Exile (The Oneness Cycle)

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “Sure I do.” The hermit tapped his temple. “I don’t forget. You’re … Robert.”

  “Richard.”

  “Richard, of course. And you I don’t know.”

  “Mary.”

  “Welcome, welcome. You got more out in that truck?”

  Tony’s head was peering up over the cab, and the hermit waved at him.

  “If we’re not too much of an imposition,” Richard said.

  “Not at all.” The hermit stepped back and swung his door all the way open. He gestured broadly for the others to come in and watched as the twins and Chris piled out of the bed. Tyler jumped out of the backseat, and Chris climbed halfway in. He emerged a moment later carrying Reese. The twins nodded to the hermit as they entered, and he clapped each of their arms like they were long lost grandchildren. Tyler followed, joining the twins in the narrow entryway that led to a living room tinier than the one at the boys’ cottage.

  Chris approached the doorstep, and the hermit’s eyes fell on Reese. Suddenly his posture went rigid, and his face grew dark. He looked up at Richard, his eyes accusing and intense.

  “What are you doing? Why have you brought this here?”

  Richard and Mary exchanged a confused look, and Richard searched for words.

  The hermit cut him off. “Can’t you feel what’s in front of your face, man? This girl is an exile!”

  Chapter 11

  Chris stopped, refusing to take another step. It wasn’t clear that the hermit would have allowed him entrance anyway, as long as Reese was in his arms. Richard interposed himself between them.

  “Respectfully, sir, she isn’t,” he said.

  The hermit turned blazing eyes on the younger man. “Do you think your senses are sharper than mine? I’ve been honing them for seventy years!”

  “Up here?” Richard shot back. “I’d think being alone so long might dull things.”

  “Richard,” Mary said sharply, laying her hand on his arm. He bowed his head. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. But sir, this girl isn’t an exile. We thought so too, but …”

  The hermit took a step forward, nearly pushing Richard aside, and glowered down at Reese. Chris stood tense but didn’t back away. “I only know what I feel,” the hermit muttered. “I didn’t think exile was possible, but this … can’t you feel the poison? The death radiating from her?”

  “I feel the grief,” Mary said.

  “Sir, I’ve been in prayer for days, and I’ve seen this girl in action. She wields a sword and is willing to give herself up for the Oneness. Whatever you’re feeling, it isn’t real.”

  The hermit shook his wizened head, still staring intently at Reese. “I don’t like this.”

  “Is it possible that you’re sensing a cloak?” Mary asked. “A deception?”

  The hermit raised his eyes to her. “It’s too strong for that. Too real. And how could you possibly cast a cloak like this unless …” He shook his head vehemently. “You’d have to project it. It’s not possible.”

  “Nevertheless,” Richard said, putting a hand on Chris’s shoulder and giving him a look that said Stay put, “she’s badly hurt. We brought her here looking for help. Even if she is an enemy, surely you agree that we should help her?”

  The hermit shook his head as though to dislodge something and muttered a few words to himself, then out loud said, “Of course. Bring her in.”

  Objecting with his eyes but not with the rest of his body, Chris carried Reese past the hermit and laid her on a couch in the tiny living room. Strong light poured in through the window. The hermit examined her quickly and cursorily.

  “You,” he said, summoning Angelica with his eyes, “go in the kitchen and look in the third cupboard for a tall green bottle. It’s got something that will help start her off to healing, at least. But these wounds are bad. How’d she get them?”

  “Went into a fight with the demonic,” Richard said. “A core. She fought them directly.”

  The hermit looked impressed. “And you got her out?”

  “I told you I’ve been in prayer. For days. I had enough power to knock them off her long enough for us to grab her and run.”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t like any of this. And I’ve got bad news for you. I can start her off to healing, but she needs more than I can do for her.”

  Angelica appeared carrying the old bottle, and the hermit took it with thanks and screwed the cap off, pouring a little of the liquid into it. “Help me,” he said, and Angelica knelt beside Reese and helped the old man get the liquid past her lips.

  “She needs to be taken to a hospital,” Mary said, looking to Richard for confirmation.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s an option. The hive will be looking.” He fixed his eyes on the hermit, but the old man ignored him.

  Mary nodded, turning the options over in her head. “We can get an IV … bring it up here. I know how to use it.” She turned her eyes on the hermit. “If we can get supplies, will you let us treat her here?”

  “It’s a matter of life and death,” Richard put in. “If we take her into a public place, I have no doubt the demons will find her and kill her. They’ve been after her for days, and it’s all been aggravated now.”

  “Fine,” the hermit said. “I’ll make a list … tell you what to get if you can get it. Send those young people off in your truck for it. I’d rather you stayed here and kept an eye on her.”

  “She is trustworthy,” Richard said.

  The hermit met his eyes finally and sighed. “No. She is not.”

  “You’re believing a lie.”

  “I’m believing the only thing I can feel. When you’re alone as long as I’ve been, boyo, you learn to trust your own instincts.”

  * * *

  Richard gave the orders. Tony and Angelica looked unhappy to be sent off, but they took the turn of events as a matter of course. Tyler and Chris put up more of a fight. Both wanted to stay with Reese. The twins could find medical supplies on their own, and besides, if demons attacked again, the village lads would be less than useless.

  Richard frowned. “No,” he said after the boys had finished their protest. “I think it’s best you go. Head for the clinic in the village. They’ll have what we need. Best to stay out of the city. Chris, your mother can help …”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Mary told me she was a nurse,” Richard said. “The clinic will give her supplies. How are you planning to get them otherwise—steal them?”

  The twins exchanged guilty glances. Richard fixed them a stern glare. “No. Go to Chris’s mother. She’ll help you.”

  “She won’t,” Chris said.

  Richard turned his eyes on the young man. “Chris, I know you don’t like any of this, and I know you’re trying to protect your mother. But she is one of us, and right now we need her. You know she won’t turn us away this time. She’s a good woman. We’ve asked her for very little—I didn’t even know about her until all this began—but this time we have to. You can help us best—Reese as well as the rest of us—by going to her.”

  Conflict tore Chris’s face. He opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it. “Fine. We’ll get the supplies. Tell me again why we can’t take her to the city where someone will actually care for her?”

  “I don’t think the city is safe,” Richard said. “She’s a target, and the hive could be anywhere—it may even have spread outside of Lincoln.”

  “And you think she’s safe here? On top of a mountain with no one around but an old man who thinks she’s poisonous? If you’re attacked here …”

  “The Spirit led us here,” Richard said. “And that old man is no ordinary octogenarian. This may be the safest place we could possibly be.” He sighed. “I’m as unhappy as you are about the hermit’s reaction to Reese, but he’ll see the light in time. He’s right about one thing—whatever is cloaking her, it’s powerful. I don’t understand where its power is coming from. I prom
ise, Chris, I will find out what it is and learn how to break it. For now, you can trust the hermit not to harm her.”

  Chris balled his fists, but he nodded and turned to go. The others were already waiting at the truck.

  Behind Richard, the hermit appeared in the door and called after Chris, “Don’t resist forever, boy. There’s too much to do.”

  Chris looked back and scowled, not slowing his march to the truck.

  “Don’t wait,” the hermit repeated. “Just you remember that. You wait too long, you lose opportunity that won’t ever come back.”

  Chris just turned his face away and jumped into the truck, starting it with a roar.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said, joining the hermit. “That was a bit rude. He’s …”

  “I know what he is,” the hermit said. His voice was intense, but not offended—and his eyes were still fixed on Chris as the truck barrelled off the property. “I know just what he is.”

  * * *

  Tears slipped from beneath Reese’s eyelids as she listened to the men argue in the next room. The hermit and Richard were discussing her again, and their voices were growing heated. Each man sure of what he knew. Each man sure of what the Spirit had told him.

  She was causing dissension again.

  She’d been awake the whole time—since slightly before their arrival on Tempter’s Mountain. But it was easier to keep her eyes closed and pretend she heard nothing. To let them attribute the pain that crossed her face to her physical wounds, which were, admittedly, bad. A bite in one shoulder felt hot, and a deep scratch in her side was still bleeding, or at least she thought it was.

  But she could probably walk. Even throw herself back into battle if she had to. Part of her had insisted she do so: sit up and tell Chris she could walk on her own, could carry her head high into the hermit’s cottage even against his protestations against her presence.

  It felt better to be carried.

  The loss she felt when Chris set her down and turned away was sharper than she wanted to admit. She was amazed, in a way, that she could feel it—but then, she was good at feeling loss. One after another.

  The truth was, horrible though it was to admit, if she was pressed she would agree with the hermit. He was right and Richard was wrong, no matter how much authority she had heard thundering in his voice in that warehouse. Tyler was wrong—what could he really know? He wasn’t even Oneness.

  She wanted to believe them, tried to believe them, but when she reached out in tentative hope she felt only the same roaring emptiness and grief on all sides of her spirit. If they were right—if her bearing the sword meant something, if she was cloaked somehow, if she was really still Oneness—then why couldn’t she feel the truth of their words?

  But Tyler had known about Patrick. How could he, if it was all a lie?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a growing sense that something was very, very wrong.

  And she heard a voice.

  “Reese.”

  She turned her head and looked toward the window. There was another door there, heading outside, and to her surprise, it was standing partially open. But she couldn’t see the source of the voice.

  “Reese,” it called again, more insistently this time.

  “Patrick?”

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position. The room spun and darkened for a moment, and she closed her eyes to give herself time to adjust. The argument in the other room was growing louder. She heard Mary’s voice, pitching in with less vehemence. How grateful she was for these two—for Oneness who stood by her, who wanted to believe in her.

  Even if they were wrong.

  As soon as she thought she could manage, she stood and crossed the room, hand on the wall, and peered out the window. Nothing. No one.

  “… only until she can walk,” the hermit said. “This place is shielded, but I’m not sure what bringing something like her here will do to the shield. If her presence tears a hole in it, we might be vulnerable to attack even now.”

  “We’ll fight if they come here,” Richard said.

  Reese closed her eyes. Yes, they would. At what cost?

  She didn’t know—couldn’t know—the answer to the question they debated. But that she represented a danger was not a question in her mind. Demons had attacked her in the village, in the city, and on the road.

  They had saved her life, and she was grateful. But she wasn’t their responsibility anymore. Not any of them—not the boys, not the village cell, not the hermit.

  It was time to go.

  * * *

  Chris guided the truck expertly down the cliff roads, handling hair-raising curves and dusty potholes with equal aplomb. Tyler sat next to him, the twins behind, hanging on to the back of the seats in front of them with their eyes shining. The sun overhead poured down over the vast blue expanse of the bay.

  The village roads forced Chris to slow down, but Tyler could tell his friend was taking them as fast as his conscience would allow. They pulled into the driveway behind Diane’s house, sandwiched in with other tall, narrow houses on a road that overlooked the water, and Tyler put his arm on Chris’s.

  “Wait,” he said. “Who’s here?”

  Chris had already noticed. A black car was parked in Diane’s driveway, and her curtains were drawn. Without a word, he threw the truck back into gear and backed out fast, roaring down the street in the direction they had come.

  “Why are we leaving?” Tony asked from the back.

  “Hoping they’ll think we were just turning around,” Chris said.

  “They?”

  “Whoever is paying my mother a visit.”

  Chris set his jaw grimly, and satisfied that the truck was out of sight of the house, he pulled into the vacant driveway of a house that looked closed up for the moment and sat, his hands on the wheel, immobile.

  “Dang,” he said. “Dang it.”

  “Who do you think they are?” Tyler asked.

  “I don’t know,” Chris said. “And I know everyone my mother knows. I’ve never seen that car before.”

  Chris turned and regarded the twins, who were listening and watching silently but were still tensed forward like a pair of cats ready to spring. “If we get near the house,” he said, “can either of you … tell things?”

  Angelica raised both eyebrows. “Meaning?”

  “My mother has instincts,” Chris said. “Impressions and visions and things like that. Like you all … like Richard and Mary. Do you? If we get you close to that house, will you be able to tell what’s going on inside?”

  “We’re not magicians, man,” Tony said.

  “We’re not eyes, either,” Angelica hurriedly added. “Which is I think what you’re asking. Sorry … our gift is fighting. Swordplay.”

  Tyler recalled the battle with the demons that had swooped on the truck and nodded. “Lucky you were with us back there,” he said, knowing even as he did that luck had nothing to do with it. It was Oneness. It brought all the necessary parts together when they were needed, where they were needed, like a body calling up its various powers to see in the dark, or hear whispers, or react instinctively.

  “But whatever’s going on,” Tony said, “you know we’ll help you. You and your mother. Whatever you need.”

  Chris looked at Tony like he was seeing him for the first time. “Do you know who my mother is?”

  Tony glanced at Angelica, and they both shrugged.

  “Never mind,” Chris said. “Thank you. I’m going back there now.”

  “No, you’re not,” Tyler said. “I am.”

  Chris regarded him like he’d grown another head. Tyler sat up a little straighter. He did not usually challenge his friend—definitely did not tell him what he could or could not do. But this time he knew he was right.

  “It’s your mother in there. I don’t trust you to keep your head. If everything isn’t just fine, I can keep my cool enough to pretend to be the newspaper boy or something, come to collect dues. It won’t necessarily
tip them off. And we can make a plan before we just go in fighting.”

  No one asked why everyone was assuming that the black car in Diane’s driveway meant bad news. With everything else that was happening, it seemed the safest assumption.

  “Fine,” Chris said. “Go to the door and find out what you can. We’ll be right behind you if you need us. Out of sight.”

  Tyler nodded and opened the truck door. He ducked out into the bright sunshine and jumped down. The cobbled road leading back to Diane’s was quiet as he trudged up it, trying to keep his nerves steady. A sense of foreboding grew. He knew the others were behind him but couldn’t see them and tried not to hear them. He fixed his eyes ahead, on the tall white house with the black car in the driveway.

  What are you doing? he asked himself.

  I’m not sure, he answered. Just trying to help.

  You’re playing Oneness, came a voice back.

  He was, too. Trying to be the part that was in place at just the right time, trying to be the one who filled a need. Need frightened him. It had frightened him from the day his parents died. All of life seemed a gaping hole, a lack so palpable it could swallow him. With Chris, with his friendship, he ran from that. He filled it with quiet, and fishing, and a surrogate family in the Sawyers. But the Oneness was something more than friendship, more than family. It was not threatened by need. It could not be swallowed by lack. It swallowed lack instead—swallowed it in a sufficiency and companionship and interrelatedness that was more than he had imagined could exist.

  Playing Oneness, he reminded himself.

  And there, six steps from Diane Sawyer’s kitchen door, he imagined what it would feel like to stop playing. For a moment he dreamed that the world hazed behind a grid, a web, a tapestry of threads in perfect order, and then the grid disappeared and the world was back, but not the same. He imagined himself gasping as he could feel them—Tony, Angelica, Diane—their personalities surging into his, their minds and spirits alive and present to him. Not merging with his—separate and distinct. And yet part of him too.

  For a brief second his imagination expanded, and he felt what it would feel like to know a thousand—a million—millions—of minds and hearts and spirits and gifts, all part of him, all connected to him. And it was as though they all were smiling, and all were saying, “Welcome home.”