Once she’d realized she wouldn’t have a telephone in the van, Fana had brought herself as close to trance as she’d dared, trying to send mental signals. She’d wanted her family to know what she knew: The shelter wouldn’t be enough to protect them. She’d felt Teka for a time, but his presence had vanished as soon as it had appeared. She hadn’t been able to find her mother, of course—Mom’s streams were too unpracticed—but again and again, Fana had run into Aunt Alex.
Always behind the schoolhouse, frozen in surprise.
The image of Aunt Alex had been so vivid that Fana had felt herself climb into her own fantasy, visualizing herself whispering in Aunt Alex’s ear: Mom? Run!
But it had been too late. Home had felt like a lie, suddenly. A childhood memory, already gone.
Behind the van, the border town was still in sight below, hazy and sprawling. Without the distracting roar from Nogales, grief shredded Fana’s stomach. Sharp, awful pain. She found a scarf on the seat and wrapped it over her head to try to block the window’s light, which suddenly seemed too bright.
Trance. Trance out.
But she couldn’t trance out today, or ever again. She had to face this day somehow. She couldn’t undo the colossal mistake of running away, but she had to minimize the damage. Fana remembered one of Teka’s mantras: Your past is your shadow. It has form but no substance, except in the places you allow it to touch you.
Shadows.
Yes. Fana could almost remember now. Once she had known she could do anything she wanted to do if she enlisted her mind. She had enjoyed that feeling, once. No struggle. Pure, naked will. Even her unborn thoughts had become manifest. Once.
Remembering made Fana’s fingers tremble. She had hurt people. She had burdened lives already rife with pain, turning herself into the kind of evil humans had invented prayers against.
Fana heard a droning hum. She pressed her palm against the van window, because the sound seemed loud enough to shake the road. But she couldn’t feel the humming against the window. Instead, she heard it better when she covered her ears.
The sensation was strong, and gaining strength. Like a massive machinery gearing up.
But it was no machine. Buried inside the humming, a whispered invitation: FANA?
Voiceless, yet distinct. Not male, not female. Definitely not Aunt Alex, Teka, or her mother. Fana shivered from the top of her scalp to the ends of her toes. Don’t listen.
To block out the humming, Fana turned around and leaned across her seat to focus her attention on Johnny. He was still unconscious, flat on his back, strapped in with seat belts. But his wound was healing. She had saved Johnny.
She didn’t need the Shadows again. Never.
“Never,” she whispered, although she had vowed never to speak to Them again.
NO SUCH THING AS NEVER, BEE-BEE.
Gramma Bea’s voice?
With a burst of concentration, Fana shut the humming sound away. As soon as the vibration stopped, her mind missed the lulling assuredness. The humming had felt like a portal into herself, leading to everything Teka had been coaxing her to bring out. And here it was, waiting. Why shouldn’t she touch it?
Because you’ll turn into someone else, just like Mom said. Remember the hurricane?
To keep herself away from the humming, Fana set her restless mind free throughout the van. Johnny’s sleeping thoughts were calm, as if the day hadn’t happened; he was dreaming himself back to his parents’ dinner table. Caitlin sat beside Johnny, one elbow leaning on the car door as she gazed through the window, her thoughts riveted on the mountains. Charlie’s chin rested on his chest, his cowboy hat hanging forward; he was near dozing, too. Charlie’s thoughts were placid memories of his history with the Mexican monks. They made him feel safe.
But Fana didn’t like the monks.
Fana turned around to study the monks’ square-jawed profiles. They had none of the Rolfsons’ friendly chattiness; it was as if they had appeared by obligation. And they didn’t wear their feelings in their faces. Were they monks at all?
Fana tested the two monks, probing toward the front of the van.
Most High.
The peculiar phrase lighted on Fana’s perception in a gentle pulse from one of the monks, startling her. Did they know who she was? How could they? Fana sat up straighter, trying to amplify her mental probe, but everything was a blurry mess, just out of her reach.
The van pitched to the side in a pothole, and Fana’s gaze fell to her window.
A figure stood at the side of the road, not ten yards in front of the van. An old woman.
The woman seemed to have appeared in the bright circle of sunlight through the branches of the pine trees. Fana hadn’t seen anyone just an instant before, and now suddenly she was there. The van’s nose passed within six inches of her kimono.
As the van sped past, Fana caught an eye-blink’s glimpse of her face.
Gramma Bea!
Gramma Bea’s face was as still as a photograph: a thin nose, sharp cheekbones and skin softly etched in patterns of wrinkles narrating stories from her life. And the kimono was hers too; black silk, with patterned roses in pink. Gramma Bea’s eyes didn’t just fly by—they stayed with Fana. But Gramma Bea didn’t smile. Her face was sour, eyes flashing sad disapproval.
As the van sped on, Fana’s neck snapped so she wouldn’t lose sight of Gramma Bea. She was barely visible, as if they had traveled three times the distance they had. Gramma Bea took a lurching step, favoring her bad hip. Then she was gone; swept around the bend, hidden by trees.
Fana’s face pressed against the warm glass. Her fingertips tapped on the window, her last wave stolen as she stared at the empty road behind her. Fana’s heartbeat shook her body.
Was that good-bye?
Fana knew the answer and fought knowing. The pool of grief was waiting for her whenever she was ready to wade in it. Just not yet. She had a bigger imperative: What did Gramma Bea’s visit mean? Gramma Bea could have brought a happier face to say good-bye.
I’ve made another mistake, Fana realized. Gramma Bea had come a long way to tell her so.
Fana nudged Charlie’s knee and felt him snap awake, rigid.
“What’s wrong?” he said, ready for a crisis.
Fana wished she could just send him her thoughts, but she would have to settle on keeping her voice low. “We have to stop. I have a bad feeling.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlie said.
Caitlin sat forward to lean between them. “Fana gets feelings. No bullshit.”
Fana wished Caitlin would keep her voice down. The monks’ ears must be ringing by now from the urgency in their voices, but she didn’t have a way to write Charlie a note.
“I don’t trust these people,” Fana whispered. “They’re not who they say they are.”
Charlie searched her eyes, matching her whisper. “How do you know?”
“Because I know,” Fana said.
“Fana knows things,” Caitlin said. This time, she gestured her hands with a flourish, as if she was dispensing fairy dust. “She saw the words And blood toucheth blood, like prophecy.”
Caitlin was still speaking too loudly and saying too much, like she was kegged. Fana expected Charlie to laugh at them; or worse, to look at Fana with accusation. But Charlie’s eyes were sober and accepting. He glanced toward the men driving their van, then he leaned closer to Fana. His scent plowed past her fevered thoughts.
“The thing is,” Charlie began, his lips close to her ear, “I’ve known these guys a long time. So has Caitlin. They’ve been friends to the Railroad.”
“They’re not friends, Charlie. I think…they’re pretending. Playing a role.”
As she spoke, she felt more certain. Her probes might be weak, but she felt it.
Charlie didn’t blink. “Then we have to kill them,” he said. His eyes waited, not blinking.
Fana imagined Gramma Bea’s disapproving face through the van window again, and gooseflesh crawled across her skin. “What?” Fana
said. “Are you joking?”
“Hell, no,” Caitlin said, hushed. “It’s all or nothing, Fana.”
Charlie went on: “We know somebody gave us up in Casa Grande. We survived by luck. Someone on the inside is after us. What if these guys are spies?”
“If they are,” Caitlin said, “we need to kill them now, before we get wherever they’re taking us. So are you sure, Fana? As sure as when you knew the cops were coming?”
Fana felt dizzy. When had Charlie and Caitlin become such a united front, practically finishing each other’s sentences? And since when did Caitlin casually talk about killing people?
“What about Gandhi and Dr. King?” Fana said. “The Railroad is nonviolent.”
“Weren’t those Mitchell Rolfson’s last words?” Caitlin said with a smile that chilled Fana. Caitlin was still completely zoned.
“No killing,” Fana said. “We can take the van and leave them on the road.”
“That’s loca. So they can send people to hunt us down?” Charlie said. His eyes gleamed like glass. “Those two guys are about to kill us, but we should sit on our asses?”
“I never said they were about to kill us,” Fana said.
Charlie brought his lips closer to her ear. “But if you knew those guys wanted to kill us, you’d want us to sit and wait?” Charlie said. “Or should we defend ourselves?”
Caitlin stared, defying Fana to lie. Fana’s eyes smarted. She felt another bubble of grief. Had Gramma Bea cast her that stern gaze for something she was about to do?
“OK,” Fana said. OK what? It’s OK to kill them? Her tongue felt thicker as her heart pounded. “But I have to be sure.”
Fana probed the two monks again. This time, the cloudiness was gone, and she found a nest of repetitive and predictable thoughts. The driver, Tomás, nursed a secret, unconsummated love for a farm girl. The other, Esteban, warred with inner doubts over his faith.
These were good men. At her word, they might have died.
Charlie’s hand slipped into his waistband, toward his gun. Quickly, Fana grabbed his fingers. “No,” she said. “I was wrong.”
The taller of the monks glanced back at them in his rearview mirror, then away.
Gradually, Charlie let go of the gun, but he felt like a coil beside her. He had never killed anyone before. She felt him tremble. “You’re sure?” he said.
“I’m sure,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Jesus, Fana,” Caitlin said. “Don’t freak us out.”
“Be careful what you say,” Charlie said, vanishing beneath his hat’s brim again. “I would do anything for you, negra.”
Sadness. A thicky, murky pool.
A large structure appeared ahead on the dirt road, higher on the mountain. A church, not quite finished. Like the palatial San Javier del Bac Mission they had passed in Tucson, the unfinished church looked like a princess’s castle in a fairy tale. Breathtaking.
But Fana hardly noticed the church. All she saw was Gramma Bea’s unhappy face, her lurching, painful walk. Gramma Bea filled her being. Grief took her breath. Her chest ached.
It would be so much harder to talk to Gramma Bea now.
Because her own head was so painful, Fana flung herself into Charlie’s, looking for something to cling to. She found it: Charlie had lost his Abuela when he was twelve, and he would understand what she was feeling, perhaps even better than she did. He might be the one to tell her what to do about the hole falling open inside of her.
“I think…my grandmother died,” Fana said. A whisper.
But Fana said it so softly that even Charlie couldn’t hear. There was no time for sharing. No time to hide in Charlie’s head, violating him again.
The Shadows were nearby. Other immortals, too. Someone as strong as Teka, or even Berhanu, could hide themselves from her for a time—longer than she wanted to admit. Someone could learn her thoughts without her knowledge, if they were strong enough. Teka always said she was the most powerful immortal, but that had never rung true. How could it be?
She had to reinforce her masking, even if it made the world hazy. Fana knew from long experience that she could keep others out if she locked herself in.
And she had to do her best to mask Caitlin and Johnny, too. Caitlin’s mouth was bad enough, but her thoughts were dangerous. And Johnny was unconscious, but he would wake soon; his mind stirred with fresh, miserable memories of the day.
Fana’s sight faded, and colors dimmed as her mind covered itself in what felt like a gossamer wrapping. She stretched her imaginary blanket over Caitlin and Johnny, too, the way she had protected Caitlin in the woods.
But she had to be careful. The Shadows dwelled nearby, and the Shadows liked to talk. If she listened long enough, Fana knew she might remember everything she had sworn to forget.
Maybe I need to remember. Maybe I can’t protect us without extra help.
Beneath her, through her, around her, the humming was starting already.
The day had come! Michel’s fingers shook in his lap.
He had read of this day when he was only four. Papa had pointed the passage out to him in the Letter of the Witness. Mates immortal born.
It is you, Michel, Papa had said. You are Most High, the Bringer of the Blood.
And now the time had come, a promise fulfilled. Michel closed his eyes, stilled by joy.
MICHEL? IS THAT YOU I SEE?
It sounded faint, a flea’s whine, but Michel heard Papa trying to reach him. Papa was improving: They were still half a kilometer from the church. It had just come in sight.
Michel shared his exuberance: Papa, she loves me!
SHE WILL IN TIME.
She loves me now. Already. She loves my face. She loves my heart.
DO NOT COMPEL HER, MICHEL.
How could Papa think he would be cruel enough to abuse Fana the way Papa had abused his mother? The thought of his mother’s empty head enraged Michel so much that his triumphant moment felt sullied. He wished he had ignored Papa’s pitiful calls.
Let Papa see Fana’s love himself, the irrefutable vision of how gloriously he had succeeded where Papa had failed. Michel had not exerted an ounce of will on Fana. He was not the monster his father was.
MICHEL?
This time, Michel didn’t answer his father’s probe. He took Fana’s hand, and she looked up at him with those aware eyes, laced with sadness. Michel felt shaken by her grandmother’s death, too. He had been so careful! Her family was intended as a gift to her, not a punishment.
But Teka was not easy to master. Even with aid from Fana’s marvelous thought streams, Teka often felt farther away than he should. It had taken Michel nearly thirty minutes to find entry into Teka’s meditation; Teka traveled far. And he was slippery.
But Michel had held on.
Michel might have done more for the grandmother sooner, but the logistics! Sometimes he’d had to close his eyes to maintain the fragile thread with Teka, whose loyalty to Fana was fierce. Michel hadn’t been able to play nursemaid to the grandmother at the same time Teka had been piloting a jet plane. And with a second puppet as copilot? Impossible. Not without Fana’s help.
He’d been lucky the plane hadn’t crashed from the sky.
Have I cost you a loved one already, my darling? I promise you—never another.
He would try to honor his promise with all his might.
“Are we here?” Fana said, her doe’s eyes blinking at him.
Fana could never help probing him, even unconsciously, so he flooded her with the happiness her eyes inspired in him. That made her smile.
“Yep,” he said. “This is the place.” Your destiny.
“Destiny?” she said, wrinkling her brow.
She had forgotten, and he had forgotten.
She had forgotten not to parrot his thoughts, and he had forgotten to filter. Not for long, but long enough. The more of himself he gave her, the more he longed to dive into her, shedding the fictions he had created for her inquisitive mind. He would have to
be more careful.
It would be unthinkable to lose Fana’s smile now.
Michel gave her Charlie’s bashful grin, lapsing into Charlie’s blessed simplemindedness. “I was just…thinking about something I read when I was a kid. How things happen the way they’re supposed to. We’re here because of destiny. You believe in that too?”
Fana’s smile survived despite her tears. “Yes.”
Even the divine needed something to believe in.
Maybe it was a sudden shower of blood from Michel’s celebrating heart, but the church’s size and height felt dizzying as the van circled the fountain in the courtyard’s round driveway. The last two months’ improvements were striking. Even the pebbles in the driveway glistened. The west altar was draped in scaffolding, but its walls soared high. The dome, once complete, would stand in testament to its inhabitants.
Until the pilgrims came, it would be theirs alone.
Michel hadn’t always intended to bring Fana’s family, but why shouldn’t they have their own wing? If Fana chose, she could live far from his touch or gaze. He already had her room prepared, and he would give her time if she needed it. But how long must he wait?
The van stopped, and Romero gave two short bursts on the horn. Six attendants appeared from the garden, wearing paint-spattered aprons. The attendants opened the van’s doors, but they quickly stepped back to keep a distance.
No one was to touch Fana. They knew that anyone who did would lose his hands.
The sanctuary doors flew open, one doorkeeper tugging on each. Papa walked briskly down the marble steps, nearly running. He was dressed in a white guayabara and pressed blue jeans rather than the ceremonial robes he usually preferred. Papa had cut his hair short and dyed it an unflattering silver-blond since his escape from the morgue.
As Caitlin hopped out of the van, Stefan’s grin vanished.
“Your old friend,” Michel called through the van’s open door. “Caitlin, you remember Father Garcia.” Caitlin grinned, heartily shaking the hand of the man she had seen Fana’s father kill. Caitlin’s reaction, though buried, was powerful; Stefan’s face jarred a memory that loosened Michel’s hold on her. Michel saw her eyes go flat, and it had nothing to do with him.
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