Authors: L.L. Muir
“Jonathan?”
He shook his head, as if he didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of what he might say. His hair flopped back and forth and as always, she tried not to stare at it.
“What is it? Were you worried about me?” She was confused, touched, but even to her own ears, she sounded more like the belligerent teenager she appeared to be. “I’m sorry if you were.”
“Tell her!” Jonathon looked over her shoulder and released her so she could turn and see who he was talking to.
Lucas stood in his whitest robes, blocking the entrance to the rest of the house. His arms weren’t folded, as they usually were when he was playing the part of Leader. Instead, they hung limp and lifeless at his sides. She had no doubt she could push him out of the way with one finger.
His brow wasn’t its usual stretch of smooth good humor; it was twisted as if with heartache. Had she somehow betrayed the man? Or Jonathan? They both acted as if she’d done just that.
She had suggested they not worry about her, not to come looking. What else had she done? Nothing but promise Jamison she’d stop Lucas from touching his memories again. That was all.
“Tell her, Lucas.”
“What is it? Have I done something...
wrong?
”
Lucas winced.
Dear Lord! She couldn’t have! If she’d truly sinned, in her present state, there was nothing to save her. She wouldn’t be allowed back Home.
But wait! She couldn’t have sinned. It was in The Agreement, that they’d be incapable of sin...of breaking...unbreakable rules.
She’d been rude? That was it? If one could be barred from Home for being rude, it was a wonder anyone returned at all. The Final Host would prove to have made the wisest choice possible if everyone were to be judged so harshly.
“Lucas please.” Jonathan’s voice was now soothing. “She’s jumping to terrible conclusions. Tell her, so she can stop thinking the worst. So she can decide.”
Jonathan had read her correctly. There was nothing so terrible than the thoughts crashing in her head.
“Yes, Lucas. For someone immune from fear, I’ve entertained enough of it tonight to make me want to run Home and let someone else finish my duty.”
“Well, Skye, that’s exactly what you need to decide. And you’ll have to make that decision on your own. We’ve been told not to interfere.”
“Told not to interfere with what?”
“Your choices. Your assignment. Your...choices.”
“What he cannot seem to tell you, my friend, is that he must stay his hand and his tongue where you are concerned. Do not seek our council. We cannot give it. You will have shelter here. You may move among us. But you will keep your own council, Skye.”
“Shunned? I’m to be shunned? Are we suddenly Amish, Jonathan?”
He ignored her.
“Tell me, Skye. How does Jamison Shaw remember things that have been removed from his mind?” Lucas looked both worried and intrigued. Mostly worried.
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. At least he won’t tell me while he worries the knowledge will be used against him, that his mind will be...cleaned again.”
“Is it not that you have reminded him?”
That set her back on her heels.
“You think I would—or even could—tell him what we didn’t want him to remember?”
“Have you not broken an unbreakable?”
“Did you listen to the whole conversation? If you had, you’d know that I have no idea how he was able to remember.” She felt like someone had been listening in on a private phone conversation...or reading her diary! How dare they eavesdrop! She’d told them not to!
How could she be so emotional?
She knew that in reading others, Jonathan was capable of reflecting the emotion he read. In all likelihood, it was not Jonathan who was upset with her, but Lucas. He was usually a jovial soul, which proved he emitted a bit more emotion than other Somerleds. So it stood to reason he was capable of the opposite; Lucas fumed, so Jonathan had exploded for him.
Then he’d read the fear in her and done what Jonathan did best, soothed her.
“I’m sorry. This just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I am being punished?”
“Truly, I’m not sure.” Lucas put a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Perhaps you were mistaken. Perhaps it was only my suggestion you heard, that you not worry about me or come looking for me, that it was important that you do not.”
“Silly Skye.” Lucas finally had a slight smile for her. “Your suggestion is how we knew where you were. We listened only for a moment before young Jamison blocked us out.”
“Talented boy, for a mortal.” Jonathan smiled too.
“I worry about what might have given him such talents. And where those talents will lead him.”
While in Jamison’s mind, Lucas must have come across those Texas experiences. And though she was tempted to ask, she felt it might jeopardize the promise she’d made Jamison.
“So, let me get this straight, Lucas. You are allowed to speak with me, but not influence me.” She looked from Lucas, to Jonathan, and back.
“Exactly. See? We are not Amish.”
“No influence. No interference? No advice.” She couldn’t hide her smile.
“What are you thinking?” Lucas lost his humor.
“That I’m not being punished at all. It’s a teenager’s dream, actually. Pleasant parents.”
“Aren’t you going to ask the obvious question here?” Jonathan ignored the sharp look he got from Lucas.
Skye sifted through their conversation, back to the beginning.
“Have you ever heard of this happening before?”
“There it is. The question.” Jonathan raised his brows and waited.
“Well?” Skye crossed her arms and waited for the ball to drop.
“We’re not allowed to answer. It might influence your choices,” Lucas growled in Jonathan’s direction.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“You may ask. We will answer if we can,” Jonathan said simply.
“If I wanted to go
Home
...now...before completing my assignment, would I be allowed? And has anyone ever done so?”
“Do you want to go
Home
?” Jonathan looked surprised.
“She wants answers, Jonathan, and thinks she can only get them there.”
“You’re right. I want answers. And now I can’t ask the questions.”
“It depends on whom you ask.”
Lucas gave Jonathan a sharp look. She wasn’t the only one toeing the line that night.
“No advice,” Lucas roared.
“Oh, was that advice?” Jonathan raised an innocent brow.
Lucas shook his head, his eyes closed as if praying for patience. “Maybe I’ll be told to shun
you
next, brother.”
“Maybe you will.” Jonathan grinned and winked at Skye.
Lucas backed against the corner and rolled his shoulders into the hall, his robes billowing from his quick exit. He disappeared through a doorway.
“Be careful, Jonathan. I’d hate for someone to be truly punished because of me.”
Jonathan shook his head then quickly followed Lucas’s path, as if summoned, leaving Skye feeling uncommonly, and completely, alone.
The substitute for English class was the principal’s secretary. She looked scared to death of the copy of
Lost
Horizon
sitting in the middle of the desk. After she pushed it aside with her pencil, she picked up a stack of papers and tapped them on the desk.
“Jamison Shaw, come here.”
He swung his butt out of the chair and went to the front.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Don’t be sassy. Take this.”
He refrained from explaining that where he was from, it was polite to use “sir” and “ma’am.” Instead, he clamped his lips shut and took the envelope she held out to him.
“Someone pass these papers out. You, Rachel is it?”
Miss Phillips hurried to the secretary and took the pile of essays from her. Her big smiles alternating with sympathetic shakes of the head announced each grade before the students could see for themselves. The sub shouldn’t have given them to a student to pass around, but the woman probably couldn’t put the names to faces.
“Open up your novels and read for the rest of the class period.” She never looked up. Stupid woman; the whole class could have walked right out and she wouldn’t have noticed or wouldn’t have cared. She had better things to do, it seemed, like trying to hack into Mr. Evan’s computer.
Rachel looked at him and shrugged. No paper for him.
The envelope in his hand was addressed, “Return this to Mr. Jamison Shaw, first period.”
He broke the seal. Black ash smeared across his desk. Digging through the mess, he found an unburned section. His name, in his own handwriting, sat next to a large red ‘A’.
Good
ol
’
Mr.
Evans.
Fear
and
fight,
buddy
.
Skye came in late.
“Miss Somerled, take roll.” The sub didn’t even look up.
Optimum Suggestor, at it again?
He raised an eyebrow at her as she passed his desk.
She gave him a wink...a wink that ricocheted around in his chest like a sonar ping in a submarine.
Ho. Ly. Crap.
He had planned to have the whole ‘Host’ thing worked out before morning, but the second his feet hit the porch, it was all he could do to make it to his bed before crashing and burning. Then he’d slept as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of days, which he hadn’t.
So, on the way to school, he’d gone over the facts. She was as good as a ghost, surface tension or whatever aside, he hadn’t technically kissed her, or held her hand, or hugged her. Basically, he’d been giving a lot of PDA to a sheet, not the She-Casper underneath. It wasn’t as if she’d really felt it, he’d told himself.
So technically, there wasn’t any relationship to worry about. The sheet would be blown to bits one day, after his granddad’s prayers were answered. Or so he suspected. Then she’d pop up in a different town, the only thing unchanged about her would be her clothes and the crowd she would live with. If he passed her on the street, he’d never know it. She might even come back as an old woman.
Like the chick from Shangri La, Lo-Tsen, suddenly her true age.
Ew. Better not to think about that.
No, he was fine. He hadn’t been making out with a murderer, at least. That was good. And his granddad was safe with her. His mom was safe living next door to them. Everything was better.
Until she’d showed up that morning, looking as Skye as ever. No wrinkles, no age spots. No new face. Just the Skye-face that he spent all his free time waiting to get a glimpse of.
And then she’d winked.
He knew her well enough to suspect she’d “suggested” herself out of a tardy; she knew him well enough to know what he was accusing her of, without needing to read his mind. It was a soft spot. He loved having someone close enough to “know” him, to communicate with without talking, like his grandparents used to do.
Too bad it couldn’t and wouldn’t last.
The bell rang, and none too soon. Every time he picked a passage and started reading, it was about the woman, Lo-Tsen. And he could only picture Skye, trapped in a perfect prison, wanting to get out.
Did she ever think of getting out?
Was there an out?
As he gathered his crap from the desk and shoved it in his backpack, he pictured himself asking her, then imagined her answering like the Conrad character from the novel: Who would ever want to leave paradise?
Jamison looked for white in the hallway and found her near the main door. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him outside, over onto the dying autumn grass.
She looked around and curious kids turned away.
“You’ll wear yourself out, with all that suggesting,” he teased.
She smiled, but briefly.
“I need your help.”
“Sorry?”
“I need you to skip the rest of your classes today. I’ll fix your attendance. Will you do it?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
For all he knew, her only problem in life was his granddad, and the occasional kidnapper next door.
“I need to visit another Somerled farm.”
Well, that didn’t sound fun at all. What if there were Lucas-types there who wouldn’t take kindly to him knowing exactly what they were?
“What has this got to do with Granddad?”
“Nothing, actually. I can’t explain now, but I need to get to one, and soon, before word spreads, or...or...I don’t know. I just need to get to one. Will you help me find one?”
“Skye, honey. It wouldn’t be hard. I’m sure we can find one online.”
“We don’t do online.”
“I know
you
don’t. But there are all kinds of conspiracy theorists out there who would keep tabs on them, I mean you, I mean—”
“You mean, us.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” It made him uncomfortable, lumping her in with a bunch of nameless, faceless...containers. “There’s a computer in the library we can use.”
Five minutes later they had the addresses of every known Somerled community, and some people who were suspected of being Somerleds incognito.
“Mennonites, probably.” Skye tapped the screen where the report read “black clothing.” “They call us Mennonites in White, and they’re called Somerleds in Black. People are foolish.”
“Well, where do you want to go first?”
“To check on Kenneth. Then let’s hit this one.” She circled an address on the short list they’d printed out. It was two hours away, at least, unless she was up for giving highway patrol officers some suggestions.
Jamison headed to the Recovery Center, to pay his namesake a visit and swear the old bugger to secrecy.
Skye stayed at the school for a few minutes, to suggest they both be pardoned for being absent the rest of the day, then she’d meet him at the center.
The morning was chilly, even though the sun had had a couple of hours to warm things up. There were still a few spots of morning dew on the sidewalk as Jamison headed past the cheery flower gardens that had to be as medicated as the patients; they showed no fear in the face of the coming winter though it was obvious some would not make it through to spring.
Just like Granddad, if they didn’t come up with a new plan soon.
The med-carts were humming, and by the looks of some of the cups, some of these poor folks were taking thirty different drugs a day. His granddad probably demanded whisky to get them all down. And oh, was Jamison glad he wasn’t the one to tell him he couldn’t have it.