by C C Daniels
“Good. You may go.”
Kanaan and Amaya left as instructed. It seemed that Kanaan wanted to stay, but was compelled to leave.
Toci waited until they were gone before kneeling beside MawMaw. She used an even softer voice than she had with us.
“Osyka, you must find the bone I entrusted to your care.”
MawMaw swallowed. She put her knitting down to take Toci’s hands. “I believe I know who has it. And I will get it back to its rightful owner. I promise you that I will get it back.” MawMaw looked at me.
I tested my body to see if I had control. I didn’t. “Can I go now?” I whispered on the verge of tears.
Toci tilted her head apologetically. “I’m sorry I was so harsh with you.” She stood with a smile. “But you’re a stubborn one, and I had to make you listen.”
With a dip of her head and a bow, I felt my muscles connect to my brainwaves again. My stomach rumbled a reminder that it hadn’t had anything in it since yesterday evening. I slid off the sofa and went to the kitchen. While I microwaved one of MawMaw’s frozen burritos, I listened to the conversation in the living room.
“I made a gift for you, Toci.” MawMaw’s voice held a smile. The front closet opened and closed.
“You shouldn’t have.” I heard gift wrap rustle and rip. “Oh, Osyka, it’s simply beautiful. Thank you.”
“Try it on,” MawMaw instructed her.
It’s as though they were BFFs being reunited after some time apart.
Five bites into the burrito, my stomach rolled. Barely able to swallow the last bite, I just dumped the rest into the trash, put the plate in the dishwasher, and went outside to the barn.
Chapter 29
Ella greeted me outside in the corral. Aside from the episode at burial trail, she was the only thing that had stayed semi-constant.
Toci came outside carrying a sweater. I recognized it as the intricate lace project MawMaw just finished. She said it was a gift for a friend, which meant she knew Toci was coming as early as this past spring. That was when she went shopping for the yarn.
The mother of all gods pulled the sweater on as she neared the barn. She saw me admiring it. “Osyka does such exquisite work, doesn’t she?”
I nodded in agreement.
Ella did not whinny as I thought she would when Toci got closer.
“She goes berserk when the skull is anywhere near her, but you can get close to her.”
Toci cocked her head sideways and sighed a breath as though I were a curious toddler asking ridiculous questions. “Because”—she indicated the both of us with an index finger—“our bones are covered.”
I took that to mean my bones were similar to the skull. Normally, that kind of information would’ve upset me. Why wasn’t I?
Toci stroked Ella’s nose. “Horses were given the instinct to stay away from our exposed bones by the others.”
“The others?”
“As exquisite as they are, horses aren’t our creation.” She sounded disappointed.
“I thought you created all.” I wanted to pretend I was stunned and tried to show it, but I couldn’t. She was manipulating my mood and my emotional reactions.
“There are so many others in the cosmos. Some you can call creators. Some just ventured here to fiddle with Gaia’s Earth, as though it were a toy.” She shook her head in disgust. “A close comparable for you would be graffiti artists tagging surfaces that don’t belong to them.”
“Who created horses then?” Whoever they were, they deserved a medal in my opinion.
“Do you want their Greek or Roman names?”
I shrugged. “Greek.”
“Poseidon is the prankster who brought the horse to Earth.”
“Poseidon?” I tried, and failed, to laugh at the very idea.
Toci turned to me. “I’m not joking, Wray. And it’s certainly nothing to laugh at.”
“Whatever. I don’t think the horse is a bad prank. It changed the course of history. Look how much the horse changed the lives of the Ute.”
“Exactly.” Toci pointed toward the trail into the Garden. “Walk with me.”
I didn’t have a choice.
She continued her story as we walked. “Poseidon made the horse afraid of our bones.” She again indicated the both of us.
“Why?”
“One method of keeping tellurians away from them.” She stopped walking, held a hand on her chest, and blew out a breath.
“Tourists almost always have trouble with our altitude.” I wanted to say it with a snarky tone, but it didn’t come out that way.
She smiled at me. “A sense of humor.”
I didn’t smile back.
“Where was I?” She started walking again. “Oh, tellurians. That’s a term—”
“For earthlings.” I finished for her. “I’ve had Latin.”
Toci nodded her approval.
Given what I’ve seen the skull do, it made sense to keep people away, especially people like Mr. Smith.
“But horses aren’t evil,” I said.
“Did I say they were?”
“It was implied.”
She was silent for a while, twisting her lips in thought. “Not much in this world, or any world for that matter, is strictly evil.”
That sounded so much like MawMaw’s opinion of how people are neither all good nor all bad. We were all just somewhere along the spectrum.
“It’s how the object is used that makes it good or evil.” Toci’s voice was back to the calming singsong tone.
Along the path, I tugged a wildflower off its stem, like a casual stroll in the Garden with a goddess was totally normal.
“Make war and kill people with horses,” I said it out loud even though I didn’t want to. “Or plow fields and grow food with horses.”
Toci smiled and nodded proudly at me. We walked in silence for a bit. I played with the delicate flower with a calm I knew wasn’t mine.
“I know how much of a shock I am to your world, Wray,” Toci said softly.
“Is that why you’re manipulating my emotions?”
“You’re aware of that, huh?”
I felt her leave my mind. The rush of it was just as overwhelming as the first time.
“Why did you give me away?” It blurted from my mouth, uncontrolled.
Toci stopped in her tracks. Her mouth twisted in pain, she turned toward me with true pain evident in her face. “I had no choice,” she whispered in what I knew was her real voice. Her eyes got glassy with tears.
“What am I?” I whispered and held my breath eager, yet, afraid of the answer.
She studied my eyes, my face. Then the moisture in her eyes went away and her controlled composure was back. Toci turned and gracefully walked back the way we came. “You are part tellurian, part Nacreous.”
“A half-breed.”
Toci stopped in her tracks. “Never say that about yourself again.”
The force with which she said it scared me. “Okay.” I swallowed.
“You’re a hybrid.” She lifted my chin. “A glorious hybrid.”
Whatever. Did the term matter? “Nacreous…such as mother of pearl?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And the skull? Who is it?”
“How should I know?” Toci snorted and smirked. “One skeleton looks the same as all the others. Besides, there are billions of Nacreous.”
I was about to ask about omnipresence.
“And, no, I don’t know them all personally.” She knew what I was going to say without reading my mind.
The wildflower played out, I flung it away. The conversation was surreal. At the same time, I felt the truth of Toci’s words. I believed her. I believed all the fantastical stuff she was telling me.
“Back to the skull.” Her tone more serious.
“I honestly don’t know where it is,” I answered her unspoken question.
“I get that.” Toci stopped at the edge of the trail just as the cul-de-sac came into view. Again, I got the feeli
ng she was debating with herself about how much to tell me.
“What?” I encouraged her with my voice and my eyes. “Please, tell me.” I begged with my voice, my mind, and my body language.
“Someone planted it for you to find. I’ve no doubt. That wasn’t an accident.”
I nodded. I’d come to the same conclusion. “Who would do that?”
Toci turned her eyes to the horizon, then, turned back to me with resolve in her expression. “Someone who wanted your attention.”
I nodded again.
Toci narrowed her eyes at me. “Someone who knows that you’re a Nacreous goddess.”
Panic flushed my entire system.
Eyes wide in alarm, Toci took hold of my shoulders. “Breathe.”
I wanted to. I hyperventilated instead. I’m an alien. I really, really am.
“Wray.” She shook me gently. “Breathe like I taught you. Take a deep, deep breath.”
I sucked in through my nose.
“Deeper,” she commanded me.
I opened my mouth and inhaled as much as I could.
“More.” She nodded.
What? How could I—but I switched to my nose and filled that proverbial extra chamber.
“Exhale excruciatingly slow,” she continued. “And do it all again.” She stroked my arms with her heated hands.
I followed her instruction. I exhaled to empty my lungs and refilled them. The second repetition did the trick. My breathing settled, my body calmed, and she released me.
“We’ll talk more later,” she said in her most soothing voice. “Right now, I’d like to visit some old friends. Will you be all right walking the rest of the way by yourself?”
My snotty attitude, simmered hot and fast, boiling over almost instantly. “No. I’ve never been here by myself before.” Glancing around the cul-de-sac I played in as a child, I said it in the most sarcastic tone I had.
With a tense and frustrated sigh, Toci turned to a path leading east, leaving me without saying another word. The only sound was the sonar that Toci put in my head. It pinged softly.
Back at the house, MawMaw was in the kitchen. A fork in each hand and leaning on the counter to steady herself, she shredded cooked chicken on a cutting board. She stopped and watched me sit to take off my shoes.
After a few moments of staring at me, she turned her attention back to the chicken. “Will you please get the mayo out of the fridge?”
I did, along with the pickles, and I reached into the pantry for a sweet onion too. Together, we chopped and mixed the batch of chicken salad in silence. It wasn’t our typical satisfying quiet. No. It was a new kind of silence, one that separated us and broke my heart. From her vibe, I got that MawMaw felt the same. The salad done, I covered the bowl and put it in the fridge for later.
MawMaw went back to her knitting like nothing at all was wrong. It was a ruse, though, because her thoughts were filled with me and the honed bone from her bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said aloud. “I never meant for you to find out the truth in such a traumatic way. I was the one who was supposed to show you how to use the stone to contact home, but not until you were an adult.”
I looked around the living room—at her knickknacks, some of which I’d given her, a couple that they told me Dad made in grade school. “Home,” I repeated.
“Your other home. You understand that my home is always your home, too, don’t you?”
I didn’t understand anything for sure anymore and a sloth-like shrug of my exhausted shoulders said so.
That made MawMaw sadder. Still, she smiled. “You look drained.”
I nodded.
“Go get some rest.” She focused her eyes and her mind on turning the heel on the sock she was knitting.
With that, I went upstairs to the bathroom, taking each step with legs that felt heavy as lead. I brushed my hair and put my necklace back on. I scooted Gertie’s ring aside to finger the star and closed my eyes.
Like it was me he was pounding, I watched teenage Dad bring the hammer down. But I didn’t flinch. As far as I can recall, I never did—even as a child sitting on Mom’s lap and reaching for it when it was around her neck.
They’re still my parents, I told myself. I am who I am because of them. Or not. I let go of the star and went to my room. Lowering myself to the bed, I glanced around in a daze. I looked at the dark walls I loved, at the posters of the cosmos that now made perfect sense, and at the collection of dreamcatchers.
In New York City and in Manitou Springs, all of it together was my sanctuary, but at that moment, it felt so foreign.
I slid down, put my head on my pillow, and stared at the dreamcatchers in the eave above me. My attention focused on the first one, the lacy one that came with me. Did Toci put it in the box? Why? And who made it? I drifted off to sleep wondering.
Outside my bedroom window, MawMaw’s truck started with a roar. That was odd enough. Then, she put it in gear and immediately drove off. She didn’t wait for the oil to circulate like she typically did.
I sat up to look out the window just in time to catch her taillights disappearing around the corner of the street. Wherever she was going, she was in a hurry. From the other direction, Kanaan and Toci walked toward the house from the Garden of the Gods. He spoke to her with a smile on his face. She laughed at whatever it was he said. It all looked so cozy.
With crossed arms, I met them in the kitchen.
“Hey, there you are.” Kanaan put an arm around me. “We were just talking about you.”
Arms still crossed, I stepped away from him. “Were you now?” I shot Toci a glare.
“I see you’re still in angry mode.” Toci elegantly lowered herself to a chair.
“Oh well, you know me. Oh, wait.” I threw up my hands. “You don’t.”
“I know more about you than you think,” she said. “Osyka has been in touch on a regular basis.”
“Hmmm. That’s odd, because I don’t recall any shafts of lights coming from this house.”
Toci sighed. “That’s not the only form of communication we have.” She touched her temple with an index finger and then pointed it at me. “We have telepathy, remember?”
“Wow. It’s works through outer space?” Kanaan seemed impressed.
Toci nodded and shrugged. “With some glitches, and a lot of variables, but yes.”
“MawMaw’s not telepathic,” I reminded her.
“How do you know?” Toci smirked at me.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it.
“What kind of glitches?” Kanaan asked Toci.
“It takes quite a bit of energy—” She launched into a scientific explanation.
The phone in my pocket stopped and almost immediately started again.
I wanted to hear what Toci was saying but took out my phone to see who was being so insistent. It was Amaya. I tapped to answer and put it to my ear. “Hey.”
“I found the skull,” she said it so low, I barely heard her.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because—” She broke off with a choked sob.
My stomach knotted. “Because why, Amaya?”
Kanaan and Toci stopped talking to watch me. I put my phone on speaker.
“Because Mommy’s mad,” Kai said. “Really mad.”
“Shhh.” Amaya shushed him.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Garage,” Amaya murmured. “Listen. I put the skull in the best hiding place in the world.”
Something slammed loudly in the background on her end. Amaya sucked in a quick breath. Kai whimpered.
“I know you’re in here, Amaya,” Mrs. Bell called, a singsong tone—one that was even scarier than her mean voice. “I want my pretty skull back.”
“Leave her alone, Kenta!” That was MawMaw’s voice.
And that’s when Kanaan, I, and even Toci, ran for the door.
“I’m coming,” I said, into the phone.
“No!” Amaya shout-whispered
.
There was scuffling noise, some gasps, Kai’s outright scream. Then, the call disconnected.
Chapter 30
The closer I got to Amaya’s house, the louder the ping in my head got. Kanaan sprinted ahead. Huffing and puffing, Toci brought up the rear. MawMaw’s truck was parked across the Bell driveway. It looked like she wanted to block any vehicles from leaving.
Shouts reached us through the wide-open side door. I heard Kai’s voice clearest over all of them.
“Mommy! Please don’t do this!”
“I want that skull!” Mrs. Bell demanded. “What did you do with it, Osyka?”
“She doesn’t have it, Mom!” Amaya shouted.
“Oh yes, she does. She likes hiding important things like that from the world.”
A gunshot thundered inside. A nanosecond later, MawMaw’s windshield shattered.
Kanaan, right behind the truck, ducked.
“MawMaw!” I ran up the sidewalk.
Another shot roared loudly. I felt the bullet whiz by my face.
“Get against the wall,” Toci ordered.
We both flattened our backs to the stone wall surrounding Amaya’s yard.
“Turn off the sonar, please,” I begged Toci.
It stopped at the same moment I yanked my necklace off and shoved it in my pocket. Amaya? I hoped my thoughts reached her.
Wray! Oh, Wray!
What’s going on? I asked.
My mom wants the skull.
I got that much.
“The bones are my son’s only hope!” Mrs. Bell’s voice was high and shrill. “I won’t let him die!”
“Look at him, Kenta,” MawMaw’s soft voice tried to reason with her. “He’s already healed.”
“No thanks to you,” Mrs. Bell’s voice had lowered to a growl.
She’s psycho. Toci’s diagnosis matched mine.
“The point is, you don’t need the stone or the skull,” MawMaw said.
“What if his disease comes back? You’d just turn your back on him like you did before.” One consistent tone in Mrs. Bell voice was pure disgust. She didn’t just dislike MawMaw. She despised her. I couldn’t let MawMaw face that by herself. I shifted my crouch a bit higher so I could shuffle toward the garage.