I answered
back.

“
You’re not worried now,
are you?” Sariah asked me as we walked on.

“
About what?”

“
About whether we’re meant
to be together,” Sariah said.

I shrugged it off, not ready to admit to her
how I was really feeling.

I looked over after a few minutes to find
Sariah was smiling to herself as we walked.

The Abstract was a long building, with
various small square factory styled muted autumn colored glass
windows stretching across it. We walked in and were smacked with
bright yellow lights and the voices of tons of people. Clusters of
items were grouped together under signs rivet on wire to the
ceiling. Each one looked customer designed to fit the theme of the
seller’s products. It was like a furniture knick-knack antique
bazar strip mall.

Sariah clasped her hand together
excitedly.

“
Should we split up to
cover more ground?” she suggested giddily.

“
Hi, Welcome to Abstract!”
greeted a petite woman with black hair pulled back into a low bun.
"You’re newlies right?” she asked.

“
Yes,” Sariah and I
answered in unison.

“
Alright; let me find you
in the system so we’ll know where to deliver your
items.”

“
It’s all delivered for
us?” Sariah asked bouncing a little on her balls of her feet. Her
excitement was contagious and I smiled as I watched her enjoying
herself.

“
Yes—my name is Nicole, by
the way—how this works is when you find items you want you’ll just
type in the ticket number, store number and then you’ll receive it
in a day or so. Any items you no longer want can also be picked up
from your house too. Every flat has a tablet to place removal
orders. What are your names?”

“
Sariah and Keegan,”
Sariah answered.

“
One tablet or
two?”

“
Two,” said Sariah at the
same time as I told Nicole one.

“
Two is fine,” Nicole told
us smiling.

“
Two it is,” I
agreed.

“
You’re all set,” Nicole
told us. She gave us each our tablet. “It’s very user friendly;
just basic technology. Use the touch-screen keypad to enter in your
items and then hit the little enter button to add them to an
automatic list. You can also use the list icon to see what you have
so far. When you’re done, on the very bottom, there’s an ‘order
complete’ button. Turn your tablet in to any greeter before you
leave.”

“
Thanks,” Sariah said. She
was rocking on her feet, swaying side to side, ready to
go.

“
One more thing,” Nicole
added, “We’re having a seller competition and some of the vendors
take it very seriously—you know how people get about street-cred.
Don’t let them hustle you into picking items you don’t
want.”

I cackled at the idea of shopping
street-cred and Nicole looked at me innocently. I didn’t think I’d
ever get use to how phrases—out dated ones at that—from First-Plane
took had new meanings here.

Sariah linked her arm with, pulling my body
forward as she practically skipped away. We stopped at nearest one.
Its sign read: GAMESKEEPER.

Sariah released my arm as she started doting
over the different knick-knack artsy objects.

“
What kind of stuff do you
think we should get?”

“
Whatever you want,” I
told her.

“
You’re not going to pick
out anything?” She asked as she examined a two foot brass giraffe
decoration.

“
I imagine our taste would
clash,” I said, eyeballing the giraffe.

“
How about I pick a few
things and you pick a few things. Our flat
is
pretty much void of any
decoration. We can pick anything we want!”

I thought for a moment seeing if I could
remember anything I liked from First-Plane. An image of a glass orb
floated to the top of my mind like a bubble in a pond.

“
Paperweights,” I
murmured.

“
I remember those!”
squealed Sariah. “My mother loved them, she had tons. Well, let’s
get my giraffe, your paperweight and maybe a painting? Anything
else you can think of?”

“
Books,” the word slipped
through my lips like a sigh. “I really liked reading. But I don’t
think we’ll find any of those here.

She linked her fingers with mine as we moved
to the next shop.

“
We’ll have to check out
the actually Archive in person then,” Sariah said before flittering
over to a new shop called: MELLORS.

I was curious about these
names. I was pretty sure they all had to do with books and I was
now fully confident that I’d been either a professor of English or
studied it heavily. It was like a little clue into what my past had
been. But I agreed with Sariah in our earlier conversation. People
didn’t need to know how much I
knew.

“
If there are books in the
Archive, then that means people have traveled between here and
First-Plane,” I reasoned quietly.

“
Good point, I guess there
wouldn’t be then. Maybe there are Aura writers. I found a
paperweight!” She exclaimed with a little hop.

I looked over her shoulder on to the table.
It was a beautiful mix of purples with unexpected flashes of
yellow-golds and rose-reds.

“
Maybe our tastes won’t
clash as much as I thought,” I joked as I read the ticket numbers
and entered them into the system. The vendor came over greeting us
briefly before removing the ticket off the item.

“
Nope, our tastes clash.
That paperweight is hideous.”

I looked up thinking she was serious, but
saw a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“
I wonder. If they have
another,” she said to herself as she combed over the
items.

An hour later we had selected three
complimentary paperweights, a giraffe and a golden painting of a
tree that said it was “in the style of Van Gough”. We turned in our
tablets to the painting vendor and walked home.

My body wasn’t feeling tired but my mind
could use a rest. When we got back, I went up to the room. Kicking
my clothes off, I pulled on some type of thin cotton sleeping pants
I found in the dresser marked: MALE.

Sariah changed into loose shorts and a light
waist length camisole with thin straps. Her body was curvaceously
ripe beneath it and as she casually shook out her long curly hair I
tossed a pillow to the floor.

“
Keegan, you’re not really
sleeping on the floor are you?”

“
Well we don’t really
sleep-sleep, so it’s more like laying on the floor.”

“
We sleep-sleep,” Sariah
argued, “and you’re sharing the bed with me.”

I arched an eyebrow.

She blushed immediately. “It’s just silly
for you to sleep on the floor. I know were just getting to know
each other but—“

“
Exactly,” I countered,
“we are getting to know each other and I’m fine with sleeping on
the floor. We’re different than the other Auras, we have more
imprints from First-Plane. I just don’t want to move things too
fast and then ruin it.”

“
We’re soul mates, how can
you ruin it? Wouldn’t we end together anyway, no matter
what?”

“
Sariah,” I sighed
exasperated. I’d meant sleeping on the floor in a chivalrous ‘I
won’t take advantage of you’ kind of way and it was quickly turning
in to our first argument.

“
What’s fair is fair. No
bed for you, no bed for me.” She tossed the other pillow on the
floor.

“
Suit yourself,” I said as
I laid flat on the ground. I didn’t try to keep the smile off my
face.

Even though I thought sleeping wouldn’t feel
like normal, it was how I remembered it. I slept hard, my mind
floating off into a familiar realm of dreams. Everything I saw felt
like I’d seen it before.

I felt something beside me and I stirred
awake. My eyes didn’t need to adjust; I could instantly see it was
Sariah. She had moved over to my side of the room and curled up on
me just like the night in the cave. Leg entwined with mine; hand on
my chest; head in the crook of my neck. I realized Sariah had been
right, sleeping apart was silly. I just didn’t want her to think
that because she was already my venku, I could have her whenever I
wanted. Or, that I expected her to want me back without actually
earning her affection. I needed her to choose me and the only way I
that would happen was if I stepped back and let her come to me. I
just felt so stubbornly determined that our love, our relationship,
had to be our own choice.

I stood, bending down and scooping her into
my arms. I placed her on the bed and then I collected up the
pillows and blankets. I laid down beside her and began covering us
up with the quilt. Her eyes parted sleepily.

“
I win,” she purred as she
reclaimed my body with her legs and arms. Nuzzling down into me as
if I were the most comfortable pillow she’d ever had.

“
You win, huh?” I said,
amused that she still could be stubborn even when half
asleep.

She mumbled something incoherently before
falling back asleep. I pushed a kiss on her head and she mirrored
me attempting to kiss me too but her lips puckered at the air.

It was easy to love her, far too easy.

09: SARIAH

I stretched, yawning nosily, as Keegan and I
waited for the elevator to travel up to the roof top. We found some
loose fitting exercise friendly clothes in one of the drawers and
had adorned those to the glass elevator down at the end of our
floor.

“
Ready?” Keegan asked.
There was only two more floors left before the elevator charm would
bing and we’d officially start our lives as Aura.

“
I’m nervous,” I
confessed.

“
It’s like the first day
of school,” Keegan said.

I knew exactly what he meant. A soft image
fluttered into my mind of new pencils, and new teachers and meeting
friends you hadn’t seen from the summer. Yes—it was exactly like
that, but this type of training wouldn’t be like anything we’d
learned as an adolescent.

BING.

Keegan took my hand and we moved out of the
elevator.

If we hate it here, we can
always strike out on our own,
he thought
trying to reassure me.

Would they let us leave?

They couldn’t keep us
here,
Keegan said assertively.

You don’t know
that,
I insisted.

No one is going to cage us in. If I need to,
I’ll find a way.

“
Good morning!” Iris
greeted us. She was dressed similarly and it dawned on me that she
might actually be training us on how to use our powers. The notion
that she’d be so hands on with any newlies surprised me. It wasn’t
because she was old—in fact she looked less than forty—it was her
status as an elder. I’d assumed she’d be doing more
boring
political-talky
things. Not sweaty, training, with clumsy new souls.