Cornerstone (23 page)

“Good catch!” Mrs. Reese cheers and Iris claps. My mother gasps and my bubble explodes like a wave crashing against a rock.

“Do it again!” Iris squeals, but when her mother hushes her, Iris blushes. Humiliated, she wanders to the edge of the koi pond, squatting to make roads in the pebbled bank.

“A few things just happened.” Mr. Reese says. “You see how your impulses took over? You didn’t have time to doubt them. If you had, the keys would’ve hit your face.”

“Exactly.” my mother says under her breath.

“Nothing would’ve happened, Alo Evangeline.” Mark assures her. “I would’ve caught them before they slammed her in the sniffer!”

Brandon rolls his eyes, which makes me glad I caught it myself.

“Your field...” Mr. Reese continues, ignoring the boys. “The thing you call your bubble...it breaks the moment you either perceive safety or if you doubt your body’s natural ability to defend you. Your field is in direct connection with your body and the environment. When you are aligned and focused, you simply react and your instincts protect you.”

“My force field is in harmony with my environment?” It sounds so sci-fi that I begin to laugh. Hard. I grip my stomach with the sheer nuttiness of it, but my amusement is cut short as Mark scoops up a handful of pebbles. In one motion, he turns and whips the whole handful at me. My bubble is instantaneous and Mr. Reese coaches me as the pebbles fly toward me.

“Let go of your thoughts and just move. That’s right...” Mr. Reese’s voice is calm.

There are at least twenty tiny rocks, spaced like an asteroid shower. I can see the colors of them, the smoothness of each stone and, somehow, it is easy for me to slap the nearest pebble away with my palm.

“HAMMER IT!” Mark shouts. The thought spirals in my brain and I wonder what he means...if I should move out of the way instead...if Mark thinks there will be too many to bat away…if I should be using my fist somehow instead...and my bubble bursts. I only have time to shut my eyes and throw my hands over my head as the hail of pebbles batters me.

“You idiot.” Brandon swats his brother. Mr. Reese narrows his eyes at Mark, rolling his tongue in his mouth as though he’s holding back from saying something he shouldn’t. Finally, he turns back to me.

“You okay, Nalena?” Mr. Reese asks. I’m fine, except that Garrett is smirking.

“What’s so funny?” I ask him.

“Hammer it?” Garrett chuckles. “
That’s
what made you lose it?”

“Shut up.” I tell him.

Mr. Reese claps his hands together and rubs them. “Yes, Garrett. Shut up.” he says.

I smirk.

“Would you do it again, Mark?” I say. “I want to try it again.”

“It’s no fun if you’re ready for it.” he shrugs, but it doesn’t matter. Brandon has already picked up a sizeable rock from edge of the koi pond and launched it at me. My field surrounds me but it wavers. I’d expected pebbles but there is a full-on rock coming at me. A vein of panic flashes through me and my bubble shatters.

Garrett and Mr. Reese both shout at once, “Whoa!”

I hear a collective gasp from the gazebo, feel the air move around me, a swish in front of my face, and then, everything is still and I am focusing on a blurry ridge of a vein running along the back of Garrett’s hand. He’s holding the rock, maybe two inches from the bridge of my nose. Mr. Reese is on the other side of me, his hands curled around my upper arm, ready to pull me out of the way.

“Nice catch.” Mr. Reese congratulates his son and lets go my arm.

“Thanks.” Garrett says. He smirks at me and flips the rock back into the koi pond. Mr. Reese turns on Brandon and Mark.

“No more of that.” he barks. “We’re not here to play games.”

“I thought she’d be able to do it.” Brandon insists, but he hangs his head. “Sorry, Nalena.”

“I’m okay.” I say, although half of me is angry that I couldn’t do it and the other half is wondering how okay I really am with Brandon taking the chance on busting my head open.

“Your problem is focus.” Mr. Reese says. “You can never allow fear to take over. The number one rule is that you can
never
bring fear to a fight.”

“Or you’ll instantly fail.” I repeat what I’ve heard before. From my peripheral, I see Garrett grin.

“Exactly.” Mr. Reese nods. “One way to block the fear is to use a mantra. Choose a word that floods you with peace when you think it. It can be anything you want. Mine is sand.”

“Mine’s seashell.” Mrs. Reese pipes up from the gazebo.

“Addo.” Brandon says.

Garrett smiles. “Moon.”

“Shoelaces.” Mark says. We all turn and look at him but no one says a word. He shrugs and looks down at his sneakers. “What? When they’re tied, I’m at peace.”

“What is yours, Sean?” I ask. Sean is sitting on his hands.

“I don’t need one.” he says with a flat grin. “I’m not Contego. But I guess if I had to pick something, I’d use a logarithm.”

Everyone turns away from Mark and focuses on Sean, just as speechless.

“Or clouds.” he adds.

“Anyway,” Mr. Reese calls us back to attention. “Choose a word that makes you feel calm. Do you have a word like that?”

I think hard for a moment and nod.

“I have it.” I say.

“Well, what is it?” Brandon asks.

“Mom.”

Mrs. Reese
awws
from the gazebo.

“Suck up.” Brandon chides and Mark starts parroting me in a ridiculous, girly voice.

“Shut up.” Garrett says, taking a step toward them. The two younger Reese’s drop into defensive stances, and even though I can’t see them, I am sure their fields are churning around them. Garrett has scared their fields up. I can’t help but laugh.

Mr. Reese sighs.

“Enough.” he announces, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Mark, Brandon...you two go. Walk the perimeter. In opposite directions.”

The two boys groan but don’t argue. Mrs. Reese gets to her feet.

“I’m going to go get Iris ready for bed.” she says. “And we still need the kitchen cleaned up. You want to give me a hand, Sean?”

“Sure.” Sean says.

“I don’t want to go to bed!” Iris protests, but she stands up from the edge of the pond and comes to the gazebo steps to meet her mother.

“Are you coming, Evangeline?” Mrs. Reese pauses as she takes Iris’s hand. “Nalena is fine and the house will be fairly quiet, if you want to write.”

My mom nods. She walks out of the gazebo and touches my shoulder as she passes me.

“I’m proud of you.” she says and the smile on her face makes my heart shine.

~ * * * ~

We keep going, with Mr. Reese giving me pointers as Garrett throws stuff at me, but after only a half hour, I’m so drained that I’m pretty sure my field couldn’t even deflect gnats. We’re only using pebbles, since they sting enough to register as a threat but won’t inflict the damage that Brandon’s rock would do. Still, I over-think it every time and end up getting bombed with the sharp little stones.

“I’m sorry.” I apologize to Mr. Reese for the third time, grimacing as I rub the spot where the last pebble has bounced off my leg.

“You’re doing fine, Nalena. No one masters their field in a night.” he says. “It takes practice to override your mind and allow your instincts to take over. It’s a leap of faith. Once you get that, we’ll teach you to focus so you can see other people’s fields and how to project your energy if you need to protect yourself. There’s a great deal to training, so don’t be in a rush. It’s better to hone your skills rather than just to know how to use them, even if you don’t become one of the Contego. But for now, I think we should call it a night and let you get some rest.”

“It’s okay. I can keep going.” I try to make my voice strong. I really don’t want to be the wimpy girl that can’t fend off a friggin’ pebble. I want to be the girl that gets it the first time. Or, at least, within the first twenty times. I want Garrett to see me as the girl that masters it the first night.

Instead, Garrett chucks a tiny rock at me and it pings off my cast.

“Forget it, Grasshopper.” Garrett laughs. “You’re not even shielding yourself anymore.”

“He’s right.” Mr. Reese pats my shoulder. “Besides, it’s getting dark.”

The way he says it reminds me of why we’re out here to begin with. An uncontrolled shiver whistles up my spine. When I was little, my mom would call me in at dusk, saying she didn’t want me to be out when the Bogeyman came looking for children to take home. It never crossed my mind that she actually knew his name. And as scared as I used to be, I’m even more terrified of him now.

Garrett gives me a shoulder bump, but I take a step away.

“Figured it out, didn’t you?” he says with a grin.

Mr. Reese walks ahead, ignoring us. He slips into the house while we are still only half way across the yard. I stop walking and face Garrett.

“Figured what out?” I ask.

“That choosing a simple life isn’t going to be so simple.”

I would be offended, except that he almost sounds sorry that I can’t just run away from it now. It’s confusing, since he was so upset after leaving the Addo’s house.

“It’s the only way I can keep my mom safe.” I say and for the reasons I don’t want to call by name, I shut my mouth. I know what I have to do. I just don’t know how I am going to do it without my mom finding out first.

“If that’s your only reason for choosing it, you shouldn’t.” he says. “Your mom will be fine. We’re all here for that. And if you’re worried about your dad, you don’t need to be. The Alo aren’t fighters. About the only physical thing they’re good at is running and sooner or later, we still catch them. There’s no way he can make it through one of the Contego, let alone five.”

“Five. Because Sean’s not Contego.” I say, switching subjects as smoothly as I can. I don’t want to think of my father, even if it is with assurances that he won’t get near my mom. “How come you’re not bugging him about picking a Simple Life?”

“Because he didn’t choose it.” Garrett says. He cracks his knuckles and puts one hand in his pocket. The other he leaves dangling close to me. “Sean was never given the sign. Not every kid born into a Contego or an Alo family receives it. I think it was tough on him at first, being the oldest and the only one of us boys that didn’t get a shot at it. There’s nothing dishonorable about living a simple life, but I still think he felt shut out a lot in the beginning.”

“That’s lousy.”

“It was hard on all of us. At one point, Sean began building up a grudge and my parents worried he’d end up turning away from us all together. Maybe fall into The Fury. But it passed. Sean’s a vital part of the family and he knows it.”

My ears perk at The Fury.

“I thought you said Sean didn’t have any choices.”

“Anyone could end up in The Fury.” Garrett says. “It’s an alternative to
any
destiny.”

“Where do those people live?”

“Everywhere.” He scans the lot line as he speaks to me. “The communities aren’t as much about physical location as they are about how we come together. The Fury community structure is really loose. See, when you’re one of them, no one and nothing else matters. Gathering isn’t a priority, unless there is something in it for personal gain. The Fury, they’re more like a category than a community.”

“So they’re faking it? ‘The Fury’ doesn’t sound like people that fake it.” I say. Garrett glances back at me long enough to crack a smile and shake his head.

“The Fury would be a threat if they were a strong community, but they’re not. They have no concept of working together for an ultimate goal or a greater good. Even if they did, they all want to be the leader and end up just fighting among themselves over that. That’s why they’ve never been much of a threat in the past. They’re too busy fighting over who’s the boss to ever organize.” He glances back at me. This time his eyes are sharp as blue diamonds, as if they are trying to cut through his words and say even more than what is coming out of his mouth. He holds his gaze on me a moment and then it is gone again, skimming the perimeter of the yard. “Luckily, all that self involvement makes organizing any decent plans nearly impossible. The longer a person is in The Fury, the more selfish and self concerned they become. They don’t care about plans. Eventually, they become so centered on themselves that they go insane. Still, every now and again, one of them will pop up and throw a wrench into things, but so far, they’ve always been pretty easy to shut down.”

“I’m selfish all the time.” A sudden surge of guilt coagulates the warmth that Garrett’s smile had generated in my stomach. “A couple days ago, I used up all the shampoo and didn’t replace the bottle, even though I knew my mom was getting in the shower after me.”

“Yeah, you’re rotten.” Garrett chuckles. “Look, we all do selfish things. Every day. It’s human. The difference between a normal person and someone in The Fury is all about how habitual they are.”

“How can you tell who they are?”

“That can be tricky. The Fury are criminals. They steal, they can be abusive, they destroy whatever gets in the way of them getting what they want. A lot of them wreck their bodies by gorging on their desires. It deforms them.”