The session ends a few minutes later—with Dad thanking Ivory for guiding him through “my best meditation so far!”
“The achievement is entirely yours,” Ivory assures him. “I provide merely the breath of wind that stirs your chimes.”
Scrunched next to Jett in the narrow space of the duct, I notice something odd. At that moment, I feel no itch anywhere on my body—none at all, zero. All I can think of is the memory of my father weeping like a heartbroken child.
It’s a sound I’m never going to be able to unhear.
19
Jett Baranov
All this time I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Congratulations: it’s worse.
Somehow, the Oasis without Needles is extra awful. That’s kind of like improving on perfection—on Opposite Day.
I miss the little guy. I’ll never be able to explain why—not even to myself. Trust me, I’m not lying awake nights, praying for a time machine so I can go back and stop stupid Brandon from springing my lizard. I’m not plotting some twisted revenge on him—or on Grace, who would have done it if Brandon hadn’t. I just miss Needles, that’s all. Maybe I have a deep longing to be ignored by him one more time. Whatever. It isn’t going to happen. Vlad always told me that woulda-shoulda-coulda is a sucker’s game.
Which doesn’t mean I’ve stopped hoping I can get Needles back. Grace caught him once; there’s no reason he might not show up again. I make sure the paint tray is filled with fresh water and the shed door stays slightly open, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve also upped my soaks in the Bath, because that’s where he turned up the first time. I’ve had to relax my rule about being alone. Adults love being boiled alive too much, so the hot spring is rarely deserted. I have a theory that, as you age, the nerve endings under your skin lose their sensitivity, which makes a good scalding more fun.
Anyway, I’m in the Bath when I spot the chipmunk—or I should say what’s left of the chipmunk. It’s lying dead in the grass just beyond the rocks surrounding the hot spring. The carcass is pretty messed up and gross—it was obviously killed by another animal. I can’t help thinking of Grace’s story—Needles attacking that mouse. And part of me wants to believe . . . well, if our former pet could take down a mouse . . .
But a chipmunk is bigger than a mouse, and predator or not, Needles is pretty puny. I’m thinking it because I want it to be true—that he’s still around somewhere, surviving by hunting, just like Grace said.
Suddenly, the two ladies on the other side of the hot spring are on their feet, waving and cheering. When I spy the object of their attention, I draw in a gulp of air and drop down under the surface of the near-scalding water. It’s Ivory in all six foot four of her neon spandex glory, biking along the path toward the welcome center and the exit.
Here’s the thing: when Ivory hits the road by herself—not leading a tour of Oasis cyclists—she’s always gone for a pretty long time. This could be the opportunity I’ve been hoping for!
If my own run-in with the meditation pathfinder wasn’t enough to convince me, watching her one-on-one with Tyrell’s dad sealed the deal. I don’t know what to call what she does to people—hypnosis? Brainwashing? Mind control? And I don’t know why she does it. What could she possibly hope to gain from putting Mr. Karrigan through an experience like that? Is it some twisted plan to make everybody love and need her? Does she just get her jollies from messing with people’s heads? Or could there be another motive—one I haven’t figured out yet?
One thing’s for sure: what she’s doing is wrong and it shouldn’t be happening.
That’s why I’ve been waiting for a chance to break into her cottage and see what she’s up to. I poke my head out of the water and open my stinging eyes in time to see Ivory wheel her bike out onto the road and pedal off. Then I rise from the Bath, gasping and dripping. On some level, I appreciate that I’ve just shattered my record for total immersion in the hot spring. But I can’t focus on that now. If I don’t take advantage of Ivory’s absence, who knows when the next opportunity will come along?
In the change booth, I towel off and throw on shorts and a T-shirt. Next stop: the main village. The pathfinders live in the same kind of cottages that the guests do. No separate section; they’re mixed in with us. Brooklynne told us that came straight from Nimbus himself when he invented the Oasis. He wants pathfinders, guests, and buddies to be a “true community.” It all sounds super whole until you think of Ivory tinkering with people’s heads while living right next door to you. Creepy.
A couple of old guys from the Bermuda-shorts-and-bony-knees crowd are standing in front of cottage 16, arguing over which of Evangeline’s eggplant recipes is the healthiest. So I have to cool my heels until they move on, heading for the lake.
Ivory’s place, number 18, looks exactly like all the other cottages, except that there’s a picture of a pink brain oozing around the letter I centered on the front door. This lady really likes herself.
I never threw out the paper clips I used to break into the welcome center to steal back my phone, fat lot of good it did me. So it only takes me about forty-five seconds to pick Ivory’s lock.
I step inside into the air-conditioning, expecting to feel a surge of triumph at putting something over on that stinker. My only emotion, though, is something I’m not used to: I’m kind of scared. Nimbus is sort of funny, with his multicolored tracksuits and his kale shakes and his goofball philosophies. But Ivory is different. I see the glowing pen moving back and forth in front of my face, and remember how it made me feel—my weird compulsion to do what she told me to.
Ivory is dangerous.
First impressions: The meditation pathfinder is a neat freak. The cottage is tidy and gleaming. I frown. Maybe too tidy. Except for the pink brain on the front door, there isn’t a single personal touch. Besides the furniture, which is the same as what they have in all the cottages, the place is practically empty. There isn’t so much as a pen, a book, a piece of mail, or a cup from last night’s herbal tea, not even in the kitchen sink. I mean, Matt and I have more stuff than this, and we’re only visitors. Ivory lives here.
Cottage 18 is a one-bedroom, although the rooms are a little bigger than in our two-bedroom unit. It has a king-size bed, which makes sense, since its occupant is a king-size lady. I sit down on the mattress, expecting to sink in. Forget that. Leave it to Ivory to sleep on a block of granite. Maybe being uncomfortable helps you meditate. And—
When I spot the object on the nightstand, it looks so natural, so ordinary, that it takes a few seconds for me to register what a big deal it is.
A cell phone!
My first response is fury. Isn’t it just like that rotten Ivory to be living in the twenty-first century while the rest of us are stuck in the Stone Age?
But as my anger fades, it starts to sink in how weird this is. Why would the second-in-command at the Great Unplugged be violating the number one rule of the place? Man, I hadn’t been at the Oasis thirty seconds before she confiscated all my technology because “on the path to wellness, the only screen you need is the vast blank slate of your imagination.” Besides, reception is terrible here. I kind of doubt Ivory springs for the satellite capability I get from Fuego.
I examine the phone. If there’s any signal, I plan to order another Dance Dance Revolution machine—and Vlad won’t be picking up the tab for this one, that’s for sure.
The screen asks for a password to get in. Figures. Ivory isn’t the trusting type.
As I set it back down on the nightstand, I catch a glimpse of lustrous dark fabric across the room. The closet door is partly open and—is that an evening gown? Who needs a fancy dress at the Oasis, where a zip-lining harness counts as business casual and the temperature never dips below ninety degrees?
I walk over to the closet to investigate. It’s a dress, all right, size Ivory. And there are seven of them, with jeweled bodices, complex embroidery, and lush fabrics. I check the labels, but I don’t really have to. I can already tell th
is is super-expensive stuff, handmade in Paris and Milan. Vlad buys dresses like this for Mom, not that she ever wears any of them. She’s a T-shirt, jeans, and lab coat gal, and she’s usually in a place where the definition of luxury is running water, not high fashion.
The bottom line is, designer gowns cost big bucks. As in bigger bucks than a meditation pathfinder earns.
What’s going on, Ivory? What else are you hiding?
I riffle through all the dresses. The only thing I come up with is a single piece of paper in the pocket of a silk jacket. It’s the bill from a restaurant called Dean’s Chop House in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. There, our vegetarian vice-Nimbus ordered a porterhouse steak for two, medium rare. Ninety bucks.
Phony. Hypocrite. Sleazeball! Raking me over the coals because of a few candy bars, while she’s dining on prime beef in a three-thousand-dollar outfit! Haranguing an entire Oasis of gullible sheep about the vegetarian lifestyle when she’s living the exact opposite of that! People like Matt, Tyrell’s parents, Grace and her mom—they believe in this faker. Okay, I ate meat in Hedge Apple, but at least I’m not slinging beets and celery at everybody else. Liar. Fraud. Lecturing everybody on being whole when she isn’t even 10 percent! Miss When-I-Breathe-In-I-Breathe-In has been inhaling a heck of a lot of prime beef!
I have to fight down the urge to leave the receipt on Ivory’s pillow, just so she’ll know that somebody’s onto her. That’s a bad idea. The one advantage I have is that she thinks she’s getting away with everything. I stuff the slip back in the jacket pocket.
My next stop is the small desk under the bedroom window. To be honest, I’m expecting it to be as empty as the rest of the cottage. There isn’t so much as a pencil or a pad of Post-its on the desktop. So when I open the drawer, I’m surprised to find a leather zipper pouch.
I open it and draw out a sheaf of rectangular papers held together by a paper clip. They’re checks! The top one is in the name of Marilyn Bucholz—Brandon’s mother? It’s made out to “Friends of the Oasis” in the amount of—I goggle—ten thousand dollars!
I sift through the stack. They’re all checks, all payable to Friends of the Oasis. And the amounts—five thousand, ten thousand, twelve thousand. There’s one from Daphne Atwater—Grace’s mom—for twenty thousand bucks! Last is a check from Mr. Karrigan for seventy-five hundred, dated just yesterday.
What’s going on here? I know it’s expensive to come to the Oasis, but don’t you have to pay all that beforehand? Of course you do—Vlad took care of the money part before we even got on the G650. Matt told me that. It was one of the reasons I wasn’t allowed to leave.
Besides, these don’t say Oasis; they say Friends of the Oasis. What does that mean? A couple of the checks have the word Donation scribbled on the info line at the bottom. The Oasis isn’t a charity, is it? And even if it was, why would Ivory be in charge of it instead of Nimbus?
I’m browsing from check to check, searching for some kind of answer, when I hear a click from the front hall. Someone has just put a key in the lock—and that someone can only be Ivory!
The jolt of fright that sizzles up my spine freezes my fingers, and I drop the whole sheaf on the floor. The clip pops free, and there are checks everywhere. Heart hammering, I fall to my knees and start gathering it all up. I hear Ivory open the door and enter the living room. She’s less than twenty feet away. If it wasn’t for the bedroom wall, she’d be looking right at me.
Desperately, I manage to stuff the checks back into the clip. On top is one I hadn’t noticed before—from Matthew Louganis in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Matt’s a young guy, just starting out at Fuego. He doesn’t have that kind of money to throw away!
In the other room, I hear the snap of Ivory unclipping her bike helmet. No time to think about Matt; no time to think about anything. If I’m still here when Ivory walks into the bedroom, I’m dead.
I cram the checks back into the pouch, zip it shut, and silently push the drawer closed. Ivory is so close now that I can practically feel the impact of her knuckles cracking as she stretches.
I climb up on the desk, ease the window open, and hurl myself out into a bed of petunias. I scramble up, shut the window behind me, and run like mad for good old cottage 29.
I’m spitting dirt, but I don’t care. Vlad always says that survival is the only thing that matters. He’s talking about business, but it counts for this too.
20
Grace Atwater
Don’t judge me. It’s possible to miss Needles and still believe it was a good thing when Brandon set him free.
I miss Needles and everything that came with keeping a secret pet. I miss being part of the tiny group that knew about him. As much as I love the Oasis, I have to admit that the thrill of sneaking out to the little shed at the edge of the woods made everything that much better. It reminds me of the rush I get from riding on the back of Dad’s motorcycle—pure exhilaration. The fact that Needles had to go doesn’t change that.
I even miss Brooklynne. I still don’t 100 percent trust her. But hanging around Needles, I sensed that she was becoming more open and honest—like her secretive side was more about us not asking the right questions than her trying to hide things from us.
All that’s over now. Needles is gone and Brooklynne is practically gone too. Except for the dining hall, I hardly ever see her. And even there she keeps her distance. I no longer suspect she’s with the CIA—but now she might as well be.
Tyrell is also different with Needles out of the picture. He still comes to Awakening, and the Bath, and meditation, and the other stuff. But he’s kind of stone-faced and doesn’t say much anymore. Plus his scratching and sneezing have gotten a lot worse, as if his allergies took a quantum jump to the next level. That shouldn’t have anything to do with a lizard, but some doctors say that love can have a positive impact on your health. We all loved Needles. So maybe losing him has affected us in different ways. It makes me sad.
By the way, the one person I don’t miss is Jett. He acts like he’s more upset about losing Needles than any of us, when it’s obvious the only thing that guy gives a flying leap about is himself—and maybe his father’s money. Too bad nobody left the door to cottage 29 open and let him escape.
The nerve of that guy, pretending to be searching for Needles like his heart is broken. If he had a heart—which I doubt—you probably couldn’t break it with a diamond drill bit. Every time I see him peering into the spaces under sheds and cottages or combing through the tall grass, I want to scream.
Here’s the thing I’d never tell Jett: there’s a pretty good chance Needles really is out there somewhere. I’ve been seeing a lot of evidence of a small predator at work around the center—a lot of tiny dead animals and birds scattered all over.
I know I’m not making it up when Magnus sets down his yoga mat next to a half-eaten baby sparrow and just about breaks his heart over the poor little thing.
Mom and I are both in that class. Yoga is one of the only activities that adults and kids take together.
“I guess it’s just nature,” Mom offers soothingly. “The circle of life and all that.”
Magnus pulls a handkerchief out of his periwinkle-blue warm-up suit and dabs at his eyes. “There must be a newcomer to the food chain in our woodland community,” he decides in his quiet voice. “That’s why we’re seeing so much tragic loss of animal life. Perhaps a hawk.”
So help me, I actually look up to the sky, hoping to spot a bird of prey swooping above the trees. But in my heart, I know there’s no hawk. The newcomer to the food chain is Needles. Now that he’s not getting any more hamburger from the supermarket in Hedge Apple, he’s on the hunt.
Mom notices that I’m kind of gloomy these days, but I can’t tell her the truth. So I explain that I’m a little extra lonesome for Benito this summer. It’s only a half lie, since my bad mood is definitely related to a pet.
Anyway, Mom believes me. Benito got sprayed by a skunk a couple of weeks before we left for the Oa
sis, and there isn’t enough tomato juice in the world to erase that. But the truth is, I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t thought of Benito in at least a week, or even of Dad, who has to live with the smell of fading skunk and stale tomato juice. The Oasis just isn’t restoring me the way it always used to.
Even the Bath, which always made me feel relaxed and wonderful, isn’t doing the trick anymore. I’m nestled in my favorite rock alcove, mineral steam rising all around me. But my shoulders are tight, my jaw is clenched, and I’m getting nothing out of it. This is the place where I found Needles, and I can’t shake the feeling that he might come back here.
Tyrell is there with me, scratching. He never scratched in the Bath before.
“Stop it,” I tell him irritably.
“I’m itchy,” he complains.
“It’s impossible to feel itch at these temperatures.”
He doesn’t even argue with that. “Yeah, but I know how bad it’s going to itch when I get out.”
“You guys!” Jett’s voice sounds distant over the bubbling of the hot spring. “Over here!”
Tyrell starts to get up. I put an iron grip on his arm. “We’re not his servants. Let him come to us.”
Jett peels off his shirt, kicks out of his shoes, and plows into the water. I wait for the grimace of suffering on his face. It doesn’t appear.
Come on, where’s the suffering?
“What’s up?” Tyrell asks Jett.
“Ivory is a con artist!” Jett exclaims.
I’d probably turn bright red, except when you’re in the Bath, you’re already as red as it’s possible to be. “That’s rich!” I exclaim. “The most respected pathfinder here—second only to Magnus himself—is a con artist. What does that make you—a saint?”
Jett turns to Tyrell. “Didn’t you tell her?”
Tyrell looks uncomfortable. “I didn’t tell anybody. Not even my mother.”
“Tell me what?” I persist.
“We spied on Ivory doing meditation with my dad,” Tyrell manages. “It was—weird. Scary, even.”
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