One Hit Wonder (24 page)

“You can call me Jane. I always thought it sounded cool.” She smiled at John from the rearview mirror.

Her little boy sat beside John on the backseat and proudly counted to ten in English to show him how smart he was. John taught him to count to twenty, and Lucas counted over and over until he fell asleep a few minutes into the ride.

After driving for forty minutes, they turned on a dirt road and spiraled down for three miles. Audrey felt the temperature dropping as they got close to the river that cut through her family’s land. Her cousin jumped out of the car in front of them and opened the heavy wooden gate. They bounced as the car passed through a cattle-guard.

The house of her mother’s childhood sat on top of a slight hill, stained and tattered by time, yet warm and cozy with memories. The cars parked in a crooked line near the chicken wire fence surrounding the house and yard, and she could see flames twinkling in the wood stove in the outdoors kitchen.

She was surprised by the overwhelming feeling of peace expanding in her chest. For over a decade, she’d ignored Isabel’s pleas to come to Brazil. She had even resented the love her mother had for the farm. Audrey had never seen her displaying so much happiness in the U.S. as she did here. Secretly, she feared her mother would leave to go to Brazil and never come back, but when John squeezed her hand, she understood why Isabel had never left them. As she stood in front of the house, surrounded by mango trees, she felt a deep tenderness for her mother. I’ve never gotten it, Mom. She looked at John and smiled. But now I do.

“Let’s get some mangos.” She pulled him toward a giant mango tree near the side of the house and behind the ruins of a cement shed.

“I’ve never seen a mango tree before. It’s huge.”

“Cool, uh?”

Under the tree, Audrey pointed at a mango and jumped to grab it, but it was beyond her reach. John plucked it out with one jump and gave it to her. The branches bounced like a ripple in a lake. Then, he grabbed one for himself.

“What now?” He looked at Audrey, then at the fruit in his hand.

“You bite.” Audrey carved her teeth into the mango and pulled out a piece of skin in one motion. She spit out the skin and bit the fleshy yellow meat, the sweet taste of her past blending with the hopes for her future filled her mouth. She closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet smell around her, wanting to engrave this feeling of peace and contentment into her heart forever. Then, she looked at John, who was staring at her with a mystified smile, and raised her eyebrows. He understood and dug in.

My exile was a dreadful college for girls in Massachusetts. I lay on bed in my dorm holding the shimmering orb my grandmother had given to me the day I left home. The marble-sized sphere was a receptacle for my mother’s last bit of living energy, which she’d saved for me before she was murdered.

I was twelve when she died and, unfortunately, we’d never spent a lot of time together. It was too dangerous for her to keep me so Grandma and my Aunt Marion raised me. We often met at inconspicuous places as far as possible from home, and I remember once seeing Mom and Dad in Rome, hugging each other at the top of the Spanish steps. As Aunt Marion and I walked toward them, I saw Dad whispering in Mom’s ear, and she threw her head backwards with the most fantastic laughter. It emanated from her like the rays of the sun, coating my skin in her amazing warmth. When they spotted me at the bottom of the steps, they ran to meet me. Dad picked me up and twirled me around. Mom hugged us and they both kissed and kissed me, our faces soaked with tears of happiness.

It was the last time I saw my father alive.

“Jade.” I was enthralled by the orb’s light and lost in my memories when I heard my name whispered outside.

I looked at the window, the trees were rattling.

“Aunt Marion.” I jumped off the bed and opened the window. In the branches of the nearest tree, I could see a disturbance in the air, like a ripple in a lake, except it folded into itself then out again. We were connected in a way humans couldn’t understand. We traveled guided by the energy of others like us, especially those with whom we shared a deep connection. No physical contact, no hugs or kisses, only faint ghosts floating like leaves in the wind.

“Hi, sweetie.” Although I wasn’t able to see her face, her voice was comforting and familiar, making me miss home even more.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, what else?”

“Are you still in Haiti?” After Haiti’s earthquake, Aunt Marion and others like us traveled there to help heal the Earth and avoid another tremor.

“Things are looking better over here. I thought I could escape for a while.”

“I’ve really missed you.” I hadn’t talked to Aunt Marion for months; because she had to use all her energy to subdue subsequent earthquakes, she couldn’t diverge any of it to visit me.

“Me too, sweetie. Grandma said you don’t visit.”

I was pretty upset about leaving our home in South Carolina and had been giving my grandmother the silent treatment.

“I’ve told her I didn’t need to come here. She treats me like a little girl.” At nineteen I was officially an adult, but I wouldn’t dare disobey Grandma.

“It’s for your own protection. You’ve been quite rebellious and you know how dangerous it is to find a soulmate while very young.”

“Aunt Marion, it was just a couple parties.” I sat on the windowsill of my second-story room, which I had bribed another girl to switch with me since it was the most remote of the entire building, overlooking the woods that delineated the end of the campus. “Besides, what was all the training I had to endure for?”

“We’ve taught you spells and how to fight, but nothing can prepare you for a soulmate’s love.”

“I’ll never fall in love.” I crossed my arms over my chest and lifted my chin haughtily.

Despite my bad attitude, Aunt Marion said softly, “It’s not up to you.”

“Maybe my soulmate already died in a car crash.”

“We don’t have only one soulmate, that’s a human myth. There might be a few humans in the world whose life energy is identical to yours.”

When a witch met any of those humans, her energy grew exponentially, making her more powerful than ever imagined. That’s why an ancient organization called Arrow would hunt them and kill the soulmate, and maybe even the witch, like they did with my parents.

Grandma and I had this same argument over and over again, her eyes welling up every time she spoke of my mother, making their purple color even more electric. Mom had found her soulmate, my father, at eighteen, and they spent the rest of their lives trying to escape.

The last time we had a fight, right before coming to Massachusetts, I had told Grandma in a moment of rage that I wished Arrow would just kill me and get it over with.

“Jade!” She shouted, even though I was standing right by her side. “Don’t you ever say that.”

“Seriously, Grandma. Arrow has ruined my entire life and I haven’t even found my soulmate yet. Death is less painful.”

“Our energy keeps the world alive. We die, Earth dies.”

“But you’ve told me the planet is already dying.”

“It is … ” Grandma had sat at the edge of the bed beside me. “Humanity has grown too strong, unmerciful to their planet.”

“I don’t like when you say ‘humans’ as if we’re not like them. It makes me feel like a monster.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She’d tapped my knee. “You’re human, but you’re much more, which makes you nothing like them. Our human bodies are vessels — ”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” I’d heard this story since I could remember. I thought they were only bedtime stories, until I learned they were true and all about me and my kind. But none of them told me what I really wanted to know: what exactly happened to my parents.

I felt a pang of regret for being so curt with Grandma then and ignoring her now. I promised myself I would visit her.

Aunt Marion steered me back from my memories, saying, “Why don’t you try to enjoy yourself? This land is so beautiful, full of energy.”

I blew out an impatient breath. “It’s a school for girls — there’s nothing to do, unless I try to masturbate with energy.”

Aunt Marion’s laughter made the wind pick up and all the trees around the building rattled as though being blown by a tornado.

“You remind me so much of your mother,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about her.” I looked down at the orb in my hand.

“I know, sweetheart. Grandma told me you haven’t used the orb yet. You’re a wise girl.”

“It’s not fair. Why did Grandma give it to me if I can’t use it whenever I want?”

“Because your mother told her to.”

“How can I know how much of Mom is in here?” I blinked hard at the thought a little orb made of stone was all I had left of my mother.

“You can’t, no one can. We only know it’s limited and after you’ve exhausted it there will be nothing of her energy left. Except you, of course. You’re part of her, you have some of her energy.”

“I want to talk to her so badly.” My voice trailed off.

“I know. Me, too.” It dawned on me how much Aunt Marion also missed Mom. As an older sister, she’d always been very protective of her, and when my father entered the picture Aunt Marion became their most fierce champion, and later my legal guardian.

“I should be traveling with you, not stuck in here. I could help.”

“You’ll graduate in less than two years — ”

“Then I can go wherever I want and do whatever I want.” It was the condition in which I had agreed to come here. “I can’t wait.”

“Oh, sweetie, don’t wish to grow up too fast. The world out here is not what you think.”

I looked out at the lavender horizon, the last rays of sun clinging to the sky behind the trees. “At least I’ll be part of it, not locked up in here.”

“What a drama queen,” Aunt Marion interjected. “You’re hardly ‘locked up,’ Jade.”

“Whatever. I just wish time will fly.”