The Prophecy (28 page)

Jasmine
giggled. “I guess she told you.” Our eyes met and she offered me a small smile.
I took the proverbial olive branch and smiled back.

“Do you
have to say a spell or something?” Adrian asked.

“What,
like
bibbity-bobbity
or
abracadabra
?” Shyla said. “It’s not that
kind of magic. It’s spiritual. You have to
feel
it within you.”

“So
then maybe all you have to do is just visualize removing the curse,” Meg
suggested hopefully.

“Okay,”
I said, squeezing Caleb’s hands. “I guess . . . try to channel your thoughts. I
don’t know . . . envision breaking a shackle.”

“A
shackle,” Caleb echoed.

“That’s
basically what a curse it, right? An invisible shackle.” He still looked
skeptical so I said, “Do you have a better idea?”

“I
guess not.”

“Close
your eyes then,” I said, as I closed my own.

Caleb
exhaled, his breath washing suddenly across my face. It was warm and moist and
. . .

My eyes
flew open. “Ew!” I said, breaking our grasp and waving my hand under my nose. “What
have you been
eating
? Skunk sautéed in garlic and onions? You need a
piece of gum or a breath mint or something.”

Caleb
leaned in and deliberately breathed in my face. I shoved him away. “God, you’re
gonna make me puke!”

He
laughed. “It’s no worse than your hands.”

“Concentrate
you guys,” said Meg, on the verge of losing her patience.

I met
my father’s eyes, though. He was gazing at Caleb and me, smiling.

Caleb
put his hands in mine again and I closed my eyes, trying not to keel over from
his onion breath. “Okay. For real this time.”

I
hadn’t had much time to reflect on the fact that Caleb was my brother.
I had
a brother.
An actual sibling. Someone who’d be with me for the rest of
my life no matter what.
We were connected not only by blood, given life by
the man sitting in the room with us, but we were connected by what we could do.

I took
a deep breath through my nose and felt that familiar tingle start at my
fingertips. When Caleb squeezed my hands in response, I knew that he had felt
it, too. I didn’t speak for fear that I would break the connection. Instead, I
conjured in my mind iron shackles around a pair of sturdy hands. Then I visualized
a heavy mallet coming down and obliterating them to pieces, freeing my father’s
people of the curse forever.

Caleb’s
hands relaxed in mine and I finally opened my eyes. “Did it work?” he said.
“Did we remove the curse?”

“I
don’t know.” I turned to Sebastian and my father. “How do you feel?”

Sebastian
sidled next to Meg and looked down at her. “I’d feel a lot better if your aunt
would agree to go out on a date with me.”

Meg made
a sound of irritation, but she couldn’t disguise her smile. “I think someone
needs to teach you a lesson about timing.” Sebastian grinned but didn’t say
anything more.

My
shoulders slumped. “Did anything happen at all?”

My
father shook his head. “I didn’t feel anything, but we won’t know for sure
until the sun begins to set.”

I let
my hands fall to my sides. “I definitely felt something, though. I think we’re
on the right track.”

“Maybe
we should all hold hands,” Imogene said.

“As
long as no one starts singing
Kumbaya
,” David added.  

We
gathered in an imperfect circle, made difficult by so many people in such a
small area all fighting for space. It was awkward, too. I glanced across the
circle at David, who was obviously struggling against the urge to laugh,
despite the seriousness of the situation.

“
Kumbaya,
my lord . . .”
Sebastian began under his breath in a surprisingly nice voice.
I noticed he had wedged his way in between Meg and Imogene, and was giving my
aunt the same look Adrian used to give me. David noticed it too. His eyes met
mine and he simply shrugged.

I
closed my eyes and squeezed Caleb’s hand in my left. I held Adrian’s hand in my
right. Nothing happened for a very long time. Ready to give up, I finally felt
a tingling in my fingertips.

Almost
immediately Jasmine said, “Did you feel that?” 

“I felt
something
,” Sebastian said with a grin and a sideways glance at Meg.

Meg dropped
his hand. “I refuse to stand next to you if you keep up with these comments.”

“I’m
not doing anything!”

“He’s
just flirting with you, Meg,” said David. He and Sebastian locked eyes and gave
each other a nod of male solidarity.

“Good
grief. I’m surrounded by children,” Meg said.

“Children?”
Sebastian said with an incredulous laugh. “I’ve got a few years on you.”

“Age is
just a state of mind,” David chimed in.

“And
apparently the two of you will be sixteen forever.”

“Can we
please keep going?” my father said, with not a little urgency in his voice. He
had more at stake in removing the curse. And while he maintained his cool
outward composure, I could tell he was strung very tight.

“Yes,
let’s not waste time here,” Imogene said.

Meg reluctantly
took Sebastian’s hand again, or so it seemed. “It won’t be on
my
shoulders if this doesn’t work.” Her eyes went wide as she met mine. “Oh.
Sarah. That’s not what I . . . I mean, I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

“I know
what you meant,” I assured her, giving both my uncles a look that clearly
warned they’d better behave.

Still,
I felt an incredible amount of pressure to remove this curse. I glanced at
Caleb—did he feel it too? Judging by the look on his face, I wasn’t so sure.
Considering there was a chance he could succumb to the same fate as my father
and uncle with the very next seizure he suffered, you would think he would be
taking this a little more seriously. And maybe he was. Nothing much ever seemed
to bother Caleb. I was the one who was always stressing out. I was the one who
was making a mountain out of a molehill. I was the one—”

“Sarah,”
Adrian hissed in my ear. “What’s wrong?”

I
glanced around the circle. Everyone was staring at me. Waiting. “Sorry,” I
muttered.

“That’s
okay, honey,” Imogene said. “Take a deep breath and begin when you are ready.”

I
closed my eyes and squeezed Caleb’s hand to let him know I really was ready
this time. Taking a deep breath in through my nose and letting everything else
fall away, I concentrated only on the swelling warmth in my core and limbs, as
well as the surge of emotion from everyone else in the room.

Love
and fear and insecurity . . . it was all swirling around me, overwhelming me,
wanting to be tamed. I was drawing on their energy; drawing on their spirits.

Moments
passed and at last I eased my grip on Caleb’s and Adrian’s hands. “I know what
we have to do,” I said.

“What?”
Sebastian said.

“We
have to go back.”

“Back
where?” Meg said.

“To the
Katori reservation.”

I
turned to my father then. “But first, we have to gather the tribes.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“I wish
I could go with you,” Priscilla said, working the zipper of her hoodie up and
down in a distracted sort of way. “I always miss the good stuff.”

“I’ll
only be gone the weekend,” I said. “Besides, you’ve got that English paper due
Monday.”

She blew
a raspberry. “Don’t remind me. I’m on house arrest until it’s done.”

I
laughed as Priscilla held open the door and I slid into the back seat of
Shyla’s car, an odd sense of déjà vu washing over me. We’d gone through this
same routine just two months before, but I wasn’t any less nervous now than I
had been then.

Gathering
the tribes had taken longer than we thought. My father, chief of the Manaquay
people, much to my surprise, had accompanied Caleb and me over a period of
several weekends to speak to the leaders of the other five tribes, to tell them
who we were and convince them the curse could be broken. In the meantime, Caleb
had suffered several more seizures, each of them more debilitating than the
last. Time was of the essence.

And here
we were now, on a cold October weekend, making the long drive back to the
Katori reservation. It was there where it had all begun, and it’s there where
it had to end.

The
people of the Katori tribe—men, women, and children alike—had gathered outside
Council Hall and were waiting expectantly for us when we finally arrived. There
were others with them, too—people who were our kin, even if only by a single drop
of blood scattered over oceans of time. They were the others that Charley had
spoken of; the descendants of Kamut who shared the same curse as my father and
his people.

My
father stood at the forefront of the group, along with the five other chiefs
Caleb and I had previously met. Several weeks had passed since I’d last seen him,
and my heart leaped in my throat. We’d kept in regular contact, getting to know
each other better through the security of physical distance. I had a father
now, and a brother, and I took comfort in the fact that nothing would ever
change that. My mother and grandparents had been ripped from me, but I’d been
given a tribe and family in their place.

My aunt,
looking suddenly flushed, went directly to Sebastian’s side. I smiled internally,
taking it as a good omen, a sign that everything would work out in the end.
Caleb and I would remove the curse, and everyone would get their happily ever
after.

Everyone,
that is, except for Charley.

Charley
had been immediately stripped of her title upon her return to the reservation.
In the interim, Imogene was elected Head of Council. At the present moment, she
made her way to the front of the crowd and held up her hands to quiet the
gentle susurrus of voices.

“The people
of the Katori tribe welcome you as representatives of your people,” Imogene
said, addressing the chiefs. Then she threw her hand to a great heap of wood
that had been placed in the clearing and said, “Sarah?”

That
was my signal to take over. I cleared my throat self-consciously and motioned for
Caleb to follow me.

“Do you
remember what we talked about?” I whispered to him when we were some distance
away from the rest of the group. “First I will ask the chiefs to join hands. Then
we will stand on either end.”

He
nodded. “Got it. But are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he said under
his breath, placing a restraining hand on my arm as I started to turn away.

It was
growing dark, and I was shivering so hard my jaw ached from clenching my teeth.
But I didn’t know if it was because of the cold, or because my nerves were out
of control.

“For
all of our sakes,” I said, “I hope so.”

With
that, I turned to face the people gathered before us, clearing my throat again.
“Will the chiefs please come forward now?” They did, and then Caleb and I flanked
them, sandwiching them between us.

I took
a deep breath and raised my voice, hoping it was loud enough to reach everyone
present. “Those who have joined us here this evening, please take a hand.”

It took
a moment and some maneuvering to get everyone in place, but soon we had formed
a circle around the towering pile of wood. When all was quiet again, I lowered
my father’s hand momentarily and removed from my jacket pocket a bundle of sage
that Caleb had bound with twine earlier that morning.

Flicking
my fingers, the tip of the bundle began to smoke and soon glowed red. As it
did, I made my way to Caleb, slowly waving the sage around me and over my head as
I walked past each of the six chiefs. I felt the weight of their expectation, as
well as that of my own tribe, descend heavily on me.

Caleb held
his own bundle of sage. We touched tips until his also began to smoke and burn.
Together, we retraced my steps, stopping in front of each of the chiefs, the
representatives of all the men who shared Kamut’s curse. As Caleb handed each
one his own bundle of sage, I extended the tip of mine to theirs. At last, we
came to my father.

After all
the sage bundles were lit and the air was fragrant and heavy with the smell of
burning herbs, Caleb and I made our way to the center of the circle. We turned
and faced the six men and I said, “Please come forward.”

They
did, and I gestured to the timber looming behind me like a great skeleton of
wooden bones. “Do as we do.”

Caleb
and I bent and laid our sage at the base of one of the smaller logs. One by
one, the other men did the same, and soon the smell of burning sage grew even more
pungent.

Caleb
raised his hand and at once the smoke yielded to his silent command. He walked
around the cluster of men, and soon the smoke enveloped them so completely it
seemed they had become lost in the growing shadows. Tracing slow steps along
the inside perimeter of the circle, the smoke trailed Caleb like a faithful
companion while he intermittently blew it in the faces of those present.