The Soulkeepers (3 page)

"John, I think this was a mistake. The boy
is weird. He's not settling in. He's not like us." The voice was
Carolyn's. It was a hushed tone coming from the vent on the south
wall. Jacob crouched in front of the steel grate and listened. The
position of the vent must have been just right to conduct her
whisper to him. By the placement of the pink room, he assumed it
connected to the kitchen.

"It's too late now Carolyn. He's not a dog.
I can't return him to the store," John said.

"I know. I'm just worried. What if he
gets…violent?"

"Violent?"

"You know darn well what I mean, John. His
people…"

"I do, Carolyn, but he's also our people.
You know as well as I do that this boy is the last chance for our
family. Hell, he doesn't even look…"

"He doesn't look German either."

"He is the last and only remaining Laudner
heir. If we can't make this work, the most we can hope for…" John
paused and Jacob leaned in toward the grate. "Over one hundred and
fifty years of Laudner history will be lost. I can't let that
happen. We can't let that happen."

"But what if he turns out like them?"
Carolyn whispered.

"Jacob is young. We can raise him up
right."

"It's a nice thought, but copper will never
be gold, no matter how much you shine it. There are other
ways…Katrina?"

"Katrina isn't a male heir. You know the
rules. Besides, Jacob is my brother's son. Don't tell me you
haven't looked into that boy's eyes and seen Charlie's staring back
at you."

"Well, yes, I suppose so."

"As sure as I am sitting here I am going to
get to know that boy. I am not losing him the way I lost
Charlie."

"John, he may look like Charlie but he's not
Charlie. You can chase ghosts all you want but that ship has
sailed."

"He's my nephew, Carolyn," John's voice
strained to stay a whisper. "He's here to stay."

After a long pause, he heard a chair slide
back from the table. "Then I guess there's nothing more to
discuss," Carolyn said.

Jacob waited, ears trained on the vent.
Silence. With a heavy sigh, he moved back towards the window,
folding himself into the floral wingback. The conversation rolled
through his head like a freight train.

Carolyn didn't want him here, that was for
sure, but what was all that about being the last Laudner heir? What
about Katrina? John had said something about a male heir. Jacob
knew Paris was a small town, old fashioned even, but since when did
women not inherit property? Certainly they didn't expect him to
stay in Paris permanently. And if that were the only reason John
had brought him here, what would happen when he refused?

The truth was Jacob didn't care what had
happened between his father and John. These people weren't family,
not really. Whatever it took, he needed to get home to Oahu to find
his mom. She was the only real family he had left. He didn't have
time to worry about ancient family history or being a Laudner heir.
What he needed was a way home.

He tried to watch the snow to clear his head
but found he was more agitated than ever. The knot that coiled at
the pit of his stomach seemed to grow larger as he dwelled on the
conversation. It twisted within him. Almost midnight, he knew he
should sleep.

No sooner had Jacob resigned himself to bed
than he was distracted by something that stirred behind the icy
wrought iron fence across the street. He was pretty sure no one
lived in the gothic Victorian. The lights never came on and he
never saw anyone go in or out. But there was something in the yard
now and it was big.

The thing moved, a massive black ball that
rolled behind the fence spindles. The shadows made it impossible to
see clearly from his window, even under the full moon. Sweat broke
out on his palms and he swallowed hard. Jacob knew he was perfectly
safe but the hair on the back of his neck stood up anyway. It
seemed to divide, expand and then fold in on itself just beyond
view. Just as weird was how quickly it broke from this camouflage
and crossed through the wrought iron gate into the center of the
street.

Surrounded by moonlight, he could see it was
not an animal at all but a person in a long, hooded cloak. The
shifting he'd seen had been the cloak becoming round and full in
the gusty night. Hands emerged from the bell-shaped sleeves, thin
and white, and pulled the black hood down to reveal the face of a
young woman. Platinum hair cascaded from the hood and blew in the
wintry wind, long and wispy behind her. The moon lit up the pale
strands, eerily translucent against the dark cloak. Her skin was
flawless and fair, as if she'd been carved from ice.

Jacob stopped breathing. She had to be a
ghost the way she glowed and floated down the road towards him. For
all the reasons he hated Paris, he had not expected the worst would
be the town was haunted.

The ghost took a step forward and the bottom
of her cloak split open. She was barefoot. Of course, a spirit
would not feel the cold, which completely convinced Jacob she was
supernatural. His arms broke out in gooseflesh. He wanted to look
away, really he did. He wanted to scream or hide under the covers,
but he didn't, because more than anything he wanted to watch. She
was beautiful, bloodcurdling but beautiful. With an almost hypnotic
grace, she moved to a patch of snow under his window. And then, to
Jacob's horror, she leaned her head back and looked directly at
him.

Within the whiteness of her skin and hair,
eyes of palest blue pierced the night. The irises were barely
darker than the whites, a color like thin ice over ocean. There
could be no mistake; she was staring at him, but it would be more
accurate to say into him. Her gaze penetrated his skin, ricocheted
off his internal organs and caused his stomach to flip-flop. His
heart paced behind the cage of his ribs.

She extended her arms, palms toward the
night sky. Around her, the snow began to swirl, subtly at first but
then with a purposeful force, as if she were producing her own
gravity, defying the earth and the natural order of things. The
result was that she looked exactly like a figure in a snow globe,
the ones you see at Christmas. Only, the darkness of her presence
seemed oddly inappropriate for its charming effect.

And then, she flew, lifting from the earth
in a cyclone of wind and snow, until she hovered directly outside
his window. Her black cloak billowed, the full moon a perfect
circle behind her head. The corner of her mouth lifted, tugged
upward by some well-kept secret. To look directly into her face was
like sticking his finger into an electrical outlet. His skin
tingled and tongue swelled.

She mouthed words through the snow at him.
Jacob couldn't hear what she said but his mouth began to move,
echoing hers. It was his own hushed voice he heard bouncing off the
window, even though he was sure the words came from her.

Jacob, there is much to learn. Don't worry.
I will teach you. I will help you.

It was useless to resist. If she'd said to
leap out the window into her arms he would have complied. But as he
watched her, the realization that he still wasn't breathing came
like a smoke alarm in the night, necessary but unwanted. Empty of
oxygen, his lungs burned for air but he couldn't remember how to
use them. His nervous system was simply paralyzed by either fear or
beauty—Jacob didn't know which. The sensation of being sucked under
thick water overcame him, a sinking feeling where the light from
the window dimmed at the corners, became a constricting circle that
narrowed to a pinpoint of light before extinguishing itself.

Suffocating. Drowning in her terrible
beauty. His eyes rolled back in his head and he felt himself
fall.

Her voice rang out, a
dagger through the blackness,
"
I am coming for
you.
"
It sliced
through whatever bound his chest and the air rushed in, a mighty
gust of wind.

In the next moment, everything was pink. He
was on the floor in front of the chair, in a rectangle of light
from the window. The prickle of shag carpet on his cheek caused him
to sit up and rub the stiffness from his neck. He was near the vent
where he remembered listening to Carolyn and John's conversation.
Had he fallen asleep on the floor?

Out the window, the blanket of snow that
carpeted the earth as far as the eye could see gave no evidence,
not a single footprint, divulging a nighttime visitor. The woman,
he decided, must have been a dream, or more likely a hallucination,
a creation of his damaged brain.

He shook his head. It was Monday and he was
expected to attend Paris High School. He could already hear the
clatter of Katrina getting ready in the bathroom across the hall.
Jacob wished he could wake up from this nightmare, the one he was
living, but this was no delusion. The really scary stuff started
today.

The Lows of Paris
High

"You'll be okay," John said to Jacob's back.
"I went to school here when I was a kid. Good people here."

Jacob scowled at the carved wooden sign that
read Paris High School. The square brick building looked more like
a prison than a school. He did not acknowledge John's comment but
stared at the double doors and tried to remain numb.

"So, come to the shop after school. Just
walk down Main Street and you can't miss it." Jacob could hear the
note of frustration creeping into his voice. He didn't care. John
could make him do this but he couldn't make him like it.

"Remember to check in at the office. I
pre-registered you but you'll need to get your class schedule from
Betty."

Jacob nodded toward the school. His neck
itched from the wool jacket John had given him to wear. He ignored
it and took a slow step forward.

John sighed. "Okay then. See you later." The
old blue pickup whined as he shifted it into gear. Jacob turned
only when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the flash of blue
leave the school's circular drive.

Sure, it was only a matter of time until
Jacob had to go back to school. He expected as much. Since it was
the end of the holiday break and the beginning of a new semester,
it made sense that he started now. But after all that happened, he
just didn't expect it would be so soon. Going to school felt
settled and he didn't want to feel settled.

He joined a pack of students as they filed
into the building, a machine of murmurs and sideways glances that
churned to mustard yellow lockers. It wasn't a large school, maybe
two hundred kids, but he had the oddest sensation of being in a
fish tank—watched with curious indifference. He ducked through a
windowed door under a black plaque with white font that read,
"Office."

The short, mousy woman behind the desk typed
vigorously, her square bifocals fixed on the computer screen. Her
tight bun shifted slightly as she raised her eyebrows and turned
towards him.

"Well hello!" she said in a high-pitched
nasal twang. "Are you Jacob?"

"Jacob Lau. This is my first day."

"Welcome. I'm Mrs. Whestle, the school
secretary. It's very nice to meet you."

"Yeah, uh, you too," he lied.

"Let me just find your paperwork." She
thumbed through a pile of manila folders on her desk. "Here we are,
Jacob Laudner."

"That's me but Laudner is my uncle's last
name—mine is Lau."

"Yes, I see your uncle filled out these
forms. John Laudner, such a nice man. He's been a friend of my
husband Herbert for years. Anyway, here you are, Jacob Laudner."
Mrs. Whestle squared the manila folder in front of him.

"Um, but my last name isn't Laudner, its
Lau. Can you change that on the paperwork?"

"But your uncle…" Mrs. Whestle's mouth
pulled into a tight line. A nervous giggle parted her lips. "You
are registered as Laudner."

It was clear to Jacob that Mrs. Whestle
thought he was messing with her. Of course it didn't make any sense
why his name was different than his uncle's. Hell, he didn't
understand completely himself. But he wasn't going to let the
circumstances rob him of his last connection with his real family.
John and the social worker could force him from his home, but he
was keeping his name.

"My name is Lau," Jacob said, firmly. He
could feel his ears getting hot.

"Okay, Hon." Mrs. Whestle looked flustered
and more than a little confused. "We can change it. Do you have a
copy of your birth certificate?"

"Yes, right here." Jacob handed her an
envelope. In order to enroll, John needed a copy of the original
from Oahu. His name was Lau, legally.

"Well, here it is in black and white," Mrs.
Whestle said. "Jacob Lau, son of Charles and Lillian Lau." Her brow
wrinkled. "How odd," she added under her breath.

She turned back toward her computer and
began to type, longer and more furiously than he would have thought
necessary for a simple name change.

"Oh say, now this
is
interesting. It says
here you're Chinese?"

"Yeah."

"You don't look Chinese."

"Well, my father was Caucasian," he drawled,
thinking they'd just covered his family history.

"Do you know you are the very first Chinese
person ever to attend Paris High School?"

"No. I didn't."

"Well, this is exciting!"

Jacob scowled. What the hell was that
supposed to mean? Like he was Paris' token Asian? He wanted to tell
her that the lack of minorities was only half as exciting as the
overrun of idiots but thought better of it since it was his first
day. Nonetheless, Mrs. Whestle seemed to get the hint. The smile
drained from her face and she cleared her throat.

"Er…You will start in Mrs. Haney's class,
classroom 208, for World History. She is right out that door, up
the stairs and two doors to the left. Hold on a minute, honey, and
I'll get Principal Bailey to show you the way. He's going to want
to meet you."