AMANI: Reveal (10 page)

              “Anyway,” I continued. “You’re too young to be in charge of anything but yourself and your family must know that. No one is holding you responsible for Danny or anyone else. You have to stop blaming yourself for this because, you know what? Wyatt wants
me
. Xander was bitten because he tried to save
me.
Gareth was ordered to bring
me
to Wyatt. And Delilah was probably kidnapped because of
me
.” The mere mention of my sister tied a knot in my stomach. “It’s easy to blame yourself, but if you focus on that, you’ll never achieve what a true leader would.” I let this thought linger in her mind.
              “What would that be?”
              “A true leader—one like your mother—wouldn’t think of the past and possible mistakes they might have made. They would put all their energy into finding a solution.”
              “That’s easier said than done, Amya.”
              “I know. But you’re lucky you have friends who are willing to help you. I’m not in a coma anymore, so that’s that. Xander is still a Rascal, though…”
              “Thank you for the reminder,” he responded, aloof.
              Sam’s eyes grew big, pensive. “And the Protectors want him dead…”
              “Always a pleasure to hear that,” he added.
              “Because they think he’s dangerous,” I said.
              “Rawwwrrrrr,” Xander uttered, his hands imitating claws attacking Samera.
              “Oh, shut up,” my best friend chuckled. Her expression changed again, so fast it was like she’d just put a new mask on. “All right then,” she said, now determined. “I’ll start with your case.”
              “My case?” Xander stiffened.
              Sam’s face lightened. “Yes, your case. I will find out what it is that can kill Rascals.”
              Not entirely convinced this was a good idea, I opened my mouth to say something but Xander was faster. “Wonderful! So you plan on giving the Protectors an easier way to kill me. Why, thanks a lot!”
              “No! You silly! The Protectors are afraid of what they cannot control. Like Rascals, for example. It is scary to know your enemies are indestructible, immortal. If they knew of a way to beat them, fear would dissolve and they would see more clearly. See that you’re harmless and not at all like the others.”
              I was about to tell Samera that her idea was excellent and that we ought to start as soon as we arrived in Sherbrooke, when the boat unexpectedly came to a stop in front of a huge island I hadn’t noticed before, too absorbed into our conversation.
              “That cannot be Canada,” I said.
              It was such a small island. Just like in the Blue version of the U.S, palm trees filled the surface of the earth except for the center of a tall, angular mountain abounding with black spruce trees. A few tree houses were scattered around, linked by the usual braided bridges. The odd thing was that no one seemed to live here.
              “Were are we?”

Amya Priam

Apparently, even fish need breaks.
              My Blue-self and Mr. Jensen woke up instantly, tied the boat to the wooden dock, and beckoned us onto solid ground. I was right about at least one thing; all my muscles hurt from the extreme tension I’d imposed on them throughout the trip. Once on the warm white sand, I stretched my arms to the pale orange and purple sky, and then curved my back like a cat. I guessed it didn’t help that my body still hadn’t recovered completely from my excessive drinking with my sister the night before.
              According to Blue, we were close to Canada. After resting, we would head north-east toward Sherbrooke. Karl presumed we were parallel to the Great Sacandaga Lake in Amani.
              The island resembled in every way the one we’d left a few hours ago. Had it really been hours? After a quick look around, though, I noticed that the few tree houses scattered heedlessly next to the one braided bridge seemed to be vacant. Were we alone on this island?
              The sun was slowly crawling down in the ocean, leaving diamond-shaped glitters over a colorful thread of calm waves. I squinted and appreciated the beauty of it while moving my head left to right to stretch the muscles in my neck, careful not to touch my injured shoulder.
              “Where is everyone?” I asked after I gave up on the exercises. Surely I would be aching for several days anyway.
              Blue, who’d been relaxing on the sand since we arrived, looked startled, as if she hadn’t realized we were alone. “They must be looking for berries and mushrooms before nightfall, for insects come out with darkness.” She shuddered and something dreadful passed in front of her eyes. “Insects mostly live in forests; however, some hover over the ocean at twilight.” She gazed up at Karl and then at the sun, slowly drifting west. “I did not realize how late it was and now that I think of it, I don’t recall ever making the trip to Canada in one day. I believe we will not arrive before the sun is down. I suggest we stay the night with a good friend of mine and continue our route tomorrow at dawn.”
                Mr. Jensen took a coop-hole from his pocket and dialed a number. “It depends on whether the Protectors have already tracked us down or not—Michelle?” He then directed his attention to the phone. “We’re maybe halfway—wait, where are
you
?” He paused, listening with a frown. “You shouldn’t have gone alone. What if something happens to you? I’m too far to—” He shook his head. “No, that is not safe.” He paused and his eyes fell on me. “Wait for me, I have an idea.” He pressed a button and Michelle’s voice was heard.
              “Karl, I had no choice—” she said.
              “You are on speaker now.”
              “Oh, hi everyone. Samera, darling, how is the trip so far? And your leg?” She did not wait for an answer. “There is something all of you should know.”
              “Mom!” Sam interrupted, suddenly excited. She was leaning against Xander’s shoulder, her casted foot hovering over the sand. “I have a question for you. Please tell me you know the exact location of that Hibiscus guy you talked about.”
             
Hibiscus? The author of the book on Rascals?
              “Yes, of course. And that is what I need to tell you.” Samera’s eyes lit up. “You are still heading to Sherbrooke, like I wrote on the paper, right?”
              “Yes.”
              “Then I need you to meet with Hibiscus. He told me he works at Bishop’s University. We need to know everything about Rascals if we want to convince the Protectors of Xander’s innocence. I will be doing some research as well tonight.”
              Samera clapped her hands together. “That is
precisely
what I wanted to ask. Xander, Amya, and I thought it would be helpful to find out how a Rascal can be killed. Maybe this Hibiscus guy knows.”
              Michelle made a pensive noise. “I believe he would have already mentioned it to me, but it is a fine idea. Perhaps he does not want to divulge too much information by email, for fear of being traced. Everything on the Internet leaves a mark…”
              Karl moved the coop-hole closer to his mouth. “Michelle, hear me out.” He turned to me with such hope in his eyes, I felt my feet sink into the warm sand. “My wife, stubborn as she is, has gone all alone to the house of a Rascal—”
              “Mom!” Samera exclaimed. “Why didn’t you bring someone with you? There are dozens of guards at HQ—”
              “There is nothing to be afraid of,” Michelle interrupted. “As I was telling your father, it is Hibiscus who gave me the address of an old friend of his. Hibiscus wrote in the email that he went to college with someone who could feed on people’s dreams. This person—Rascal—is a good one, just like Xander. The Protectors I sent yesterday to this address said that the family living there now had just moved in a couple of years ago but they do not know the name of the owners before them. I am merely going to ask them a few questions, see if they can remember something.”
              “But it could be a trap,” Karl said. “The current owners could be lying. And that is why I think it would be better if Amya used her ability”—he stared me dead in the eyes—“to look after you while you are in the house. Simply to make sure nothing happens to you.”
              Michelle was about to answer, when I said, “Hmm, Mr. Jensen, I would be willing to do anything, really, to help Mrs. Cohen, but I—I have never Sojourned into the body of someone who wasn’t right next to me. Of someone I couldn’t see with my own eyes.”
              During the previous month, Samera and I had worked on my capacity to keep on Sojourning even if someone was talking to me or touching me. We’d never even tried to extend the projection of my soul to someone who was out of my sight. We’d never thought it would be useful.
              I looked up to the four faces staring at me, saw that Karl was about to plead, and immediately added, “But I’d be willing to try.”

***

Michelle finished describing her surroundings—Union Street, Jersey City; rain pouring over her dark blue umbrella; her light raincoat already soaking wet; three kids and a single mother running down the street to the safety of their home. I pictured all of that and shuddered as a cold breeze brushed my hair off my ears. I could almost smell the moisture of the street and touch the dampness of the umbrella in Michelle’s grip, when I finally saw the familiar purple shape. Seconds later, my soul left my body.
             
If Amya is unable to Sojourn, then I’ll need to hurry, for I do not wish to bother the owner of the house too late this evening…
              “I think she’s in,” my husband whispers in the phone, making me shiver.
              It is an odd sensation to know that somebody is inside your head, and yet to feel absolutely normal, unchanged.
              Determined, I tell Karl I will call him after I am done, hang up, and cross the street toward the narrow green house almost completely hidden behind a large oak tree. The fence is open, so I continue my way to the wooden door. At the top of the stairs, I close my umbrella and take a deep breath.
              These people might be reluctant to answer any questions I have about the previous owner of the house, especially since two Protectors just visited them yesterday. But I know by experience that people feel more at ease speaking to a woman than a man. So it’s worth the risk.
              I knock twice on the door and back one step away when I hear dogs barking and running in my direction. Moments later, the door swings open as a woman swears and orders her dogs to back off.
              She is in her thirties, her long brown hair tied in a low ponytail, and she is wearing sweat-pants and a shirt much too big for her. “Yes?” she snaps.
              I clasps my hands together in front of me and begin; “Good evening. My name is Michelle Cohen. I have a few questions for you regarding the people who lived in this house before you—”
              “Let me stop you right there,” the woman says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Two guys came here yesterday and I’m tired of all these questions—”
              A man’s voice echoes from another room. “Who is it?”
              The woman exhales sharply. “Same as yesterday, Bob!” she shouts back. “Look—” She fixes her eyes on me again and I notice for the first time heavy blue rings under her eyes and a pale stain like vomit on her left shoulder. By the way she keeps looking up the staircase behind her, I assume she’s just put her baby to sleep. “I don’t know why you keep coming here or who you are, but I swear I’ll call the police if you don’t leave—”
              “That won’t be necessary,” I immediately say, putting my hand on the door as she tries to close it. If the police finds out I was here, then the Protectors will too. And I’m still not completely certain whom I can trust at Headquarters anymore. My search has to remain secret until I have enough proof to clear Xander. “I did not come here to bother you. My colleagues told me that you did not know where the previous owner lives at the moment, but maybe you know something about him that might help me. A name perhaps?”
              Hibiscus agreed to give me the address of the Rascal he knows, but refused to tell me his name.
I once swore I would never tell anyone what he is,
he wrote.
You better not cause him harm.
              I feel like the woman at the door is about to give in, when her boyfriend walks out of a room. He frowns as soon as he sees me.
              “Were we not clear enough yesterday when we told those two guys we know nothing about the—?”
              “She only wants to know his name, Bob,” the woman interrupts tiredly.
              “Yes,” I add with the sweetest voice possible. The woman is about to break. She clearly just wants to be left alone. As for the man, he seems to be acting all tough for his girlfriend’s sake, but he looks as clueless as a lost kitten. “All I need is a name. You see, my daughter might be in great danger and this man I am looking for is our only hope to make sure she is safe.”
              It isn’t as much a lie as it is an altered truth. Samera will do anything to help Xander and it has, last month, put her in great danger with the Rascals. Like I expected, the woman seems to sympathize with me. Unaware of what she is doing, she slowly brings her hand up to her belly and rubs it.
              “Bob… you signed the papers for the house,” she says, “and, if I remember correctly, you did see the man once a few months ago. You said he came here to retrieve something he’d buried underneath the tree outside.”
              Bob scratches the top of his bald head as his facial expression softens. “He did pay us a visit last year. But he was clear that he did not want us to tell anyone who he was…”
              “It’s very important,” I insist.
              His girlfriend caresses his arm, staring at him with pleading eyes. “Bob, imagine if it were for Ella…”
              “All right, all right. But the guy who came last year was not the owner. He was their son. He lived here until he got married and moved to New York.”
              I cannot help a smile. “That would help more than you think,” I tell Bob.
              “His name—”
A sharp pain in my shoulder sent me right back to Blue and I cried out.
              “What’s happened?” Karl said instantly. “Is Michelle hurt?”
              I curved into a ball and winced. “No… it’s my shoulder.”
              My Blue-self instantly pushed everyone away from me, took a small wooden flask from a large pocket in her dress, removed the seaweed bandage, and applied the rest of the ointment—well, I did not dare look at the wound, but it had the desired effect. Slowly the pain diminished, but this time, it did not dissipate completely.
              “I will need to make some more,” Blue told me, looking inside the now-empty flask. I realized I had thrown myself on the sand and sat upright, feeling better already. “I did not bring enough. I apologize. Samera? Would you join me in the making of more cream? We still have an hour or so before the sun is down and the others come back.”
              Sam’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Yes, of course I would.” Blue nodded and turned around, heading toward the palm trees, away from the beach. “I’ve always wanted to know how to concoct medicine from scratch,” Sam told her, leaping on one leg, following my Blue-self. “I believe it is a very important knowledge, especially now…” The rest of her sentence—or speech—was lost as they disappeared into the forest.
              Xander laughed and shook his head. “Your Blue-self might regret bringing Sam with her. I bet she won’t stop talking.”
              Mr. Jensen ignored Xander’s comment. “How are you feeling, Amya?”
              “I’m fine.” I could tell from his wary eyes that he did care about my health, but that wasn’t all that was bothering him. “Michelle was just about to learn the name of the Rascal when I Sojourned back. I’m truly sorry I wasn’t able to stay with her the whole time, but the owners of the house were quite friendly. Your wife wasn’t in any trouble.”
              “It is not your fault, Amya.” Relieved, his dark brown eyes smiled. “Do you think she is alone now? Should I call her?”
              I thought of how tired the woman had looked. Surely Michelle would not bother the couple longer than she had to. “I believe she’s on her way back now. Or maybe on her way to the Rascal?”
              That last sentence alarmed Mr. Jensen more than I had intended. He picked up his coop-hole and dialed Michelle’s number. She picked up right away.
              “Oh, I am glad to hear your voice,” he said. There was such intense love in his tone and facial expression that I felt like I was invading their privacy. “Did you—” He paused and peeked sideways at me. I averted my eyes. “No, she wasn’t able to stay with you the whole time—” This time, he listened closely to his wife as he walked away from Xander and me.
              “It must be stressful to know that the person you love might be in danger,” Xander said, staring at Karl, who was now too far to hear us.
              “He did seem genuinely worried,” I replied. “But Michelle was in no danger. And if the people at the house were telling the truth, this Rascal she is looking for will be as harmless. She might actually have found a way to clear your name!” I smiled brightly at him. This was good news at last.
              “I wish I could be as enthusiastic.”
              “You should. The fact that there might be other good Rascals proves that becoming one does not turn you into a monster. ‘
You might be dangerous to the people around you
,’ the book said. It was never certain but now we know!”
              The corner of Xander’s lips lifted before he concealed his sudden fervor. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
              The news gave me hope and hope was enough to fill me with joy. My shoulder barely hurt anymore. The sun was halfway down, displaying bright scarlet colors mingled with dark pink and royal blue. The view was magnificent.
              Xander sat beside me in silence and we listened to the sound of the stream, his fingers brushing mine, sending electricity through my arm and back. My head finally cleared and I felt as though every wave left the shore with an ounce of worry or angst about my sister, the Rascals, Xander… Like I became lighter and my lungs could finally breathe fully without being oppressed by the weight of the world on my shoulders. Minutes passed, and the sun sank into its blue mirror until the sky darkened to a homogenous gray.
              At some point, Mr. Jensen came back with Samera and Blue, who were still preparing ointment when more people emerged from the forest. We were introduced to a dozen men and women, all dressed seemingly like my Blue-self and speaking very slowly. Before the sun was down, we were invited to sleep at an old man’s house. His name was Harold.
              “Friends of Amya’s are always welcome in my house,” he said, his curly white beard shaking as he spoke.
                Apparently, he owned the biggest tree house around because he was the equivalent of a vet in Amani; he cared for animals and fish when they were sick or wounded. His house was twice as big as my parents’ house. It had seven rooms in total, four of them with simple beds. Karl and Xander offered to sleep on the floor but Harold refused. He locked himself in the fifth room for about an hour while we ate berries, seeds, and mushrooms, and came back dragging a big rectangular shape made of compact leaves and bent branches.
              “Would you fetch the second mattress, young man?” he muttered at Xander, out of breath. “An old man like me will not make the trip twice without having a heart attack.” And then, more to himself, he added, “I wish I’d been young at least once in my life. Being seventy-six years old for fifty years is wearing on me.”
              I’d never put much thought into this before. Those people living in the Blue, Yellow, and Red Dimensions did not age. They remained the same all their lives, whether they were one, fifteen, thirty-five, or ninety. They did not know what it was like to change and grow physically. It was a weird concept and I felt very privileged to come from Amani. When Samera had explained the Dimensions to me at the hospital a month ago, I’d felt threatened by the idea of having people in parallel worlds influencing my personality and my emotions. But now, with a better comprehension of it all, I understood that we were the lucky ones. We could travel whenever we wanted, we could experience childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age in one lifetime, and most of all, we could build a family and have children of our own. Those people in other Dimensions did not know what it felt like to have parents who cared for you, or siblings whom, no matter what they’d say or do to you, you’d always love.
              Samera had told me once that if my sister’s Red-self ever met mine, they would feel a bond to each other, but they would not necessarily know that they were, in some way, related.
              “Amya?” a voice startled my thoughts. “I will apply a big amount of cream on your shoulder before we go to sleep,” Blue explained calmly. “And I need to bandage it tight or your wound might bleed during the night.”