The Soulkeepers (5 page)

"Are they for real?" he asked Malini.

"Hmm. I'm afraid so."

"I guess, where I'm from…in Hawaii, no one
would ever use that word."

"I know. Not where I'm from either."

"Where are you from?"

"All over really, but London last. I was
born in India."

"I don't get it, Malini," Jacob said. "I
mean these people act like it's 1950. They don't even know me."

"Most of these people have been here since
well before that."

He laughed but then realized she wasn't
joking. "What do you mean?"

"Well, take Dane Michaels, for example. His
family settled here around 1900. His family has lived on the same
land for over a hundred years. And, Amy Barger, her family has
lived in the same house for four generations. This town is like an
island; all they know is each other. They grow up in the same
house, doing the same thing as their parents."

"You've got to be kidding."

"No. Think about it. Who would move to
Paris? I mean besides us, and we didn't have a choice. There's not
much here. Logically, if you grow up here and you are open minded,
you go to college and never come back. If you like it here, which
means that you are happy living in the same house, with the same
people, with the same thoughts and ideas as the generation before,
then you stay. If you stay, you marry someone just like you. It's
like inbreeding."

"How do you know all of this, Malini? I mean
about the town history."

"My dad. He's the only insurance agent in
town. Houses, cars, life insurance policies, you can learn a lot
about people by what they insure. That's why we're here. State
Benefit decided to embrace diversity and hello Paris, Illinois. You
know, he took over because the last State Benefit agent died."

"He died?"

"Yeah. He was ninety-six years old and still
working. Died in his office. Weird huh?"

"Weird."

"But good for us. There's no competition so,
whatever these people think, if you want insurance in this town you
see Jim Gupta."

Jacob opened his mouth to respond but was
drowned out by the sound of the bell and the subsequent clatter of
trays and chairs.

"Do you want to study later then?" Malini
asked.

"Definitely. Bring your notes," he said,
"please."

She gave the proud smile again, lifting her
tray and carrying it to the conveyor belt near the kitchen. Jacob
collected his things and turned to follow. He was halfway there
when something hard pegged him in the back, knocking him forward.
On the floor near his feet, pieces of hard-boiled egg lay broken.
He whipped his head around and met Dane's cold grey eyes. A red
tide of anger washed over him.

Jacob glared at Dane with wordless hate and
as he locked eyes with the guy, he thought of ten different ways he
could attack him. The fork on his tray had promise. He could do it;
tear off the lid to this thing coiled inside of him and loose it on
Dane. He might even enjoy it. He may not be as big as Dane but he
was fast and he knew how to fight. More importantly, he had nothing
to lose.

Then he thought of Malini. She lingered by
the door, watching the drama unfold with her books clutched against
her chest like a shield. What would she think of him if he started
something?

No one moved. The cafeteria was so quiet he
could hear the ice machine running. Time seemed to slow as Jacob
stared unblinking at Dane. Finally, one of the lunch ladies cleared
her throat, breaking the silent tension and Jacob backed down. The
thing in his stomach coiled tighter like an unsatisfied hunger as
he made for the door.

No sooner was Jacob's back turned than the
cafeteria burst into laughter.

He had to find a way home. If he didn't,
this might be the longest year of his life.

Dane

Dane Michaels wandered through the forest at
the back of his family's farm. He knew better than to call her
name. Man, she could be a bitch when she wanted to be. She was
beautiful though, way cuter than Amy.

He wasn't sure why she always insisted that
they meet out here. He was sick of it. It was always on her terms,
her rules. Sometimes she even blew him off entirely. She never gave
any excuse, just didn't show up. Today though, he wanted her there.
He needed what she had more than before and he hoped she would give
it to him quickly.

Snow drifted down from the pine needles and
stung his exposed skin. The wind blew right through his wool coat.
He raised the collar around his ears and huddled into the thick
fabric. He hated winter.

"You've come alone?" she said. Her voice was
smooth and as cold as the bitter air.

Dane's head snapped right. She was standing
so close to him, close enough to touch, but he hadn't heard her
coming. Her platinum hair blew back from her face in the uneven
gusts. Eyes, like blue ice, cut through him. The cold didn't seem
to bother her. In nothing but a blouse and plaid skirt, she leaned
up against one of the lanky pines.

"Yeah," Dane replied. "So."

"I told you, I want to meet your
friends."

"Damn…I've been bringing people back here
all year. You've met everyone."

"Don't lie to me." Her face was suddenly
inches from his, the line of her mouth a grim warning.

"You've met everyone in my class that's
worth meeting," he spat.

"Then, who is not worthy?"

Dane looked away. This was so not his idea
of fun. "Whatever," he said under his breath. He turned for home.
Her hand shot out, so fast he didn't see it coming. Fingers sank
into his forearm, tightening like a vice. The pain was
immediate.

"Oww! God…stop! Let go!" Dane yanked his arm
toward his body but her grip was like steel. The pain was intense,
bone crushing. "Please!"

That's when he smelled her, a spicy, sweet
scent that reminded him of fresh baked pumpkin pie. It surrounded
him, weaving into his nostrils and flaming out across his body
until every part of him was salivating for it. He met her eyes
again and a wave of pleasure washed over him like a warm bath.

"Who have I not met, Dane?" she cooed. Her
voice was soft now, soothing. She loosened her grip.

"There are two kids that I don't hang with
much. A girl and a boy."

"Their names?"

"Malini and Jacob."

"You will bring them to me. I want to meet
them."

"Why?" he asked, but his voice cracked, weak
and unsure.

"I have my reasons. Bring them here at this
time in one month."

Dane rolled his eyes. To get Lau here, he
would have to either overpower the kid or pretend to be his friend.
Neither would be easy but the thought of the second made him ill.
He considered telling her he wouldn't do it but then the smell came
to him again, stronger.

"Do you have more of that stuff, from
before?"

A thermos appeared in her hand and she held
it out to him. Dane wondered for a fleeting moment where she had
gotten it. He hadn't noticed the container before and she didn't
have a bag or a coat. She cracked the lid and the smell of cinnamon
wafted out. All at once he stopped caring about where it came from
and snatched it from her hand.

He took a deep swig. The stuff burned, from
his lips to his toes, but then the rush he was waiting for came on
full force. Power. Pure liquid power coursed through his veins. In
that moment, he was enough. He was bigger than this farm, this
family, and this town. There were no boundaries to what he could do
or what he could be.

He reached into his pocket
for a cigarette. Maybe he
could
do anything for this.

"Tell me more about these two," she
demanded.

Dane lit the end of the cigarette and took a
deep drag. "I think, maybe, I could tell you a couple of things."
He rubbed his arm. For some reason, it felt sore. As he started to
talk, he couldn't remember how he'd hurt it. But he had no problem
remembering everything he knew about Jacob and Malini.

Excavation

Two boxes. Everything from the apartment,
all the material evidence that he'd ever had a family before coming
to Paris, fit into two moving boxes. Jacob walked into the gaping
mouth of the Laudners' two-car garage and stared at the brown
rectangles wrapped in packing tape.

Strange, the thumping in his chest and the
way his throat ached when he swallowed was new for him. Jacob knew
he needed to open them, to go through her things. Uncle John said
it would give him closure. But he hesitated. The truth was he
didn't want closure; he wanted to believe she was alive. He refused
to give up on her. But he also knew it was important to check that
everything was there. To make sure, that when they did find her,
all of her things would be accounted for.

He pulled a pair of gardening shears off
their hook on the wall and sliced through the tape at the top of
the first box. It was filled with items wrapped in brown paper.
Jacob reached in and unwrapped one—a glass. He grabbed another—a
soap dish: kitchen and bathroom items, all of it. He guessed the
flat ones on the bottom were plates and the things on top were
mixing bowls and drinking glasses.

When Jacob sliced through the tape on the
second box, white stuffing burst from the incision. The shears had
sliced too deep, into the pillow that used to be his mother's. He
pinched the hole and pulled the pillow out. Her quilt was
underneath it, folded neatly on top of her clothes and a short
wooden box. He caught the scent of cherry blossoms, the smell of
her favorite lotion.

Resting his elbows on the sides of the box,
he allowed his head to loll forward. With his eyes closed, Jacob
could picture them there, sitting cross-legged on the quilt,
playing crazy eights with a deck of cards so old you could tell the
eight of spades from the fingerprint worn into the pattern on the
back. Whatever happened to those cards?

Jacob opened his eyes. The brown corner of
the wooden box peaked out from under his mother's salmon colored
sweatshirt. Was it a jewelry box? Did his mother own a jewelry box?
He'd never, ever, seen her wear jewelry. If she'd had any before
his dad died, they would have sold it a long time ago. Jacob
absolutely did not remember the box. He reached in and pulled the
shiny wood from under the linens.

It looked much too expensive to have
belonged to her. It was koa wood inlaid with a pale carving of a
phoenix. He tried to lift the lid but it was locked. The gold
keyhole was small, like a diary lock.

Jacob set the wooden box aside and dug
deeper for the key. The moving box was an awkward height and the
cardboard buckled under his weight. He swept his hand around the
bottom and tried to feel for something that might contain small
items. When nothing presented itself, he found a relatively clean
section of concrete and unloaded the items one by one. The glasses,
the plates, even the mixing bowls he freed from their paper
cocoons. Everything was there, everything he remembered from the
apartment. It looked like a rummage sale spread out across the
driveway.

There was no key.

It wasn't a complete loss though. Near the
bottom of the bedroom box, he'd found a framed picture of his
family, the one that had hung on the bedroom wall. Smile lines
creased the corners of his father's green eyes, serenity lingered
in the curve of his mother's mouth, and Jacob was missing teeth but
nothing else. This was a picture of a family that didn't exist
anymore—a family extinct.

The cold bit into him as he rewrapped and
packaged the items back into the boxes. For more than an hour,
Jacob worked to replace everything except for the picture and the
jewelry box. He set those aside to bring inside. When he was done,
he pushed the boxes into a corner of the garage and turned to
leave.

Across the street, the Victorian loomed
black and blue, a bruise on the horizon. The wind rattled the ivy
on the fence and knocked some icicles free. They fell like knives
slicing the snow-covered yard. Dead leaves swirled behind the
wrought-iron fence. For a second, just a fraction of a moment,
Jacob could've sworn he'd seen a face staring at him through the
front window. He closed the garage door and hurried inside.

Ancient History

Days of school turned into weeks, then
months, hours carved out of a forced routine. The weather was cold,
school was hard, and Jacob got very good at coming up with reasons
to avoid getting too close to the Laudners.

The one light in an otherwise dismal winter
was Malini. He ate lunch with her every day because he wanted to,
not for the obvious reason that he couldn't have sat anywhere else.
She was the only thing he looked forward to most days.

"You know Jacob, I never told you what P.S
meant," Malini said, as she picked at her french-fries, eating only
the brown crispy ones. Friday was always hamburgers and fries. The
burgers were leathery frisbees but the fries were tolerable.

"Yeah. I hear them calling you that. I
haven't asked you because it's pretty obvious it's not a term of
endearment," He reached across the table and dipped a fry into her
ketchup.

"It means push start. They're making fun of
me because I'm Indian. You know how some Indian women wear a
bindi?"

"The makeup on their forehead?" Jacob said,
touching himself between his eyes.

"Yes. Well, Dane and his friends seem to
think a better term for the women who wear them is push start or
P.S."

Jacob was speechless. "That's the stupidest
thing I've ever heard."

"You have to consider the source."

"Is that why you don't wear one?"

"No. If I wanted to wear one, I wouldn't let
those morons stop me. I don't wear it because it's sort of a Hindu
thing and I'm Christian. I know that people now just wear them as
makeup and it doesn't mean what it once did, but I've never gotten
into the habit. Most of the time I don't even wear mascara." She
laughed and then shifted her attention toward the corner of her
orange tray.