Between Will and Surrender

by Margaret Duarte

  Tommy Boy grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

  Jake didn’t agree. “How do we know you won’t let them go?”

  “You don’t,” Veronica said. “Can you come up with a better plan?”

  They stared at each other, calling to mind a standoff in an old TV western. I should have been scared, but something kept me calm, almost as if a comforting hand rested on my shoulder.

  “No!” Jake said. “You’re coming with us. Tommy, tie them back up.”

  Tommy Boy was happy to oblige, and in a ridiculously pompous manner, he escorted us back to the small, stinking room and tied up our hands and feet.

  Veronica helped her friends load their bounty, and after some shuffling, the three of them left the shack together.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  I LOST TRACK OF TIME. Once or twice during the long night, I had dozed off; my dreams plagued by imagined endings to our plight, each more dreadful than the last. Completely awake now, the full force of the possibility that Joshua and I might die washed over me like a tsunami. What difference had my life made to anyone, except maybe Joshua? Because of me, he might die.

  My desperate thoughts turned to my mother. I should have called her as Morgan had suggested. He’d known that I was hurting her and had tried to warn me. He knew because his sister, Teri, was doing the same. I could hear Morgan’s words as if he were sitting right next to me. “Why are you punishing your mother? Is it because she loves you too much or because she won’t let you go?” Yet, in spite of my regrets, something inside still refused to give in. If I got out of this alive, I’d continue my search.

  My journey would not be over.

  I would, however, contact my mother.

  My main concern right now was for Joshua. I would protect him with my life, if it came to that. But would my life be enough?

  Although mad as hell at my sister, I refused to judge her. Unless, of course, she posed a threat to Joshua. So far, that hadn’t been the case. Joshua trusted Veronica, and for now, so would I.

  It had to be past lunchtime, maybe even late afternoon, considering the rise in the room’s temperature and the accompanying rise in its stench. Footsteps sounded in the next room. My insides twisted with the knowledge that, with my hands and feet tied, I couldn’t shield Joshua from harm. He was awake, his eyes calm and hate-free. Thank God.

  Veronica rushed into the room, her face uncharacteristically flushed. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  “Time for what?”

  She untied my hands and feet. “Quick, take off your clothes.”

  “What?”

  She dropped to the floor and yanked off her boots. “Close your eyes, Joshua.”

  He didn’t need a second telling.

  “Veronica, are you crazy?”

  “Shut up and strip. Jake and Tommy are stoned. Idiots. They can’t even keep it together when their world’s falling apart. I was able to convince them that I needed to check up on you, but even in their semi-wasted state, they’ll get suspicious soon.”

  I unlaced my boots with shaking hands.

  “Hurry, damn it!” Already down to her bra and panties, Veronica got up, rushed to the doorway, and peeked into the next room.

  I removed my belted pouch and stepped out of my jeans.

  Veronica grabbed them and pulled them on.

  “My totem,” I said.

  “Belonged to me first.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your shirt and put on mine.”

  Time slowed to a crawl. I felt stuck in slow motion, unable to move.

  “Damn it, Marjorie, when did you turn into such a klutz?”

  “Okay, okay.” Adrenaline rushed through me like a performance-enhancing drug. My movements quickened. “Darn, your jeans are tight.”

  “Wait till you put on the boots. Now, talk like me.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but stopped when I saw what appeared to be fear in her eyes. I thought of all the powerful moves my sister made and the powerful way she talked. “Go to hell!”

  “I can see the transformation already,” she said.

  I’d already noticed that Veronica’s hair was braided like mine, but only now did I begin to suspect why. “So that’s why you cut and bleached your hair and nixed the makeup.”

  “We needed to look exactly alike.”

  I wondered how my sister could have planned this in advance. Usually so cool and calm, her agitation attacked me like a virus. “Can’t we just run for it?”

  “You, my little sister, are going to walk out of here.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “As me.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “You’ll walk into the trap the police have set for Jake, Tommy, and me.”

  “How will that work?”

  “You’ll tell them what’s going on and send back help.”

  “I can’t leave Joshua behind.”

  “I’ll take care of him. Like before . . .”

  “What do you mean, like before?”

  “Walk like me.”

  “Veronica, this is crazy.”

  “I said walk like me!”

  I took a few steps, swaying my hips as I’d seen her do, trying to replace terror with resolve.

  “A bit overdone,” Veronica said, “but a good start.”

  I eyed the red boots on my feet.

  “Like them boots, do you? Would look perfect with a red jacket.”

  This was unreal, a bad dream. I wasn’t about to risk my life in an escape attempt. Me. The person everyone was always trying to protect and tell what to do. “I’m not going,” I said.

  “If you want Joshua to live, you will.”

  “No, Veronica. Jake can tell us apart.”

  Veronica opened her eyes wide and frowned. Her face took on an entirely different expression. “I’ve been trying to tell you. Power is all in the mind.”

  Then I sensed it, too. I felt stronger, taller, more powerful.

  “Now tie me up,” Veronica said.

  I did as instructed. Voluntarily. Because it was the right thing to do, not because someone was telling me to. “What if they hurt you?”

  “As me, I have power, but as you, I’ll have more.”

  I shook my head, confused.

  “Those two losers are actually impressed with you. Your naivety fascinates them. In their eyes, you’re a rarity. You remind them of their mothers.”

  Being called naïve and motherly wasn’t exactly an ego booster, but at this point, ego didn’t much matter. “They’re desperate, Veronica.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “God, you’d better be right.”

  “I’m staking my life on it,” she said.

  And with those words, I knew I couldn’t leave either of them. “I’m not going.”

  I caught a look of relief in Joshua’s eyes and reluctant admiration in my sister’s. And for once, my face showed no expression, which was a good thing, because Jake chose that moment to re-enter the room.

  Veronica sat next to Joshua, eyes wide, and thanks to all the chemicals Jake had inhaled into his system, he didn’t seem to notice the exchange.

  Unfortunately, he was carrying a rife. Pete’s rifle.

  “We’re taking them to the cave,” he said, addressing me with an unfocused smile. “Untie them.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  THE CAVE HAD BEEN CLOSE AFTER ALL, within walking distance of where Jake had intercepted me and taken my horse. It was getting dark. A tall cliff, plus bushes and trees walled the area, further blocking the sun. Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by the rumble of thunder.

  “Not again,” Tommy Boy whimpered.

  I nearly whimpered, too. This location had attracted me during my first visit, and I’d been more than eager to enter the cave’s interior, but now it terrified me. The atmosphere rated right up there with misty graveyard
s and haunted mansions as an ideal setting for mischief, and I had no inkling of what steps to take next. After such a delicious taste of freedom since coming to Carmel Valley, this renewed sense of helplessness rubbed me raw. Using Veronica’s vernacular, it sucked.

  Jake cursed the shadowy darkness inside the cave. Tommy Boy’s small lantern did little more than illuminate the tomb-like quality of the area directly in front of us.

  “Let’s leave ‘em,” Tommy Boy said, his voice echoing back like a cold draft. “With us guarding the way out of here, they can’t get away.”

  “I’ll stay,” I said quickly.

  Jake shrugged. At this point, he didn’t seem to care what I did. I was grateful that with the faint light cast by the lantern there was little chance he’d recognize that I wasn’t Veronica. Tommy Boy treated me to a blank stare, reminding me of monkeys at the zoo with their empty eyes, resigned to their fate.

  “Tie them back up,” Jake ordered.

  “We left the ropes behind,” I said.

  “Fuck.”

  “We could use our shoe laces,” Tommy Boy said.

  Jake looked at Tommy Boy for several seconds before shaking his head. “Forget it. They’re not going anywhere.”

  Then, side-by-side, our captors walked out of the cave and disappeared through an opening in the surrounding bushes and trees, which might as well have been a moat, given our change of getting through it alive.

  “Okay, Veronica,” I said. “We can’t walk way out of here with Jake and Tommy Boy armed and blocking the trail, so what’s the plan?”

  “Plan?”

  Unable to make out my sister’s face in the semi-darkness, I couldn’t tell if she was serious or just pulling my leg. “You’re the one who forced me into an identity switch, like some Parent Trap scheme. Call me crazy, but I thought you might have a plan.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “You do, don’t you?”

  “You mean like pulling out a gun and shooting our way out?”

  “Yes, damn it!” What was the matter with her? It wasn’t like Veronica to be so passive.

  “What do you suggest?” she asked, her tone snarky.

  “Me?” I hissed. “You’re the strong one. I’m just—”

  “You’re just what, Sis? We’re identical in more ways than you think. What I can do, you can do, maybe even better. It’s hard to step forward if you don’t believe in yourself.”

  “You missed your calling, Veronica. You should be peddling advice instead of drugs.”

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “We exchanged clothes, not personalities,” I snapped, deciding to keep talking to hide my fear.

  “You could have fooled me,” she said. “You’ve become bitchy enough to pass for me, though I’d like to believe I’m not such a coward.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Listen, Marjorie, back at camp you said you could take care of yourself. I suggest you stop whining like a Tommy Boy clone and prove it.”

  No answers. No road maps. No directions. What now?

  “Anyway,” Veronica said. “You’re the one wearing the ruby slippers.”

  “Boots.”

  “Minor difference.”

  “So, I’m supposed to just whack them together three times and make a wish?”

  “Unless you happen to have some pepper spray or a loaded Taser in this fanny pack of yours,” she said, indicating the belted pouch now strapped around her waist.

  My heart jumped as if trapped inside an inflatable bouncer. I wanted to punch something—someone. We had to stop bickering and come up with a plan.

  “Let’s get this straight, Marjorie. You had a chance to get away and didn’t take it. That took courage, but I could use a little help here.”

  “Mommy will help us,” Joshua said.

  I sensed Veronica’s surprise, which matched mine. Joshua’s words had come out so naturally, as if he’d been speaking all along and we just hadn’t been listening.

  “Look at the hands,” he said.

  “I can’t see them in the dark,” I said.

  Veronica unzipped the pouch and pulled out the smudge stick and matches Ben had given me the day he’d introduced me to the Medicine Wheel. “How about these?”

  “Smudge sticks don’t burn, they smolder,” I said. “And matches don’t stay lit.”

  “Smudging is supposed to get rid of negative energies, right?” Veronica asked.

  “Yeah, and penetrate the barrier that separates us from the Spiritual realm. Why?”

  She lit the stick and waved it in the air until it started to smolder, then handed it to me. “Go for it.”

  “You want me to smudge the cave?”

  “Unless you’ve got a better plan?”

  She called this a plan?

  For lack of anything better to do besides worry myself sick, I started to walk the perimeter of the cave—one timid step after another—waving the smudge stick up and down, left and right. My boot kicked something solid. It propelled forward with a metallic clang.

  “What was that?” I croaked.

  Joshua dropped to his knees and skittered after the sound.

  I nearly passed out with relief when he flicked on a flashlight and pointed it at the pattern of hands.

  “Pete must have left it behind during our visit,” I said.

  In the eerie luminescence of the light’s beam, I saw enough of the child’s face to witness the wonder that had replaced the fear in his eyes. “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded, his gaze fixed on the wall of hands. The tension appeared to drain from his body, only to be replaced by a faint smile. He closed his eyes and started to breathe at an increased rate.”

  “What’s he doing?” Veronica asked.

  “Some kind of breathing exercise Dr. Mendez taught him as part of his therapy. It helps him relax and loosens his psychological defenses, which supposedly leads to the emergence of the unconscious and mystical connections to other people.”

  “Sounds more like he’s hyperventilating to me,” Veronica said.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of scary, but Dr. Mendez seems to know what he’s doing.”

  Almost as if instructed to do so, Joshua said, “Sunwalker.”

  I stubbed the smudge stick on the cave floor to extinguish it and then crawled to Joshua’s side and pulled him close. “My precious.”

  We cuddled in our earthen tomb to wait, and while we waited, I realized that following day would be Easter Sunday. How appropriate. Buried in a cave on Black Saturday, the day the soul of Jesus descended into the underworld of departed souls.

  “Mommy!” Joshua said, which jerked my attention back to the pictograph with its long flame-like fingers.

  A pale outfall of light radiated from the wall as if its rocky surface were lit from within. The word Mother formed in my mind as well. How strange. I sensed only one presence, yet Joshua and I were both calling it Mother. Had my sister sensed it, too?

  “Tell me I’m not crazy,” Veronica whispered from directly behind me.

  “Our mother’s spirit is here,” I said. “I know it.”

  “Okay, so let’s say I’ve been hearing her, too,” Veronica said, settling next to Joshua and me. “What’s her purpose? Why should we care? And what are we supposed to do about it?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same questions and haven’t been able to come up with any satisfying explanations. Just knowing I’m not alone and that you and Joshua are hearing something, too, gives me the strength to keep asking questions and listening for the answers.”

  “Glad to help out,” Veronica said, her tone implying otherwise. “So, who else do you think we’re hearing?”

  Here was my chance to put into words what I’d only been journaling about until now; to put forward the questions journalists ask, attempt to answer, and, more often than
not, get wrong. “Spirits . . . their thoughts.”

  Veronica pulled in a slow, controlled breath and released it in a way that would have made a yogi proud. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Bear with me now,” I said, mimicking Heather as she’d try to explain the unexplainable not all that long ago. “Because this is going to sound kind of weird. I think . . . Actually, I know . . . that our mother has been talking to me since I visited The Lone Cypress on Ash Wednesday.”

  I glanced at Joshua. He continued to stare at the wall with the alertness of someone consumed by whatever had originally attracted his attention. His intense breathing also continued, and I tried not to let it worry me. I should’ve listened more carefully when Dr. Mendez had discussed the therapy work he was doing with the child, but it was too late now. At least Joshua wasn’t twitching and trembling or passing out.

  “Listen, Veronica. Joshua’s hearing his mother, too. What are the chances that all three of us are going crazy? And you can’t blame a faulty gene because Joshua’s not related to us. My guess is that we’re tapping into some kind of collective unconsciousness. Heck, maybe we’re tapping into ourselves. How long have you been hearing voices?”

  “Since coming to Carmel Valley two years ago and finding the mouse totem.” Veronica’s voice relayed strain almost beyond endurance, and I marveled that she hadn’t sought professional help.

  “You’ve got to understand with your heart, not your head,” I said, quoting Dr. Mendez, though with less confidence and not nearly as soothing a voice. “Otherwise none of this will ever make sense. Joshua hasn’t been able to speak the truth, and we haven’t been able to hear it.”

  Veronica chuckled but not in a positive way. “So, because we weren’t listening, these so-called spirits decided to smack us over the head?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “So, what’s our mother trying to tell us?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know but hope to find out one way or another.”

  “When we get out of this mess, I’ll help you do just that,” Veronica said.

  “Okay,” I said, grateful that she’d said when rather than if.

  Joshua whispered something under his breath, which drew our attention. We waited, but nothing else happened.