Wilder (24 page)

Chapter 45

C
harisma remembered nothing from the time she saw Guardian escape the net until she woke to find herself standing in a dimly lit corridor full of doors, wearing pajamas, surrounded by nuns in nightgowns. She said aloud, “Either this is a weird dream, or I’ve been sleepwalking again.”

Mother Catherine slowly reached out her hand and rested it on Charisma’s shoulder. “You were sleepwalking.”

“I was really hoping it was a dream.” But Charisma knew better. She could still hear the earth beckoning, cajoling, demanding. “How long have I been . . . asleep?” she asked.
Unconscious,
she meant.

“Twelve hours. It’s now eleven in the evening on the day of the demon attack.” Mother Catherine tucked her arm around Charisma’s. “Perhaps we should go to my office and talk.”

The other nuns smiled kindly and drifted away, through the doors and into their stark bedrooms.

Mother Catherine led Charisma down the corridor and through a wide, ornate wooden door with a small plaque that read, P
RINCIPAL’S
O
FFICE
.

“I feel like I’m in trouble,” Charisma joked. Except she meant it.

Mother Catherine gestured to a chair in front of a battered antique desk. “I think you
are
in trouble.”

Charisma sat. “I guess I am. I just don’t know which part of my trouble is the most important.”

“This morning, after you passed out and we put you to bed, I stayed with you.” Mother Catherine used her hands to lower herself into her seat. “I rapidly became concerned. You were talking aloud, begging me to tell you that Guardian had escaped—”

“Has he?”

“To the best of my knowledge, the poor thing has escaped.”

“He’s not a thing,” Charisma snapped. “He’s a man.”

Mother Catherine lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Of course. Forgive me.”

Charisma subsided. She may have overreacted.

Mother Catherine continued. “After I reassured you of Guardian’s safety, you then begged someone who was not visible to leave you alone, to let you live. Apparently whoever it was . . . is stalking you.”

“Yes. That.” Charisma wondered exactly how to tell a nun that the earth had given her a woo-woo gift. “It’s more of a what than a who.”

Mother Catherine showed her keen powers of observation when she said, “You do realize that in my days as the director of an orphanage and a convent, I’ve not only seen children with unusual skills, but I have also heard every story, and discovered some are even true. And now I’ve also been attacked by living demons from hell.”

“I don’t know if we can call them living.”

Mother Catherine looked over her glasses at Charisma.

“Right. That’s not important. Okay. Here we go.” Taking a breath, Charisma told Mother Catherine everything, from the first moment she’d felt the earth bless her with a gift to her induction into the Chosen Ones, to the threat and the call that filled her head.

When she was finished, Mother Catherine leaned back and tapped her fingers together, her heavy-lidded eyes thoughtful. “You don’t want to respond to the call?”

“If I stay here with the Chosen Ones, that’s a good thing, too. They need me for all kinds of reasons.” Charisma shifted, then caught herself. The chair was narrow and hard, and required that she sit straight-backed and very still. “They need a fighter, and I’m one of them, and maybe I can help figure out how to free that first feather from the box, and maybe I can help find the second feather.”

Charisma might as well have saved her breath. Mother Catherine saw through her babbling to the heart of the problem. “When you follow the earth’s call, what is it you fear?”

Charisma wanted to say more . . . but slowly she subsided, and answered the question. “I fear darkness. Forever.”

“Death.”

“Death with no chance of redemption. For eternity.”

“If you want my advice—”

Charisma really didn’t.

“—I’d say your choice is clear. You don’t want to abandon the Chosen Ones when your vow was to stay with them for the seven years of your tenure. That’s admirable. But your vows to the earth far precede your promise to the Chosen Ones—”

“I never took a vow to the earth!”

Mother Catherine said nothing.

But her eyes, made big by her heavy, dark-rimmed glasses, spoke volumes.

Charisma folded her hands in her lap and shut up.

Mother Catherine continued. “And if the earth is calling you now to redeem your promise, you must obey.”

“I don’t
want
to die alone and underground,” Charisma said passionately.

“Do you
know
that the earth demands your life?”

“I’ve had so many dreams . . . about going into a tunnel in a mountain, a tunnel without light or hope. And I know there’s another world on the other side, but I also know I might never find my way out. Not ever.” Charisma swallowed. “Eternity in the dark.”

“I have some experience with calls from the beyond, and women who fight that call for good reason. But I also know that you have to take the gamble. You have to hope that what good you’ve done on this earth will be a light on your way. Do you not?”

Charisma sighed. She nodded.

Why
did she have to end up in a convent with a clear-sighted, honorable nun?

“Good.” Mother Catherine opened her desk drawer and dug deep. “You can’t go to your meeting with the earth in pajamas. It’s not respectful, like attending mass without your head covered.” She pulled out a set of keys. “I’ve kept the clothes I wore to the convent in 1960, when I renounced the world and all its vanities. I think they’ll fit you very well.” She went to the tall cabinet in the corner, unlocked it, and smiled.

Charisma saw a plethora of papers, holy day decorations, and supplies. And graduation gowns in the school colors.

Mother Catherine flipped through the hangers and crowed with delight. “There it is. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” With loving hands, she brought forth a cloth garment bag with buttons. She laid it across her desk, opened the buttons, and revealed a cream-colored Jackie O–styled jacket with matching trousers.

Awe brought Charisma to her feet.

“It’s Chanel. Some might say I’ve been saving it out of vanity.” Mother Catherine stroked the wool with her fragile, twisted fingers. “I say I’ve been saving it for you.”

“It’s . . . It’s too much. It’s a piece of history. You should keep this. It’s yours!”

“Yes, and I wish to give it to one of my favored children, one who will appreciate the gift.” Mother Catherine smiled at Charisma’s reverence. “Now take it.”

With reverent hands, Charisma accepted the suit.

“I wore it with a blue cotton blouse.” Mother Catherine removed the hanger from the closet and frowned. “Oh, dear. It’s a little faded around the shoulders.”

“It’s dark down there. I can wear the blouse”—Charisma took the hanger—“and as long as I keep the jacket on, the earth won’t notice.”

“No.” But still Mother Catherine frowned. “I saved the undergarments.” She pulled an old cardboard box covered with boldly colored flowered paper from the top of the closet and opened it. “Yes! And the shoes.”

“Oh . . .” Charisma cooed as she lifted the cream-colored handmade Salvatore Ferragamo pumps out of the box. “These are fabulous.”

“They work very well with the suit.” Mother Catherine snapped the box shut and placed it on the desk.

“Thank you. But I can’t . . .”

“Of course you can. I give it all to you.”

“Thank you. Really. But I can’t wear the heels to the cave. It’s too far. And it’ll be dirty.”

Mother Catherine’s eyes widened in horror.

They both contemplated the pristine shoes.

“I’ll get your athletic shoes.” Mother Catherine disappeared, and returned in only a minute carrying Charisma’s black-and-fluorescent-pink training shoes. “There. You can wear these until you get there, and change before you step on sacred ground.” Mother Catherine nodded decisively. “Now I’ll leave you to dress.”

“Right. Sounds good. Thank you,” Charisma said again as the door closed behind Mother Catherine.

She kept on her own “undergarments”—not only did the idea of wearing Mother Catherine’s freak her out, but the elastic in them had failed about thirty years ago. She didn’t have hose, of course, de rigueur for 1960, but her workout bra and panties gave her a slim line under the suit, which was even more fabulous than Charisma had first imagined.

Donning her training shoes made her wince, but when Mother Catherine knocked and entered, Charisma spread her arms. “Well?”

Tears sprang to Mother Catherine’s eyes. “My dear child. You do me—and Chanel—honor in your choice of garb.”

Charisma closed her eyes in relief.

Mother Catherine slipped the pumps into their custom cloth bag and handed them to Charisma. “Now come.”

“It’s night. I’m going to need help getting out of the convent so I can go belowground.”

“No, you won’t.” Mother Catherine shook her head and led her down the corridor, past the doors to the nuns’ bedrooms, toward a small locked door at the end of the hall. She unlocked it and turned on the light.

Charisma peered down the narrow, steep stairway.

“When Sister Brigetta found you sleepwalking, this is where you were headed.” At the bottom, Mother Catherine flipped on the next light.

The basement was storage for the school and convent, full of boxes and paintings and chipped holy statues. At the back, where the light was the dimmest, was another door, metal and secured with a series of locks.

Charisma’s heart began to beat heavily.

Behind that door waited her destiny.

As Mother Catherine opened the locks, she said, “Remember, my child, you have to ascertain the right thing to do, and do it.”

As the door swung open into the Stygian darknes
s, Charisma said, “You make it sound so easy.”

“It is. You will do the right thing. I know it.” Mother Catherine handed her a flashlight, lifted her hand and blessed Charisma, and left her standing, staring into the darkness and wishing she had Mother Catherine’s faith . . . in herself.

Chapter 46

A
n hour later, Davidov found Charisma wandering slowly through the tunnels and led her to his empty brew pub. He set her on a bench at a long table. As he served her warm, rich beef stew, he said, “Mother Catherine tends to think of the broader picture, and miss the fact that you might need refreshment before you start out on such an arduous passage to the heart of the earth.”

Charisma didn’t ask how he knew about her journey or her destination.

Davidov knew everything.

But she did smile awkwardly. “Not that I don’t appreciate this, Vidar. And I know you’re right; I do need fuel to continue on. But the truth is . . . I think I waited too long to take the first steps on my quest.”

He placed a restorative draft by her right hand. “What do you mean?”

She stirred her spoon around in the bowl of stew. “I’m dying.” She looked up fast, catching him frozen behind the bar, his expression rife with dismay and guilt. “You knew it, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Last time I saw you . . . Yes.” His eyes were sorrowful.

She had suspected, feared . . . but to have her apprehensions confirmed was a knife to the heart.

She wanted to scream denial, ask for a reprieve, go to Guardian and beg that he love her one more time. “I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Why I was so tired. And just an hour ago I was ready to make the trip into the depths to answer the earth’s call, and now I can barely lift my spoon. It’s the demon’s venom, isn’t it? Mother Catherine said I would know to do the right thing, but I’ve delayed too long. I’m too feeble and now I’m going to die.” Putting her head down on the table, she closed her eyes and began to cry, weak tears that slid down her cheeks, mournful sobs that broke her body.

She heard a commotion by the door.

Davidov murmured something.

“Have you done everything you can to reach the heart of the earth?” Davidov asked from behind the bar.

“Yes. Yes,” she said. “And now I’ll die without serving the earth, and without finishing my term as a Chosen One. Now I can never rest. I’m doomed to wander the earth forever.”

She felt the warmth of someone hovering over her. A hand tenderly brushed the hair off her forehead.

Her eyes fluttered as warmth seeped through her.

Guardian said, “But you
haven’t
done everything to answer the earth’s summons. You haven’t asked for my help.”

She caught her breath.

He leaned over her, awesomely beastly, beautifully hairy, fierce and frightening, dressed in his black superhero fighting suit, alive, free . . . and smiling tenderly. At her. “I’ll go with you, Charisma Fangorn, to the ends of the earth, and if you’re too weak to make it on your own two feet, I’ll carry you.”

Her heart leaped with joy, and she flung her arms around his neck. “You
did
escape!”

“Thanks to you, my brave and foolish darling.” He kissed her.

Her blood heated. Her cheeks flushed. For the first time since she’d left the Guardian cave, she felt truly well.

Then he asked, “When do we leave?”

“I’m not going the ends of the earth. I’m going to the depths.” She clutched her fingers in his hair. “You
will
have to carry me. And . . . I don’t know the way.”

“Then we’ll have a good long trip together.”

“Our first trip . . . and our last.” She watched him as she made her pronouncement.

He trembled in her arms. “I don’t believe that. I refuse to believe that.”

“You knew, too!” Did everyone know she was dying . . . except her?

“Only a few hours ago, Dr. King told me.” Guardian’s eyes narrowed until he looked rather . . . beastly.

“Oh.” Charisma put her head on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t let you even try to come with me. It’s dangerous, and it’s selfish of me when I probably won’t return, and you . . . I don’t know how you’ll find your way back on your own.”

Determinedly, he said, “I don’t know, Charisma, how you would stop me.”

She smiled. “If you’re determined to come, I am most grateful.”

“Don’t be grateful. Be well.”

“I’ll do my best. For you. For the Chosen Ones.”

On the other side of the table, Davidov cleared his throat.

When they looked around, he put another bowl of stew on the table. “Better eat, both of you. You’ve got a long journey and it’s later than you think.”

While Guardian ate, Charisma changed into Mother Catherine’s Ferragamo pumps. She stood and grimaced. “I was afraid of that. These really pinch.”

“Someone else is giving you shoes?” Guardian asked with reserve.

“The mother superior at the convent,” she told him.

His attitude changed to one of magnanimous approval. “How nice of her.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” She grinned at him. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.”

Guardian rose. “Let’s go then.”

She climbed up on the bench.

He turned his back and bent.

She climbed on, wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

He straightened.

“Wait.” Davidov folded a napkin and came to her. He tied it over her eyes. “You don’t need your vision. Listen to your instincts. You were born to make this trip, Charisma Fangorn. You will get there if you rely on your instincts.”