Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (12 page)

“It’s just scrap,” she said, meeting Zen’s eyes.

She looked back at the Beekeeper who was showing no signs of stirring. In fact, she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. London inched toward him and snapped her fingers under his nose, “Hey! Elias! Wake up. Snap out of it, man.”

With an awkward jerk he sat forward, eyes flung open and staring, startling everyone all over again.

“Would you cut that out?” London gasped, but Elias ignored her. Instead, he began to search over the scattered scrap with his eyes and fingertips. Careful not to move or stir anything as he marked where it lay. An eager smile parted his lips. “Yes sir, yes sir. The Oracle has spoken to you, lucky boy!” he said looking between Zen and the mess.

London rolled her eyes. “It’s just a bunch of scrap, old man.”

Elias turned a very earnest face to her. “Aren’t we all?”

It was a ridiculous question, but he spoke it with such conviction that she felt ashamed for pointing out the obvious. She bit her lip and said no more.

“A scrap Oracle is as good as any in these times,” he concluded.

The Beekeeper’s eyes fumbled over the arrangement of items until they settled on a little bone lying diagonally near Zen. Here, the old man’s eyes stopped and he nodded with understanding. “It’s a long road for you, with a bitter end, no less.”

Zen looked from the bone to the man before him. “What are you talking about?”

“Death is shadowing you, but in the end the choice will be yours.” Elias gave Zen a wicked smile.

Zen leaned back in his chair. “The bone tell you that?”

“Among other things…” Elias drawled as his eyes moved to a couple of screws pointed in opposing directions. “You’re at odds with love,” he said fingering a nearby key.

Zen’s face flushed around his smoky eyes and he tried not to look at London. “Coulda told you that myself,” he muttered.

“And you’re keeping secrets because of it.” Elias suddenly looked hard at London and she shifted on her feet, though her ears perked up considerably.

The Beekeeper picked up a bent and sullied playing card with one corner completely torn off. “But you’re dealing in half truths, boy,” he said now, turning back to Zen with a stern expression. “Beware the holes in your deck.”

All of this was spoken with utmost sincerity and seriousness, as though they should know exactly what he was going on about, but even though London had to admit that Elias had a certain discomfiting presence, and some of what he said was on target, a good bit of it sounded like utter nonsense. Zen was keeping secrets, she knew that. But what was all this about a deck of cards? The Beekeeper’s readings might be accurate, but they weren’t very helpful since he gave parts of them in riddles.

Zen stood up suddenly. “Gibberish,” he said, his face darkening. “Your turn,” he mumbled as he stepped past Kim.

Elias looked angry but didn’t comment. He just kept muttering “half truths” under his breath as he scooped his oracle of scrap back into its thermos. Kim took Zen’s seat and tried for a friendly smile, though it came off as more of a grimace because he was clearly fighting his own conclusions about Elias’s sanity or lack thereof.

London bent to pick up a broken watch face and the marble that had cleared the table and fallen to the floor when Elias let loose the last time. She handed them to the old man who plucked them from her palm with wrinkling fingers, blew on them a few times as if to erase her cooties, and dropped them into his shaker.

He glared at Kim a while, then began his careful shaking rhythm like before, until the whites of his eyes flickered behind his half-closed lids like an old movie reel. This time, when he let the scrap fly with a jerk of his body, they were ready for it. No one screamed but London still managed to startle a bit. She let Elias hang like an old dishcloth in his chair until consciousness returned of its own volition. All at once, he sat forward and began working his fingers over and around the assortment of goodies spread before Kim.

Elias tapped a fingernail against his front tooth and then pointed to the jacks, one of which had landed on top of the feather, while the other had landed half beneath the card he’d referred to in Zen’s reading. “You’re part of a necessary pair,” he began. “But you’re holding something back.”

Kim shot Tora a pleading,
I swear it’s not true,
look but she only stared at Elias as though he were some kind of omnipotent god.

Elias nodded knowingly. “Yes, yes. I see it so clear! You not only hide from love, but you’re hiding from yourself. Until you can play all your cards, you will only be half of what you are capable of being. And you may lose the love you have gained in the end, if you don’t let go.”

London peered at Kim, who seemed more troubled than he wanted to let on by Elias’s words. She hated to admit it, but the man was beginning to sound a little like Hantu.

“Give me your hand,” Elias commanded.

“Huh?” Kim stared at him.

“Give me your hand.”

Kim began to raise a hand out from under the table when the Beekeeper stopped him. “No. The other one.”

Kim offered the other hand to Elias and London saw that it was the one bearing his tattoo.

Elias grasped it and with a yank, pulled it to rest next to three objects lying side by side like Kim’s trigram: the bone again, a long nail, and a bit of black string. “You see,” he said as though it should be perfectly clear. “The bars are holding you back.”

Kim tugged his hand away and got up hurriedly. Apparently, he decided he’d had enough time in the hot seat. “Yeah, yeah, bars,” he said patting London’s shoulder. “Tag, you’re it.”

London started to say something but Elias interrupted her. “No, I will read the other girl first. The one with the thrice-blessed eyes.”

Tora stuck a thumb at her chest. “Me?”

Elias nodded and quickly gathered his supplies once more. Tora gave London an apologetic look as she passed her to take a seat.

This time though, only London and Tora watched the old guy shake himself into a trance. Kim had joined Zen in a chair across the room near the empty fireplace. Both boys sat with their arms stiffly folded across their chests.

When Elias let the scrap fly for Tora, several bits landed on the floor instead of the table. London made a note to pick them up when the reading was over. But Elias didn’t seem bothered; he only had eyes for the pattern of junk unfolding before him on the dusty purple cloth.

“Hmmm…” he mused as he let his fingers trace over the intricate array. He stopped on a coin that rested dead center in the table. “You’ve met with good fortune in this life. Not by chance…not by chance. No. But you’ve made a heavy sacrifice as well,” he said as he slid his finger over to the nearby wing nut.

Tora sat perfectly composed. She nodded slightly, taking it all in.

Elias grinned at her. “Your flexibility makes you stronger than most,” he commented as his eyes passed over a rubber band settled near her. “But you must remember, it’s all for a purpose.” He noted with a glance at the marble which had miraculously not ended up on the floor, but landed inside the rubber band.

Tora’s deep green eyes met the Beekeeper’s cold, black ones. His pupils were indiscernible in the too-dark irises. But he seemed to focus a warmth on her he didn’t quite have for the boys. “You see! Ah, yes, you see it all. How grand. How grand!” he rambled, tearing a red knotted string from his wrist and handing it to her.

London hadn’t noticed, until now, that he wore the knotted bracelets as Keziah did.

Tora took it with gratitude and slipped it on. She smiled kindly at Elias and London felt guilty for all her accusatory thoughts of quackery.

Elias patted Tora’s hand. “Red. Red! A strong color. A protective color. Three knots for three blessings. Eyes that see the past, eyes that discern the present, and eyes that read the future.”

“Thank you,” Tora said as she got up.

But Elias’s mood turned suddenly sour. “Don’t take it off!” he warned. “Don’t take it off when they come for you.”

Tora nodded and walked away, leaving London standing at Elias’s side alone.

“Are we all good here?” London asked, squatting to pick up some of his dropped scrap. “Can we light a damn fire now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?”

She passed the items to him, holding one arm across her chest to emphasize that she was cold, but her sleeve caught on her fingers and Elias seized her arm with such force that she dropped most of the little pieces she’d retrieved for him.

“Hey!” London snarled, trying to pull her hand back. Behind her, she heard Zen and Kim’s chairs scrape the floor as they jumped up to help her.

Elias only stared at her scarred arm and winced. At last, he let go and gestured to the seat across from him.

“No thanks,” London frowned. “I’m good.”

But Elias wouldn’t take no for an answer. He jerked his head at the seat and said, “The Oracle has much to say to you. Be still.”

London took her seat cautiously as Elias began shaking his thermos, repeating over and over, “Don’t you know? I’ve saved the best for last…the best for last…for last.”

London squirmed in her seat as Elias hammered the thermos against the table, his eyes shifting under flickering lids until they disappeared altogether. Kim, Zen, and Tora hovered nearby. London would have preferred some privacy. She didn’t like being exposed, but she couldn’t very well ask them to leave when she’d been front and center for each of their readings.

The old man groaned and seized, his head dipped forward and his hands tightened on the thermos. Then, with a twist and a flourish, he ripped off the lid and let the items spill across the table toward London. She watched, transfixed, as the bits of scrap rolled toward her, covering the odd markings and chalk circle. She sensed too that nearby the others were holding their breath as they watched the pattern make itself known.

London’s eyes rested squarely on the feather which seemed central to the spread around it, though it lay a tad closer to her than the center of the table. From there she noted three items that could have formed a triangle to the feather. The bottle cap lay at the point between her and the feather. Behind it, the bone stretched toward the feather, creating another point. And right of that, the key.

London rubbed at her eyes. She was no Elias, but she swore she could almost read the significance in the pattern, even if she couldn’t say what it all meant.

Elias suddenly slumped forward and shook his head as though warding off the trance. He zeroed in on the four pieces London had noticed, his nose only inches from the table’s surface, and then he peered up at her. “Well, well…” His Cheshire grin split his face in a way that made London uneasy.

“What?” she asked. “Is it bad? How bad is it? Just get it over with, like ripping off a band-aid.”

But Elias only let loose a slow laugh. “Tsk, tsk,” he said at last. “So much fear! No wonder…”

Now London rolled her eyes. She should have known he wouldn’t make this easy on her.

Elias squinted at the feather. “You’re in this world, but not of it.”

London shifted in her chair. Two points for the loony scrap reader.

Elias moved a finger with a yellowing, split nail toward the key. “That’s the key.”

“What is?” London asked.

“You are.”

London blinked. Riddles again.

He then drew his finger from the key to the bone, drawing out the triangle she’d noticed herself. “Like the boy, death shadows you. But in the end, the choice is yours.”

London hastened a look at Zen. He was transfixed by her reading. It almost made her feel naked in front of him.

Elias too looked up at Zen. “Your destinies are linked.”

Zen shuddered and looked to London, fear and desire intermingled in his eyes.

London watched Elias move his finger toward the bottle cap.

“When the pressure builds, the top blows off,” he said with a wry smile. “Heaven help anyone standing in the way.”

London leaned back in her chair. So that was it? A lot of good that did. But then Elias began to move his finger back again, tracing the line from the bottle cap to the bone.

“Those who die twice, live forever,” he said softly and his eyes met London’s once more.

London shivered.

Slowly, his finger moved back toward the key. “It takes one to know one. You are the key…to finding the key.”

London held her breath. What was he talking about?

His chipped nail grazed the fabric as it reached the bottle cap. “Your greatest weapon is your shield.”

Elias paused, then moved on toward the feather in the center. “The answers you seek cannot be found in this world. Follow the way to the center and find the one who birthed you in the Other.”

London froze. Nothing he was saying made sense and yet everything made perfect sense. She didn’t understand what he was telling her but she knew it was important for her to. Her eyes met Elias’s across the table and she felt suspended in his gaze, like those frozen drips of wax as they hardened on the candlestick.

“That’s enough,” Zen said bringing a fist down on the table. Scrap bounced up and fell down again in a cacophony of tinkling noises.

Elias began to hastily scoop up his treasures before Zen could send them scattering. He glared at Zen out of the corner of his eye and whispered with a hiss, “half truths…beware the holes…”

Zen rolled his eyes and grabbed London’s elbow. “Come on,” he insisted. “That’s enough hocus pocus for one day.”

London knew he was just scared. Scared for her and scared for himself. So she got up and followed him to a chair across the room. Almost absentmindedly, she began to thumb through a nearby book, but even though she could count on one hand the number of times she’d held an actual book, she couldn’t stop thinking about Elias’s words long enough to pay attention to the type on the page.

“WHAT DO YOU think he meant?” Zen whispered from his side of the pallet he and London were sharing. Though there was no outside light to confirm it, London guessed it was night when Elias blew out all the candles, restoring his room to the dark and cold he liked so much.