Stunned, Cooper gaped at his father who admitted – who finally admitted – that Ash was no lightweight, and that he was worthy of at least some respect. “You really think that.” Not a question. A statement.
“Yes, son. I really do. Now what makes Greg so unique is the combination of his shamanic vocation together with his skills as an elementalist. He doesn’t just control water. He talks to it, and it talks back to him. They have lengthy and sophisticated conversations. And if something we consider inanimate talks back to you, or argues with you, well. Us humans call that a entity a spirit.” Then, gently, he shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t clue in to that. I just plain forgot that you are, in a very real sense, new to this clan. We know you as a person, sure, but we have yet to learn who you are as an elementalist.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Cooper said, accepting the unspoken apology in a voice that was both thoughtful and subdued.
His father clapped Cooper’s arm fondly. “Come along. You’re no more equipped for being out here in the wind than for water-walking. We’ll get you settled so you can visit all the people that want to see you. I’m all bundled up, and I’ll come out and wait for Ash. He’ll be fine.”
“Promise?” Cooper felt like a child, asking that.
“Yes. I promise he’ll be fine, but I cannot promise that he won’t come back a changed man.”
CHAPTER 6
JARED
The Old Woman climbed on the decorative boulders that stood between her and the cherry tree. She stroked the highest twig she could comfortably reach, and examined it. “Do you see what I see?” she said.
“Maybe,” Jared said, cautious not to overpromise and underdeliver. “But I haven’t been in touch with Cooper. We are at that new place, and he hasn’t even lifted the sword since we stopped moving.”
“But the buds, look!”
Jared looked. The twig did acquire a slightly domed shape in places, as though that pregnant roundness would soon grow, and swell with life, and burst into the pale pink cherry blossoms the Old Woman coveted so much.
He used the opportunity of her being focused elsewhere, and studied her intently. She lived inside a Japanese sword, she wore Japanese clothes and was quite adept at Japanese arts.
Yet her face didn’t bear a single trace of Japanese ancestry. Her hair was gray, white, and cropped into a practical shag he would almost call modern, yet white hair was a feature so universal it told him absolutely nothing. That icy hair could’ve belonged to a member of any ethnic group, and the old and freckled face under it bore clear marks of a Caucasian.
“What color were your eyes when you were a young girl?” he asked in an easy conversational tone.
“You’re wondering why a gaijin like me wears all this stuff, and lives inside a sword, but you don’t feel comfortable asking outright,” she said.
He dropped his shoulder into mock defeat. “You caught me at it. I was trying to be subtle.”
“Good effort,” she said in all seriousness. “I don’t remember the color of my eyes, to be honest. It’s been so long. But I remember Hakudo-san used to say they were like the ocean he fished me out of.”
Jared straightened and stared at her with amazement, with all his pretense at patience and tact gone. “Did he really? Did you fall overboard?” Perhaps she had been traveling. Her accent was casually American, yet she acted a lot older than she looked. An old soul – and she had been dead for quite a while. He was certain of it. He wondered whether she was one of the many Americans who used to globe-trot to far-flung places.
Her answer brought him up short when she said, “No, I had to crash-land my plane in the ocean, actually.”
Jared stilled both in body and in spirit as he sat there next to the Old Woman, contemplating what it must’ve been like, flying an airplane over the ocean. Crash-landing it. He wondered what had forced her to do that. But it must’ve gone okay, if she married the man who saved her.
He said as much.
She gave a dry laugh. “Life here isn’t as simple as strong and weak, light and dark. And neither is my marriage. Neither was boring, though. The landscape of the sword changes all the time. Look over there, for instance.” She pointed at what used to be a dry, desert-like horizon.
The space past the garden shimmered now, as though it was under water, except they were not. The rocks and sand of the ground became a slightly clouded, brownish bottom and as he looked at the sky, the water column lightened until he saw the brilliant reflection of the daytime sun.
Toward them swam two great fish.
Jared gasped, then pointed.
On top of the fish he saw two men, riding the fish underwater, yet not breathing. He had known of water-walkers. He thought some were in his extended family, too – suddenly his memory became hazy as to the specifics.
Both men had long hair that billowed around their heads like a surreal fog.
Jared couldn’t tell for sure, because so much in the spirit world was dreamlike and surreal. This other man – the one on the bigger fish – he seemed so familiar Jared was mortally certain he should know him. What was his name, again?
“Imagine that, seeing two huge sturgeons swimming through thin air,” the Old Woman said. “Why, the are positively floating over the desert. I wonder wherever did they come from?”
Which is when Jared realized that they weren’t always seeing the same thing.
ASH AND COOPER
The freezing cold that had brought Ash close to drowning for the first time in his life dissipated into nothingness as soon as he climbed astride the fish. All he felt were its strong muscles of shifting under his thighs, and the pressure of water on his face as he held onto the sturgeon’s fins for dear life.
[: Don’t worry. If you fall off, I’ll return for you. :]
Ash realized that this time, the voice in his head wasn’t the cheerful telepathic tone of Cooper’s uncle Greg. This time, the message reverberated through him in odd, hollow tones as though the speaker tried to talk through a long and resonant metal tube.
Or through water.
[: No fish has ever spoken to me, :] he admitted, not bothering to hide his awe.
Now there was no mistaking Greg’s voice. [: Ash! :] Greg was appalled, as though Ash had been caught picking his nose in public.
[: Oh I don’t mind, :] the sturgeon said happily. [: I rather like this child. He calls me as he sees me. He’s terrified for his partner up above, and his partner is terrified for him. I’ll send his man back to firm land. His earth affinity will crack the ice at his level of agitation. :]
Oh crap, Ash thought immediately. This was horrible. Cooper still didn’t have a grasp on the way his emotions affected his talent. A sudden and wild energy release has triggered a minor earthquake before, after all. Even though making love by the river, so spontaneously when they had given way to their mutual attraction for the first time, had been amazing.
[: We can hear your thoughts, Ash. I thought you would want to know. :]
Ash felt it all at once: a panic that Greg could hear even those thoughts he had considered private. A sudden knowledge that they felt his panic, and the reason for it. Then he thought whether he had anything to hide, and yes indeed, it turned out he had, except thinking of his darkest secrets exposed the whole laundry list to both Cooper’s amazing uncle, and to the surprisingly talkative spirit of Lake Superior.
[: Thank you, but I’m no more amazing than the entities that gave me my talent in the first place, :] Greg said humbly.
[: I’ve always been talkative, but only a few know how to listen. Any water is talkative, :] the sturgeon said. [: As you have heard when you took down that dam and let the river find its voice again. :]
As they moved on, the flat white ice overhead gave way to waves refracting the sun on the lake’s surface. This is beautiful, Ash thought just to himself, and was once again taken off guard as he heard his two companion silently agree.
[: Since your shields are so awful, I’
d like to try a little experiment, :] Greg said. Nothing was said for a long while. In fact, Ash thought about “saying” something twice, but on both occasions he decided to refrain from actively broadcasting his impatience, realizing only too late that his companion could probably hear every flicker of random noise his mind happened to produce.
[: So impatient, young one, :] the sturgeon said with amused delight. [: When your shields develop, you’ll also be able to hold a conversation without being overheard. :]
Which is how Ash realized that the two had been talking about him, and that he hadn’t managed to pick up a single thought of what they had said.
[: Relax and let our guide take us on a little trip, :] Greg Nightwind whispered into his mind. His mind-voice was now soothing, its cadence rhythmic, and as he said it over and over, Ash felt his self-consciousness melt away. His mind began to still into a meditative trance. His last thought was that this was much like what that trooper had done to him after the car accident.
Then there was nothing but the all-enveloping comfort of the water column, a soothing presence that cradled him as though he was something it could easily crush, but chose not to.
GRANDMA OLGA’S GHER was the very definition of “glamping.” Glamor and camping, the two things that Cooper had never associated with his crunchy-granola gran, suited her with natural ease.
“Would you like some tea?” She cocked her head at him from her cushy nest of pillows, letting her light Norwegian accent resonate the way had ever since he could remember from her days at his and grandpa Sorensen’s upstate New York apple orchard. “How about a small shot of spiced rum in it? You look like you could use it, dear.”
He nodded. His words had gotten stuck ever since the argument with his father, where Cooper had wanted to wait by the hole in the ice, whereas his dad had tried to lead him to somewhere warm.
Because his Dad still thought of him as a child with zero power signature, no doubt. A kid who had to be overprotected, shielded from the mere existence of his family’s extraordinary talents, and taken away from open water just because “everybody knew” Cooper was terrified of it.
So what if he was. Maybe it was time to get over his irrational fear. After all, what good was it to be in love with a water-walker if he was unable to stand the thought of being inside his element?
Cooper could endure fear. He had endured it before, when his powers had manifested for the first time as soon as he was away from his family. In his innocence, he had thought he’d been going stark crazy, and not even the antipsychotics he’d been prescribed had done a thing to curb his visions of “things that weren’t there.”
Things hidden underground.
Here, maybe he could extend his senses and feel for Ash under the ice. Wasn’t ice a lot like Earth? Earth was varied in her composition anyway. There was ice in it and on it, and ice was solid. Ice was like a rock of sorts, and being trapped under it was dangerous. Perhaps he could –
“Cooper, come along!”
Cooper had no intention of moving on, not without making sure Ash was coming back in one piece. If he didn’t – if he got injured, or worse – then...
Then his thoughts suddenly turned away from the swimming hole and toward the icy beach. To his considerable, and silent, surprise, Cooper followed his father off the ice and through the snow until they ended up on firm ground again.
His legs had acquired a will of their own, and his mind’s screaming was blanketed by a batting of eternal and watery silence that felt entirely too comfortable when in the corner of his still-conscious mind he knew of Ash. Where Ash had gone. How scared he’d been of going.
But now, Cooper was in his grandma Olga’s warm and entirely too comfortable care. Her gher was decked out with a real double bed, and a pile of rugs and furs and pillows on the floor around the stove. Only the small side-tables served to hold the necessities of living, and her and Grandpa’s camping supplies were carefully stashed inside the woven birchwood baskets.
He remembered when she had decided to paint their solid wooden lids with cheerful designs. He’d been twelve, and she had let him help.
“Have your tea, dear,” she said with considerable sympathy in her voice. “And don’t worry about Ash. He will be fine.”
“You looked?” Cooper had to know. She didn’t use her Foresight often, or so she said. She was also a nosy old woman, though, and she liked being in the thick of things.
A small, self-conscious nod curtained her face in long, gray hair. “I admit I did have a little peak. Just for safety’s sake, mind you. Nobody wants Ash to be taken off by the lake spirit and not returned.”
Once Cooper had been reassured that that would not happen (even though it could, and had in the past), and that Uncle Greg was even higher skilled than his dad or Uncle Owen, Cooper settled against the wool-stuffed pillows, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and sipped the astringent and sweet tea.
The rum was a nice touch. Unusual for this time of the day, but he wasn’t going to say no.
Then grandma started to quiz him about their life in Pittsburgh, which brought up Jared and the sword, and a discussion of the node and ley line structures under other urban areas. His dad excused himself. “Let me go get something,” he said.
Everyone seems to have conspired to force Cooper to enjoyed his grandma’s warm blanket nest by the little pot-bellied stove. No open firepit for her – no, her gher even had a little chimney which lead through the hole in the canvas.
He looked around. Tea, rum, and conversation were his most immediate future, but he wasn’t sure about his present.
Why was he here?
Hadn’t he intended to be somewhere else?
“Hush, Cooper. You worry too much.” She set a comfortable, flower-painted mug next to his own, then cracked her wrinkled fingers.
He vaguely recalled that cracking her knuckles was a nervous gesture. And she was nervous, which bode ill for Ash.
Yes, he did worry too much. “But I have a good reason,” he said.
THREE CUPS OF rum-dosed tea on an empty stomach had left Cooper curiously floaty, and when his uncles and aunts and cousins began to drift in, he waved at them with a tired smile and let them lean down and hug him.
Everyone had been treating him as an invalid again, and he had no idea why. It would’ve irritated him, had Feather Sorensen had not come in and hummed a little song. Cooper recognized him now that he was out of uniform. His padded jeans, a turtleneck, and a padded plaid shirt screamed “local,” except his power signature had a familiar and comforting vibe.
“Hey, Feather,” Cooper raised his tea mug to him, offering a sip. “Grandma pulled out the good stuff.”
Feather had some. Surely Cooper only imagined his raised eyebrows, because then Feather laughed and said, “She sure did. Enjoy it, cuz! So how are you doing now that you’re all settled in? What do you think of the camp?”
So of course they had to discuss the logistics of building a composting toilet in a freezing environment, because in Cooper’s clan, that apparently passed for polite conversation.
By the time the others drifted out and only Feather still nestled next to him, catching up on Cooper’s years of absence, his dad came back. He held a long, wrapped object in his hand.
“Hi, Uncle Nikko. What do you have there?” Feather’s curiosity went beyond casual.
“Something of Cooper’s. Here, Cooper, I stopped by your car and brought that sword of yours.”
A wave of possessive resentment rushed through him at his father’s words. He bit his lip, trying to remain polite. His Dad had touched his stuff, and not just any stuff. This was the sword Ash had used to quell the rogue node in Pittsburgh. His cousin Jared was captured inside the blade as a result, although nobody was quite sure how that had happened, nor had any idea how to get him out again. Since Cooper didn’t remember much about getting from the car into his bed, and since all their things must have been unpacked by considerate relatives, the fact that the swor
d had remained in the car was both welcome and disturbing.
Disturbing, because Cooper wouldn’t have left it there on purpose. Neither would Ash, even though he no longer liked even touching it, since the sword disliked him intensely ever since the lava quenching incident.
Welcome, because his stuff apparently wasn’t inviolate – until now.
“Don’t worry, Son, I haven’t touched it directly.” Nikko gave an understanding smile. “I wore gloves and I wrapped it in one of your blankets. We all know better than to touch other people’s items of power, and we were going to let you know, but then things happened fast. It’s just... it’s complicated. Here, take it before it bites my head off.”
Cooper sighed on an exhale. “Thank you, Dad.” He took the unexpected delivery and unwrapped the blanket. His fingers slipped around the sword’s worn, cord-wrapped hilt with natural ease. Holding it gave him a sense of rightness he haven’t felt before, not even once he had discovered the Jared connection. Puzzled somewhat at his father’s intent, he gave him an expectant look. “Obviously you brought it for a reason. What do you think I’m going to do with it?”
Grandma Olga beat his dad to the obvious. “We want to talk to Jared, Cooper. I thought that was clear. We want to know his situation, and how he’s doing. Then we can figure out a way to get him out.”
Cooper straightened up to where the cushions no longer supported his back. He reached for one of grandma’s legendary gingerbread cookies from a tray that had appeared from somewhere fairly recently, then pulled his hand back.
Maybe later.
And only once Ash was safely back, and after all this Jared business was resolved. “What you don’t realize is I don’t really talk to him,” he said, giving his grandmother all his attention. “I can feel the blade in my hand right now, and I can sense its presence. Its power. And sometimes, if I focus the way uncle Owen taught me and I really want to know, the sword lets me use Jared’s gift of seeing all kinds of power. But it’s not like picking up my cell phone and dialing his number, you know. It’s... just knowing he’s there, and I can’t explain it or describe it.” He drew a deep breath and took his time summarizing his position. “I just know, and I don’t know how.”
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