Exile (The Oneness Cycle)

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  She looked down at her hands in her lap. She was going to have to leave—you didn’t just show up and take advantage of strangers forever. They weren’t the Oneness. If only …

  She forced her thoughts off that tangent.

  It didn’t take long to reach the wharf, and Tyler had the boat out with ease. The day was calm, beautiful. He worked the sail with muscled arms and spoke not a word to Reese. She sensed he was waiting for permission.

  Briefly, she considered giving it.

  The wind in her face was cold, but the sun shone down with warmth, glancing off the water beneath them in bursts of light. Reese could see why he loved the water. She wondered about his own story. Why he and Chris lived here when most young men their age would be heading for the city, or going to school, or trying to build some kind of career for themselves. Why Tyler smiled like an old man who knew grief. Why they were both so gentle and good.

  And why Chris’s mother was part of the Oneness and refused to admit it.

  The painful lump was back in Reese’s throat, and she swallowed it down again. Even when she tried to think about someone else, her thoughts always came back here. Back to the Oneness, to her family, to her love. The love from which she was now and forever outcast.

  She looked at her hands and another question flickered in her thoughts. Why had she still been able to wield the sword when the demon attacked?

  Why had it attacked at all?

  Demons were petty. Most likely the attack was nothing but spite. It saw her wounded, alone, and thought to finish her off.

  She became conscious of Tyler’s eyes on her, and she looked up to smile at him, to assure him somehow that she was all right. She thought she owed him that much.

  But when she looked up, she saw an enormous black form diving straight at the boat.

  The sword formed in her hand, and she leaped to her feet.

  Chapter 4

  Tyler’s back was turned; he didn’t see the creature diving right at him. Reese couldn’t move fast enough either to intercept the diver or to warn Tyler; he caught sight of the sword in her hand and turned just fast enough to jump back and see the creature go straight through the bottom of the boat. It left a hole three feet across in the fiberglass, and water spouted and rushed up through it.

  While Tyler scrambled to bail or find some way to repair the damage, Reese fixed her eyes on the water. The boat beneath her was unsteady footing, and she slipped and cracked her knee on a bench. The creature shot back out of the water at the same moment, blinding her with a combination of salt spray and darkness, but she had been expecting it, and she managed to stab straight despite her loss of footing and vision. She had it on the end of her sword, and it screamed out and flapped to get away. She held on tight and struggled to get back to her feet, though water was up to her knees. She drove the sword deeper.

  With another scream, the creature died. She watched as the body transformed from huge and monstrous to the size of a gull, and then a gull’s shape, colours, feathers. Her sword dissolved and the bird’s body fell into the water.

  The boat tipped, and Reese lost her footing and fell backwards into the water. Tyler was beside her, treading the waves. Her heavy shoes and socks pulling her down, she grabbed for the side of the boat—now just foundering in the water—and held on tight.

  They were a full three miles from land.

  “Can you swim it?” Tyler shouted.

  Reese nodded, surprised at her own pluck. “If I get these boots off.”

  “Did something just try to kill us?”

  “Yeah,” Reese answered. “But it didn’t succeed.”

  Tyler met her eyes. She couldn’t read his. “Another renegade?”

  She looked away.

  “I’m not sure.”

  She was no longer convinced the first had been working alone.

  * * *

  Mary sat by her open window with her head in her hands, listening to the sounds of the village and the calls of birds overhead.

  Where could April possibly be?

  She and Richard had gone back out after they visited Diane Sawyer and spent most of the afternoon knocking on doors and asking questions. A few people had seen April run past yesterday morning—down the hill street toward the harbour. But nothing more. No one knew where she had gone or what had happened to her there.

  Eventually Richard had ordered Mary back to the house to get some rest. He was still searching, of course. She knew him. He would never rest.

  When a knock came on her own door, Mary stood slowly. Her feet moved themselves to answer it.

  Chris Sawyer stood on the doorstep.

  She regarded him for a second and then smiled. She opened the door. “Won’t you come in?”

  The broad-shouldered young man looked uncomfortable as he wiped his boots and removed his coat, but it was clear he was in no rush to leave. Mary put on a kettle and invited him to settle in the sparsely furnished sitting room. The house was one of the bigger homes in the village, even though it had only housed three of them for so long. There were several guestrooms habitually left empty, and the sitting room was large enough to hold ten or fifteen comfortably. A fireplace with a long brick mantle and step took up one end wall. Over it was a simple wooden cross, the only decoration on the walls. Long couches sat parallel each other on either side of the fireplace. The far end of the sitting room emptied into a hallway and stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

  It was a house made for community, but it had not known much of one for decades.

  Mary handed Chris a cup of tea, which he handled awkwardly in his big hands. He looked so much like his father. Mary’s heart warmed to him as it always did whenever she thought of the Sawyers, which was often. If only his mother wasn’t so determined to keep the truth from her son.

  But he was here now, and he was not a boy anymore—this was a man who sat on her couch, waiting for answers with quiet expectancy. Mary’s mind was made up in an instant. She would give him answers.

  As she maneuvered around the end of one long couch to take a seat across from Chris, regret struck her heart.

  She should have done this a long time ago.

  She sat down expecting to start the conversation and to spend most of it talking—giving the explanations he’d been waiting all his life for. He caught her off guard.

  “There’s something you need to know,” he said.

  Mary blinked.

  “Mum told me about the Oneness,” he said. “Two nights ago. Not everything—of course. But she told me about where it comes from, something of what it is … what you are.”

  Mary nodded in recognition.

  “The reason she told me, after all these years, is there’s a girl in our house. We rescued her—she jumped off a cliff. Tried to drown herself. Tyler caught her in a net and we pulled her in. She didn’t tell us anything about herself, but then she …”

  He hesitated.

  “A demon attacked her and she killed it with a sword. Mum couldn’t exactly pretend there was nothing unusual going on, so she had to explain to me some things about you people.”

  Mary frowned, confused. “You’re saying there’s a girl from the Oneness in your house? But—”

  “She claims to be an exile,” Chris said. “She says she’s not part of the Oneness anymore. That scared Mum worse than I’ve seen anything scare her. All she would tell me is that the Oneness holds the world together and isn’t supposed to break.”

  He set his tea cup down on the floor beside him and spread out his big hands in supplication. “Can you tell me more?”

  Mary took a moment to respond, her mind working hard to catch up. An exile—that would explain the fear in Diane’s eyes when Mary and Richard visited her earlier in the day—and her strange question about whether the Oneness ever cast out its own. The girl must be the Reese Diane had mentioned and then refused to say any more about. But Chris had to be mistaken. It wasn’t possible for anyone to leave the Oneness—not without terribly woundi
ng the whole. And if the girl could still draw sword against the demons, then she could not truly be separated from the body. Could she?

  “I’ve never heard of … I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to be exiled,” Mary said, aware that her response was lacking. But Chris was patient, leading the conversation to her continued surprise.

  “She believes she is,” Chris said. “I’ve never seen so much loss in anyone’s eyes. Not even Tyler’s when he lost his parents. She spent most of yesterday sleeping. I don’t think she wants to be alive, let alone here with us.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t know why she’s in my house, but I feel responsible for her. I want to help her. I figure you can teach me how.”

  “If April was here …” Mary stopped herself. He didn’t know about April. She debated telling him. This all had to be interconnected somehow. She sighed and put down her own tea, clasping her hands and leaning forward.

  “How much do you know about us?” she asked.

  His answer could not have surprised her more if he had suddenly claimed to be the president.

  “I know my mother is one of you,” he said. “But I don’t know why she won’t admit it.”

  There were tears in Mary’s eyes. She wasn’t sure exactly how they had arisen. “That would be my fault,” she said. “Diane doesn’t want anything to do with us because of me. Because I …”

  She stopped. This didn’t have to be said now.

  But no. The boy—this young man—deserved the truth. Hadn’t she felt the regret of all the years just a few minutes ago? She should have told him long ago.

  “Because your father died trying to help me,” she finished, “and your mother has always held me responsible.”

  Chris was silent, staring at her in response. She looked away, uncomfortable under his gaze. She wondered what he saw—an enigma, a woman ageing who had once been beautiful, a servant who had tried to be faithful but brought more damage in her years than good. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, I … appreciate that.”

  They both lapsed into silence again. Then he took up the lead. Dogged and faithful like his father. “I don’t know much else. I know you live among us but you aren’t like the rest of us. Supernatural is the word. I know you’re interconnected with each other somehow, and you see things, do things. Reese—the girl we rescued—told us that you fight demons and that angels serve you.”

  Mary raised her eyebrows. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I also know you’ve been watching me my whole life,” Chris said. “Watching over me, maybe I should say. Me and my mother both. She never acknowledges it, but she knows she owes you a debt.”

  “We don’t abandon our own,” Mary said.

  “Which brings us back to Reese,” said Chris. “Why is she exiled?”

  Mary struggled with the question but tried to do it justice. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard … exile is impossible, I think. Your mother won’t recognize her connection with us, refuses to acknowledge it, and yet she is spirit of our spirit as much as you are bone of her bone. If something happened to her, we would all know it. What affects her affects us all. It’s the way the Oneness works. For someone to be cast out—well, she must have done something.”

  “Something to separate herself?” Chris asked. “That doesn’t make sense—you can’t imagine the grief …”

  “I think I can imagine it,” Mary said. But would never want to. “No, something to cause the Oneness to reject her. Like … when a limb becomes so gangrenous it is a danger to the whole body, and amputation may be the only solution. The Oneness is a body. It’s possible she may have done something so dark it introduced disease of some kind—something so dangerous to the whole that she had to be rejected.”

  She paused and picked up her tea cup again, needing the strong liquid to fortify her against the implications of all she was saying. “But I have never heard of it happening. Most of us would rather die all together than let one part be lost.”

  Lost. The word triggered something. An explosion went off in Mary’s head and she saw, wreathed in shadows, April’s face. She looked frightened.

  “What’s wrong?” Chris asked, standing, on alert. Mary tried to shake away the vision and come back to him. Most of us would rather die all together … it was true. It was why Richard was still out searching and would never, ever stop.

  “It’s love that binds us together—love that’s the blood in our veins,” Mary said shakily. “We don’t cast off our own!”

  “What else is going on here?” Chris asked.

  “We lost one of ours,” Mary said. The words were bleak and terrible. “She disappeared yesterday morning. We don’t know who took her or why … but someone did.”

  He was silent a moment. Then, “Did you ask my mother for help? Sometimes she can see things.”

  Mary smiled wanly. “We tried. She told us she hadn’t seen anything—we believe her. But she didn’t tell us about Reese.”

  “You think they’re connected?”

  “They have to be.”

  Mary stood and wandered to the window, looking out to the road that plunged down into the village. The road April had run down and not come back. “The Oneness numbers in the millions. There are people like us all over this world, doing their part. But our cell is tiny. Only four of us … and one is your mother. The other two don’t even know about her, or didn’t until today. We get the occasional attack, the odd bit of trouble. Nothing like this.”

  Outside, the sun shone with deceptive brilliance and warmth. It was a beautiful day—as beautiful as the village had ever seen.

  “When I came here, years ago, I was fleeing trouble. It followed, and that was the worst battle we’ve had—it took your father’s life, and it hardened your mother’s heart. After that things were calm. I was alone here, just me and your mother, for more than a decade. Then Richard came, and then April. This place was a haven for them too. But now …”

  “Does this have something to do with Mum’s dreams?”

  Mary laughed bitterly. “Yes. Of course. Not that she shared them with us. But we’ve all been feeling it for months … a sense that darkness is closing in. That something is going to happen. That evil is coming.”

  Chris pondered the words for a few minutes and then said, with great conviction, “I don’t think Reese is the evil. I mean, I understand what you’re saying—that her being here means something is wrong. But I don’t think she’s evil. What you said about a limb being gangrenous … it makes sense. But it doesn’t fit her. She’s not diseased. She’s just heartbroken.”

  Mary turned and regarded the young man. Handsome and confident and strong. It was like having Douglas back again.

  “I think I’d better talk to Reese,” she said.

  He nodded, but after a long hesitation, and she knew he was considering it from the girl’s point of view—trying to decide if it was wise, and safe, to allow the meeting. Every inch the protector. It struck her as incredible that Chris hadn’t asked for more details about his father’s death—and his involvement with the Oneness, and Mary, in general. He had to want to know. Diane had kept him in the dark all his life. But instead, his thoughts were for a girl he barely knew.

  “You’re a good man,” she said softly.

  “And what about your friend?” he asked. “The one who went missing? Are the police looking for her?”

  “Richard is. We haven’t called the police.”

  It was clear in his face that he disapproved.

  “The police can’t help when it’s demons,” she tried to explain. “And we think … well, all this trouble isn’t human. Sometimes involving more people just makes things worse.”

  He was already heading for the door. “Come on, then,” he said. “I’ll take you to Reese.”

  He turned concerned brown eyes on Mary. “Just be careful. Please. She isn’t whole.”

  Chapter 5

  The cottage was empty when Chris and Mary
arrived. Chris did a preliminary search of the rooms and then returned to the tiny living room where Mary was waiting. “They’re not here,” he announced. “They must have gone out … probably fishing.” He frowned. “I don’t know if taking her out on the water was a good idea.”

  “She tried to drown herself two days ago?” Mary asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know what Tyler is thinking.”

  “Maybe he left without her?” Mary suggested. “She might have gone off on her own.”

  Chris paced, clearly agitated. “I don’t like it.” He stopped short. “I told you she was attacked here. In the side room—there’s a big hole in the window to prove something bigger than a bat came through, even though that was all that was left of it after she killed it.”

  He looked at Mary as though to confirm that his words weren’t crazy. She nodded.

  “They possess,” she said. “Demons don’t have bodies of their own. They’ll transform whatever they inhabit, but once they’re driven out, the body goes back to its own form.” She made a face. “Bats are a favourite.”

  “Do you want to see the room?” he asked. “Maybe there’s something that could help you … some kind of clue.”

  She shook her head but stood anyway. “I don’t think it will look different from any other attack.” She let Chris lead the way through the kitchen and laundry room to the long side room with its musty carpet and old plaid couch. A wind outside was blowing clean air around the tarp. As she had expected, there was nothing in the room to indicate what had happened or why. They had disposed of the bat and cleaned up, and there was nothing to distinguish signs of the kill from any of the older stains on the shag carpet. But she closed her eyes and tried to put herself in the girl’s shoes. An exile—separated from the Oneness, actually rejected and sent out. The very thought drove a weight into Mary’s gut, and she cradled her arms across herself, trying to ease the bitterness of the thought. But the attack was strange. And that the girl had warded it off—with a sword she should not be able to wield outside the Oneness—that was stranger still.