The One We Feed (20 page)

I dipped my
head at the silent man in question. He seemed so utterly discombobulated that
at any moment, he might pass out.

He was beyond answering.

“I’ll call you
when I know what’s going to happen. Oh wait, you’ll already know. Wow, this is
hard to get used to.” I hung up the phone.

Hal sank back
into his chair and gazed at the revolver in absent-minded wonder. “I can tell
you what you want to know.”

“Start with
Reesa.”

“Who?”

“The girl, the
one he wanted to bring here.”

His gaze
cleared. He looked up at me, amazed. “How do you . . .?”

I tapped my
head. “Super noodle. I know she’s a Rakshasi, just tell me why he keeps her in
a coma.”

He shook his
head vaguely. “I don’t know how she does it, but...she can control them
somehow. They’re dumb killing machines, but when she’s with them, they’re
almost human again. Mara said...he said that she was talking to them, or
something….”

“And they
listened,” I finished, hearing the words in Petula’s little voice.

“Yes. Ordinarily,
Mara would not have been so concerned about that. He just started cutting out
their tongues so that they couldn’t speak, but when he went to recapture her
from the pit….”

I walked around
the desk slowly, my eye on the gun, and knelt down beside him. “What?”

“He thought
she’d turned, but then she turned back. He pulled her out, and she changed
shape. She can go in and out of the Rakshasi condition. He said it was
astounding.”

“But I thought
the Rakshasa were all shape-shifters.”

“That’s just a
myth,” he said. “People made that up, used Mara’s creatures to explain all
sorts of things. They have always been monsters. It’s why his compound is
always in the desert or in the snow. He has to keep them away from people,
somewhere where, if they escape, they can’t get far without dying from exposure
or be seen.”

I reached out
and put my hand over his wrist, testing his words with Ursula’s gift. He didn’t
appear to notice it at first, but when he did, tears dripped loose and hung on
his nose like melting icicles. “And Devlin?”

“I did a favor
for him, several centuries ago. He owed me. Lent me a Siren to pass on to Mara.
That’s how it started. Then suddenly, I owed him.”

“And the
Sirens?” He lifted his other hand to place over the top of mine. It was as if
the thing had no sensation, the way he moved. He seemed tired, then. Much as
Moksha had the last time I had seen him. I hoped that whatever he had seen in
me, Hal could see too. “I know that they can make people do things by using
sound. Is that right?”

“They can get
inside the mind, break it down. Make a man think he’s a king or make him forget
he ever knew love. They give lies a form. They can turn the brain to mush if
they want to.”

“Mara uses
them as part of the deconditioning?”

“Yes. They
tear down the rational walls and make it easier for them to fall on each other.
The process is survival. Survival turns them to monsters.”

“Why would the
Sirens help him?”

“There aren’t
that many of them, but most of them are...damaged.”

“How so?”

“Power goes to
their heads, I suppose.” He gave a shuddering sigh and shook his head. “Same
with all of us really.”

I got up and
sat on the desk in front of him, still holding his hands. The gun was beside
me. I nudged it aside with my hip.

“I’m going to
find Devlin,
”
I vowed.

“He moves
around. I think he’s at the Circle right now. At least, he was the last I
heard.” Hal looked sadly at the gun and then up at my face. “Is that
everything?”

“Not quite,” I
said softly. “Where’s the Circle?”

“Just outside
of Yosemite. Jinx knows where it is.”

I smiled. “Now
that’s everything.”

His eyes
widened, sparkling like a child’s. No one else would have thought as much, I
imagine, but to me he seemed completely angelic.

“How do you do
it?” he asked.

I opened a
desk drawer and rifled around until I found a pair of scissors. “Bear with me,”
I murmured, laying his hand atop mine, “I’m going on a hunch.”

Chapter
15

Amazing Grace

The day was long. Longer than
usual given that we spent most of it quitting our ties to the bay and driving
across the state toward the Circle. Arthur drove, while I sat in the back with
Jinx, my knees squashed against Ananda’s seat.

I knew I had
to return to Reesa, find out how it was that she could avoid the permanence of
Mara’s well-crafted transformation. There had to be a way to use it to reverse
what was happening to the others.

I had left her
in the pit, surrounded by monsters, and horror, and memories. I returned to her
in her coma, her breathing still slow and artificial.

Easing into
her mind was a labor of intense focus. I was raw inside since I had put Hal on
the plane to Missouri. Every emotion I felt impacted her and sent her unfocused
thoughts wandering. Moments shattered with each attempt, questions were
answered in snippets and misfiled reality. Finally, I pulled back and spent a
good long while watching her, letting her induced calm lull my heart into an
acceptance. My mind and soul were injured, but I was not the issue. I had to
acknowledge myself, but turn to her.

Ready and
waiting, with no certainty that what I would see would be less horrible than
what had come before, I overlapped her consciousness and waited.

The magic of
modern medicine and the susurrus of the Sirens could dull the waking mind, shut
down the “I,” but it could not take away the past, because the past was a
structure in the brain. Memories had weight. It may have been the weight of a
neuron or two, but in the tiny space of a mind, and the short span of a life,
that was quite heavy.

She was
sitting on a hard wooden bench. Around her neck, attached to the stiff cotton
dress, was a wide, itchy, lace collar. Patent shoes that her feet had already
begun to outgrow strangled her toes. The church was hot, like they always
seemed to be. Large groups of people burning with passion for the lord, as her
Gran had said, all fanning themselves with programs. She kicked her legs back
and forth idly, scratched her neck, and sighed loudly.

At the podium,
the Reverend was talking. He had a voice that made her want to listen but words
that didn’t seem to mean anything to her. It was like listening to a lullaby. There
was no point listening to lullabies and trying to understand. They were meant
to chip away at thoughts and chisel the mind into a smooth sphere around which
nightmares could swish but never find a landing place. Lullabies were for the
singers, and all the listener got was peace.

She kicked her
legs at that and leaned her head against the soft body beside her. A wrinkled
brown hand reached up and roundly patted her head. A gesture like a lullaby.

Reesa began to
feel sleepy. I felt her mind fill with muzzy fog. Then suddenly there was music
and movement, voices raised in an impossible chorus that sounded more perfect
than anything ever could. She was blasted to her feet by the chaos of it, or
rather, the order it imposed upon the chaos of the dreamworld. The tight shoes
pinched her pinky toes. She bent down sleepily and poked at them, as everyone
around her stood upright, no need for hymnals, and sang like angels.

She wasn’t
listening. At that moment, all songs and sounds were lullabies, until something
changed. She
felt
it. The meaning caught her, and unlike a lullaby,
sharpened the world, honed it on a melancholy note, and made everything clear
as crystal. This was not a song to soothe; this was a song to teach and mend.

Gran was the
one who sang lullabies, but this song turned her voice to a battle cry, created
a stronger, braver her. Reesa looked up from her shoe, forgot the itching
collar, and with every neuron, listened.

Amazing Grace,
how sweet the sound.

That saved a
wretch like me.

I once was
lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but
now, I see.

‘Twas Grace
that taught my heart to fear

and Grace my
fears relieved.

How precious
did that Grace appear

the hour I
first believed.

I knew the
song well. Practically everyone. But even I had never heard it sung as Gran
sang it. It filled my heart with something huge and warming, yet simple and
bracing. It made me want to leap, and dance, and struggle; and it made Reesa
feel the same.

She stared at
her Gran, a small woman in a crisp navy dress, white gloves, and matching hat. Her
eyes were shut, her face filled with joy. She nodded in time with the music. Her
body shifted back and forth. She
was
the song in every way.

The service
ended eventually, though the song went on and on, in rounds, in riffs, in
reverie. At last they were leaving to the ghostly remnant of it, shaking hands
with the Reverend, holding hands through the parking lot. Then they were in the
stifling heat of the old Cadillac, and Reesa could ask the question that burned
inside her.

It felt like
an enormous question, one almost too serious to ask because it felt as if she
should already know, because everything knew, because it was already a part of
everything and everyone. But if there was anyone Reesa could plague with those
kinds of questions, it was Gran. Gran knew everything.

Gran was still
humming, impervious to summer, or itchy lace, or pinchy shoes.

“Gran?”  

“Yes.”

“What’s that
song about?”

Gran stopped
humming. Afraid she had said something wrong, Reesa glanced at the old woman. The
soft face had hardened in pensive consideration that went on all the way home. The
little wrinkles around her eyes got deeper, her brow furrowed gently, but Reesa
smiled. It was what Gran’s face did when she was going to give a very important
answer that had been thought out until thick ignorance was hammered into silk.

“Well, child,”
Gran began. Her voice was soft and low, rich with music, marbled by the thick
molasses of the old South. “It’s about the Grace of the Lord, but really it’s
about a lot of things.”

“What’s the
Grace of the Lord?”

Gran parked
her car in the driveway and turned it off. Instead of unbuckling her seat belt,
she leaned back against the scalding leather.

“That’s a
tough question, you know.”

“Why?”

Gran sighed
deeply. “Because the answer is different for every person you ask.”

Reesa frowned
and scratched the itchy collar. Gran’s face betrayed the knowledge of Reesa’s
waning focus, though Reesa did not notice this.

“Some people
believe that the Holy Spirit is a real thing, you know, like a hand or a foot,
that God uses to reach out and touch people, and the Grace of the Lord is what
happens when you touched by it.”

Reesa tilted
her head and tried to picture the big hand or monstrous foot.

“Some people,
though, think that it’s just a kind of feelin’ that sneaks up on you when you
afraid or maybe overwhelmed.”

“A feeling?”

Her Gran
turned in the seat and held out a gloved hand. “The word means...oh lovely, or
perfect, or flowin’ like a dancer, or well-mannered like a lady. But in the
song...Well, you know how it feels when you’re happy and havin’ fun, and nothin’
seems to bother you, then all of a sudden somethin’ bad happens. You know what
I’m sayin’?”

Reesa thought
back but didn’t have to think far. Her whole body felt the sadness of her aunt’s
death from a sickness. Reesa had come back from preschool to a house full of
misery. The air had been stale, and the words had been like a blow to the
stomach. It was the first time she had heard “Never coming back.” I knew
exactly how she felt, exactly what her Gran meant.

“Yeah,” Reesa
whispered.

Gran reached
out and covered her uncertain fidgeting with warmth. I could see from her eyes
that she knew more about the subject than that tiny version of Reesa could
grasp.

“Well, Grace
is like the opposite.”

Reesa wrapped
that one hand up in both of hers and put it to her face.

“It’s when you’re
frightened, alone, sad, hurtin’, and all a sudden, you feel calm, like it’s all
going to be all right. Does that make sense?”

Reesa shook
her head.

“When you’re
happy, you don’t pay no mind to the rest of the world. But the world goes on
all the same. The world is….”

“Not a fair
place,” Reesa said, and I knew it was a repetition of an oft-heard phrase.

“Exactly, and
when you’re busy bein’ happy, you don’t look around, you don’t see the bad
things that happen, are happenin’ all around you. So when one happens
to
you,
it feels sudden and huge!”

“That makes
sense.”

Gran smiled
and patted her with the other hand. “Well, Grace is just the opposite. Believe
me when I tell you, life is gonna hit you with bad things. Sometimes it will
storm and rain ’em down on you. Sometimes it’ll seem like all there is in the
world is sickness, pain, ignorance, and death. And when you’ve had all you can
take, your mind just….” Her voice trailed off into the past.

“Just what?”

Gran swallowed
hard and blinked even harder. “Your mind just can’t take anymore. It stops
payin’ attention and goes numb. It’s like the darkness just blinds you, and
that’s when you
listen,
when you
feel
past it. That’s when you
touch Grace, and it touches you. Misery turns you into a shell, and there’s so
much emptiness that somethin’ has to fill it.”

Reesa took off
her seatbelt and began to tug off her shoes. “But what makes it fill you up?”

Gran shrugged.
“Some people say God, some people think that’s just how the universe is.”

“But what do
yooouu think?” Reesa sang wiggling her toes, now freed and grateful.

“I don’t think
it matters. Worse thing you can do is ask questions like that.”

“Why?”

“Because some
questions can’t be answered, and tryin’ to answer ’em means you have to say
things that might not be true, and doin’ that means you have to defend those
lies, means you have to tell other people who have a different answer that they’re
wrong, and they have to tell you you’re wrong, when nobody can ever really
answer.”

“But every question
has an answer.”

I agreed with
her though she was only about five or six. You might not know how the universe
worked, but there was at least the possibility to learn, if you had enough
time.

Gran smiled
patiently. “True, I s’pose, but not important. Grace means forgivin’. Grace
means lettin’ go. Grace makes you see everything clearly, and when that
happens, answerin’ questions, arguin’ with someone else, findin’ a source, that’s
just pointless. It is what it is.”

I understood
then, her student, though I had no itchy collar. Gran was speaking of the
acceptance of a paradox. She was talking about Zen.

Reesa had
within her the beginnings of a mind much sharper than any teacher gave her
credit for. She grasped the idea at once and squeezed it dry for facts.

“So...when you
in trouble, then Grace can get sucked into you, and then you can be all calm?”

Gran chuckled
and opened the car door. “Well, that’s just about right, I think. The song is
about being lost, but suddenly knowin’ where to go, or bein’ afraid, and
suddenly knowin’ what to do. It’s about bein’ cautious, and when you can’t be,
bein’ fearless. You can plan and plan, but plans don’t always work out, and
when that happens, ain’t no point in being scared, because, when you’re feelin’
fear, you don’t see it for the tool it is.”

Reesa followed
her, after having carefully peeled off the perfect white socks trimmed with
more lace. She bounded up the cement walk and stairs behind her Gran and spun
around in the cooling shade.

“What’s that
mean?”

“The things we
feel are just reactions. They aren’t the world. The world is itself. So when
you got Grace, you see through falsehoods, you rise above hatred and fear, you
embrace whatever may come.”

“But what if
it don’t happen? What if Grace don’t get you? Can you make it, like a dancer
dancin’?”

Gran held the
screen door open for her granddaughter and just for good measure, spun her past
the threshold with a twirl.

“Well, maybe
that’s what the song is. It’s the thing that makes you remember Grace. And when
you remember it, it fills you up again. It’s why the slaves sang, why the
marchers sang, why we sing in church.”

Reesa stopped
in mid-twirl and dropped her ballerina arms. A song that was the opposite of a
lullaby, a feeling that happened when fear was strongest.

Truly amazing.

She smiled at
her Gran. “Will you teach me all the words?”