House of Slide Hybrid (23 page)

The wind spread my blue hair over Lewis’s dark suit coat. The sun had finally broken through the cloudy day. Delicious flavors from the pastry, spicy and rich filled my mouth while we wandered, feeling perfectly content exactly where we were. We walked, looking at displays of hand-made crafts, clothing, dolls, rugs, and food. Vegetables, so many beautiful vegetables, cascaded over tables from baskets. Red radishes, purple beets, orange carrots, and greens, so many different kinds of green, filled my eyes until they became dazzled. The most lovely sight stood on my left, the sun rays lighting up strands of his hair like fire. His eyes glowed with warmth, his smile never wavered as he caught my gaze every time I glanced his way.

His presence changed the world, allowed the beauty through.

“Excuse me,” an old woman said, her voice filled with life and youth, contrasting with her wrinkled cheeks and drooping eyes.

“Good afternoon,” Lewis said, bowing respectfully to her.

I stiffened as she approached, studying Lewis with a calculating gaze that diminished the beauty of the world around me.

“Are you here to assist?” she asked with a flash of silver in her eyes.

“My friend is a Hybrid who lacks training,” he said easily. “If you agreed to teach her to control her leaning, I would be at your service.”

I frowned up at him, his even gaze on the old woman as though he knew what he were doing.

The woman looked at me, her gaze narrowing as she studied my features. “Woods child,” she said in a voice that pierced me before she returned to staring at Lewis. She took her time considering, as though we had all the time in the world. Lewis gazed back, unconcerned.

I squeezed his fingers. “I’d rather not,” I said.

The woman glanced at me with a frown before she snatched my hand in hers, sending a peculiarly euphoric sensation through me so that I barely noticed when she pulled me away from Lewis.

“It is agreed,” the woman snapped, suddenly finding time of the utmost importance. “She will not lean you after this day.”

“Or any Son while in a House,” Lewis added with a tight smile.

I opened my mouth to protest, but then the woman turned on me, whispering words I couldn’t quite make out but that somehow explained everything. When I looked around again Lewis had disappeared and I was left with the woman who led me behind the counter of a booth and past another Cool one to a truck, full of boxes that had held the vegetables now piled on the counters.

“In the truck,” she said, squeezing my hand.

I climbed in numbly, looking up at the man with a frown who closed the door on me.

“First thing,” she said, hopping spryly in the seat beside me behind the steering wheel. “You can’t just follow anyone who leans you. Blocking leaning is an extremely important skill. I can’t imagine why you haven’t learned this yet.”

I shook off the numbness and glared at her, feeling furious with Lewis and myself for leaving me at the hands of this woman who could do anything she liked with me.

“I have a Trainer. I don’t know why Lewis did this without asking me, but it’s not his right.”

“No?” she raised a white eyebrow, crinkling her forehead. “He permeated protection, guardianship of you. I took him to be your Intended at least, not to mention someone half-blood bound to you.”

I clenched my jaw before I forced a smile. “I see there’s no fooling you. What will you teach me, pain?”

She shook her head and turned to gaze out the windshield, tapping the wheel with her long, delicate fingers. “Leaning comes from within. You must know yourself. You must accept yourself and those around you, or you will try to change them, to lean them.”

“How can I accept things which are clearly wrong?”

“That is a matter of perspective.”

“No, it isn’t. Some things are inherently evil. I’ve seen it.”

“Ah,” she said, turning to me. “Your father is teaching you through philosophy. That is a good way. It isn’t a very quick road, but so many people rush when they should be savoring the experience.”

I stared at her. “Right. What were you going to teach me?”

She answered by pressing her fingers delicately on my forehead, brushing my temples lightly. I didn’t even feel the pressure, not when I became swept up in a plethora of images, of feelings, of experiences that weren’t mine.

A girl stood in front of two people who tortured her parents. I saw her, barefoot on a stone floor, screaming at them to stop, helpless, when one of the torturers raised his hand back and struck her.

I reached out to stop them, to help, and felt a wall come down inside my mind, so heavy and thick that I couldn’t breach it. I turned away and ran down a dark hallway, passing barred doors, people crying and suffering behind those doors. A child wept at the end of the hallway, stretching his fingers through the bars to reach someone inside. He looked up at me, luminous eyes the color of warmth and beauty, Lewis’s eyes. I moved to help him but a stone wall fell down, cutting him off, surrounding me when I turned so there was nowhere to go. I looked up and started climbing, bracing my feet on one wall as I crawled out of the hole, scraping my fingers raw until I finally reached the top.

I blinked and found myself in the truck beside the old woman who looked at me with pursed lips.

“What was that?” I demanded.

“Shhh,” she said, waving her hand in front of my face. “You have a strong sense of justice. From your father, I suppose. And so much protectiveness. From your mother,” she said with a slight smile. “The next time you try to lean, you’ll have that feeling, that memory of the stone rising up. You’ll have to force through the wall in order to lean, and you’ll find on the other side that those innocents are not as they seemed. The purpose of leaning is to capture demons. The more we use our gifts to create the world as we would have it, the more we become like that thing we hate.” She shrugged, turning away from me. “I hope your uncle is faring well. Sometimes we lean a little too hard and people break from the inside. That is never a pretty thing to witness.”

I swallowed the denial, the anger. It wouldn’t affect her. I forced my voice to come out steady. “I could have hurt my uncle with leaning?”

She looked at me. “Haven’t you ever had someone inside your mind, your father, perhaps?”

I froze, remembering my father, what he could do. “I did that to him?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. All I know is that you have a lot of power, and very little control. Not exactly an ideal combination. But, I’m sure your father knows what he’s doing. He will not appreciate my intervention.”

Her words did not convey her emotions, those held fear, fear of my father and what he could do.

“Why did you agree to do this if you’re afraid of my father? What did Lewis agree to do?”

She cocked her head, looking at me in a curious way before she finally said, “Hollow blood is in short supply these days. The Hollows manipulate the soul. When the soul fades, when those precious children become lost, there isn’t anyone to help them find their way back.”

I stared at her blankly before I remembered Lewis saying that he’d drained a Hollow and that’s why I couldn’t lean him.

“You need someone with Hollow skills to save your children? Does Lewis usually do that, help Cool people who need him?”

She sighed. “Cools do not have many children. It’s not our way. We live long, slow lives, at least if we survive the transition. So many children fade away too soon. Of course your friend would not use his abilities without reason.”

“Isn’t saving children enough of a reason?”

She smiled at me. “So protective of the innocent. They choose whether they wish to live. We sometimes resented Hollows stepping in, interfering with the natural process, but so many have gone. Your friend pays a high price every time he uses skills he took from another.”

“What price will he pay?”

“There is only so much he can do before it consumes him. Bloodworking takes great balance.”

“Where is he?” I demanded as I shoved open the door. I felt her leaning me because the stone wall came down. I felt a wave of gratitude as I left the truck, glad that I could do something of my own volition. I only hoped it would not cost Lewis more than I wanted to pay.

I edged my way through the crowds of people, feeling the waves of peace and happiness that they exuded unconsciously. I kept the barrier down, aware of it like it was a shield I wore on my arm, holding it up took effort, but at least I had a shield to hold up.

“Daughter of the Woods, you search for your friend,” a man said, smiling gently down at me as he put his hand on my shoulder. He didn’t try to lean me. He looked young but acted old.

“Do you know where he is?”

He nodded. “Don’t fear. In this place you are safe from those that gather.”

“Those that gather?”

He gave me a kind, fatherly smile then turned to someone beside me. A girl with frizzy dark hair and large eyes stared at me, so serious, like someone had died. Was she one of the lost souls that Lewis was helping?

“Take her to the trailer,” the man said, leaning over to brush the girl’s hair back futilely.

She nodded and turned, letting me fall behind her. I looked back questioningly at the old man, but he only nodded and raised his hand in farewell of peace.

She moved with a bouncy step across the mud to the woods, a clearing barely visible through the trees. I followed her on a narrow footpath through trees that seemed friendly and happy in spite of winter to a gathering of small trailers painted bright and beautiful colors, reminding me of my childhood storybooks.

Clotheslines stretched across the space between trailers with frozen looking garments hanging on them. I saw a face through an oblong window as I passed a trailer, bright eyes flashing silver before I turned away, embarrassed for intruding on someone’s privacy. I hurried to catch up to the girl, following her bright yellow hooded cape. She looked like an elf or fairy with her big eyes and her wild hair.

Maybe I shouldn’t be trusting these Cools, not when they feared my father. I exhaled into the cold air.

She danced up the steps to a small trailer that wasn’t more than nine feet long, throwing open the door before she turned to look out at me.

“You can come in, if you like.” The flatness of her voice made me hold back before thoughts of Lewis spurred me on. When I ducked into the small, dark space, I closed the door behind me but held onto the latch.

“Orrin,” she sang, her voice coming to life, sparkling, bright, enticing as she moved around the space, throwing the polka dot curtains wide to let the sunshine reveal the inside of what couldn’t be very comfortable living quarters for one person, much less two. There were two beds on the left, stacked on top of each other like shelves, the bright fabric blue, green, red and gold so happy and cheerful.

“Lewis isn’t here,” I said, turning towards the door.

“Go,” she said, her voice a command that stopped short of leaning me. “Yasho told me to bring you here. We don’t need you, not with your Wild blood corrupting any conscience you might have had.”

“Erin, don’t talk like that,” a sleepy voice asked from the top bunk, a voice that reminded me of Ash or my dad, a voice that was so rich with meaning and depth I would probably drown in it if I listened very long.

“Orrin,” Erin responded, her voice steeped in hope as she smiled brilliantly at the bed. “Are you hungry? I brought you fresh mangos.”

“And a child? She didn’t sound so young,” he said, his voice getting louder as he spoke. His head appeared at the edge of his bed, but his face was pale with transparent skin, and his eyes were like holes in his face, gaping holes where I couldn’t see anything at all.

I swallowed as I edged away from him. “Excuse me?”

Orrin, the pale faced, pale haired boy with empty eyes hunched on the edge of the bed, his head touching the low ceiling, staring into me with those horrible orbs full of nothing. He blinked twice, and I saw something shift inside that gaze.

He blinked slowly, then his eyes changed until I could see the pale blue color and he finally looked at me, seeing my face, my eyes. He stared, his pale eyebrows drawing together.

“Your soul is as pure as a child’s,” he said in a melodious, soothing way that creeped me out.

“Thanks,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. I glanced at Erin, at the way she stared at Orrin like he was the cheese and the moon.

“Your soul is all wrong,” Orrin said, blinking rapidly. He looked terrible. Sick, starved, and something else I couldn’t put my finger on.

I looked around and saw the bowl of mangoes on the table. With a shrug I handed it to Orrin.

“I don’t know very much about souls. I’ve heard that I’m soul bait.”

Orrin’s pale eyebrows rose. “Soul-bait, as in, a Hollow lure?” he asked, then absently bit into a juicy mango until streams of juice trailed down his skin.

“I don’t know what that would be. Aren’t all the Hollows dead? What is a Hollow lure?”

“How did you keep your soul like that, untouched?”

I glanced at Erin, like she would help, but she only glared at me with her arms over her chest, like she resented me. I focused back on Orrin. “Ten years without a soul will do that for you.”