The Soulkeepers (13 page)

"Oh Gideon, it's time he knew. How long do
you expect me to wait?"

Jacob interrupted. "There's something you
have to tell me that's more shocking than the news that you've
buried your dead husband in the garden and his body has grown a
magical tree?" Saying it out loud sounded even more ridiculous then
hearing it.

"Yes. It's about you, Jacob. About who you
are and who you are becoming."

"Me?"

"You. See my garden, the other garden, is
enchanted. Only a spiritual being can find Oswald. Spirit finds
spirit. A normal human being would wander aimlessly, if they ever
managed to get through the gate at all."

"But that's me, normal human being." He
waved his fingers, just to make the point.

"Really? Nothing has ever happened to you to
make you think you might be something more?" Dr. Silva raised an
eyebrow.

Jacob looked into his glass. The fight with
Dane at the grocery store came to mind but he didn't answer.

Dr. Silva's eyes bore into him.

"Admit it or not, your genealogy is written
in records that are not of this world."

"Huh."

"Here, look at this." Dr. Silva poured a
drop of water from her glass onto her saucer. "What do you see
here?"

"A drop of water."

"And what do you know about water."

"You drink it."

"No, no. That's not what I mean. How do I
start? I guess I should just say it. Water is alive, Jacob." She
touched the water with her finger and watched it roll down her hand
to her wrist. "In every drop of water live over one hundred
thousand microbes, so, it is quite literally alive. It is the
universal solvent, required for all life. It is the beginning of
all things. Water is strong enough to wear down mountains but agile
enough to move through the tiniest crevice. Your body is two-thirds
water and every cell in it responds to that water."

"Yeah, uhm, it's amazing," Jacob said. He
reached for his glass and gulped down half of it, then wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand and belched.

Dr. Silva's mouth pulled into a straight
line.

"A long time ago, there were two people, a
man and a woman, the first two people who ever walked the earth. I
think you know them as Adam and Eve."

"Uh, yeah, I've heard of Adam and Eve."

"Then you know that the serpent persuaded
them to eat the fruit and as their punishment God cast them out of
the Garden of Eden."

"So?"

"God knew they would need help resisting the
temptations of the Serpent, of the evil that existed on the earth.
He allowed some of the water from Eden to run out of the garden,
down to where Adam settled. The water was made to be undetectable
to all but those who had a sincere desire to devote themselves to
ridding the world of evil. When the pure of heart drank the water,
it changed the drinker. That water infused into the person's cells,
changing their DNA, changing their blood. It gave them gifts, power
they could use to defend themselves against evil."

"Uhuh. Right. Gosh, I gotta go." Jacob
looked at his watch, and then pushed his chair back from the
table.

"They spread out across the globe, Jacob,
doing the will of God." Her voice was frantic now, anxious. She
stood and was behind him in the blink of an eye. Her hands pressed
into his shoulders, keeping him in his seat. "They kept the balance
between good and evil in favor of good. But they married and had
children and, as they did, the water became more and more dilute
and the children became more and more human, their gifts
diminished."

"Damn, the bad luck," he said and tried to
stand but her nails dug into his flesh.

"Hope found a way. When a descendant of a
brother and a descendant of a sister married and had children the
two halves became whole again. The water became more pure. The
power returned. And now, today, there are among us the descendants
of those the water changed, charged with carrying on the work of
God. You are one of those descendants, Jacob. You are a Soulkeeper
and you have the power to combat darkness. The power to fight
evil."

"What power?" he laughed nervously.

"Every Soulkeeper has power as individual as
a fingerprint but each is an integral player in the battle between
heaven and hell. You've probably heard of people with the gene for
a certain type of disease. The gene is always there but the person
may or may not get the disease. Something happens, a stressor, and
the gene flips on. This is the same. People like you carry the
gene. You've always had it, since you were born. But it takes
something big to turn it on: something like losing your parents or
being attacked in a parking lot."

"How do you know about that?"

"It's a small town. Word travels fast."

"But nobody saw but Malini."

"I didn't have to see, Jacob. Not in the way
you do. Why don't you tell me what happened and we can get
started?"

"Started with what?"

"I am your Helper. I've been assigned to
help you discover your gifts. I can help you discover your true
purpose."

"You're crazy." Jacob squirmed from her
grasp, knocking the chair to the floor. Pain shot through his knee
as he stood. "This is nuts. Why are you saying these things to me?
I don't even believe in God."

"Don't believe in God?"
Dr. Silva's face twisted into a scowl. "Do you believe in the atom?
In the air you breathe? How can you deny the very fabric of who you
are?" She shook her head. "Believe or not Jacob, I am your
Helper
. You are my
assignment and I will help you discover what you were sent here to
do."

"I don't believe any of this," he said in a
whisper, shaking his head and backing toward the door.

"The memory you told me about last Saturday,
the vivid one, did it ever occur to you that it wasn't entirely
normal? Awfully odd how close to real life it played out, isn't
it?"

"How do you know about that?"

"You told me. And, what about that black
eye, Jacob? It's already happening." She grinned. "Just like
osmosis, the goodness in you will always attract evil. Have you
ever wondered why trouble always seems to find you? You are
discovering your power. Now all you need to do is allow me to help
you figure out how to use it." Her voice was breathy, almost
hypnotic. She walked over to Jacob and reached for his hand.

He jerked away, mind reeling. None of this
made sense. All he wanted to do was get out of this house and never
come back. Continuing toward the door, he saw alarm sweep across
her perfectly carved features.

"Don't go," she said, and the edge was back
in her voice. The smell of fresh baked cookies washed over him like
a fog, and his skin tingled.

"What are you? What are you doing to me?" He
forced himself to keep backing up even though the electric
sensation, the attraction hit him full force. He turned toward the
door and reached for the knob.

"Your mother! I can help you find your
mother." Dr. Silva's voice was high-pitched and quick.

Jacob wanted to leave. He wanted to never
come back. Dr. Silva scared him and he thought she was crazy. But
months ago he'd made a choice to not give up on his mom no matter
what. He couldn't let this go, no matter how unlikely it was to be
true.

"Can you? Can you find her? Can the
tree…take me to her?" He turned from the door and met her icy
stare. The temptation was too great. If there was any hope, any
hope at all…

"Oh, it doesn't work that way. You have to
know exactly where you want to go and then concentrate on the
longitude and latitude. Date and time have an effect. It's not like
boarding an airplane. It's taken me decades to master."

"Decades?" Jacob looked at the woman in
front of him. She looked to be in her late twenties but clearly
after all she had told him she must be much older. "How old are
you?"

"Another time Jacob. I'll explain everything
in time. There is much to learn. But right now, what you want is to
find your mother. And what I want is for you to work with me, to
allow me to be your Helper."

"Will you take me to Oahu then, to look for
her?"

"Jacob, where would you stay? Where would
you even begin to look? Who's to say she's even there? She could be
dead."

Jacob rubbed his temples. He didn't know the
answer to her questions and was feeling awfully tired. Gideon
weaved between his ankles. The soft fur was oddly comforting and
his shoulders relaxed a little. Still, he couldn't find his
voice.

"We could visit the medicine woman," she
offered. Her arm reached toward him, cautious, nervous, as if her
life depended on his answer. "You could come with me and we could
ask her. Maybe, she could tell us where your mom is. If you agree
to train with me, I will take you to her and we will find out."

Jacob dropped his hands from his temples and
looked Dr. Silva in the eye. "Okay. I still don't believe what
you're telling me. But if you help me find my mom, I'll do it."

"It's a deal!" she said. A smile crossed her
face, like she'd just won the lottery.

As she pumped his hand, up and down, up and
down, he wondered what she had in store for him. His gut instinct
was to run and never look back.

Jacob regretted the agreement, even as he
made it.

Oswald's Rules

While the hope of finding
his mother comforted Jacob, he was disappointed to learn he'd have
to be patient for his journey to meet the medicine woman. Dr. Silva
explained certain locations were possible only on certain dates.
The next time the tree was connected to the South American Amazon
was June 10
^th
, the day after Jacob's
sixteenth birthday, and two months away.

Later that night, he lay on the pink bed
thinking about what Dr. Silva had told him about his blood. There
was no way Jacob believed it. It didn't make any sense. Still, he
was sure that what happened with the tree was not a hallucination.
The hardest part would be keeping it all from Malini. Ever since
the incident with Dane, she had desperately jumped at any clue to
what had happened that day. He cared deeply for her but he knew if
he told her what Dr. Silva had said, she would believe every word.
The last thing Jacob wanted was any more pressure to believe the
impossible.

Plunk

Something skimmed across his window. He
glanced at the clock: 11:30 pm. He cringed when he thought of Dr.
Silva visiting his window weeks ago and hoped it wasn't her.

Cachink

A stone skipped across the glass and he
decided it was more human than anything he'd expect from Dr. Silva.
It was, after all, a stone and not the glowing skull of a dead
husband. He stood up and looked out into the front yard. Malini was
waving from the lawn, her hand full of rocks. Jacob opened the
window.

"I need to talk to you," she whispered.

He pointed to the rose lattice on the side
of the house. She scaled it with ease and he reached out to help
her inside.

"Nice room," she said with a grin.

Jacob had never hated the pink room
more.

"Long story." He closed the window behind
her. "How did you get here?"

"Drove." She held up a set of keys. "I know
I won't be legal until September but all those driving lessons
should count for something. I had to see you."

"It's great to see you too, but what's going
on?"

She leaned against the floral wingback. A
sigh escaped her lips. "I just needed to talk to someone."

"Why? What happened?"

"We were sitting at home tonight. I was just
watching TV, you know; it's not like there's a ton to do in Paris
on a weeknight"

"Right."

"Well, the doorbell rang and my dad answered
it. It was a deliveryman from Paris Pizza. Jacob, they sent ten
pizzas to my house."

"Who?"

"I can only guess it was Amy or
Jessica."

Amy was Dane's girlfriend and Jacob
suspected the reason for the prank. Although his lip and eye had
healed, the animosity had not. None of them ever talked about what
actually happened that day at Westcott's grocery, but everyone at
school knew there was something. Only, somehow, all of the
speculation had Dane coming out on top.

"Dane. Dane was behind this," Jacob
said.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I just know. Tell me what happened
next."

"My dad just shook his head and said we
didn't order any pizzas. The driver said that Malini Gupta ordered
them. So, my dad calls me to the door, right in front of this man,
and asks me why I ordered the pizza. I tell him that I didn't. But
my dad keeps asking me over and over, 'why are there ten pizzas
here?' Meanwhile, the driver is looking for his money. He says we
owe like a hundred dollars. My dad is having a fit and finally, I
say to him, 'Dad, I think this is a prank, the girls from school,
again.'"

"So what did he do?"

"It was the weirdest thing Jacob. He reached
into his wallet and paid the man. After the driver had delivered
all ten pizzas to our kitchen counter, my dad turned to me, looked
me straight in the eye and said, 'Tomorrow, you tell the girls
thank you for the pizza. You all laugh and try to be friends.'"

"What?"

"He just doesn't get it. He thinks this is
all normal hazing, that it will somehow get better once people get
to know me. We've been here two years. They hate me. They will
always hate me." Malini's warm chocolate eyes glistened wet in the
moonlight.

Jacob moved in close and kissed the top of
her head. "Bastards." He took her hand and led her to sit on the
edge of the bed.

"You're the only one who understands, Jake.
I don't know what I would do without you."

He swallowed hard and looked at the
floor.