Cornerstone (28 page)

“Impressive.” Garrett congratulates me in a murmur.

“Stop throwing stuff at me.” I tell him, but I feel like I’ve got about as much power over my grin as I do over the ripcord of my field.

“All right, let’s do this.” my mom says. She reaches out her left hand to me so I can take it with my own good hand. Our touch stays light in one another’s grasp.

“I’m going to squeeze your hand.” she instructs. “When I do, we are going to be joined and then I’ll invite Grace to meet you. Just relax and I’ll take care of everything. Here we go...”

I am about to ask what needs to be taken care of and where this Grace is going to come from, and if she’s going to look like a skeleton or the grim reaper or Casper—but my mom’s hand clamps down on mine. I am locked in place, my body goes rigid as iron. I couldn’t wrench my hand free from my mom’s grip if I wanted to. Our hands meld together like a door hinge, but without the ability to move.

My mom’s thumb pushes against the knuckle of my middle finger and her own middle finger presses against my wrist. Her eyes close and the furrow between them smoothes like she is having a good dream. Except that it doesn’t look like she’s breathing either. I try to say her name, but my vocal cords aren’t working. I try to shake our locked hands to get her attention, but our hands are too heavy to move. My casted arm is paralyzed at my side. I fight down the fear and remember my mantra. I repeat ‘Mom’ over and over in my head at warp speed.

I’m about to close my eyes too when something flutters beside my head. It’s a soft, pink petal, transparent as tissue. Then a blue petal catches my eye and when I twist my head to follow it, an emerald petal floats past me. Then a gold. A lilac. Silver. Ebony. Ruby. Peach. The colors are muted and lovely and as I watch them swim past me, my pulse slows to a normal beat. The number of petals increase and they swirl around us in a soft, rhythmic cyclone, until the Reese’s backyard disappears in a tinted blur of petals. Garrett, smiling, vanishes slowly behind the mosaic of sheer petals too.

I never thought about my mom having a field. It’s nothing like mine. My mom’s field is paper thin, as if the touch of a fingertip could rip it wide open. My body and my spirit stay intact inside her field, but my body is not poised like it is when I’m inside my own field. I am as peaceful as sunshine.

My mom opens her eyes. Whatever expression I’ve got plastered on my face must be good because she smiles.

Ready to meet Grace?
she asks, but her words aren’t in my ears. They’re more like thoughts that occur to me, like her ideas dance up softly from my own cells. Her communication is more soothing inside my head than the Addo’s.

Not really.
I project my answer back to her but have no idea whether or not she hears it until she nods.

You’ll be fine. I’m going to call for Grace now
. she tells me wordlessly. Then she closes her eyes again and before I can be frightened of her retreating behind her lids, I hear something that is like music, but isn’t. It’s a note or a deep chord, a sound that happens in layers. It makes me think of the humming of whales. I don’t hear Grace’s name in it at all. I hear a sound so tranquil, I nearly shut my eyes and miss seeing her.

Grace’s face is small and round and her hair is in three ponytails, one on each side and one on top of her head. She’s so pretty, I catch my breath and am afraid to let it back out, in case it scares her away. Her ponytails are wispy like Iris’s, but her huge, green-gray eyes are like the sun-lit depths of an ocean. She doesn’t look like a one year old. She looks to be maybe two as she peeks out from behind my mom’s leg. She giggles, the sound of it tickling in my head. She has a perfect little dimple in her right cheek.

I’m getting ready to be born.
she says.

I’m getting ready to be...
I stop, not knowing what to say exactly. Nothing sounds very impressive next to being born. Does she even know what Contego is? Why would a tiny girl like this care if I am a warrior? How could she be a soul with experience if she hasn’t even been born yet?

As I scramble for how to explain myself to this angelic little girl, with her dimple and her face full of gray-green eyes, my mom speaks instead.
Can you help Nalena, Grace? Would you be her connection?

The little girl steps out from behind my mom’s legs and nods to me with a shy, baby-toothed smile. I can’t help but smile back when I look at her.

What is she going to do?
I ask my mom.

Grace rubs her eyes like it is past her nap time. My mother reaches down with her free hand and tucks a wisp of Grace’s hair behind her ear. I feel my mom’s touch tingling behind my own ear too. Grace steps closer to my mom’s leg and nuzzles her little head against my mom’s thigh as if there is no place in the world she’d rather be. I remember feeling like that too.

Grace is going to be your connection during the Impressioning. She’s going to help you through.

Through what? What do I have to do?

You’ll hold the Cornerstone in your hand and your nervous system will be redesigned. You will become the warrior the world needs you to be.

I motion to Grace.
How is she going to help me with that?

Don’t worry. You’ll see.
The little girl hides her giggle behind chubby hands. Grace waves to me and gives my mom’s leg a euphoric squeeze, eyes pressed shut, her smile wide. My mom reaches down and pats the little girl’s back and then Grace is gone. My mom’s field sheds, petal by petal, until we are standing in Garrett’s back yard again.

Garrett steps forward. I feel as though I’ve been away a long time. When I see him, it’s like finding money. I take a step toward him but my leg muscles melt and he catches me before I slam face first into the ground.

I laugh, embarrassed, as he pulls my body against his for support. It seems like I should be scared about feeling like this, but I’m too tired to figure out why.

“I feel like I just got knocked out.” I slur.

“It’s normal.” Garrett chuckles. “I wanted to sleep for three weeks after I met my connection. Twisting fields does that.”

“Yeah sleep. Weeks. Good.” Talking feels like I’m just smearing language all over my lips.

My mom doesn’t look tired at all. She puts her arm around my waist from the other side.

“Let’s get her to bed.” she says.

The French doors appear to be twenty miles away. They drag me along until I stumble and Garrett catch me.

“I’ve got her.” he says. I feel like I’m floating and then I realize Garrett has scooped me up in his arms. I’m curled against him, my cast draped awkwardly at the back of his neck and my lips only inches from the hollow of his cheek.

My thoughts are so topsy-turvy that when I assure him I can walk on my own, I realize moments later that I didn’t even say the words out loud. They are still stuck in my head.

Without being able to tell him how capable I am of walking, I remain in his arms. My head is a rock that becomes heavier and heavier as he carries me. I finally give in and drop my forehead against his neck. I breathe in the scent of his skin. There is nothing in the world, not the ocean, or chocolate, or award-winning flowers, that smell as good as Garrett’s skin.

I let myself think,
I hope he loves me,
and then I wonder if I’ve said it out loud. I try hard to remember if I’d formed the words with my lips. No. I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t. I’m convinced of it, until he murmurs back, “Don’t worry. He does.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and that’s all it takes to fall asleep.

~ * * * ~

I thought Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest. But I guess God exempted the Reese’s house.

It smells warm and sweet. The TV is on. I open one eye, find the ceiling, and identify the slats on the ceiling as being in the Reese’s living room. I confirm it by listening to Sean and Mark’s heated discussion in the kitchen, concerning dish-washing duties. I shut my eye again and listen to Iris squawking at the dining room table about her granola being too mushy and Mrs. Reese telling her that’s what happens when you go off and play for an hour without finishing your breakfast first.

I hear Brandon bounce into the room, knocking around his Hacky Sack and I begin to drift back to sleep, listening to the rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunk of the bag against his foot. It is a pleasant sound until I hear him squeal, “Wha!!!” and the thing smashes into my forehead.

My body feels like pulverized meat, so even though I groan, I don’t put my arms over my face or open my eyes. I feel the foot bag slide off and land on the pillow beside my left temple.

“Get out of here with that.” Garrett growls and the heat of his skin brushes my face, the scent of him here and gone too fast. The end cushion of the couch jerks under my feet and I hear the tiny bag whizzing through the air and then Brandon’s grunt on impact.

I remember. My energy zapped after meeting Grace. Garrett carried me. I was talking and not talking. Not talking and talking. I was hoping Garrett said something.
He does.
Did he actually say that? Was he answering the question I thought I’d asked? I lay there with my eyes closed and let the hope come back again.

It’s not the couch, but Garrett, under my heels. I try to shove myself into a sitting position, but the best I can do is leverage my shoulder blades onto the arm of the couch. Ugh. The minute I get there, I look down at my feet and see Garrett watching me. I slide my heels off his lap and hope my hair is not standing on end. It feels as prickly as if I’d had a balloon rubbed on my head.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. He doesn’t say it like a boy that has confessed his love for me. He says it with concern, like any good friend would. My heartbeat drops to a crawl.

And the truth is that I feel like a dog that’s swallowed grass. I could be the inside of a hot sneaker. But if he said what I hope he did, I don’t want him unthinking it by me blabbing about dogs and sweaty shoes.

“Great.” I tell him.

“Liar.” he laughs and I’m grateful when he drops it. “Your friend, Cora, called.”

“How did she know I was here?”

He shrugs. “She actually talked to Sean and she asked him if I knew where you were, so he told her.”

“Oh no...” I groan. “He said we’ve been staying here?”

“Uh...sorry, Nali.” Sean says from the doorway behind me. “I thought she was a good friend of yours and she sounded really worried. Like she was crying.”

“She’s got post-nasal drip.” I groan again. I throw my good arm over my face. In the dark of my elbow I think of all the phones, across the Simon Valley student body, that are probably ringing right this moment.

“C’mon, sleepy head. Shake it off.” My mom says and I remove my arm to look at her. She looks...chipper. The polar opposite of every single thing going on in my body. Garrett glances at his watch.

“Whoa, it’s already nine.” he says. Nine is too early to be acting so alive. I pull up a corner of my lip to prove it. At least, I think I do.

“We’ve got to get going before these cookies cool.” My mom says, holding up a steamy bag of cookies. I stare at them, mesmerized.

“Are those
real cookies?
” I ask.

“Oatmeal raisin.” she nods with a grin. She opens the bag and waves them around my face, releasing sweet cookie vapors that I suck up like a vacuum.

“You made them?”

“Yes, I made them.” She laughs like she’s Betty Crocker. “Come on. I’ll give you one if you get moving. Grace isn’t going to wait around forever.”

Garrett stands up and puts out his hand to me. I let him drag me onto my feet, taking the cookie my mom hands me. I grip it with my fingertips and feel the heat of the cookie inside my plaster arm cage.

“What’s Grace got to do anyway? She’s like...two.” I say. Then I close my eyes and try to savor my cookie instead of focusing on how the Addo will burn a mark like Garrett’s into my own hand.

~ * * * ~

My strength returns after I eat half the bag of cookies, quietly, in the back seat of Garrett’s car. Mr. and Mrs. Reese follow behind us in their old Suburban.

At the Addo’s there is only one parking space, which Garrett pulls into. We wait on the sidewalk for Mr. and Mrs. Reese to walk up to the Addo’s door with us. Mr. Reese knocks and walks right in, followed by everyone else, and I walk in last.

“Hey there, everybody! Oh, and hello there, Gracie! Did you bring cookies?” Addo shouts to us from across the room. My awe over him knowing that I’ve even met a little girl named Grace completely escapes me as my eyes travel around his blazing, yellow kitchen in horror. The room is packed with strangers. Strangers in every seat around the table and strangers standing, crowded, against the walls. It looks like a jury deliberation except that the place is lit up with lively conversation and the cozy smells of warm tea and people in their Sunday best. This is a party. A party that needs cookies.

I grip the top of the plastic bag with my fingertips. My mom turns to me, looks down at my hand, and sees the half-empty bag. Every drop of blood in my body goes gushing into my cheeks. Garrett is cracking up, which makes it even worse.