I let go of my built-up energy and send it straight into Ezra, hoping that it finds the hybrid Dweller within and forces it from Ezra. With Nate, Xander, Ira and Lathan still trying to pull me from my father, I open my eyes in time to see the approaching creatures and the human Dwellers begin to blur and fragment. The weightlessness comes quickly and we are gone.
CHAPTER 38: LET GO
Jesca
“We are almost there, Jes.”
The back of Roan’s figure as he walks ahead of me comes into view.
Delilah’s voice is at my back. “Slow down, Ro, the mounds aren’t going anywhere.”
I don’t turn. I’ve been in this remembrance before, my first trip to the mounds. The climb is hard and I’m tired, Even though it is a memory, I’m tired.
“Almost to the top.” It’s not Roan’s voice now, but Ezra’s. Why am I hearing Ezra’s voice in my vision?
Anna’s voice replaces Delilah’s and says, “You can make it, Jes.”
Why am I hearing Ezra and Anna’s voices? Without thinking it through, I attempt to reach for the figure ahead of me to turn him to me. Just as before in my visions, my hands aren’t my own to command suddenly. I want to physically turn around and look at the face of the woman behind me. To see if it is Anna, but again I can’t budge. My body doesn’t listen as I continue to climb mindlessly behind the figure ahead of me.
Suddenly, Roan’s form clears the stairs and the sun shines directly onto my face, brighter and more intense than I’ve seen before in this vision. Roan’s figure continues to walk away, leaving me standing at the top of the mound alone. I can’t hear or see the woman behind me either. I should feel panicked, but I don’t. The hypnotizing sun’s comforting glow has me at peace suddenly, until the hypnotic brightness of the light flickers then flaps, turning into both darkness and light reflecting in my eyes. I blink repeatedly to try to bring focus to the blurred scene before me. As the transformed source of light sharpens, I see the familiar flapping flames of a fiery pit before me. The shaman’s tanned, wrinkled face and striking amber eyes come into view just beyond the licks of fire rising between us. I’m in the vision again. The feeling of the fire on my face mirrors the warmth of the sun, until the warmth intensifies becoming blistering. All of a sudden, my body reacts not on my own accord, and slides back away from the flames.
The shaman begins chanting and the sound of drumming begins reverberating off the walls of the kiva. The shaman raises his arms and unclasps the chain hanging around his neck. As he brings it over his head, the shine of a copper disc the size of a quarter gleams in the firelight. Continuing his incantation, the shaman holds the medallion away from himself, just as the woman from the thatched roof hut comes into view. It’s Onawah’s mother. The high priest places the medal in her hands and she turns to walk toward me. When she approaches, Onawah lifts her hands to accept the copper medallion; they are trembling. Looking upon the copper disc, I see the primitive inscriptions circling the outer rim of this ornament and just beyond it, the reflection of the wide-awake one, Onawah. Other than her deeper colored skin, her face would mold perfectly to mine. Unexpectedly and without control, Onawah’s eyes close, leaving me in darkness. The chanting continues and the drumbeat becomes more thunderous, but not so much to not hear Ezra’s calming voice on the surface of it.
“Fulfill the legacy and don’t look back, Jesca.”
Why does he sound like he is saying goodbye?
Ezra’s voice comes again, fading ever so slightly, “I finally understand what Anna meant that night in the cabin.”
I feel my heart begin to race as he continues, “It is a different way of existence, Jesca. Transcending our world doesn’t mean we are no longer part of it. It just means that our cycle has come to pass and it’s time for us to let go of this world.”
A painful emptiness that radiates throughout my chest takes my breath as I hear those words. He is letting go. The thought of him letting go stirs my mind and body into action and I awaken, expecting to still be holding Ezra’s hands, willing him to fight for his life, but I’m not.
I’m trying to sit upright, hands pushing off the earth, and eyes wide as they adjust to the low-lit cave, when Ira’s hands take hold of my shoulders and hold me down.
Panicked, I look into Ira’s amber eyes and ask urgently, “Where’s Ezra?”
Ira speaks quickly, urgently, “We jumped. You sending your energy to Ezra somehow projected us to the mounds.”
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 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.
“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, and 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.”
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’s 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 need to see him!”
As I wail, Ira lifts me off the ground as I’m kicking, 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 whisks 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 lying 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 longe
r.
Xander is by my side and I feel the presence of others behind us. 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’s not going to wake up. 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 at 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 all right.”
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 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’s 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, Elicia, 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 lets me go and I rush to her. She opens her arms and wraps them around me.
I sob, “He’s 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 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 who 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’s 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’ve 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, 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, and then leaves the cavern in a blur.
Daniel comes to Sebastian’s side and whispers, “I’ll 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.
“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, spurring 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’ve 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.
CHAPTER 39: BRANDED
Jesca
The bright light fades slowly, but the imprint it leaves on my eyes 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 who led us here to the mound.
Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy Page 99