The Prophecy

by Melissa Luznicky Garrett

  The Prophecy

  Book Two of The Spirit Keeper Series

  By Melissa Luznicky Garrett

  The Prophecy copyright 2013 by Melissa Luznicky Garrett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced, except for brief

  quotations, without permission from the author.

  The Prophecy is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events are coincidental.

  Published 2013.

  Cover design by www.Damonza.com

  For Natalie and David Allan.

  And also for Isobel Melissa.

  Acknowledgements

  I typically know what I want to say when I sit down to write my acknowledgments. Having just completed the final read-through of THE PROPHECY, my first thought is . . . It’s done at last!

  THE PROPHECY and its predecessor, THE SPIRIT KEEPER, have occupied my mind and time to varying degrees for the past six years. It’s been a long slog, and to finally put Sarah and the gang to rest fills me with great relief and happiness, but also with a twinge of sadness. I guess you can say I grew up with Sarah; she taught me a lot about who I am as a writer and how to tell a story, and I’m going to miss her. So, to Sarah Redbird, I say thank you.

  My sincere thanks to Nova Order, Natalie Allan, and Melissa Firman, for their editorial support and insightful feedback, which allowed me to write the best book I possibly could.

  Thanks to Leah Shvartsman and Lauren Loiacono for providing the names of the fictional Native American tribes that come later in the story.

  Thanks to Damon for humoring me when I said, “I know exactly what I want this cover to look like,” and then delivering on that vision.

  Thanks to my friends and fans, both in real life and online, for their continuous support and genuine desire to help me succeed.

  Thanks to Ian, Hannah, Jacob, and Bridget. I love you. For always.

  To my new readers: Welcome!

  ~Melissa

  ONE

  “I can’t . . . breathe,” Priscilla gasped. “And you’re pulling my hair!”

  She shoved me away and rubbed her scalp, giving me a hard look. But there was no mistaking the gleam in her eyes. As far as I was concerned, she was taking a little too much joy in my misery.

  “Quit freaking out,” she said. “You’ll only be gone a few days.”

  I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep from lunging at her again. She wasn’t a life preserver, after all.

  “I wish you could come with us.” My voice shook, and I coughed to hide it.

  The corners of Priscilla’s wide mouth lifted, making her eyes crinkle at the edges. “Yeah, right. I’d fit in like a donkey at a dog show.”

  I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing, despite the butterflies persistently flapping against my ribcage.

  There was zero chance of her blending in where I was going, what with her Amazonian height and mass of flaming hair. Besides, Aunt Meg said it wouldn’t be appropriate for an outsider to attend any Council meeting.

  Especially not this one.

  It didn’t matter that Priscilla and I had been best friends since the fifth grade or that she was in on the biggest secret of my life—that I had unwittingly become the Katori tribe’s new Spirit Keeper and apparently had the (not always reliable) ability to manipulate the elements. Priscilla would have to stay behind. I’d have to do this alone.

  “You won’t be alone,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

  I picked at a jagged fingernail as I watched the Templeton kids across the street using colored sidewalk chalk to graffiti their driveway. “I know. It’s just . . . you know.”

  I’m scared, is what I couldn’t say.

  Priscilla play-punched me sympathetically in the shoulder, making me rock back on my heels. “Yeah, I know.”

  Uncle David had promised to chip in a few hundred dollars toward a used car . . . if only I would stop pouting. It was driving everyone crazy, he said. His offer failed to lift me out of the mood I’d been wallowing in since my birthday a week ago. Any other seventeen-year-old girl would be thrilled with the possibility of finally getting a car. But not me. The only thing that concerned me was getting through the emotional drama of the next few days.

  And let’s face it: I wasn’t your average teenager anymore. As far as I knew, no other girl had brought her boyfriend back from the brink of death with just the touch of her hand and the powerful love in her heart. Corny-sounding, but true.

  Priscilla opened the car door and I reluctantly slid in, the backs of my bare thighs squeaking against the worn leather interior. Adrian sat shotgun next to his twin sister Shyla, who was in the driver’s seat. He turned a pair of dark, compassionate eyes on me. His bottom lip pushed out, mimicking the sour expression that Aunt Meg complained had been plastered on my face so long it was in danger of freezing that way. But I could tell by the way his nostrils flared and his shoulders shook that he was trying not to laugh. Everyone, including my boyfriend, thought I was overreacting.

  “It’ll be okay,” he finally said when I glared back. “You have nothing to worry about. I promise.”

  That’s what they all promised, but how could they be so sure? For the first time in seventeen years, I was going back to the place where it all began—the Katori reservation—where there was longstanding resentment for the mess my mother had unintentionally caused when she fell in love with the wrong man—my father. And as doom-and-gloom as it sounded, I had a feeling there were some members of the tribe who would never let me forget what she had done.

  Priscilla closed the door with a click of finality, and I pressed the worn button on the arm rest. The window inched its way down with a sickly whir.

  “Call me when you can,” she said.

  Priscilla stepped away as Shyla eased the car into reverse and backed slowly out of the driveway, pulling in line behind David. And even though I knew I would only feel worse for doing so, I turned in my seat and stared out the back window, watching as my best friend, and the security of home, faded into the distance.

  “You’re going to lose them.”

  I leaned forward and glanced at the speedometer, but the orange needle stayed fixed firmly in place at 60 mph.

  Shyla’s eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. “They are two cars ahead of us. We’re not going to lose them.”

  “But—”

  “Why don’t you just put your head back and relax for a little while?” she said. “Or, maybe, I don’t know . . . shut up and let me drive? You’re being super annoying.”

  Clenching my jaw, I choked down another response. I knew I was walking a thin line with my constant nagging. I’d been on the receiving end of Shyla’s temper before, and I didn’t exactly want to go there again.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get comfortable. Shyla’s rusted Camry was as ancient as the Parthenon, and the AC wheezed and rattled, sending out inconsistent spurts of cool air. My hairline prickled with sweat—or maybe nerves—and I swiped the back of my hand irritably across my forehead.

  I leaned forward between the two front seats again. “Can’t you go faster? You’re barely going the speed limit.” I watched the orange needle, but it didn’t budge.

  Shyla cleared her throat. “When you finally learn how to drive sometime this century, then you can go however fast you want. Until then, quit complaining or bum a ride with the old folks next time we stop.”

  Adrian grunted with laughter. I sat back and stared straight ahead, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the growing distance between Shyla’s car and David’s. He was a wannabe Formula One driver, and I knew it was only a matte
r of time before he outpaced us. I stuck my thumbnail between my front teeth and bit down hard, hoping I could draw out the nervousness like tiny droplets of blood.

  “Can’t you—”

  “Sarah, chill out! I’ve got GPS. There’s no way we’re going to get lost.”

  Adrian turned in his seat. “I was on the reservation two months ago. I haven’t forgotten my way home.”

  Home.

  He’d meant it as reassurance, but it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the car with that one word. Did Adrian still consider the Katori reservation his home, even though he’d already begun to make a new life here in Ithaca with his sister and Gran? With me? I never considered that he might one day want to return to the reservation for good. I’d always assumed that he would go wherever I went—considering we were destined to be together forever—and I certainly didn’t want to end up in some remote little town with a bunch of strangers who hated my mother, and most likely hated me by default.

  “We’ll be there before you know it,” Adrian said, misunderstanding the reason for my anxiety. He unclasped his seatbelt and maneuvered his way to the backseat beside me.

  I scooted closer and lay my head against his shoulder. My love for Adrian was the one oasis in this great desert of uncertainty. Adrian rested his hand on my knee and squeezed, and it was only a matter of minutes before he was snoring.

  The uneven road made my teeth rattle in my mouth. I imagined they were tapping out the S.O.S distress signal in Morse code. Unfortunately, no one would be coming to my rescue today. I had no idea how the Katori people would react to me, a visible reminder of the most significant rift in their tribal history. I might be the tribe’s new Spirit Keeper, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d been born an outsider.

  “What’s going on in there?” Adrian asked some time later as he dug the sleep from the corners of his eyes. He poked me in the side of the head. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

  I met Shyla’s eyes in the rear view mirror, but she quickly looked away. There was no such thing as privacy in the backseat of a car. “It’s nothing.”

  Adrian brushed the end of my braid against the back of my neck, making my skin break out in goosebumps. I squirmed a few inches to the right, as much as the tight space and seatbelt would allow. I didn’t feel like playing.

  “You’re lying. I can tell.”

  I gave him a look from the corner of my eye. “What, are you a mind reader now?”

  He grinned. “Nope. Just your boyfriend.”

  His eyes roamed my face, and a crease formed between his dark brows when I refused to give up my private thoughts. The scrutiny became too much, and I leaned against his shoulder so he couldn’t see my face. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

  “Fine,” he said. “Be that way.” But I could tell he wasn’t mad.

  “So are you still thinking about Cornell?” I asked, purposely changing the subject. “You should definitely arrange a visit.”

  “I told you before I’m not Cornell material. They won’t want me.” And then more quietly: “It was a stupid idea to think I ever had a chance.”

  I gave him a half-hearted punch in the thigh. “You are Cornell material. You’ve got the grades.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “There’s always community college,” Shyla chimed in from the front seat, more as a jibe than an actual suggestion. Adrian was desperate to go to a top university.

  “Just drop it,” Adrian said. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He turned to stare out the window.

  Several moments later he said, “Besides, grades aren’t everything. Do you know how much an Ivy League university costs for one year? It’s insanely expensive, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “There’s always financial aid or scholarships,” I suggested. “Or you could get a job. Didn’t you used to fix cars on the reservation? Maybe you could find someone local who’s hiring.”

  “Yes, you could get a job,” Shyla said pointedly. “Gran would appreciate the extra help, but she’s too proud to ask. Do you have any idea the amount of food you go through in one week?”

  “Was that a rhetorical question?” Adrian reached forward and flicked the back of his sister’s head.

  “Ouch, you idiot! That hurt!”

  Shyla swerved the car from one side of the lane to the other, sending Adrian and me knocking into each other like two pinballs in an arcade game.

  Adrian had his thumb and middle finger poised for another flick, but I swatted away his hand. “Don’t do that!” My stomach was knotted enough without having to worry about getting in an accident, too.

  Adrian and Shyla erupted in laughter, but at least they stopped goofing off. Shyla resumed her normal pace and I finally relaxed, silently vowing that I would never be such an irresponsible and reckless driver.

  I clasped the heart pendant at my neck, a gift from Adrian for my birthday. My anxiety bubbled at the surface like a pot of water dangerously close to boiling over.

  “How much longer?” I asked.

  “About an hour,” Shyla said. “We’re almost to Old Forge, and then not much further from there.”

  Adrian and Shyla had spent years on the reservation near Blue Mountain Lake. Despite the circumstances that had driven each of them away, I could feel the pulse of their excitement, like the throbbing of too-loud music coming from stereo speakers

  “So how many people actually live on the reservation?” I needed to know what I was up against. Meg and David hadn’t volunteered much information about the Katori people; after all, they’d severed all ties with them more than seventeen years ago when they’d been forced to leave. They’d been but kids themselves.

  “About three hundred live there now,” Adrian said. “The population is dwindling, and it’s mostly older folks. It’s not really a place most people want to stay forever, you know? And with fewer kids of full Katori blood being born, not many ever come back.” He shrugged as though that was the way of things and it couldn’t really be helped.

  I swallowed down the rising nausea. Three hundred people. Entirely too many, in my opinion. I would’ve gladly gone the rest of my life without meeting any of them, but that wasn’t possible now.

  “David’s pulling off,” Shyla said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

  She slowed as we merged onto the exit ramp, and then turned right at a stop sign and followed my uncle for another quarter mile to a gas station.

  The front passenger door of David’s car flew open before he had even come to a complete stop. Shyla pulled in next to his car and cut the engine, and Adrian rushed to help his grandmother Imogene as she struggled to hoist her abundant frame from the vehicle.

  “I feel like a dam that’s about to burst! That’s what happens when you get old like me and your bladder shrivels to the size of a prune.” She gave an apologetic grimace as she waddled off to find a bathroom.

  Meg got out next and stretched her arms over her head, opening her mouth with a jaw-cracking yawn. She looked around, squinting against the sun like a mole just out of hiding. “Where are we?”

  Adrian touched my arm. “I’m gonna get a drink. Want anything?”

  Anxiety had turned my tongue to sandpaper. “Water would be great.”

  He pinched my arm affectionately. “Be right back.”

  Leaning against the car, I fished my cell from my pocket, desperate to hear Priscilla’s voice. Upon closer inspection, I realized the battery icon showed zero signs of life. Completely drained. Of course.

  Meg and David had finally graduated to the 21st century and bought me a cell phone for my birthday, but half the time I forgot to charge it. And what good was a dead cell phone? Come to think of it, I’d forgotten to pack the charger. It was still plugged into the outlet by my desk. I shoved the phone back in my pocket, fuming on the inside.

  “Everything okay?” Meg leaned against the car next to me, wincing as the heat of the exposed metal seeped through the thin ma
terial of her shirt. “You seem a little edgy.”

  I dug my heel in the gravel, sending up little motes of dust. “I’m fine, Meg. Everything’s just freakin’ dandy.”

  She threw her arm around my shoulder. “You know, it’s not like we’re delivering you to your execution. You’re stressing out for nothing. This is all just a formality. Besides, you’ll have the five of us there with you.”

  My bottom lip trembled and I looked quickly away. Meg always had a knack for getting to the heart of what was bothering me.

  “What if I refuse to go?” I said.

  Meg laughed as she swept her hand out in front of us, indicating the desolate landscape of this little in-between town.

  “Do you plan on pitching a tent and camping out in this lovely parking lot? At least you’d have a bathroom, and all the hot dogs and Big Gulps you could stomach.”

  Adrian slid in on the other side and pressed a cold bottle against my arm, making me flinch. “Did I hear something about going camping?”

  I unscrewed the cap and gulped a mouthful of water, wiping away the excess from my lips with the back of my hand. “If only we were so lucky.”

  TWO

  Dense growths of Sugar Maples and Balsam Firs stretched to the sky on either side of the road, making me feel even more claustrophobic. But every so often there was enough break in the trees through which to see the sun glinting off the surface of Blue Mountain Lake.

  It reminded me of the way the sun rippled and danced on the creek back home, and all the alone time Adrian and I had been spending there lately, getting to know each other. A lot better . . .

  An oncoming sign interrupted my daydream: “KATORI INDIAN RESERVATION—5 MILES.”

  My palms immediately sprang a leak, and I wiped them against my shorts, which only made the problem worse.

  Adrian nudged my shoulder, his brow knotted with concern as he edged away from me. “You look like you’re gonna hurl. Have some water.”

  I rolled the window all the way down and inhaled the fresh mountain air. “I’m not going to hurl,” I yelled over the rushing wind. “I just need some air. I’ll be fine.”