Cornerstone (29 page)

Addo’s laughter roars in the back of my head.
Happens to me all the time!

My mom gives me a look that says,
Are you kidding me?
as she takes the bag and turns back to the room.

“You know, I haven’t baked in so long, I’m not sure I made enough.” she says, putting what’s left on the table.

A thick woman, with a head full of thick yellow curls, makes an
awww
sound.

“Oh, Evangeline, you know us! We’re just teasing you.” All the strangers around the table begin to laugh. Another woman leans back and taps my cast sympathetically.

“Addo, where are you hiding the food?” A man with a cowboy hat asks.

The Addo motions to the fridge and some cupboards and the table becomes a grabby assembly line, with trays of desserts passed around and sampled as they go.

“You see now why I need this monstrous kitchen?” Addo asks. “No one ever wants to sit in a living room.” He hands my mom and I cups of tea.

Garrett wanders away, shaking hands, and the woman with the curls hands him a mug of tea too. I hold the mug but the ceramic is too hot. My palms start to sweat, thinking of how the Addo is going to burn my identification into my skin and I have to set my mug down before it slips out of my hand.

“Are you okay?” My mom whispers to me and I nod
yes
even though my stomach insists I should be shaking my head
no
.

Everyone eats for too long and it seems years have passed before the Addo clears his throat and the chatter evaporates.

“For those of you who might have missed all the gossip, I want to introduce Nalena Maxwell. She is the daughter of Alo Evangeline...” There is a low mumble of sentiments like
good to have you back,
and
we’ve missed you, Evangeline.
The Addo continues, “And also of Alo Roger Maxwell.”

An itchy silence follows my father’s name. A wiry man at the far end of the table clears his throat and says, “Roger Maxwell is one of The Fury. He’s not Alo in my book.”

A woman drops her warm brown eyes to the table cloth and says, “No. Not in anyone’s book, I think.”

A murmur wiggles around the edge of the table. My mom looks at her feet. I look at her feet too.

“That,” Addo’s voice booms suddenly, strong as cast iron and flat as calm water. “is not for anyone here to decide.”

“Well, has he been redeemed yet?” A tiny woman in plaid sniffs.

“Is that any of your business?” Addo asks briskly. He waits a moment, searching faces for someone else to comment but when no one does, he turns to my mother and smiles. “We are honored, Alo Evangeline, for your daughter to join our community.”

“Why am
I
here again?” The wiry man asks.

A squat man with glasses agrees. “Yes, Addo, we’re all curious. We welcome Evangeline and her daughter, but since when have so many Contego been called to sit in on an Alo Impressioning?”

“You all assume so much.” Addo says, taking a cookie from the bag my mom brought. His mouth is full as he says, “Nalena has been given the sign of Contego...you bunch of smarty pants.”

It’s not a collective gasp but something close to it. Garrett has worked his way back to me but there is little room between the people seated at the table and the people standing against the walls, so he stands at an angle that shields me from most of the people who are staring. He seems oblivious as he ducks his head and sips his tea but I notice how his eyes scan the room. I reach out and take my mom’s hand. It’s smooth and warm as she gives me a tiny, comforting squeeze. Then she shakes loose and steps forward.

“I asked my daughter to choose a Simple Life.” my mom says out loud. “To keep her from all the gossip as well as the truth about our family, but now she knows everything and she’s still chosen to be among you. I ask, as her mother, will you accept her?”

There are murmurs again and this time the conversations jump and pop around the room like bubbles in boiling water. The woman with the curls raises her hand and smiles at me.

“I accept her.”

The woman that tapped my cast and the man seated beside her both raise their hands and say in unison, “We accept her.”

The wiry man throws up a hand of surrender and smiles at me. “’Course I accept her.”

It goes around the table like this, everyone saying they accept me, even if a few of them seem hesitant at first. Garrett is last and he looks me in the eyes as if we’re the only two people in the room as he tells the Addo, “I accept her.”

I want to soak in the moment, but Addo wrecks it.

“Fine, fine.” he says and he works his way around everyone to the refrigerator. He opens the freezer door on top and reaches in up to his arm pit, feels around, and withdraws a thing that hangs over the sides of his hand like a black tongue. I squint. It’s an old sock.

“Eww, cold, cold, cold!” Addo juggles the sock between his hands as he makes his way back to me. I was thinking he’d use a hot poker for Impressioning. Or a piece of coal. Not something out of a sock from his freezer.

“You need more storage.” Someone laughs and someone else agrees. I have no idea who is saying what anymore because I am watching Addo grip the middle of the sock and shake whatever is in it, out, onto his own hand.

First there is a jar of something that sloshes inside, even though the glass fogs in the warmth of the kitchen. He hands the jar to my mom and she unscrews the cap. Then he stops shaking the fabric and feels around in the sock, pulling out a red plastic paint brush that looks like it came from a paint-by-numbers set and hands that to her too. Lastly, he turns the sock upside down carefully and works something that looks like a corner piece of a broken rock out of the end. He keeps hold of that himself and drapes the sock in the crook of his elbow.

“Give me your...left hand.” Addo takes the paintbrush from my mom. He smiles, skimming his eyes over the cast on my right. “Good thing we don’t need the other one, huh?”

I know he’s trying to put me at ease. He can’t.

“Well, come on.” Addo says, dipping the brush in what looks to be dirty water in the jar. I hold up my left palm and I can’t control it from shaking. I glance out the corner of my eye at Garrett. He’s not grinning. His lips are flat, with his eyes glued on my hand. I focus on it too, trying to hold it still. Nothing works. I look to the other side, afraid to see my mom flipping out, but when I catch a glimpse of her, she looks perfectly calm. She’s concentrating on holding the jar so it doesn’t spill.

The room has gone so quiet that whispering seems inappropriate. I want to ask Addo what he is going to do next, how much it’s going to hurt, when it will be over, but I can’t open my mouth against the silence. Addo taps the brush on the edge of the jar and in a panic, I project my question, like a screaming bottle rocket, at his forehead.

Addo flinches and looks up at me serenely.

Do you see how I almost spilled that all over myself?
He asks.
Easy on the energy there, kiddo, I’m only doing this once.

His lifts his brush from the jar as he explains, in the privacy of my mind,
This is soil from the very first ground. Mixed with the water from the very first river.

Where did you get it?
I ask.

Outside. Where do you get your soil and water?
He asks. I see him pinch his own cheek with his teeth but his released giggle ribbons through my head.
It’s not like the first drop of water and the first speck of soil has gone anywhere. Duh. What are we going to do with it? Ship it off to the moon? The first stuff is still here. Talk about recycling.

Addo keeps babbling as he paints the watered down dirt onto my hand
.
I finally have to interrupt him to ask why he’s slathering me in dirt anyway.

Eh.
It’s just part of it.
He says with a tiny shrug. I glance around the room and notice that everyone’s eyes are closed. They look peaceful or dead or maybe just suspended, as if time has stopped. It’s startling.

Are they okay?
I ask.

Mmm hmm. They’re just praying.

For what?
He finishes painting and blows on my palm to dry it.

Strength, courage, wisdom. But probably—mostly—that you won’t muff this up.

He grins, holding up the rock in his other hand. The shape is familiar from geometry class: an obtuse, scalene triangle. It’s gray, old concrete, smooth on the outside edge. The inner part is jagged and crumbly, as if it’s been busted off from a larger chunk. There are tiny flowers engraved all over one side. Some patterns are whole but most are incomplete where the rock is broken.

Addo holds the rock over the top of my hand and with a grin, drops it onto my palm. I brace myself, expecting it to burn a hole through my skin. Instead, it just feels like a cold chunk of brick straight out of the fridge.

Let me guess,
I think to him,
ancient concrete from your busted steps out front?

Those are fiberglass steps.
He corrects me.
And this is a piece of the first cornerstone.

From the first temple.

Really?
I try not to project a hole in the Addo with my excitement.
Like from the Garden of Eden?

Addo’s chuckle vibrates my skull.
Before that.

Whoa.

Whoa indeed.

What does it do?

Do? You kids with your video games.
He rolls his eyes.
You hold it. Duh.

I thought it’s supposed to burn.

Like a cattle prod? Ha! Some Contego...like Garrett, for example...explain the Impression as having been burned into their hand. Kids.
Addo sighs and I remember to exhale. He begins again, this time in the same monotone that I’ve heard on drug commercials, when they tell you all the rotten things the medication can do to you.
You must hold the Cornerstone in your palm for three days. During that time, the Cornerstone must stay in contact with your skin in order to properly re-configure your nervous system. The Cornerstone is guaranteed to give you heightened senses and sharper instincts. You may experience black outs, severe muscle weakness or symptoms similar to Tourette’s Syndrome while holding the stone. Numbness is to be expected. Do not operate heavy machinery and most importantly...just don’t let go of the Cornerstone, kid. Having to re-Impression is the whole-enchilada kind of painful.

Addo rubs his hands together like he’s finished dinner.

That’s it?
I ask.

Yeah, that’s it. What’d you want, besides cookies?

But what about Grace?

Eh. She’ll turn up when you need her.
Addo says. He snags a cookie from a nearby plate and pops it into his mouth. All the strangers open their eyes and the conversation rises up instantly around the room, like nothing just happened. Then Garrett leans down and whispers in my ear, “What do you think about getting out of here?”

~ * * * ~

I’m not sure what proper etiquette is for leaving a party with an ancient rock that is supposed to hot-wire my nervous system, but when Garrett suggests it, I am happy to opt out. My mom is busy socializing with these strangers like they are long-lost friends, but when I ask if I can leave, she waves me away like it’s no big deal. I kiss her good-bye and scoot out the door after Garrett.

“I thought they’d have a fit if we left.” I tell him as we go down the front steps.

“No, it’s like a wedding. No one’s leaving until everything’s gone, but you’ve got an excuse. Everyone knows how exhausting it is when you meet your connection. I got to say, you’re holding up really well.”

I’m not so tired when he’s near me. The only thing exhausting me now is the idea of holding a rock in my palm for three days. As we’re walking down the Addo’s quivery steps, my grip is already fatigued and I get a blast of panic that I’m not going to be able to keep holding on.

“I’m going to drop it!” I squeal to Garrett. He is walking ahead of me, holding the tips of my fingers that poke out of my cast. He stops and turns back to me.

“No you won’t.” he says calmly. “It feels like you will, but you won’t.”

“No, I think I’m really going to.”

“You’ll be okay. Did Addo give you a sling?”

“What’s a sling?”

“It holds the Cornerstone in place if your hand gets tired. We should go back in and get one.”

“I don’t want to go back in there. What happens if I drop it?” I tell him. I clasp my hands over my stomach as best I can, since the cast is over one palm and the Cornerstone in the other.

“You don’t want to drop it.” Garrett says. “You might not feel it yet, but your nerves have already begun the reconfiguration process. Starting it over again is miserable.” His face seems to register the panic that wafts through me. “Hey, don’t worry. We can tape it.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” I ask and I hear Grace’s little giggle in my head.
I’m here. I’ll make sure you hold onto it.
And my hand suddenly feels a jolt of strength or surety or something that, at the very least, dissolves the anxiety and makes my fingers curl around the rock instead of letting it hit the ground.