WeavingDestinyebook (8 page)

"What? Because we are Indian, I should have an Indian hero?"

"I didn't mean it that way. It just seems sort of random."

"Come, Malini. I want to show you something." Her father hooked his arm inside her elbow. Her mother, who had been staring fixedly at the pot over the fake fire, accepted his other arm.

They exited the cabin and made their way down the next hall. Her father stopped them in front of a photograph of a black man whose back was ripped to shreds. Malini had to turn away.

"That's awful," she said.

"There's more."

He led her to a scene titled
The Slave Auction.
The depiction of a family being torn apart by slave traders broke her heart. She had to remind herself that the models weren't real.

"This is so depressing, Dad."

"Wait, one more thing."

He led her through a room of caricatures criticizing Lincoln. "Did you know so many people hated him while he was alive?" Malini asked.  "These are some of the worst political cartoons I've ever seen."

"Oh he wasn't always a popular president, Malini."

He stopped in a room called
A Soldiers Story
and took a seat on a wooden bench. He patted the wood next to him. She sat down between her parents. A movie began called
The Civil War in Four Minutes.
Malini watched as the first shots of the war progressed into a massacre that divided the country. In the end, over a million casualties were tallied between north and south.

"Wow," she said. "I had no idea so many people died.

Her father placed his hand on her leg. "Abraham Lincoln is my hero because somehow he knew that this was the right thing to do. Somehow he knew that this was all worth it."

"It is incredible. He must have questioned what he was doing plenty of times. He certainly didn't seem to have much support."

Her father stood up, nodding, and proceeded toward the exit. Malini followed until her mother nudged her elbow and purposefully slowed to put distance between them and her father.

"What your father will never tell you is that it is personal," she said. Her mother's long brown braid fell forward on her shoulder as she leaned in toward Malini.

"What do you mean?"

"I was not of your father's caste in India. We should have never been allowed to marry. We were barely older than you are now when we fell in love. The reason he loves it here is that my class is not an issue. And he thanks that man for the favor." She pointed at a wax model of Abraham Lincoln.

"I never knew. How did Dad convince Grandma and Grandpa to let him marry you?"

"He didn't. We eloped and it wasn't until you were born that they came around."

Malini couldn't believe it. Her grandparents had always been supportive and loving. She couldn't picture her grandfather being so closed-minded.

They'd reached a room that depicted the death of Lincoln's son, Willie. Malini followed the crowd forward, lost in thought.

"So the reason he moved us to America...the reason he's so in love with this country... is because of you? Because here, everyone is equal?"

"Yes. Did you know our first house had a dirt floor?"

"No, I didn't"

"Your father has done well for us." She smiled.

Malini tossed her arms around her mother's neck and squeezed her tight. "Thank you for telling me."

At the edge of the crowd, they paused in an alcove called
The Hall of Sorrows.
A wax figure of Mary Todd Lincoln was posed, weeping near a dark window.

"She was crazy you know. Had to be committed to a mental institution near the end of her life. She wore only black after Lincoln was assassinated," her mother said.

Malini frowned at the grieving statue. The billowy layers of black lace on the dress must have weighed a ton. How itchy the high-necked collar must have been. But it was the red stone broach pinned at Mary Todd Lincoln's throat that drew Malini's eye again and again.

* * * * *

Jacob watched the clock tick, willing the hands to move faster. Thankfully, Laudner's Flowers and Gifts closed at five on Sundays. He didn't think he could take another hour on his feet.

"Go ahead and flip the sign, Jacob. There's only five minutes left. I'm sure it will be okay," Lillian said. They'd arranged to work the entire day for John and Carolyn. It was an ample justification for staying away from Katrina. Coupled with a mother/son dinner date, they'd effectively excused themselves until bedtime.

Jacob reached for the heavy cardboard
open
sign and was about to flip it over when a large woman with curly red hair appeared in front of the glass door. Her arms were occupied with an oversized crate of potted tulips and she was crying. Jacob recognized Fran Westcott even through the smudged mascara that made her look like a raccoon. He dropped the sign and pushed open the door for her.

"Thank you, Jacob," she said as she stepped into the shop.

Lillian lifted the box from Fran's arms. "What can we do for you, Fran? It looks like you're having a rough day."

"I know this isn't right. There's nothing wrong with the flowers, Lillian and I know it's against your policy to take them back at this point. But I can't look at them. I can't." Fran began weeping again.

Lillian set the box down and wrapped her arm around the woman's ample shoulders. "Fran, don't be silly. Given the circumstances, of course we'll take them back. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Has there been any word at all about Stephanie?"

"No. Nothing." Fran mopped her face with a tissue from the little purse that hung from her elbow. "She was at a party the night before. Her roommate says there was a boy. She left for home with a boy she'd never met before and she hasn't been seen since. And do you know, no one had ever seen that boy before. As far as we know, he didn't even go to UI."

"Did her roommate know his name?"

"No. Sickening, isn't it? My daughter spent the night with a boy she'd never met before and her roommate didn't even know his name. What was she thinking?" A new wave of weeping overcame her. "Atrocious behavior! I shouldn't be telling you at all. As if this town needs something else to gossip about."

"Fran, Jacob and I, aren't going to tell anyone about that," Lillian said. She shot a glance at Jacob.

"Of course not. Mrs. Westcott, sometimes people do things they regret later. Everyone deserves a second chance. I'm not going to say a word."

"The thing is, I just keep hoping she's still with him. Maybe this whole thing is just irresponsible behavior and she'll show up on my door with this boy. Oh how I hope I'll see the day when all I've got to worry about is a bunch of rumors. Oh hell!" Her tissue was soaked. Lillian grabbed a new one from behind the counter and placed it in her hand.

After several minutes, Mrs. Westcott seemed to pull herself together.

"How about that refund?" Lillian asked.

Mrs. Westcott nodded and followed Lillian to the cash register. With cash in hand, she didn't linger. "You Laudner's are good people. Always have been."

Jacob flipped the sign and locked the door behind her.

Chapter 9

Safe House

Jacob remembered the first time he'd seen this room. He'd been searching for Dr. Silva's notebook. That day seemed like an eternity ago.

The furniture was still covered with white sheets, except for the bed. Dr. Silva had uncovered it before he settled in for the night. Only, he wasn't settled. Every time he closed his eyes he saw black scaly skin. Every dream he had was a nightmare.

After hours of tossing and turning, he gave up and quietly descended the stairs to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and sat down at the table.

"Milk works better, you know," Mara said from the hallway. "Warm milk. That's what they say anyway. Personally, I can't stomach the taste but if you're desperate."

"What are you doing up?" Jacob asked.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Couldn't sleep. I guess I dozed a couple of times but I keep having nightmares. The kind where something's chasing you."

"Me too. I know this place is enchanted but I don't feel safe." Mara placed her hands on the back of a chair at the table as if she couldn't decide whether to sit down or not.

"I feel safe, I just think there's something more I should be doing."

"You mean like protecting your girlfriend yourself?" Mara asked.

"Yeah, exactly like that," Jacob answered.

"Gideon will do a good job. He won't let anything happen to her."

"I know, but it should be me, and I feel rotten that she doesn't know what's going on."

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"She was gone all day. I didn't have a chance."

"You've never heard of a phone?"

"I called her, okay, but explaining that Watchers tried to kill me and might be after her too didn't seem like the best conversation to have over a cell phone. That's more of an in-person thing, don't you think?"

"You're probably right." Mara pulled out the chair and sat down. For the first time, he noticed her pajamas.

"Nice pjs. You been a fan of SpongeBob a long time?"

"Practically since birth. But to tell you the truth, I have these because they remind me of the day I became a Soulkeeper."

Jacob took a sip of water and made the gimme sign with his hand. "There's more to that story."

She frowned. "I usually don't talk about it."

"Well we could sit here in silence or you could share."

She leaned back into her chair. "I was twelve when I became a Soulkeeper. My mother was beating up my father."

Jacob raised his eyebrows.

"I saw that. See, this isn't a happy story. That's why I don't tell people."

"Have you ever told anyone?"

"Just my Helper. Until recently, he was the only Soulkeeper I knew."

"Tell me," Jacob said.  He leaned towards her and placed a hand on top of hers. "I promise, I won't judge."

Mara stared at his hand until he felt self-conscious and pulled it back to his side of the table. She continued with her story.

"People always think it's the other way around, that because the guy is bigger and stronger, he's always the beater. But my mom was a boozer and when she got violent my dad didn't want to hurt her, so he took it. I mean like, he took a beating regularly. Every time she'd get drunk, which was practically always. Looking back, it was really bad but, you have to understand, at the time I was used to it. It was a regular thing.

"Well, this one time when I was twelve, my mom got really drunk and decided fists weren't good enough.  She reached for a kitchen knife, the big one in the block. I guess it's called a chef's knife. I was sitting in the living room watching SpongeBob, trying not to think about the sound of them fighting behind me, when everything went quiet. I knew something was wrong because they were never quiet. Mom was a loud drunk. I turned around and saw she had the knife aimed at my father's chest. He had his hands up like he'd surrendered and she was smiling like it was all a big joke.  And then she dove for him."

Jacob tried his best to keep his expression neutral, but inside he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He gave a small nod to let her know he was listening.

"There was this bell we kept on our coffee table, some antique piece of crap my mom had picked up at a garage sale. It was heavy and it was metal. I grabbed it and leapt over the couch. I wanted to use it to block the knife. But when it rang, everything stopped. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I don't know how long I stood there watching a freeze frame of my mother trying to kill my father. But at some point I turned my mother's wrist so that the knife pointed away from my father's chest.

"Finally it occurred to me to ring the bell again. When I did, I realized that when I turned the knife away from my father, I'd pointed the blade toward my mother's chest. When time started again, she couldn't stop her momentum. She plunged that chef's knife into her own chest. I watched my mother stab herself with SpongeBob playing in the background."

"Oh my god, Mara. That's..."

"Horrible. Awful. Tragic. Excruciatingly painful."

The words dripped with regret. "It wasn't your fault. The day I became a Soulkeeper, I almost killed two boys in my class. The water threw them thirty feet into a wall. All it would have taken was something sharp or the wrong angle and they'd be dead."

"Huh. Well, my mom didn't die, but see when the cops came and I tried to explain what had happened, it sounded crazy. I didn't know what I was, so I told the truth. Then I told the truth again and again to a bunch of different people. And before you know it, I was committed to the Jacksonville psychiatric hospital."

Jacob buried his fingers in his hair. Suddenly, his head felt like it weighed a million pounds. "How did your helper find you?"

"He didn't for a full year. I lived there for three hundred and sixty seven days. And you know what? My parents never came to visit me. No one came to visit me. Then one day, an old man asked to see me. Right there in the visitor's center he explained to me what I was. His name was Dean Bell.  Ironic huh. I had a Helper named Mr. Bell."

"How did he get you out?"

"Oh, he just handed me a bell, held my hand, and told me to use it. I lived three years with him. A Watcher killed him during a mission last year. It was just the two of us. We killed it first but...I couldn't save him. That's when I moved to Chicago."

"What about your parents? Didn't they come looking for you?"

"I don't even think they noticed I was gone."

"Mara, I'm glad you told me but there's something I've gotta know."

"What?"

"Why in the world would you want to remember that? I mean, the SpongeBob pajamas part."

"Because it taught me the power of my gift. I can stop time, Jacob. If I wanted to, I could walk into a bank, and take all the money out of the open drawers. I could move someone I didn't like in front of a bus. I wear the SpongeBob pajamas so that I remember how it felt to watch someone I thought I wanted dead plunge a knife into her chest. I didn't like it, Jacob. SpongeBob reminds me to live by the rules even though I don't have to."