UnSouled (29 page)

“You should take this time to educate yourself,” Lev told Connor on the first day the three of them were left alone in the Tashi’ne home. “You kicked-AWOL in, what, tenth grade? You never finished high school; how do you expect to get a job when this is all over?”

The thought of this “all being over” makes Connor laugh. He tries to imagine what his life might be like in some alternate universe, where staying whole was a given, rather than a privilege. He supposes his natural skill with electronics could have eventually gotten him work as a repair technician somewhere. So, when this is “all over,” and if some miracle allows him to lead a normal life, what will that life be about? Alternate-universe Connor might be content repairing refrigerators, but the Connor from this universe finds the idea vaguely horrifying.

All this
thinking
time is getting him angry again—an old pattern coming back—and although he no longer misdirects it into bursts of stupidity, he’s troubled by the emergence of this old mental subroutine because he knows there are other things, other feelings that come with it.

“I hate this,” Connor says, throwing down the useless stick he’s carving.

Lev uncurls himself from an awkward-looking stretch and
watches in that opossum way of his to see where this is going.

“I hate it here,” says Connor. “Being in someone’s house, being ‘taken care of.’ It’s turning me into someone I’m not—or at least someone I’m not anymore.”

Lev holds that long look at Connor, to the point that it’s uncomfortable. Connor refuses to be stared down.

“You were never good at being a kid, were you?” Lev says.

“What?”

“You stunk at it. You were a total screwup. You were the kind of kid who would use a poor unsuspecting tithe as a human shield.”

“Yeah,” says Connor, more than a little indignant, “but don’t forget I saved that tithe’s life!”

“An added bonus—but that’s not the reason why you first grabbed me that day, is it?”

Connor doesn’t say anything, because they both know he’s right—and it ticks Connor off.

“My point is that you’re afraid of going back to being that same screwup you were two years ago—but I don’t see it happening.”

“And why is that, O wise clapper tithe?”

Lev throws him a dirty look, but lets it go. “You’re kind of like Humphrey Dunfee. We both are. Torn apart by everything that’s happened to us, then put back together again. Who you are now is nothing like who you used to be.”

Connor considers it and nods, accepting Lev’s observation. It’s a comfort to know that Lev truly thinks he’s changed, but Connor’s not all that convinced.

•   •   •

Two things happen at dinner that night. Which of the two is worse depends on one’s particular perspective.

Elina arrives home just after dark, followed by Pivane, who
brings a pot of rabbit stew he’s had simmering all day. Connor is thankful he didn’t have to see the animal skinned and prepared. As long as there’s no bunny face in the stew, he’ll be fine. At the dinner table, Kele is all blabber about how the kids with predatory animals as their spirit guides have started to bully the kids with tamer animal spirits.

“It’s soooo unfair—and I know that half those kids made up their animals on their vision quest anyway.”

It makes Connor think of Lucas—his own brother—who turned every little event in middle school into high drama. Connor gets a sudden chill from the memory. Not because he thought of his brother—but because he realizes how long it’s been since he’s thought about him at all. Lucas would now be getting close to the age Connor was when he kicked-AWOL.

“Could somebody pass the stew down this way?” Connor asks. Better to focus on the food than get caught in a minefield of reflection.

“They’ll get over themselves,” Pivane tells Kele. “And if they don’t, they’ll pay the price for it in the end. Birds fly north as well as south,” which Connor assumes is the Arápache version of “What goes around, comes around.”

“Hello!” calls Conner to the end of the table. “We need some stew down here.”

While Lev has patience to wait, Connor’s hunger demands attention.

Grace, who always sits right next to Elina, has filled her bowl to overflowing. The tureen is in front of Elina, but she doesn’t notice because she’s also involved in Kele’s drama.

“I can’t tell you how many injuries I see at the medical lodge because kids think their animal guides will protect them from broken bones.”

Then Connor calls loud and clear: “
Mom!
Pass the stew!”

It’s the way that Lev snaps his eyes to Connor that makes Connor realize what he’s just said. The feeling of normalcy—the thoughts of family—somehow made the word surface like an unexpected belch.

Everyone looks to Connor like he just dropped a turd on the table.

“I mean, just—pass the stew. Please.”

Elina passes the stew to him, and Connor thinks his slip can just slip on by until Kele says, “You let him call you Mom now? I don’t even get to call you Mom.”

After that, no one knows where to pick up the conversation, and so Elina decides to drive the nail home rather than let it sit halfway to nowhere.

“Do I remind you of her, Connor?”

Connor ladles himself stew and answers without looking at her. “Not really. But dinner’s kind of the same.”

“Betcha didn’t have rabbit,” says Grace through a mouthful of stew.

Connor wishes that some sort of black hole could suck away everyone’s attention from this embarrassing faux pas. About five seconds later, Connor gets schooled in being careful for what he wishes.

The main window in the great room suddenly shatters, and stone chips fly from a small hole in the back wall—a hole that hadn’t been there a second ago.

“Down!” Connor yells. “Under the table! Now!” He has instantly flipped into battle mode and takes charge. He doesn’t know if anyone else realizes it was a bullet, but they’ll figure it out. What matters is that he gets them out of harm’s way. Everyone does as they’re told. “Kele—no, over here—out of the window’s sight lines!”

As Kele moves closer, Connor bolts across the room to the
light switches and turns them off, leaving them in darkness, so the shooter can’t see them. With sudden adrenaline pumping through his retinas, his eyes adjust remarkably quickly to the dark.

“Pivane!” cries Elina. “Call the police.”

“We
can’t
call the police,” he says. That realization hits them all at once. If they call the police, they’ll have to explain why they were shot at. Connor, Lev, and Grace will be exposed.

Then Pivane stands up and strides toward the shattered window.

“Pivane!” yells Connor. “What are you, crazy? Get down!”

But Pivane just stands there. It’s Grace who points out what only she and Pivane have come to understand.

“That shot was all the way across the room,” Grace says. “Kinda like in old war movies. A shot across our bow. They didn’t mean to kill no one.”

“A warning?” suggests Lev.

“A message,” answers Pivane. Still, the rest are reluctant to move from under the table.

Connor steps away from the light switch to stand next to Pivane, looking out into the darkness. There are some lights in the homes across ravine. It could have come from just about anywhere. There is no second shot.

“Someone knows we’re here,” Connor says, “and wants us gone.”

“I’m sorry!” Kele pleads. “Nova promised she wouldn’t tell anyone, but she must have. It’s my fault.”

“Maybe so and maybe not.” Pivane turns to Connor. “Either way, it’s not safe for you in this house. We’ll need to move you.”

“The old sweat lodge?” suggests Kele, which somehow sounds appropriate, since this is making them all sweat.

Pivane shakes his head. “I know a better place.”

34 • Una

The knock on the shop door is so quiet, Una barely hears it from upstairs. She has just put a steak on the skillet. Had the skillet been sizzling any louder, she might not have heard the knock. She descends from her upstairs apartment into the luthier shop where she used to apprentice but now runs. As she crosses through the workroom, her bare feet smart from sharp wood shavings on the floor. She continues on through the showroom, where her handmade guitars hang from above like sides of beef.

Pivane is at the door with Lev, Connor, and Grace. She waits for an explanation before inviting them in.

“Something happened,” Pivane tells her. “We need your help.”

“Of course.” She opens the door to allow them entrance.

Sitting on stools in the back room of the shop, Pivane explains the events of the evening. “They need a safe haven,” Pivane tells her.

“It won’t be for long,” Connor says, although he probably has no idea how long it will be. None of them do for sure.

“Please, Una,” says Pivane, holding intense eye contact. “Do our family this favor.”

“Yes, certainly,” says Una, trying to hide the trepidation in her voice. “But if whoever shot at them knows they’re here—”

“I do not think any more shots will be taken,” Pivane says, “but just in case, you should keep your rifle at the ready.”

“That goes without saying.”

“It’s good that I gave it to you,” Pivane says, “for if it’s used in their protection, it will be used well.”

Pivane gets up to go. “I’ll be back to check on them tomorrow with supplies, food, anything they might need. If Chal is successful with the Hopi and it draws the Juvenile Authority off track, they’ll be able to leave the reservation soon and continue their journey.”

Una notices that Lev shifts his shoulders uncomfortably at the suggestion.

“I believe,” says Pivane, giving her once again the all-encompassing full focus of his eyes, “that this is the safest place for them. Do you agree?”

Una holds his gaze. “Maybe you’re right.”

Satisfied, Pivane leaves, the bell on the shop door jingling behind him as he goes out. Una makes sure the door is locked, then escorts her guests upstairs.

Her steak is burning, filling the kitchen with smoke. Cursing, she turns off the burner, turns on the fan, and drops the skillet into the sink, dousing it with water. The steak is about as ruined as her appetite.

“Cajun Blackened Steak, my brother calls that,” says Grace.

The small apartment has two bedrooms. She offers Grace her room, but Grace insists on the sofa. “The less space I have to bump around, the better I sleep,” she says. She lies down and seems to be snoring instantly. Una covers her with a blanket and scares up blankets for the boys. “The spare bedroom has one bed and a bedroll on the floor.”

“I’ll take the bedroll,” says Connor quickly. “Lev can have the bed.”

“No argument,” says Lev.

Una now notices that Connor is wearing one of Wil’s shirts. The fact that he wears it so obliviously makes it all the more infuriating. He should apologize to every thread of the garment. He should apologize to her. But Una won’t tell him
this. All she says is, “You don’t quite fill out that shirt, do you?”

Connor offers a smile that is apologetic, but not apologetic enough. “It’s not like I had much of a choice, considering.”

“Yes, considering,” she echoes. She expects him to try to charm her, maybe sidle closer to her, because she assumes this is the kind of boy he is. When he doesn’t, she is almost disappointed. She wonders when it was that she started looking for reasons to dislike people. But she knows the answer to that. It started the day she put Wil’s guitar on the funeral pyre and watched as the guitar burned in his place.

She hands the two their bedding and fetches her rifle, leaning it against the wall near the stairs. “You’ll be safe as long as you’re here.”

“Thank you, Una,” says Lev.

“My pleasure, little brother.”

She catches Conner smirking when she calls Lev that. Una doesn’t care. Let him smirk. Outsiders always do.

35 • Lev

The bedroom has more pictures of Wil than in the Tashi’ne home, all from long before the brief time that Lev knew him. In fact, the room has the uneasy sense of being a shrine.

“Ya think she’s got issues with her lost love?” says Connor blithely.

“Her fiancé,” Lev corrects. “They knew each other all their lives—so try to be a little more sensitive.”

Connor puts up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

“If you want to win her over, wash that shirt and leave it here when we go.”

“Winning her over isn’t high on my list of priorities.”

Lev shrugs. “Guess you won’t be getting any discounts on guitars.”

After he’s settled in his bed, Lev closes his eyes. It’s getting late, but he can’t sleep. He can hear Una in the kitchen, cleaning up her burned dinner, tidying up so that she can pretend the messy apartment they saw tonight was just their imagination come morning.

Although Connor isn’t moving on his bedroll, it seems his head is far from sleep as well.

“Tonight at dinner was the first time I’ve said that word in almost two years,” Connor confesses.

It takes Lev a few seconds to recall the moment, which was much more traumatic for Connor than for him. He notes that Connor won’t even repeat the
M
word. “I’m sure Elina knows that and understands.”

Connor rolls over to face Lev, looking up at him from the floor in the dim light. “Why is it that it’s easier for me to deal with a sniper shot than to deal with what I said at the table tonight?”

“Because,” offers Lev, “you’re good in a crisis and you suck at normal.”

It makes Connor laugh. “ ‘Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.’ That about sums up my whole life, doesn’t it?” He’s silent for a moment, but Lev knows there’s more coming, and he knows exactly what it will be.

“Lev, do you ever—”

“No,” Lev says, shutting him down. “And neither should you. Not now, anyway.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“It’s the parent question, right?”

Connor stews a bit, then says, “You were annoying as a tithe, and you’re still annoying.”

Lev snickers and flips his hair back. It’s become a habit.
Anytime someone reminds him of his days as a tithe, he takes comfort in that shock of long, unruly blond hair.