I didn’t know the direction of the mounds. It must have been Ezra. Not having an answer yet, I ask him again, “Where is he?”
Ira ignores my question and continues to speak quickly, nervously. “When we materialized here, you lost consciousness.”
Feeling a little disoriented from the loss of consciousness still, I ask “How long was I out?”
Ira’s voice is thick as he says, “Not long.”
I try to stand, but Ira continues to hold me down by my shoulders. I try to push his hands off of me with no avail. I look around him at Xander sitting on his knees, wide eyed. I angle around the other side of Ira and see Nate kneeling also, his head downcast. I felt wobbly myself from the jump, but they looked worse off than me. I find Lathan standing in the cavern opening, concern in his eyes.
I look at Ira. “I need to see my dad. Where is he? Is he talking to Sebastian? Daniel? Where are the others?”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me, wordless.
I call out, “Ezra!”
All of a sudden, I notice a light flickering beyond the opening to this cavern in the tunnel beyond Lathan. I recognize Daniel’s voice right away, then I hear Sebastian’s. Are they talking to Ezra? Ira is distracted by their voices and loosens his hold on me enough for me to take advantage of it and push away from him to stand and back away against the hard rock wall of the cavity. Back on me in an instant, Ira blocks me from escape.
Xander immediately rounds Ira and comes between him and me, resting his hands gently on my arms. “Jes, I need you to listen to me.”
The sound of his tone sends up another red flag that something is wrong.
I narrow my eyes on both of them. “Let me go.”
Ira looks down. “Can’t.”
Can’t?
I study Ira’s grieved face, he is affected by something that has happened. I look at Xander, the same expression is there. My anger begins to fail as my worry takes over. My voice quivers, “Where is he?”
Xander’s blue-green eyes don’t leave me as he speaks tenderly. “Jes, Ezra is gone.”
I shake my head, denying what he has said. “No.”
I point at the ground beneath me and raise my voice, “I brought all of us here! He is here!”
Ira speaks, “He is here, but his soul is not.”
Hearing the tension rise in my voice, Lathan pulls away from the opening to this cavern and moves toward us.
My voice swells without my control, “No!” I try to angle past Xander and Ira to the cavern opening, try to break free and find my dad, but Ira captures me in his arms. I fight against him, kicking, hitting and screaming. I turn on him and hit his chest, but hitting Ira is like hitting a wall, no budging.
I wail, “I need to see him!”
Ira lifts me off the ground as I’m kicking and screaming and starts walking, carrying me in his enormous arms. I scout the walls of the cavern, shadows cast along the jagged cut rocks as he wisps me out of one cavern and into another. Breathing hard through the cries and tears, Ira sets me down on the ground. In a flash, I turn around and all at once my tears, my breath, my reality stops. The only thing that doesn’t is the thud of my heart and the ringing in my ears as the image of Ezra laying on a makeshift cot, blanket draped over his chest sinks into my mind.
Ira slowly and cautiously lets go of my midsection letting me stand on my own. There is no fear of me running. There is no run in me any longer.
Xander is by my side and I feel the presence of others behind Ira and I. Could be the guardians, Daniel, Sebastian, but I really don’t care, because I’m still processing what is in front of me. Legs still weak, I slide my feet along the dirt and rock to my father and kneel down next to him.
Maybe he is sleeping or unconscious, like I was? Any minute, he is going to open his eyes and say some smartass remark about my blubbering. The idea fades quickly as I continue to look at how still and statuesque he looks. I lift my hand and rest it just above his heart as I look down at his face.
He is not going to wake up, Jes.
My entire body begins to tremble and shake as the tears flow uncontrollably now.
I shake my head, not understanding how he didn’t make it. “I had his hand. I was sending all of my energy into him to save him,” I say through tears and sobs.
“He used your energy to get you to safety. Get all of you to safety,” says Sebastian.
I think back over the last moments with Ezra; how everyone was trying to pull me from Ezra, how even though he was fighting the hybrid Dweller consuming him, he wanted us safe.
The hybrid! On alert, I look back and Sebastian, “The hybrid!”
I rise from Ezra’s body and Sebastian rises with me. I look at Xander, Ira, Lathan, and Daniel urgently. “It was in Ezra!” I look at Xander, “Do you feel it?”
Xander shakes his head hastily, “No, I’m alright.”
I don’t see Nate. “Where is Nate?”
Xander’s eyes widen and he runs from the cavern. In a flash, I’m behind him following him into the room I woke in. Xander is standing in the middle of the cavern a few feet behind Nate who is still kneeling on the ground.
“Nate,” calls Xander as he approaches him slowly.
I try calling out to him, “Nate.”
Unnaturally fast, Nate stands and angles his head toward Xander, revealing the dull, milky gray eyes of the hybrid. Swiftly, Xander puts his hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Nate, I know you are in there.”
At once, Nate takes hold of Xander by the arm and waist and throws him against the cavern wall. Xander crumbles to the ground, but rebounds quickly rolling onto his hands and knees. I spy Daniel draw his gun from the holster, in an instant I grab hold of his hand and strong-arm him, pointing the gun to the cavern ceiling. “No! You can’t shoot him!”
Ira and Lathan move in on him now and I yell, “Nate is still in there! I can save him!”
Nate has backed into the far wall of the cavern, head hung low and his clouded murky eyes targeted on me beyond Ira and Lathan’s careful approach.
Knowing Nate is fighting for control in there, I need to let him know I’m fighting for him out here.
“Nate, you are stronger than it! You can break away from it!”
Nate’s furrowed brow, suddenly relaxes and his thin hard lips go slack. His lips begin to quiver. He is trying to speak! Trying to break away from the hybrid Dweller!
Suddenly Nate’s lips gain sound. He whispers, “I’m not going to let it take you.”
Hearing Nate in control, Xander and I both move in on him at the same time when Nate leaps into thin air above us all, landing hard on all fours on the ground beyond us, then bolting from the cavern into the tunnel. Xander and I both turn to chase after him, but Ira scoops me up around my waist, lifting me from the ground while Xander escapes after him.
“Put me down! I have to go after him! Nate!” I yell.
Sebastian rushes to me and places his hands on either side of my face to steady me. “Jesca!”
“I have to go after him Sebastian! I have to go after both of them!”
Sebastian takes hold of my head firmly again and raises his voice, “No you can’t!”
Suddenly, the ground beneath me us quakes, almost shaking us from our feet.”
Daniel announces, “They are attacking again!”
Unexpectedly, the boom of an explosion resonates through the walls.
“What is going on?”
Sebastian replies, “The Dwellers! They attacked the compound before you projected here! We lost many in the colony, Jesca! Our weapons aren’t holding them off and Seth and Cale are doing what they can!”
Lathan strides to the opening.
Ira calls to him, “Where are you going?”
Lathan answers, “To help Seth and Cale!” He rushes in a blur from the cavern and disappears around the corner.
I frantically list names as Ira keeps me from running. “Roan, Delilah, Bethany, Elisha, Nick, our guardians...where are they?”
Sebastian answers, “They are alive, but I don’t know how much longer we can fight them. The only way you can save them now is by fulfilling the legacy, Jesca. That is the only way any of us will survive now!”
All of a sudden, Ms. Olivia appears in the opening to the cavern with Luke by her side. The moment I look at her, I feel the relief that only she can bring my spirit. From the moment I met her in Florida, she has been my relief. Ira let’s me go and I rush to her. She opens her arms and wraps them around me.
I sob, “He is gone.”
“I know,” whispers Ms. Olivia tenderly.
Frantically, I look back at Sebastian. “I haven’t seen all of the vision! I don’t know the ritual! I don’t know what to do!”
Ira’s speaks over my frantic rant. “The messenger among you will guide you.”
I feel the world around me caving in as I think of Ira telling me in Tom’s compound that the messenger, the one that would do the ritual was among us. The image of Elisabeth convulsing in Sebastian’s arms revisits my mind. Her knowing the legacy, my telepathy only working with her, she was the messenger.
“It was Elisabeth! She was the messenger, but she is gone!”
Ira shakes his head and approaches me, “No.”
His eyes dart to Ms. Olivia and he says, “She is the messenger.”
Ira approaches her and asks, “You are Creek Indian, yes?”
Ms. Olivia nods and says quietly, “Yes, I am.”
Ira probes knowingly, “Your father was a shaman, just as his father, and his father before him.”
Ms. Olivia nods keeping her eyes on Ira.
Ira closes his eyes and speaks, “Before he passed, you were called by your dreams to fulfill your purpose as a shaman.”
The way he speaks and the concentration on his face, it is like he is seeing it behind his closed eyes as he continues to speak.
He continues, “You are a wound healer, Olivia. You have healed many like your father and his father. This is how you are linked with Jesca’s legacy. Will you perform the ritual?”
Another quake shakes the ground beneath us, sending splinters of dust and rock upon us from above.
With tears in her eyes and her lips quivering from emotion, Ms. Olivia says, “My father, he has visited me. He told me to come here to fulfill my purpose.”
As she speaks, I picture her father like the shaman I have seen in my visions.
Ms. Olivia looks at me wearily. “He said that I had to guide a ritual that my heart would not want me to do because of my love for the one that will be sacrificed.”
“The sacrifice of one for the survival of all,” says Ira somberly.
Ms. Olivia can’t contain her sadness and Luke pulls her into his arms as her whole body trembles. Her small voice quakes, “I’m sorry, Jesca.”
I don’t look at any one person in the room as I think about Ms. Olivia’s sorrow. Her sadness, her apology makes it sink in; Onawah living beyond my vision was never going to be my fate. My fate in the legacy is death in order to save humanity.
Another explosion rocks the earth beneath us sending all of us except Ira to the ground.
Sebastian calls to me, “We have to go, Jesca.”
I follow Sebastian’s lead numbly as I process what is happening. Wait, Nate and Xander!
I stop walking and turn to Ira and plead with him, “Please go after Nate and Xander. Keep them safe until…it is done.”
Ira’s golden eyes brighten with fresh tears threatening to drop. He bows his head, then leaves the cavern in a blur.
Daniel comes to Sebastian’s side and whispers, “I will check on the children.”
Children.
I think of Marcus and Emelie somewhere unsafe with the attack going on outside. “Where are they? Who is watching them?”
Then her face flashes in my mind. Panicked, I grab hold of Sebastian’s arm sleeve. “Tessa? Where is she?” I ask urgently.
Sebastian, “They are all fine. Emelie is watching over the little ones deep in the caverns.”
The mound shudders beneath my feet again, dropping slabs of stone from the walls of the cavern. The lumps of rock crash around us, spur us to react. Running out as fast as we can before a collapse, Luke leads the way out with Ms. Olivia, Sebastian, and me right behind him. In the tunnel, my eyes are drawn to the flashes of light coming from one end.
Sebastian tries to pull me along, but I realize that I have seen this passage before and I need to see more. I look to my right and in the distance, I see the source of the light; white flashes of lightning and the peppering of gunfire. The combined flashes of light spellbind me, beckon me as I remember seeing this. This is the tunnel from my vision. Suddenly, a flash of lightning, blinds me.
The bright light fades slowly, but the imprint it leaves on my eyes is makes it hard to see. I close my eyes and wait for my sight to return to normal when a hand takes hold of mine roughly and pulls me away. The sound of the world beyond the tunnel fades as I’m being led. I expect to see Sebastian when I open my eyes, but I don’t. Beyond my refracted sight, I see a woman leading me. A woman with long, dark hair leading me through the tunnel. She turns back and looks at me, then speaks in her native tongue insistently. It’s Onawah’s mother.
Onawah turns to look back at the tunnel and I see the uniformed man from the hut, the one that led us here to the mound.
* * *
“Jesca, are you alright?”
In the blink of my eyes, I am no longer walking behind Onawah’s mother, but rather Sebastian. As we continue to walk, he turns his concerned gaze on me, “Jesca?”
“It’s alright. Just a vision,” I say as I keep my brisk walk behind him.
He slows his pace and his eyes widen as he asks, “Right now?”
I nod my head. “Yes.”
Another tremor hits, knocking all four of us into the wall of the tunnel. I notice an outlet to the right and another ahead on the left. The passage is lined with lanterns set intermittently along the wall. Which tunnel did Nate take? Both Sebastian and I push off of the wall and take hold of a lantern. As Luke helps Ms. Olivia up, I notice a gash on his forehead.
“Your head,” I announce.
Ms. Olivia instinctively places her hand on the wound and bows her head. Within seconds, she pulls her hand away and the wound is completely gone. Without wasting another minute, she takes hold of a lantern and leads the way through the main passage passing first the outlet on the right and then the one on the left. I slow my steps to look down the tunneling on the left. I see cavities branching off on either side of this vein of the mound.
Nate could be anywhere...or nowhere. What if Xander catches him? What will Nate do? What if the hybrid kills them both?
I try to push those thoughts from my mind and stride to catch up with Sebastian. Ira has gone after them. He will find them and keep them safe until the ritual is done.
The earth beneath us rises as we walk on behind Ms. Olivia’s lead; we are on an incline. Curious about Ms. Olivia’s lead, I wonder how she knows where she is going.
Without me saying a world, Ms. Olivia answers my thought, “When I got to the mounds. I could feel the pull within me, leading me to the kiva, leading me to my purpose. There was a blockade of timber logs in front of it, barricading the sacred place from the rest of the mounds passages.”
The passage breaks to the left as the incline levels out for a few strides. Then, another slanted ascent has us rising again. Curious as to why Daniel or any of the others never tried to enter the kiva, I ask, “Why didn’t they take down the logs? Go inside?”
The slope of the ground levels out again just as Sebastian stops walking. I look ahead of him. So has Luke and Ms. Olivia.
“The kiva is a sacred place and this was the most sacred and coveted by our ancestors,” she says as she holds up her lantern and points to the passage wall on the right.
The illuminating lantern lights both the wall and beyond, an opening. Ms. Olivia motions for me to come to her.
Silently, I move past Sebastian and Luke and closer to her. Before us, displayed on the wall, is a scene with rudimentary figures in motion divided in sections, scenes.
Ms. Olivia points to the one at the far left and says, “This is where it starts.”
The first set shows a figure holding a bundle in its arms, a small face peeking out from the bundle; a baby. Around the figure and baby, is a scene of war; figures battling against each other. A dividing line separates that scene from the next. In the next one, the same figure from before is holding the hand of a smaller figure, a child. In the distance is a drawing of the mound with a thatch-roofed hut atop it. Smoke is rising from the top of the mound into the sky into a thin layer of what looks like clouds. Above that, three stars aligned just as I had seen them in my vision. The next set of images show one figure, a man, sitting across from another smaller figure with long hair. A fire separates them from each other.
As I study the scene, and remember my vision detailing Onawah’s ritual, I mutter, “It is the scene in my vision. This is the shaman and Onawah.” My eyes dart to Ms. Olivia. “Is this the ritual?”
Ms. Olivia’s eyes meet mine. “It is the ritual Onawah, your ancestor, did to summon the legacy onto her tribe, forever branding their bloodlines.”
Ms. Olivia motions with the lantern toward the final scene in the mural. A figure of a man standing at the opening of the kiva, spear and tomahawk in hand. Words below written in a foreign language.
I ask, “What does it say?”
“It says that only those with original bloodline of this legacy may enter,” says Ms. Olivia as she turns away from me and moves into the dark opening beyond the mural.
Luke follows behind her, but Sebastian waits for me to enter. I move ahead, but I’m stopped by Sebastian’s hesitant words, “Jesca, I cannot enter.”
I look at him, shocked. “Why?” I ask.
He lowers his lantern by his side. “I can’t watch you…leave.”
His voice catches on the last word as he draws in his breath. His eyes wrinkle and his mouth tightens as he tries desperately to keep his mourning from spilling over. “I’m sorry.”
Transcending the Legacy Page 27