Under My Skin (Wildlings) (33 page)

Finally, the last food wrapper has been burned in the fire and all the Styrofoam containers have been bagged, ready to go back into the car. Elzie starts to say something, but Rico raises a hand to stop her.

"Let's do this right," he says.

Cory nods and rises. He pulls a little bundle of tightly bound sage and sweetgrass out of his pocket. Turquoise and red strings hold it together. I've seen these inside Mandala, the New Age store on Main Street.

Cory takes the stick he was using to cook with and lights it from the fire, then holds it to one end of the sweetgrass bundle. The bundle flames up and he blows it out so that it starts to smoulder, reminding me of the heady smells in the shop.

First Cory directs the smoke toward himself, running his free hand through the smoke toward his chest and then over his head.  Then he walks around in a circle behind us. As he goes, he stops four times and holds the smouldering grasses high above his head. The second time he stops, I realize he's marking compass points. North. West. South. East.

I glance across the fire at Chaingang and he rolls his eyes, but doesn't say anything. Cory makes the circuit four times, then returns to the blanket where he was sitting and rubs the smouldering end of the bundle on a rock until it's extinguished.

     "We have broken bread together," he says, "and given our respect to the four directions. Let there only be truth in this circle that we share."

"Let there only be truth," Rico repeats.

The two of them look at the rest of us. After a moment, we repeat the words in a ragged chorus.

"Is there going to be more of this?" Chaingang asks. "Because I've gotta tell you, this touchy-feely stuff is really not my bag."

"What we're doing with this circle," Cory says, "is showing our respect. Respect is a pretty big thing to the Ocean Avers, right?"

Chaingang shifts on his blanket and nods.

"So were showing respect to the grandfather Thunders who live in the four directions—and also to the land, the sea, the sky and the fire. And we're showing our respect for one another. Wherever our individual ways take us after tonight—here and now, in this circle, we offer only respect to each other. And we speak only the truth."

"That too touchy-feely for you?" Rico asks Chaingang.

Chaingang smiles and shakes his head, but he flips a quick "screw you" finger in Rico's direction. Looks like respect might be a challenge for Chaingang.

"So whatever we ask someone," Elzie says, glancing at me, then Josh, between us, "they have to answer with the truth?"

Cory shakes his head. "We're not here to confront each other or to bare our souls. We're here to share information and strategies."

I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe I won't have to do this so publicly.

"Can we start with where we are?" I ask. "And how did we get here?"

"That's easy," Cory said. "These are the spiritlands—they're a step sideways from what you thought of as only one world."

At our blank looks, he laces his fingers together and moves the fingers of one hand. "Think of
this
as the world we came from"—He wiggles the fingers of the other hand—"and
this
is where we are now. It's almost like they take up the same space, but they're two individual places. Once you learn to see from one into the other, it's easy to move between them, the way Rico did to bring us here."

"You expect us to buy that?" Chaingang says.

Cory shrugs. "You're here, aren't you?"

"You can really do that from anywhere?" I ask. "In either world?"

"Sure."

I look over at Rico. "Then why did you stay locked up?" I ask.

Rico's face is calm. The light of flames dances across his features. "Two reasons. If we'd simply disappeared, they'd know we can do that."

"But they cut off your
leg
!" I say.

"Yeah. And I might have said screw it at that point, but we were underground and there was no place for me to come out over here. If I'd tried, I would have ended up trapped under a hundred feet of dirt and rock. I needed to be on the ground floor."

"So how have you kept this … other world … a secret for so long?" Josh asks.

"We haven't, exactly," Cory says. "It's there in all kinds of folklore and fairy tales. And that's where it stays, because nobody truly believes in it. The other thing that clouds the waters is that these spiritlands change. The deeper you go into them, the more complex they become—they transform, like a work in progress."

"And everybody starts to see them differently," Rico adds. "Although once, this world and yours were the same place. That is, until one of Cory's ancestors decided that the best way to get rid of the five-fingered beings was to roll up their world like a carpet and hide it away. But that didn't quite work out the way he expected—which is what usually happens when Coyote gets a wild notion. Instead, the world split in two, so now we have both worlds."

Chaingang shakes his head. "You're shitting us. Are you really saying that happened?"

Rico shrugs. "This is a truth circle."

"Come on, bro," Chaingang says. "How do you roll up a world?"

"Hey, maybe we should try that again," Elzie says. "I like the idea of getting everything back to how the world was before we all came along and screwed it up. This place rocks."

"We don't have to," Cory tells her. "The spiritlands are already here, untouched by the five-fingered beings."

"The problem we have right now is damage control," Rico says. "How much of what went down at ValentiCorp was caught on their security cameras and what are they going to do with that information?"

"From what we saw on Barry's laptop," I say, "they're sure to have recordings of everything."

Chaingang nods. "So we have to go back in and get it."

"We don't make that decision," Cory says. "That's up to Señora Mariposa and the other elders."

Chaingang grunts with displeasure. "So you've got bosses and governments telling you what to do, just like us," he says. "Tell me the truth—did you guys
do
something to change us into Wildlings?"

"Not that I know of," Rico says.

"I doubt it," Cory adds. "We were doing fine, staying under the radar like always, until this whole Wildlings thing happened and messed it up for all of us."

Chaingang nods, but I can tell he's not a hundred percent sure that the elders aren't responsible. If they were, would they even admit it?

"I find it disappointing," Chaingang says, "that even in your world, some big-assed set of people gets to call all the shots."

"It's not that, so much as a matter of respect," Rico says. "Cousins aren't inclined to get together to get things done. But elders—especially ones like Señora Mariposa—have so much history bound up in both worlds. We need their perspective and their wisdom."

"What is she,
really
?" I ask. "She seems, I don't know, bigger than the rest of us—and not just because she's an elder."

"Señora Mariposa has been living where she has for a very very long time," Cory says. "She understands the needs of the land and the cousins living on it, plus she's very attuned to the five-fingered beings who share that space with us."

"But you do what she says."

Cory shakes his head. "Not exactly. We listen to what she says. And if it makes sense, we try to follow her advice. Her decisions are based on what's good for everybody, not just herself. There are discussions—sometimes they even get a little heated—but most of the time, her advice is right. Or else we wouldn't listen to her."

"Okay," Chaingang says, "so where does that Tomás guy come in? I'm down with Auntie Min. She can be annoying, but she's always done okay by me. But that guy—he pisses me off."

"He pisses a lot of people off," Cory says. "He's been in L.A. too long, I guess, but his heart's in the right place."

"So you trust him."

Cory looks around himself and shifts on his blanket. "Actually, I don't really know him."

Chaingang laughs. "Oh, come on. You're Coyote Clan. Even
I
know that you guys have an opinion on everything and everyone."

Instead of answering—or even taking offence—Cory pokes at the fire with a stick. Rico gives him a curious look.

Cory glances at Rico, then his gaze goes to where Chaingang is sitting and he sighs.

"I don't
know
anything," he says, "but I don't trust him. He worries me. A lot of the old cousins were angry when the whole Wildlings business blew up in Santa Feliz and, to be honest, I wonder how far they might go to address the problem."

"What does that mean?" Josh asks.

"It means," Chaingang says, "that
we're
the so-called problem and they want us to go away. They're probably coming up with some plan of their own to get rid of us."

"Figures," Elzie says, hugging herself. "I don't know why I've ever trusted anybody."

Josh gives Elzie a squeeze and looks at Rico. "You told me that cousins don't eat cousins," he says.

Rico nods. "Yeah. That's a given."

"But it's okay to kill us?"

Cory breaks in. "Hey, I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," Chaingang says.

"Don't start jumping to conclusions," Cory says.

"I'm not jumping on anything," Chaingang says. "I just get a bad feeling from that dude."

"Is Auntie Min really a part of this?" Elzie asks.

"We don't even know that there
is
a 'this,'" Rico tells her, "but she'd never be a part of anything like that."

Chaingang nods. "Uh-huh. And you know this because?"

"Because she's Señora Mariposa. All you new cousins are part of Santa Feliz and it's under her protection. So
you're
under her protection."

Elzie looks at Cory. "But you also said she doesn't have any real power on her own."

"No, I didn't say that." Cory says. "Don't misread me. She is far more powerful than you can imagine. I just said that this particular circumstance has her in a bind. Why do you think she wants Josh on her side?"

Josh's eyes open wide and both arms drop from our shoulders. He jumps to his feet.

"Me?" he says. "What good would
I
do?"

"Relax. Sit down. You're Mountain Lion Clan—the first of the old clans to appear since all of this started. She thinks you could be the leader that will make sense of everything and bring us all together."

Josh drops to his haunches. "Yeah, right."

"Think about it," Rico says. "You come from a powerful clan that has the respect of the older cousins, but you're also a new Wildling, so the kids in your town will know that you understand what they're going through. Plus you're a mixed-blood human, so you're touching on a lot of bases."

Cory's nodding. "That's what Señora Mariposa said."

Josh looks a little panicked. He sits back down and puts his hands on either side of his head.

"You're starting to freak me out here," he says.

"Give some thought to Señora Mariposa's idea," Cory says. "Her main concern is the land and she sees you as the way to resolve this situation."

But Josh is slowly shaking his head, staring into the fire.

"This is crazy," he says.

"Looks like you blew it, bro" Chaingang says.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you had no choice, but how's what happened down at ValentiCorp supposed to make Wildlings look all warm and fuzzy? It plays right into the bad rep that guys like Congressman Householder are trying to lay on us. Quarantine, here we come."

"Damn right I had no choice," says Josh, bristling.

"Listen, ValentiCorp isn't going to let those images go public," Cory says. "They have way too much to lose."

"Ever heard of editing?" Chaingang asks.

Cory nods. "Yeah, but the FBI would be on to it. ValentiCorp couldn't edit those recordings without leaving a trace of their handiwork behind. Any decent forensics lab could identify it."

"Yeah, for sure they're going to hush this up," Rico adds. "They were
killing
kids, for Christ's sake. They'll want to keep a lid on this as much as we do."

"Whatever," Chaingang says. Then his eyes go hard. "But let me tell you, just because we need to stay under the radar doesn't mean I won't be extracting some payback for what they did to those kids."

"I just want my life back," Josh moans.

"Not going to happen, bro," says Chaingang. "Not if you're supposed to be the guy that rallies the troops."

Josh looks at me, then Elzie, and shakes his head. We each lean in toward him in sympathy.

"Okay," Cory says. "Let's focus on where we're at right now. We know the Feds are on our case. They're acting benign, but they're still pulling kids in off the street and holding them. We know ValentiCorp is probably going to keep grabbing kids for their experiments. They might also try to relay information to put us in a bad light without incriminating themselves. And then there's the elders and whatever they're planning. We know what Auntie Min wants, but as for Tomás and the others, that remains to be seen."

"That about covers it," Rico says.

"So what do we do now?" Elzie says, "Can we even be sure that the government isn't in on what happened at ValentiCorp? Who in God's name
can
we trust?"

"Ourselves," Cory says. "Each other. Right now we're all we've got."

"Oh, that's just
dandy
," Elzie says, shaking her head. "Let's hope nothing comes between any of us." She turns and stares pointedly at me.

Josh looks back and forth at the two of us, obviously confused.

"I agree," Cory says. "And now I'm going for a run."

He shifts into his coyote shape and before anyone can respond, lopes off into the night.

Josh

I'm suddenly exhausted. Totally wiped. After the day I've had, I guess it's no surprise. It's all I can do to keep my eyes open.

Chaingang takes out his phone.

"No bars," he says. "Big surprise."

He puts it back in his pocket and lies down.

"Keep it down, kids," he tells us. "I need my beauty sleep."