Guardian's Faith

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  The girl shook her head. "It's just a feeling I have, like something is welling up inside me and sooner or later I'll have to let it out and I can't let it out. I just can't." Her eyes filled up with tears and she stamped her foot. "It's not fair!" Laura voiced the age old complaint as only a teenaged girl could. "Why do the men celebrate when a boy discovers he has the ability to shift, but we girls have to hide our… our talents?"

  It didn't seem fair to Faith either, but complaining about it wasn't going to help.

  "I'm not a bad person," Laura protested as if Faith had claimed she was. "I want to stay here. I want to marry and raise my family here, but I don't think it's fair that I have to hide what I am. I want to be like you, but…" her chin started to quiver. She looked around once more to make sure they were alone and then, "I'm scared. I don't want people looking at me the way they look…" The girl looked up bleakly.

  "At me," Faith finished for her. "That's okay, Laura. I understand. I really do." Fear had become her constant companion over the last few years and although it had changed its face, it was always with her.

  Laura sniffed and nodded and one lone tear rolled down her cheek. The girl had gone from a defiantly brave teenager to a frightened and worried little girl in a matter of minutes. This wasn't teenaged drama.

  "I have to learn how to do something with it. I can't let it just come popping out. If it does and someone sees me, I'm afraid something bad will happen to me."

  "You can't learn to do something with it until you know what it is. Everyone's different. Nothing bad will happen, Laura," Faith assured her.

  "It could. It will," the girl insisted and lowered her voice to a whisper barely heard, "just like it did to Rosie."

  "What happened to Rosie?" Faith asked as calmly as she could. She found a wooden crate the right height for a bench and sat with a hand on the girl's arm to show she really wanted to know and would listen to whatever she was told.

  "They say she's one of the Forgotten, but it isn't true. She didn't run away. She wouldn't have."

  If Rosie had run away, Faith understood how difficult that could be for a friend left behind, but Laura sounded so adamant in her denial that Faith asked the only question she could.

  "Why are you so sure Rosie didn't run away?"

  The teenager looked down and shrugged. "Because she was my best friend," Laura repeated the phrase she'd repeated for weeks, but now she added the truth she couldn't admit to anyone else. "Because we were going to go together." When she looked up again, another tear had joined the first.

  "Rosie was like me, like us. We made a pact. Whatever we did, stay or go, we would do it together. Then Rosie started to slip. She was like I am now. She could feel it welling up inside her and sometimes when she got angry or excited, it would slip out. Dishes would rattle. Doors would slam."

  Faith nodded. "Lamps would fly across the room."

  The girl's head snapped up. "Is that what happened to you?"

  "No. Everybody's different," Faith repeated. "It's the ones with the more physical gifts that have the hardest time because other people can see it. That was my sister, but at the time, we didn't know what we were and our father said it was the work of the devil."

  She closed her eyes, remembering the beatings Hope endured because of it. She wondered now if she hadn't learned to suppress what was inside her because of what she'd witnessed with her sister.

  "So why would Rosie leave without you?" she asked, putting her personal speculations aside.

  "Exactly. She wouldn't. We had it all planned, but at the last minute I knew I couldn't do it. This place isn't much, but it's my home. I'm one of the People and to give that up and forget everyone I've known and loved, well, I just couldn't do it. I snuck out and went to our meeting place. Rosie wasn't there. I waited and waited and finally came home. I thought she slept through it or chickened out, too, and I was so mad at her for making me stand around waiting. I should have done something then. I should have gone to her house. I should have…"

  The girl started to cry again and looked so miserable Faith put her arm around her and gave her a squeeze before starting to sign again.

  "It's not your fault," she said thinking this was more the fault of the people who wouldn't allow these girls to be free and open about what they were. "What happened after that?"

  "They sent searchers on the ground and in the air," Laura said which Faith took to mean shifters, "but they didn't find anything." Laura covered her face with her hands. "Whatever signs there were had blown away on the wind and the birds saw nothing. If the owl and the eagle saw nothing, then there was nothing to see."

  "Who did you tell about this? What did they say?" Surely someone would have listened to the girl's story.

  "I can't!" the girl wailed, forgetting to whisper. "I'd have to tell them how I knew and then they'd ask me why we were running away and then they would know what I am." She looked so broken and lost. "I want to be brave like you. I do. I want to stand up and show them what I am, but I can't. I'm not you. I'm scared what happened to Rosie is going to happen to me."

  "Nothing's going to happen to you," Faith reassured her. "Go home. Listen to your mother." She raised her hand like a traffic cop. "Don't argue and keep your secrets to yourself. And Laura? I understand about being afraid."

  She smiled calmly when she said goodbye and thought she did a decent job of pretending self-confidence, but the girl's story sent chills of fear crawling up Faith's spine. When she turned the corner of the building, she startled a crow that was picking at an open garbage can. It flew up, almost into her face, and throwing her arms up, she reeled against the building. Shaking badly, she melted down the wall and sat quaking in the dirt.

  It felt like hours, but according to her watch it was only minutes. It was the thought of Laura admiring Faith's bravery that got her up and moving. What if the girl found her sitting next to a garbage can looking like the Cowardly Lion shaking uncontrollably and dabbing at his eyes with his tail?

  Faith wasn't brave, never had been, never would be, but it wouldn't do to let Laura know that. The kid was scared and feeling alone. Faith knew that feeling all too well. It didn't help if the person you turned to felt that way, too. She stood, brushed the dirt from her backside and closed her eyes. Don't feel. Think!

  Laura was a teenager, not the most rational stage in life. Rosie was her best friend and it would be hard to accept a best friend's betrayal. Laura was afraid of being discovered. Put it all together and it would be easy to come up with a skewed point of view.

  Faith needed another more rational viewpoint and there was only one person in village who could offer it.

  *****

  Briza's little shop carried a wide variety of ladies' lingerie. It seemed out of place in the dusty, old fashioned village, but Briza assured her it was not.

  "For years I listened to the complaints from women, myself among them, about buying these things through the catalogs at Mendoza's store and having Eliza Murphy tell everyone about everything you ordered. Not that we wish to shut her up," Briza laughed, "Without Eliza, we would have no news at all, but some things are best kept private. When my second husband died, I bought this building with the money he left me and opened this shop. In a village this size I'll never get rich, but I pay my way and above all…" She winked and said in a lowered voice, "…I'm discreet."

  The way she said it made it clear to Faith that Briza knew a great deal about more than cup sizes. That she was a Daughter of Man also afforded Faith the opportunity to tell the unedited version of Laura's concern.

  There were two other women in the shop, both talking to Briza, when Faith opened the door. They both turned to Faith, a natural reaction to the tinkling of the overhead bell, and then back to Briza as if asking permission. Briza smiled and nodded slowly, giving it as she handed them their small bags. A few quiet words were exchanged.

  In desperate need of a few things herself, Faith sorted through a pretty basket marked SALE that was filled with
a colorful array of panties looking for a size that would fit her newly rounded bottom. It was also a good excuse to be in the shop. After her reception at Mendoza's, she wasn't sure Briza would want their budding friendship known.

  She needn't have worried. The two women, both on the younger side of middle-age, stopped by the basket and offered her cautious smiles and open palms. Faith shook their hands gladly and was only a little surprised by what she felt.

  "Some women buy more lingerie than others," Briza laughed when the door closed behind them.

  "So you know all the Daughters in village?" Faith asked after she placed her items on the counter.

  "Some, not all. Some don't want it known by anyone that they carry the stain even by those who carry it, too, and I'm not convinced we're what you call Daughters of Man. Some distant cousins, maybe. Is this all?" Briza nodded at Faith's chest. "From what I can see, you need more than that. Everyone can use a little support."

  Faith blushed. "No money and anyway, that's not why I'm here."

  "So what? You can kill two birds with one stone and I'll send the bill to the Hacienda."

  "Oh no, I couldn't do that. They've given me enough already. I couldn't ask for more."

  "You're a member of his household, aren't you? He's got it. Let him spend it. God knows, he's given little else to this village." Briza reached for the tape measure hanging on the wall behind her. "Let's go in the dressing room where we can get some measurements."

  "How can you say that?" Faith asked when Briza turned back, "What about the school and the other things he's provided for the village. Before Adam and Lalo arrived Lucien patrolled almost every night. He and Álvaro were on their own." And if she wasn't mistaken, the number of their encounters with demons was almost the same as Canaan's House in the city. "He's given his whole life to this village."

  "Yep," Briza said. "He's given us things and he's protected us from demons. He hasn't done jack shit to protect us from each other." She looked Faith up and down. "Are you going to take off the shirt so I can measure?"

  "No." Faith told her firmly. "Look Briza, this isn't what I came here for."

  "I know," the other woman told her and gave her a meaningful look, "but there are other things I need to know first. Give me your hand."

  Faith held her hand out and Briza turned it palm up. Supporting it with one hand, she began to trace the lines with her finger. Faith felt a faint tingling in her palm and looked up. With one hand trapped in Briza's, she couldn't sign, but Briza knew what she was thinking.

  "Yeah, I know," the woman said sarcastically, "I left my Gypsy costume and the crystal ball at home. Now let me concentrate."

  While Faith looked on, Briza lowered her head until her nose was almost touching it and traced the lines of her palm, not just the longer ones, but the smaller ones as well, following the faint striations all the way to the ends of her fingertips. When a single teardrop splashed in the center of her hand, Faith curled her fingers into a fist and Briza looked up.

  "What happened to you?" Briza whispered. There were two horrible disruptions in this woman's life and a third in the future if something wasn't done to change the path.

  "Nothing. It's over. It's in the past."

  "No. It isn't," Briza said as Faith turned away. She placed her hand on Faith's shoulder. "It affects your whole life, past, present and future and your life affects ours."

  "Do I cross your palm with silver now or should I have done that first?" Faith asked. Her bitterness was evident. What had Briza told her that she didn't already know? "Are you going to show me my life line? My love line? Don't bother. I already know what the future holds."

  "That's not how it works," Briza said, ignoring the obvious sarcasm. "I've never read a book or seen another reader do it. I'm not even very good at it. Not much practice or maybe the stain doesn't run too deep."

  "Gift, damn it! It's a gift, not a stain."

  Faith was suddenly angry. Her gift was the only thing she had that was pure and clean. To turn it into some filthy aberration would take away the only thing she had that made her life worth living.

  "You wouldn't think so if you'd seen what I've seen and knew what I know. A part of me is happy we aren't allowed to practice. I don't want to know what woman will outlive her children. I don't want to know whose life will be cut short or filled with misery." She looked down at Faith's hand." I don't want to see how the horrors of a woman's past shape her future."

  "What's done is done and can't be undone. My future's set in stone."

  Even though Faith knew this, she'd never voiced it with her hands. Forming the words made it sound too real and left no room for hope. She wanted to run, to escape, to hide. Like those twelve-step programs advocated, she could only deal with one day at a time. She didn't want to hear about her long and barren future. This wasn't what she came for.

  "Up until recently, I thought the future was set in stone, too," Briza told her, "I used to think the palm told the story from beginning to end, but I know differently now. We're not puppets on some cosmic string. I know the future can be changed."

  "How? How do you know?" Faith asked, not daring to hope.

  "Goyo lived," Briza said simply.

  Chapter 22

  "My grandmother used to tell me stories," Briza began as she set out cups and saucers and waited for the water to boil. "Stories passed down from her mother's grandmother before that. She talked about this place being a little slice of heaven when all I saw was a little, dusty, dried up village. I used to think that's all they were, stories of times past, but we were close. I liked the sound of her voice repeating those stories time and again. So I listened and now I wonder…"

  "Young people had always left the village, but in the distant past, they were the ones without the mark of the earth, the mark of the People. The unmarked became the Forgotten. Slowly, it became the other way around. The marked, particularly the young women, became the Forgotten.

  "Back then, no one made the unmarked leave, but it was hard to watch others go through the rituals and learn the secrets of the People when you couldn't. This was understood by all. The true People were so tied to the land they couldn't leave. They were the vast majority then and the women practiced alongside their men." Briza offered the creamer to Faith. "Milk?"

  Faith didn't want tea. She wanted the story. She wanted to know what happened to this village and to understand what was happening now.

  "Don't stop! What happened?"

  "A massacre. You know about the Patron's family?" When Faith nodded, Briza went on. "The land had always protected this place. Yes, the devil's spawn crossed over here, but the People saw that as part of the balance between good and evil. It was the price we paid for our slice of heaven. First the priests came and then the Guardians. They slew our demons. We grew their corn and cattle. Once again, balance until…"

  "… the massacre."

  "No, until the death of Engracia."

  "The bruja who was stoned to death in front of the church."

  Briza nodded. "Ah, you know that story, too." She took a sip of her tea while Faith waited impatiently for her to continue. "According to my grandmother that was when things began to fall apart. I suppose it didn't help that they found Engracia in a place known to be haunted by the dead and frequented by demons, but nevertheless, her own people turned on her. My grandmother believed that when the People turned their backs on Engracia, the magic of this place turned its back on them."

  "It wasn't a curse. It was a warning," Faith defended the woman long dead.

  "That's what my grandmother said, but what's true isn't always as important as what people believe. Someone started those rumors. Someone roused that mob. Someone brought those bandits here. Someone led those soldiers. Someone let loose those demons to feed.

  "By the time it was over, half our little village was gone. The Guardian's people lost more. Someone decided it was the brujas who cause it and the People took up the cry. There were so many casualties that the dead
had to be buried in mass graves, but if you listen to my grandmother's stories, not all those deaths occurred during the raid. Some happened later, after someone decided it was the brujas' fault."

  Her cup rattled in its saucer as Faith set it down. Knowing the two stories as she did, she could see where the Paenitentia would place their blame. They'd hated the Daughters of Man for thousands of years. But the People?

  Briza saw the horrified understanding dawn on Faith's face and nodded.

  "The balance was gone between the men and the women, between the magic of the shape-shifters and that of the brujas, between the land and the People." She closed her eyes for a moment, made her decision and opened them again. "Between the Hacienda and the village."

  "Has no one tried to change it after all these years?"

  "What would you have us do? We can't fight what we can't see. I couldn't give you an exact number of how many of us are left, but I doubt it's more than fifty or sixty, both men and women, and how many of them would want to return to the old ways? I have no idea. We brujas must live and practice in secret because if we don't, we…"

  "Go insane or die. Manon told us that. Does that happen to many?"

  "To some, but being caught is just as dangerous." Briza smiled without humor. "One way or another, we tend to become the Forgotten."

  "It's a wonder you all don't leave. Why stay?"

  Even as her fingers formed the words, Faith knew the answer. Running was her solution. It always had been, but as Briza so clearly pointed out, you couldn't run from what you carried with you.

  Briza answered as Faith knew she would. "This is our home, our land, our heritage. We are the People."

  "Then why tell me? This isn't my fight." If these people hadn't been able to right the wrongs in all these years what did they think she could do?

  The other woman raised her eyebrows in question. "Isn't it? You told me you were compelled to come here. I believe you were called. You're a healer and this land needs healing. You are the thread that can stitch it back together; the Guardian's people, my people; the land, the village; the brujas, the shape-shifters. I see it in your palm, but only you can clear the way. You can restore the balance, Faith. Others believe it, too."