by Kim Liggett
“I’m Rhys, and this is my sister, Ash—”
“I know who you are, silly. Everyone knows.” She studied me. “It’s uncanny, though.”
“What’s uncanny?” I asked, hoping for a clue about the dead girl.
She smiled. “The resemblance . . . to Katia.”
“You’ve seen Katia?” Rhys asked with a raised brow.
“Every year, on the summer solstice, she comes out of the corn to heal the sick with her blood and give us her blessing.”
“Ah, okay.” Rhys shot me a knowing look. “So, she lives in the corn.”
“Yep.” Beth peered into the fields behind us. “How’d you end up way over here? They’ve got a whole welcome party waiting for you over on the east side. Boy, is Spencer Mendoza going to be irked,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I can’t believe I got to meet you first.”
“How do you know our names?” Rhys asked. “How did you know we were coming?”
“Oh, no one knew you existed until a few days ago.” Her dark brown eyes sparkled in the fading light. “Katia told us you’d be coming home in time for the ceremony.”
“So, our mother’s here.” Rhys squeezed my elbow, letting out a huge sigh of relief. “She’s okay?”
“Oh, she won’t be arriving for a few more days. Katia’s taken them to see Aiyana in New Spain.”
“New Spain?” Rhys asked. “What . . . Mexico?”
I stepped in front of him. “Who’s Aiyana?”
“Aiyana’s the original immortal from the Quivira tribe. She taught Katia everything she knows. Aiyana will help prepare them for vesselship.”
“What do you mean ‘them’?” Rhys asked.
A giggle escaped her lips. She pressed her hand to her mouth like she could stuff it back in. “Your mother and your father, of course.”
“Our father?” Rhys sputtered. “Thomas? Has he been here this whole time?”
“What on earth do you mean? He’s been with Nina. With you.”
Rhys and I exchanged an uneasy look.
“We’ve never laid eyes on him,” Rhys said.
“Hmm . . . that’s curious.” Beth blinked furiously as she looked out over the corn. “I see.” She nodded to no one. “Let’s just keep that between us for now,” she said, pasting a smile back on her face.
“Can you take us to her . . . to them?” I asked, my pulse racing at the thought. Could our father and mother really be together right now?
“First things first.” Beth looped her arm through mine. “We have to get you cleaned up for the wreathing ceremony.” She wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but you smell funny.” She tugged on my arm. “Come on, everyone’s waiting.”
“What’s a wreathing ceremony?” I asked as my brother lagged behind with the bags.
“It’s very special.” Beth led us along the lakeshore. “It only happens once every seventeen years. A week before the ritual, the chosen daughter from the Larkin bloodline picks a boy from the Mendoza bloodline to walk the corn with on the summer solstice. Your bloodlines have been specifically bred for each other. For this occasion. It’s so romantic.” She took in a giant breath of air like a two-year-old. “Normally, you’d get to choose your own intended, but since you don’t really know anyone, Katia chose for you. You’re so lucky,” she said to me, sighing dreamily. “Wait till you see him.”
“Hold up, you mean I have to do this wreathing thing?”
“Oh, don’t fret. You don’t have to actually walk the corn. The vessels have already been found. But since Nina’s away, we thought you could stand in for her, experience your heritage. Tradition’s important around here. Wouldn’t want to miss a chance for a celebration. Your mother and father will walk the corn on the summer solstice before becoming Katia’s and Alonso’s vessels.”
“What does that even mean, being a vessel?” Rhys called from behind.
“Oh my stars! You don’t know?” She yanked me to a stop, waiting for Rhys to catch up.
“On the summer solstice, Katia will transfer her soul into Nina’s body so she can break her blood bond with Coronado. Then the Great Spirit will return Alonso’s soul, placing it in Thomas’s body. They’ll be together at last. They’ll finally be free. We all will,” she added wistfully.
“Uh-huh . . . sure.” Rhys shot me a weary sideward glance. He still thought all this was some kind of a hoax, but I was beginning to wonder. Maybe the legends were true. All of them.
Beth started walking again, pulling me along with her.
“But you can leave Quivira, right?” I asked. “It’s not like you’re being kept here against your will.”
“Why would anyone want to leave?” She waved her hand around. “We have everything we need. The community was sealed in 1861.”
“Sealed?”
“Because of the Arcanum.” She nodded, matter-of-fact.
“‘Arcanum’?” my brother asked.
“Coronado’s guards are called the Arcanum.” Beth lowered her voice, as if someone might be listening. “In 1861, Coronado brought the Arcanum here, and threatened to slaughter us all. That’s when Katia enraptured the corn.”
Rhys shook his head in dismay as he looked out over the fields.
“Oh, don’t worry, they can’t get in. The corn protects us.”
“The corn protects you?” Rhys burst out in a fit of nervous laughter and then dropped the bags at his feet dramatically. “So, you’re telling me Katia and Coronado are alive, like, living, breathing, alive, and immortal?”
“Of course, silly goose.” She bounced on the balls of her feet a few times.
“And you think our mom and Thomas are some kind of magic vessels.” Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Whew.” Beth pretended to wipe her brow. “For a minute there I thought you might be a little touched,” she said as she continued to pull me up the cobblestone path.
“Touched?” Rhys called after her as he regathered the bags. He looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. He pumped his legs harder to catch up to her. “What’s your deal?”
I shot him a look to be nice, but Beth didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m a seer. Seers can see into the future. But I’m broken. See?” She flipped her stick-straight strawberry-blond hair over to one side to reveal a large scar running the length of her skull. “I took a fall. I don’t remember anything. I guess it made my third eye clog and I was seeing all kinds of cuckoo banana things. I saw the two of you coming months ago—the path that will lead us from darkness—but then I also saw a monkey eating a walnut and I thought to myself, Beth, don’t be daft, we don’t even have walnut trees.”
“So, you’re saying you have monkeys?” Rhys’s voice cracked under the pressure.
Beth swirled a finger next to her temple making the crazy sign. “Apparently, I’m not the only one who hit their head,” she said, smacking his arm playfully. “I’m joshing you. No, we don’t have monkeys. But that would be grand, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, that would be grand.” Rhys looked around for an escape route.
Beth grinned. “You’re weird, but you’re cute. Are you intended?” She smoothed her hair down, tucking it behind her ears.
“What, like engaged? No.” Rhys jutted his head back, like he was disgusted by the idea. “Why, are you?”
A soft blush settled into her delicate skin. “Oh, I’m unintendable.”
“Well, I’m only seventeen,” Rhys replied.
“There’s no shame in being a late bloomer.”
She either had the best deadpan I’d ever seen or no sense of humor whatsoever.
As we turned down a narrow wooded path, Beth pointed things out, like where to find the best boysenberries, where to dig up arrowheads, how to make birdcalls, anything and everything that sprung into her head, which was a lot. “Up there, on to
p of Dead Man’s Hill”—she pointed to a simple shingled structure—“that’s the schoolhouse.”
“Dead Man’s Hill?” Rhys asked. “Why do they call it that? It’s not even that steep.”
“Oh, some people, when they get old, they just go up there and sit. And die,” she added with a sweet lilt to her voice as she spun around, making her yellow sundress billow.
My brother looked at me with wide eyes.
As we neared the end of the path, the enormous stone mansion came back into view. With its arched doorways, heavy leaded-glass windows, and grand entryway lined with brass lanterns hung from iron stands, it looked like something straight out of a gothic novel.
“The meeting house,” Beth announced.
With each step, my throat got a little tighter and my heart picked up speed. What if this didn’t work? Fooling Beth was one thing, but what if they figured out we didn’t really want to “come home”? What would they do to us?
Beth opened the heavy double doors and led us up a set of stairs to a long hallway.
“Boys on the right side, girls on the left,” she said as she steered me toward a tapestry curtain.
Rhys stepped in front of her. “She’s not going anywhere without me.”
“Okeydokey,” Beth chirped, and without a second thought she took his arm. “Rooster in the henhouse,” she called out as she opened the panel and led us into an enormous parlor full of half-naked women.
12
TRADITION
ASSAULTED BY A GANG of warm, soft bodies, Rhys and I were quickly separated by a flurry of hugs, tears of joy, and bursts of exaltation. Before I even knew what was happening I was corralled behind a flimsy screen.
“Well, she’s a Larkin, all right.” A sprightly woman with dark brown spiral curls came in close to study my face. “Just look at those eyes.”
“No need to be shy,” a burly woman said as she stripped off my blood-smeared blouse. “Can’t go to your wreathing ceremony looking like that.”
“We’re happy you’re home.” A woman glanced up at me shyly through light blond eyelashes as she crushed a soft gold substance in a pestle with gardenia-and-orange-blossom-scented oil. “You must be so proud of your mother and father.”
“Off we go.” Someone peeled off my camisole.
“Wait . . . ,” I sputtered as I clasped my arms around my bare chest.
Two younger girls crept behind the screen, giggling like hyenas as they pried off my boots and socks.
“Okay, if you can just hold on a min—”
“This is a happy day indeed.” A small birdlike woman with brown frizzy hair reached in and ripped the bandage off my collarbone.
“Hey!” I yelled, but they weren’t paying any attention to me.
“Is it really her?” A young girl approached, a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks, trying to see around the ample rumps surrounding me.
“Ooh, look at this fancy clasp,” another woman said as she unbuttoned my skirt.
“What the fuck?” I screamed as my skirt dropped around my ankles.
The room went deathly silent. They all looked at me in shock—like I’d just given them a universal slap.
I peeked my head around the screen to find Rhys biting the inside of his cheek, desperately trying not to laugh. I was on my own.
I stood there in my underwear, covering up the best I could with my hands, trying to figure out what to do next, when Beth sidled up to me with a tense smile. “It’s part of the ceremony, Ash. Tradition,” she whispered.
Why was she helping me? Did she know what Rhys and I were up to? She was a seer, which meant she could see the future. Granted, she was a broken seer, but it seemed like I should keep an eye on her anyway.
“What she means is she’s excited,” Beth announced to the crowd. “Right, Ash?” She nudged me in the ribs. “That’s the word they use for excitement where she comes from.”
“Yeah.” I managed a shaky smile. “I’m . . . excited.”
All the tension disappeared from Beth’s face, and the women picked up right where they left off.
Stripped of all my clothes, I was bullied into a copper tub full of warm water and rose petals. Not the roses you’d find in a cheesy honeymoon suite. These were real roses—wild roses—the kind that gave off the scent of some forgotten time.
I didn’t even like changing clothes for gym. Being bathed by a creepy cult was not on my favorite-things-to-do list.
The same woman who removed my bandage reached forward to untie the ribbon from my neck; I seized her hand. “The ribbon stays.”
“Let the girl be, Agnes,” a soft voice beckoned.
I released Agnes from my vise grip. She backed away from the tub looking more than a little terrified. I had no idea what made me react so strongly.
“Your ribbon’s lovely.” The woman with the kind voice settled next to me on a wooden stool. She had a shock of long white hair, and the skin around her cornflower-blue eyes looked like weathered parchment. “I’m Lucy, but my friends call me Lou.”
I pulled my knees in tight to my chest, half intrigued, half horrified by the scene playing out before me. The women looked fairly normal, considering how isolated they were from the rest of the world. Maybe a century or so behind the times, fashion-wise, but they seemed healthy and happy. There were three distinct looks. Some had thick black hair and olive skin. Others were sturdily built megawatt blondes, and then there were redheads with spindly limbs and wide smiles.
“Ash,” Rhys called out meekly. “If everything’s okay, I might just wait outside.” I peeked through the crowd of women to see my brother inching his way against the far wall, trying to make his escape. Beth caught his arm and swung him back into the thick of it.
“Ladies, this is Rhys Larkin and, yes, he’s unintended.”
The room erupted into a fit of cackles and catcalls. The look of horror he shot my way as they pawed him was priceless.
“May I?” Lou asked as she held up a pitcher of water.
Reluctantly, I tilted my head back and let her pour the water over my hair.
“I remember when I prepared your mother for this very occasion seventeen years ago,” she said. “You look so much like her.”
Just the mention of her brought up so many feelings—fear, hope, but above all, love. “When can I see her?” I asked, trying to bury my emotions, but the quiver in my voice betrayed me.
“Soon.” Lou smiled, her eyes twinkling. “This must be overwhelming for you,” she said as she worked tea tree oil into my hair. “Especially since you’re a conduit.”
I inhaled sharply. “What do you know about that?”
“I can sense auras. I definitely feel another presence with you, but Spencer already told us what you are.”
“Who’s Spencer?” I asked, sitting up straight, sloshing water over the side of the tub.
“Spencer Mendoza. He’s the spiritual leader of the community—Katia’s eyes and ears.” Lou snapped her fingers, motioning to the water on the floor.
Beth, who was talking to my brother, fetched a rag and maneuvered through the gathering.
“Sorry about that . . .” I winced, peering down at the puddle.
“No bother,” she said with a shrug as she mopped up the floor.
Lou leaned forward and whispered, “They say being a conduit is a curse, but you control it very well.”
Not well enough, I thought to myself. “My mother helped me.”
“I can see that,” Beth chimed in with a reassuring smile.
I ran my fingers over the last tattoo, wondering if it really was a curse. There was no pain when I touched it. I looked down to see that it had completely healed. And then I remembered my mother had pricked her finger with the bone needle when she was working on me. How she’d pressed her finger against my wound. As Katia’s vessel, m
aybe she was already immortal. Could she have healed me like Katia healed Alonso? She’d never been sick a day in her life, never been to the hospital, and she always looked so young.
Maybe that’s the reason the protection marks weren’t working anymore. Maybe her blood healed me before it could take effect—maybe it messed everything up.
As they scrubbed the grime of the outside world from my body, they told me stories about Katia. They spoke of her wisdom and kindness and the horrible injustice of Coronado killing Alonso and then forcing Katia to make him her immortal mate. But the biggest tragedy was when Coronado killed Katia’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Marie.
“To make matters worse,” Lou said as she leaned in close, “they say Marie was in love with Coronado. She was just a young woman, but first love is often the hardest. Can you imagine? Marie thought Coronado hung the moon, and then he killed her. Like his signet, a crow, wings outstretched, a star in one claw, a moon in the other, Coronado is a trickster. He’s capable of all kinds of treachery and black magic.”
A shiver of recognition rushed through me when I remembered my mother’s studio filled with those black birds. Was Coronado looking for her?
Lou placed her hand on my shoulder, startling me. “It might seem like a bunch of hooey to you that we’re going ahead with the wreathing ceremony this year when there’s no need, but it’s tradition. We didn’t even know until a few days ago that Nina and Thomas were the chosen vessels. Katia kept it a secret all this time to protect them from Coronado. But now the chosen vessels are coming home to walk the corn once again,” she said with a childlike grin.
“What does that mean, ‘walk the corn’?” I asked, peeling a rose petal off my shoulder.
“At the wreathing ceremony, the Larkin girl chooses a Mendoza boy—the boy of her heart. Then, at high noon on the summer solstice, Katia leads the couple into the corn, to a barren sacred circle of earth—the spiritual heart of Quivira. There, Katia tests the girl’s blood, hoping to find her vessel—the perfect match, so she can be free of her bond to Coronado and be reunited with Alonso.”