ORDER OF SEVEN (20 page)

I open the door quietly and join him, snuggling close. It’s cold and he puts his arm around me and I lay my head against his shoulder. With the energy humming through us, we watch the sunrise together without a word.

After two minutes, or two hours, or twenty minutes, or a day, the sun is above the horizon and spilling pink clouds across the sky.

My voice breaks the silence. “I had the strangest dream last night,” I say, remembering. “There was a bear high on a hilltop calling for me, but I didn’t know how to get to him. I kept trying different trails but they all led to dead ends and I’d have to start again. Then I heard the elephant thunder rumbling all around me and I knew where to go. It was so vivid. And so random. You think it–”

“It wasn’t random,” Baron says.

“Huh?”

“The summoning has begun.” Baron’s voice is monotone and his eyes don’t leave the sky. “Last night while I slept, I dreamed I was on top of a mountain. I paced and growled and saw my massive paws on the rocky outcrop.”

He runs a hand across his bear tattoo. “I call out to the white buffalo and the buck and the elephant and the jaguar and the snake. There are seven of us but only six spirit animals on the tree. Where’s the seventh?” he muses, then continues, “I pace and pant until they are all with me on the mountain. The six of us walk to an enormous, towering tree and right then an incredible feeling washes over me I can only describe as power.” He looks at me. “I woke up so covered in sweat, I had to rinse off in the shower.”

I ponder the visions and the Tabari’s trek north using the Nazca maps. North toward water and lush forests. I think of my tree and El Arbor del Tule and realization slams me in the throat.

“The seventh spirit animal isn’t an animal at all,” I say, running my hand over Baron’s back and the tattoo covered there. “It’s the tree itself. The tree is the seventh. The tree is me.”

He nods and exhales, slow and deliberate. “Do you think Ben’s one of us?” he asks.

I shrug. “There’s only one way to find out.”

We go back inside and Baron shuts the door hard, waking up Ben. He sits up, yawns and stretches.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

“Did you have a strange dream last night?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nope. Slept like a baby.”

Baron and I have our answer.

The door to Nodin’s room creaks open and he walks into the living room, running his hand through his hair. “What’s up?” he says. “I had the craziest dream last night.”

•◊•◊•

“Will you grab another banana for me?” I ask Nodin as he refills his orange juice in the kitchen.

Now that the four of us are rested and fed, we plan to spend the morning adding the information from Mealy’s journal to the Wall of Knowledge, and do some follow-up research. Baron and Ben are on the couch, hovering over the coffee table where the laptop sits.

“Let’s look up the earth element symbols and see how they connect with runes,” Baron says to Ben.” Earth, air, wood, water, metal, and fire.”

Nodin joins us, and I scoot across the floor so I can see the computer screen.

Ben types into the search bar and studies the images for earth elements. “Well, the only thing I can find is a link between the elements and astrological signs. We could try that.”

“No, we can’t,” Nodin says. “Devi and I don’t know our actual birthdates, remember?”

Ben rubs his chin, thinking. “Oh yeah. Hmm.” His brows rise. “Let’s try this.” His fingers move fast over the keyboard. “Let’s try name meanings. Your names are unusual.” He glances at me and Nodin. “I’m curious where they come from.”

“Good idea,” I say.

“That’s why we keep him around,” Nodin jokes.

“Oh wow,” Baron says. “Nodin is Mesoamerican in origin and means wind.”

“That could coordinate with the air element,” I say, and then remember. “Not only that, but wasn’t it the God of Wind who had Pechocha plant the seed for El Arbor del Tule?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Nodin says. “Look up Devi.”

Ben does, and I read aloud, “Devi is Hindu in origin and means Goddess of Earth and life.” I look at Baron. “Earth. Two down, four to go. We need the other rune’s names to find a match for fire, metal, wood and water. That’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”

Ben leans back against the couch. “What now?”

“The rune sites listed in the journal,” Baron suggests.

Nodin walks to the dry erase board. “Start with Stonehenge.”

We systematically go through each of the seven sites, recording their location, design, and archaeological speculation of why they were built onto the Wall of Knowledge, when I notice a reoccurring symbol.

“Look here,” I point to the image on the screen of a stone carving in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. “This spiral shape. I keep seeing that. It’s at every site.”

“Is it?” Ben asks, while pulling up the minimized pages for the other sites, one by one.

I sit up taller and reach for the screen. “See? Stonehenge is shaped like the spiral, and so is Arkaim.”

“You’re right,” Baron confirms.

Nodin walks to us and peers at the laptop. “What about the others?”

“Wurdi Youang is shaped like a spiral,” Ben reports. “And there are spiral carvings at the India site...” He searches another. “Wonderboom in Africa....” His fingers click across the keys. “Yep, even the Nazca Lines.”

The screen reveals an enormous spiral carved into a mountain top in Peru, the same picture framed in my dad’s office.

Nodin sits next to Baron. “Search spiral symbol.”

Ben types “spiral symbol in archaeology” into the search bar.

We learn the spiral symbol is one of the oldest in history, with several meanings, including the cycle of life, growth and evolution, and the awareness of one’s self within the whole, but the most compelling is the representation of the path of the heavenly bodies: the sun, moon, stars and planets. Because this symbol is inherent to archaeological sites, and all the sites were built to measure and map the heavenly bodies, it has become the parent symbol to represent ancient ruins, the structures built by runes for the gods to communicate the Order.

A variation of which is the Tomoe tattooed on Baron’s left shoulder.

The spiral is the rune symbol.

•◊•◊•

On the Tuesday after our meeting with Mealy, I awake in my bed to tremors driving through the floor to my legs. It’s the calling.

Twenty-five minutes later, I’m driving to Joe’s house with an extra layer of clothes under my coat because it’s going to be cold in the tree.

After Sunday and Monday’s marathon training days, the Okie boys returned to their homes for Christmas with their families. After the holidays Nodin and I will make that god-awful drive again to Baron and reconvene practice.

Baron is getting stronger. He says he’s taking four times the energy and throwing it ten times as far. But for what reason, we still don’t know.

I park in front of the house. The tree’s calling is gripping me in a vice.

Joe answers the door with a growling, snapping Assface tucked under his arm. He smiles wide and beckons me inside. We sit in his family room and I listen to him tell me about an ancient Pre-Clovis tool found in Colorado. He explains why this is significant with great excitement, his grey eyes gleaming.

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for this man. If he hadn’t bought this house and been the precise eccentric, odd, sweet man he is, I’m certain I’d be up shit creek. So despite the calling clamoring through my bones, I listen to him talk for nearly an hour and that, I find, is my limit today.

I go to my tree. The vision comes fast, urgent.

I’m in a field. It’s night and the wind sashays the grass back and forth. The moon is full, illuminating the sky with soft light. Mountains stain the horizon with mounds of purple. Trees dapple our view. We wait. I tremble. I’m anxious, no—afraid. So afraid. I hear rumbling, but also feel it at the same time. It’s in the air, in the ground, -in my head all at once. My eyes dart around, looking for a source. It’s guttural. An animal. It’s the elephant.

I peer toward the trees where I saw her before and she is there. I see her outline. She steps out and walks toward me. Her stature is so overwhelming, I fall to my knees.

“Nami,” I whisper.

In my mind I hear her answer, “It is time. Come to me. It is time. Come to me. It is time. Come to me.”

My eyes flutter open, my breathing erratic, and there is sweat on my brow despite the cold. I check the time: quarter past noon. I’ve been up here nearly two hours.

I stretch my stiff muscles and slowly climb down. Joe leads me through the house, wishing me a merry Christmas.

In my truck, I dial Nodin. “You got your wish. We’re going to Africa.”

•◊•◊•

That night, I’m lying in bed on the phone with Baron telling him about the vision, and generally freaking out about travelling to Africa.

“But what about the cost?” I ask. “And how do we know
when
to go? Are we talking two weeks from now...six months...a year? I mean, ‘it is time’ isn’t specific enough.”

“Devi. Breathe. Haven’t we received everything else we need to know when we need to know it? We’ll know that too. When it’s time.”

“What about vaccines? Holy shit. And passports. Do you have a passport?”

“Yeah, I had to get one when I went to Canada for a competition. And don’t worry about vaccines. We’re runes.” He switches to a gravelly, Hispanic accent, “Vaccines? We don’t need no stinking vaccines.”

I laugh at his movie reference. “
Blazing Saddles
?”

“Nice. Not many people get my movie references.”

“Are you kidding? Our parents are huge movie buffs. Nodin and I grew up watching movies with them.”

We recite more lines and then we switch to
Three Amigos
references. We’re laughing and then, out of nowhere, he says, “I miss you.”

“Aw, you do?”

“Mmhmm. I miss your smile. I miss your scowl.”

I laugh.

“I miss how your brows furrow when you’re serious.” He pauses and lowers his voice. “I miss how your hair always smells like cherries and vanilla. I miss your soft skin. I miss your kiss.”

I’m straight up blushing now.

“I miss how delicious your lips are.”

I’m squirming.

“I miss the little noises you make when I bite your neck.”

Stomach clench. His words get sexier, dirtier, and then staggeringly naughty, and I’m so turned on, I’m writhing in the sheets.

I
need
to be with him.

But in the meantime, phone sex doesn’t suck.

•◊
22
ץ

THE BRINGER OF DARK AND LIGHT

I
t’s two days before Christmas, which I guess makes it Christmas Eve Eve. My phone rings at exactly six-eighteen in the morning. The caller ID says unknown.

I hesitate but then answer. A man on the other line asks if I’m Devi Bennett.

“Who’s asking?”

“My name is Levin and I’m calling on behalf of my sister, Mapiya.”

I detect an accent but can’t place it. “Okay. How can I help you?” I ask as I sit up and turn on a lamp.

He tells me to hold on, and then I hear the phone being handed to someone else. “Hello?” a girl’s voice says.

“Yes?”

Like a faucet on high, she bursts. “Hello, my name is Mapiya and my grandfather said I need to find you because we’re going somewhere and I need you to take me.” She fills her lungs with air again and I’m waiting for her to elaborate, or tell me she’s got the wrong number, when she adds, “I am Seven Rays.”

That got my attention. “What did you say?”

“My name, it is Lakota for Seven Rays. I am the bringer of light and dark and I am to go with you, but I need you to come get me because I am eleven.”

I stand.
Baron’s sun tattoo.
“How did you...? Who told you? How do...?”

She giggles. “I have the owl eye and I saw a vision. You walk with Bear? Yes?” I assume she means Baron, so I tell her yes. “My grandfather, he tell me to find
Nah hi lita
and he tell me your English name, and my brother look you up. You are
Nah hi lita
?”

“I...uh... I don’t know what that means,” I confess.

“It means she walks shining under moon.”

I sit down hard. That’s what Baron said my name in Amair translated to in English. I can’t talk or swallow, or form a thought.

“Devi Bennett?” she says.

“Yes. That’s me. I’m
Nah hi lita
.” I swallow hard. “Where are you?”

“My home is Kansas. My grandfather say it is time for you to come get me.”

“Is your grandfather there? Can I talk to him?”

She giggles again. “My grandfather pass away many years ago. He walks with spirit now.”

“Then how do...?”

Never mind,
I think. I don’t know why this stuff even surprises me anymore. Of course she talks to her dead grandfather.

“Mapiya, I don’t know when we’re leaving, but I don’t think you can come with us. We’re going somewhere far away. It’ll be dangerous. I thi–”

“We go where they walk with elephants. I know. My grandfather tell me. It is okay, Devi Bennett. I am ready for this trip, but my father is afraid. He does not understand. I cannot tell him where we are going. But you can help.”

“How? Do you want me to talk to him or something?”

“Grandfather says the answer is the wind. You will know what to do.” She lowers her voice. “I have to go now. I will talk to you soon.”

“Wait,” I say, but it’s too late.

That might be the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever been a part of, and that’s saying a lot given recent events.

The answer is the wind.

I scroll through my contact list and am about to press
Nodin
when I remember his name means wind. Nodin is the answer. He must influence the feelings of Mapiya’s father so she can be allowed to travel with us for the Order.

•◊•◊•

The day after Christmas I am awoken early again by my phone. At this hour I assume it’s Mapiya, but the caller ID says Baron. I answer quickly.

“Good morning.” He sounds sleepy, husky, and it warms me all over.