ORDER OF SEVEN (9 page)

Nodin records the meaning and origin for the bear, the symbol for seven on the inside of his left wrist, the African Tabono just above it, the white buffalo hoof and the seven rays sun. The latter represents the giver of day and night. Across the top of his right forearm is a geometric design he explains is Celtic. It’s a buck with large antlers, considered a messenger from the spirit world. On his left shoulder is a Buddhist symbol called a Tomoe, which looks like three comets inside a circle chasing their tails. This represents the ever turning, ever replenishing cycle of energy in the universe.

He pulls up one leg of his sweatpants to show us a large serpent striped with the colors of a rainbow, its head high on the front of his thigh. The body curves into an “S” and ends with the tail above his knee; Australia’s rainbow serpent, a symbol of the importance of water in human existence. It can be the giver of life but also the destruction of it.

The tattoo exploration finishes with my name under Baron’s collar bone and the tree on his back. Counting the seven earth symbols separately, he has seventeen tattoos.

We discuss the repeating theme of seven. It shows up in the Mayan symbol for seven, the seven rays of the sun, and the seven pictographs down his side. Baron also reminds us that during the vision where he sees me in the moonlight, my name is chanted seven times.

Nodin draws a large seven on the inside of the notebook’s cover.

When we’re done, I collapse against the back of my chair with a sigh. My ears hurt from hours of uncomfortable pressure and I can no longer tolerate the energy bashing. I have to touch Baron or leave. I have no choice but to do the latter or freak out Ben and Nodin.

Nodin’s brows furrow as my fatigue drapes over him. “You should head home. It’s already eleven. We have to be up early if we’re going to meet at eight,” he says.

“Where are we meeting?” I say.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. We found a secluded area just outside of town yesterday after Baron’s climb.”

I look over at Baron. “Congratulations, by the way. I hear you stole the show.”

He waves away my compliment. “They didn’t make it easy. The talent there was sick.”

“Come on, I’ll walk you to your truck,” Nodin says as he stands. As I follow him to the door and wave bye to the guys, my eyes linger on Baron’s green ones.

He stands and takes two steps forward. “I need to talk to her for just a minute, alone,” he says.

Nodin stiffens. “Why?”

Baron doesn’t answer. He walks past Nodin, takes my hand and pulls me outside. I’m shocked but don’t have time to react as he pulls me against his chest.

Our proximity causes the energy to warp and crash down around us, pulsating through our bones before settling into a more tolerant state. I wrap my arms around him tight.

His breath tickles my ear. “I’m so sorry. I would’ve shown you the tree last night if I’d known.”

“I know.” I lift my face to his and resist the urge to close the tiny sliver of space between our mouths.

We can’t,
he thinks, still wrestling with the shoulds and should-nots of this insane situation. He lifts his chin and kisses me on the forehead.

I nuzzle against his chest, intoxicated by his Baron smell: freshly laundered shirt and man. I want to eat him. Drink him. Inhale him. I want our cells to dissolve into each other. I want all of him.

Nodin announces he’s coming out and I hear the doorknob creak. We tear ourselves apart before he opens the door.

Baron walks inside, brushing past my brother as Nodin glares at him. Although I arced with Baron, I couldn’t read anything on Ben and Nodin through the door, but it doesn’t take arcing to know how they feel. Their faces say it all.

Ben is worried and highly annoyed, and Nodin is furious.

“What are you so worked up about?” I say as we walk through the parking lot.

“I can’t believe you’d go against me like this. Against strict orders,” he says.

“What have I done? I’m not pursuing anything with him,” I say.

“You forget I know your feelings. You’re infatuated with him. And Ben
knows
. He can read you like a book—”

“Ben sees what I’m thinking, not doing,” I interrupt, my cheeks burning.
Ben knows what I was thinking.
Jeezuz, it was probably like seeing me in a porno. “And you obviously don’t know shit about what I’m feeling. He’s nice to look at, is all. Do you blame me? Did you see his body?” I’m trying to do two things simultaneously: gross him out and play it down.

Nodin grimaces and he runs his fingers through his disheveled white hair, making it stick up all weird. He sort of looks like a mad scientist. “Devi, that’s disgusting.”

“It doesn’t hurt anything for me to think about him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing. Until I’ve done something that risks our safety, you have nothing to say to me.”

“Why did he want to talk to you alone?” Nodin asks.

I think fast. “To give me this.” I pull the peridot necklace out of my shirt and show him. “He’s worried about me. It’s supposed to help the wearer balance energy.”

Nodin glances at it. “If you’re lying...if you’re doing anything behind my back, I’ll find out.” He turns and walks off in a huff and I stifle a laugh.

I don’t care what Nodin thinks he knows. All I can concentrate on are Baron’s thoughts, the ones that flooded my mind before we lost contact. Images that stole my breath. Him kissing me, touching me, ravaging me.

•◊
7
ץ

WORK BEGINS

I
pace the living room from end to end, unable to stop thinking about what I sensed from Baron. All signs point to go, yet we’re expected to ignore them.

One word: Torture.

More words: Insane. Impossible.

On one hand, I realize we shouldn’t. We’ve been warned the energy is unpredictable and dangerous. One of us could end up hurt, physically or otherwise. And things would be weird between us, which would be even more of a distraction.

Fuck. This sucks.

What if I only want him because I can’t have him?

No. I want him.

I exhaust myself with this thinking and decide to go to bed, but only toss and turn. After what feels like hours but isn’t, my phone rings. It’s him. My heart is no longer in my chest, but fluttering around the room like a deranged bird.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, but for the record, this sucks balls.”

“I know.”

Silence.

“Come over,” I whisper.

“Don’t. We can’t.”

I exhale, disappointed but not surprised. A few seconds of awkward silence hang before it dawns on me I know little about him. We’ve never really talked.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask, snuggling against my pillow.

“Nope. I’m the oldest and the baby,” he says with a chuckle.

I try to picture Baron as a little boy. It’s an adorable image. “Are you pretty close with your parents?”

“Yeah, very. They’re everything to me. My mom has been teaching middle school math since before I was born. My dad is a sports doctor. I’ve been working at his clinic for about five years, helping clients who prefer a holistic approach.”

“Oh wow. Do you work with any professional athletes?”

“Sometimes, yeah. But mostly it’s weekend warrior types who blow out a knee or pull a hip flexor. Lots of bad backs, too. I do restorative energy sessions and they heal faster than they would with physical therapy alone.”

I’m impressed. “How do you know how to do all that?”

“Hahn taught me everything I know. My dad met him at a medical conference. Hahn was there speaking on a panel for Reiki healing. My parents already knew I had some sort of sensitivity to energy. I remember always telling them about people’s auras, and once, Mom was in a minor fender bender that left her with a bruised left shoulder. I could feel the heat emanating from that area, so I put my palm against her skin and concentrated on moving the heat. When I lifted my hand, the bruise was gone.” He laughs softly, reminiscing. “Luckily, they’d been exposed to energy healing and weren’t too freaked out. Dad tracked down Hahn and he’s been my mentor ever since.”

“That’s fascinating. I wish I had a talent like that,” I say, then remember his other talent. “When did the rock climbing start?”

“I guess around fifth or sixth grade. For a while, I just rambled around on the rocks for fun, but soon I found the effort and focus it requires helps me balance energy more efficiently, so I started taking it serious. I climbed every rock face in Ardmore. In ninth grade, I joined my first competition and won. After about a dozen more wins, companies were lobbying to sponsor me and I had the opportunity to travel for competitions.”

Someday I’m going to one of those competitions.
“I bet that was so exciting.”

“It was, actually. Really exciting.” He pauses. “I got lucky. Not everyone snags a sponsor.”

He’s humble and I adore it. I ask something I’ve been dying to know. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three,” he says in a sleepy-husky voice.

I’m relieved. I was afraid he was more than twenty-five. Not that I would’ve been bothered. More like I was afraid
he’d
be bothered if the age gap was more than five years.

He asks about my tree, about channeling, which is quite possibly the most intimate of subjects for me. But it’s him, so I step out from behind my protective wall, naked and vulnerable, and tell him about it.

“It wasn’t unusual for me to spend entire afternoons climbing it, daring myself to go higher each day. I guess, looking back, I was being lured to it, but was too young to recognize it. I’d wake up and my first thought would be how high I was going to climb that day.

“I was five the first time I channeled. I went higher than ever before and found a little nook to sit. I was peering over the rooftops of our neighborhood and listening to the birds, when vibrations pinned me against the branches. It was like...” I struggle to articulate something I’ve never spoken of before. “Like the tree was breathing life into my lungs, into my being. My senses were in hyper drive. I could smell the garbage cans in the alley across the street, and the sun was so bright I had to cover my eyes.” I’m so caught up in the moment, I realize I’ve sat up in bed and am wringing the front of my shirt in my fist.

“Then the vision came. I wasn’t seeing it like a movie, I was in it: I’m bursting in our backdoor, laughing and squealing because Nodin is chasing me. I stop dead in my tracks.
Cookies.
I smell them. Nodin and I look at each other and grin, then run as fast as we can into the kitchen. Mom is there in her favorite apron, the one with owls on it, and she’s smiling, holding out a baking sheet full of chocolate chip cookies. When the vision ended, so did the connection with the tree. But the next day? The entire scenario happened in real life, exactly the way I’d seen it.” I held my breath waiting for Baron’s response.

“That’s intense. Did it scare you?” he asks.

“No,” I reply after a few seconds of thought. “It didn’t scare me. It entranced me. I had no idea what was actually happening; I only knew it felt like nothing else I’d ever experienced. A few years ago, I watched a show about sky diving. This lady was really nervous before her first ever jump, but afterward, the look on her face...it was a mixture of awe and wonder and exhilaration. She looked
alive
and you just knew she was hooked for life.
That’s
how it felt.”

“And you still get visions when you channel?”

“Always.” I’m relieved. He seems interested and is being respectful. I don’t feel judged, like I always feared I would if I ever told anyone. Of course, I never thought I’d be telling a shaper.

I tell him about the reoccurring dream of my naming ceremony, and how it has been revealing new details.

“Update me of any new changes in your dream,” Baron urges. “I agree it’s trying to tell you something. This could be the key to finding your biological family.”

“Why do you think all this is happening?” I ask.

He pauses before answering. “Something important. Something much bigger than us.”

I close my eyes. “It’s all scary and unknown.”

“It’s okay. As long as we trust the journey, everything will be okay,” he says.

“But how do you know that? How can you be so sure?”

“I believe we’re being led by Divine energy.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“I believe in a higher power, yes. But if you’re asking if I’m Christian, Catholic, or Jewish, my answer is no. I don’t believe in labels or sects. I don’t believe in religion as an organization. I only know what I can see and touch. I believe in energy.” Baron pauses. “I hope I didn’t just offend you.”

I think about what Joe said when I asked about his nativity scene, that day I realized I didn’t have to believe the same thing as the masses. “No. On the contrary.”

I yawn, which makes Baron yawn and we volley them back and forth.

“I guess we’d better get some sleep,” he says.

We hang up, but sleep doesn’t come easy. The last time I see the clock it reads five a.m. My alarm goes off at six-thirty, waking me from a fitful sleep of pounding drums, painted tribal people and fear.

“Nami,” I whisper through haggard breath.

•◊•◊•

They arrive to pick me up in Nodin’s Bronco promptly at seven.

Baron rides shotgun. I sit in the back next to Ben, who smiles stiffly, which I take to mean he’s disappointed or grossed out or both, about last night.

Hell, if you don’t like what’s in my head, stay out.

I don’t like when there’s tension between us. I know it seems I don’t care at all when I infuriate Nodin. He’s my brother; we’re chill. In fact, I sometimes take sincere pleasure in infuriating him, but Ben’s different. He’s not blood, yet he’s family. I need things to be cool between us, but I won’t dare admit that to him.

Baron and I at this distance is throttling. Our energy acts with relentless enthusiasm, like two Labrador puppies happy to see one another, bouncing and banging into each other in a mad rush. But it feels more aggressive.