Qaletaqa (22 page)

“Seeing into a person’s future is very
similar to trying to find out whether someone will meet their Twin
Soul. Unfortunately, that’s not terribly useful since there are so
few Twin Souls that will actually meet. I was taught the technique
years ago, but never actually got to use it for real until I met
Uriah. What is useful is the fact that you can already sense the
bond,” Kaya said. She tended to babble a little when she was trying
to get out something important. Every once in a while I had to
break in and refocus her thoughts.

“Why is sensing the bond important to seeing
someone’s future?” I asked.

“Well, the bond is really only another form
of power, and power is derived from a person’s soul. And since a
soul is immortal, you must touch a person’s soul to see the
possibilities of their future.” Kaya said it as if it made the most
perfect sense in the world. Maybe to her it did.

“I have to touch someone’s soul? How do I
even do that?”

It sounded absolutely ridiculous, except for
the fact that I could feel the bond between Uriah and Melody. The
bond emanating from Uriah had felt the tiniest bit…hotter. There
was no other way to describe it. I didn’t know whether Kaya felt
changes in the bond by degrees of heat, but heat between Uriah and
Melody had been fairly steady up until the phone call to Harvey.
With a sigh, I put the bond out of my mind and tried to focus on
Kaya’s words.

“The soul is contained within the body,
obviously, so the first step is physical contact with a person. At
least when you’re learning it is. After years of practice, just
being near someone will do the trick. So the first step for you
will be to touch the person you want to view.” Kaya paused. “Are
you touching Uriah?”

I hadn’t realized that she wanted me to do it
right then. I quickly reached out and touched Uriah’s leg. For some
reason he flinched. I pushed that to the back of my mind as well
and answered Kaya. “Yes, I’m touching him now.”

“With Uriah it will be a little easier than
on someone else since you have the bond to work with. What do you
feel when you touch him. I’m talking about spirit and energy, mind
you, not physically. I don’t want to hear any of that,” Kay said
with a laugh.

I did my best not to blush. My first thought
had been how strong Uriah’s leg felt, and what other parts of his
body I wanted to explore. Focus! Energy. Spirit. Soul.

“What do you feel?” Kaya asked again.

“Heat, but that’s mostly just the bond.”

“Heat, hmm. I felt the bond as more of a
vibration than heat,” Kaya said. “It really gave me a headache if I
concentrated on it too long.”

I guess that answered my earlier
question.

“Forget the heat, though. You need to go
deeper than that. Touching the bond won’t give you any insights
into his future. You have to find the core of his soul,” Kaya
said.

The core of his soul? I had no idea what I
was doing, but I tried to ignore the heat of the bond and see if I
could feel anything else. Putting aside the bond was no small
matter. I couldn’t simply push it away. It was much more like
peeling away the layers. The outer layers were hot and intense.
Each layer after that was still as hot and intense as the ones
before it, but felt different, less substantial.

I bent all of my energy toward pushing
through the bond. My breathing slowed, as did my heartbeat. I felt
as if my body was falling asleep, but my mind was still wide awake
and active. It was a bewildering sensation to say the least.
Shoving away the oddity of what I was doing, I sunk myself deeper
into the layers.

Finally, the heat fell away and I was
confronted by a completely new sensation. There was no real way to
describe it. It was as if all five of my senses were suddenly
heightened. I could feel a gentle resonance, almost a vibration, on
my hand. I could hear a soft hum. As I stared down at Uriah’s leg,
I could see the faintest pulsing light surrounding him. Even taste
and smell were included in the experience. The smell of summer in
the alfalfa pastures, and the taste of strawberries filled me.

I couldn’t help but gasp in sheer
amazement.

Uriah shivered at the same moment and broke
my concentration.

Looking over at me, Uriah asked, “What was
that?”

I just shook my head. Was that was what
supposed to happen? Had I really touched Uriah’s soul? Whatever it
was, I was anxious to try again. The faint calling of Kaya’s voice
from the forgotten cell phone reminded me that she was waiting. I
snatched the phone off the seat.

“Did anything happen? I heard Uriah talking
so I guessed you were done,” Kaya said. She waited a few seconds
for my response before repeating her question. “Well, what
happened?”

“I…I’m not sure what happened.” The shock of
the strange feeling was fleeing faster than I wanted it to, but it
was quickly replaced by intense curiosity. Would touching my own
soul help me find the basis of my power? Would it help me give it
to Uriah when the time came?

“Tell me what happened,” Kaya said. Her voice
was much more commanding than usual. No doubt her curiosity was
getting the better of her.

“Well, I started with the bond. It felt hot,
like I told you, but the further I pushed into the bond, the
lighter it felt, like it might float away,” I said.

“Yes, yes, that happened to me too. But what
about after you passed through the bond?” Her quickly spoken words
were filled with anxious interest.

“After the bond, it…I don’t really know how
to explain it. I could feel and hear this humming, and even see and
touch and smell it. It was so overwhelming, but beautiful. I want
to do it again.” Everything came out in a breathless rush, my fears
disappearing as I remembered the beauty of it.

Kaya sighed. I wasn’t sure if it was in
relief or resignation until she spoke. “That’s wonderful,
Claire.”

“Did I do it then?”

“Almost. You found the edges of the soul, not
the core, but that was more than I could do on my first try,” Kaya
said.

She really did sound impressed. I couldn’t
help but smile at the praise. Even though the possibility of not
being able to break Uriah’s bond terrified me, if I was going to do
anything with my power, I needed to get a lot better. Hope that I
could at least do something useful with my power before I lost it
made me eager to keep going. I was ready to dive back in, but Kaya
had another question.

“What did you smell and taste?” Kaya
asked.

I left myself fall back into the sensations.
“I could smell alfalfa, just the way Uriah’s fields smell in late
summer, strong and sweet. And I could taste sugary, homegrown
strawberries. It tasted exactly like the ones from his mom’s
strawberry patch.”

“The others, the hum and vibration, and the
light, those are always the same, but the taste and smell are
completely unique to the person. It’s always my favorite part of
reaching out to the soul,” Kaya said.

Strawberries and alfalfa. I smiled. If I had
to choose the smell and taste that made me think of Uriah most,
those would have been it. He spent most of his life out in the
fields with the sheep, and his mom’s strawberries had topped more
plates of strawberry shortcake than I could count. It was Uriah’s
favorite desert. I wanted to spend the rest of the day wrapped up
in those two sensations, but I had another question.

“How do I find the core?” I asked. Would the
feeling be even more intense when I did? That thought was
exhilarating and scary at the same time.

“You just keep going. Keep doing what you
were doing,” Kaya said. “When you go deep enough, you’ll find the
core. Then you’ll be ready to look for the possibilities.”

“When I find the core, how do I look into
someone’s future?” I was imagining a long list of complicated
steps, but Kaya surprised me yet again.

“I guess ‘look for’ isn’t the right way to
explain it. ‘Look at’ is more fitting,” Kaya said after a moment.
“You certainly won’t have to search for them. They’re just there,
in the core. As soon as you find the core, the possibilities of
someone’s life will just start flowing around you. The really
difficult part is trying to figure out what you’re looking at. And
unfortunately, that’s only something you can learn how to do with
practice. The exact details and process are completely unique to
each shaman.”

Uriah told me that when he saw the images
during Kaya’s attempt to read his future they were a big jumble of
pictures and flashes. I had been hoping that it was different for a
shaman. I put that aside and gathered my courage. Uriah was banking
on me being able to tell him where the Matwau was leading us, but I
had another objective. I turned away from Uriah and lowered my
voice.

“I know Uriah wants me to learn about seeing
someone’s future the most right now, but there was something else I
wanted to ask you about.”

Kaya picked up on secretive tone, and asked,
“Something you don’t him to know about?”

“Yes,” I said slowly.

“Why not?” Her harsh tone was a warning.
Uriah must have been very detailed in explaining everything Quaile
had done lately.

If Uriah really trusted Kaya, then I knew I
could trust her too. Having Uriah right next to me made it kind of
hard to tell her what I didn’t want him knowing. I had to try if I
wanted answers.

“I’ve been reading Quaile’s book, about the
source of a person’s power. I want to know more about that. I want
to know how to find the source of a person’s power.”

Uriah didn’t seem to take any notice of my
conversation, but Kaya had gone silent. I waited patiently for her
to say something.

“Since you being so secretive about this, I
assume you mean you want to find the source to your power
specifically. Why?”

“Because…if I know where it comes from I
might be able to do more with it.”

“Like what?”

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I
couldn’t utter them with Uriah sitting only inches away. He was so
close to figuring it all out. If I said anything like
because I
need to give it up
, I’m sure he would put the pieces together
and send me home to keep me safe two seconds later, promise or no
promise.

“Do I have to guess?” Kaya asked. When I
didn’t say anything she sighed. “Fine. Something to do with your
power specifically. Hmm. Does this have anything to do with Uriah
thinking you can help him against the Matwau?”

“Yes, definitely. It was mentioned in the
book.”

“The book…of shaman lore.” Kaya went quiet
again. She stayed that way for quite a while. “Uriah isn’t meant to
do this alone, is he?”

“No.”

She sighed. “I can’t believe that possibility
never occurred to me. Uriah told me about the strange interactions
between you two. I should have seen there was a deeper connection,
especially after guessing that you were stealing his power.”

Finally I saw a way to tell her what I wanted
to know. “That’s exactly it. But it has to be a choice this time,
and in the opposite direction.”

“You have to…give him your power?” Kaya
asked. “But you couldn’t do it temporarily. Once you give it up,
it’s gone forever.”

“I know. I’m okay with that.” Even though I
wished it weren’t true. I wished I could hold onto it long enough
to do both.

“Wow, Claire. I can’t imagine giving up my
power. I know you’re new to all of this, but having such amazing
gifts changes your life. It’s in every part of my day. You’re sure
this is what you have to do?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then. I can’t tell you exactly how to
do it, because I’ve never heard of anyone actually giving up their
powers successfully, but I do know how to find the source. I’ve
done it a few times to figure out why a person was having gift
related issues. You’ll follow the same steps I taught you to find
your soul, but you have stop right before you actually touch the
soul.

“This is incredibly hard to do. You’ll find
out when you try to reach Uriah’s soul next time that once you get
close enough it’s almost impossible to stop yourself from being
sucked in. But if you can stop, you’ll find that on the surface of
a person’s soul there are points of contact where power touches
it.

“I’ve only ever examined these points of
contact, but the flow of power from the soul is very tenuous.
Stopping the flow won’t make the power disappear, though. Power
can’t be destroyed because it’s a part of the immortal soul. It can
only be changed or transferred.

“I suppose that in order to strip a person of
their talents you would simply gather up the strands of power and
pull them away. Which sounds simple, but getting a good hold on
power is like trying to catch water with a sieve.” Kaya sighed
again. “I’m not sure how helpful that is.”

“It’s more than I had before. Thanks,
Kaya.”

The noise of movement traveled through the
phone to Claire. When it stopped, Kaya said, “Claire, you should
tell Uriah.”

“If I do…my chance may never come.”

“You think he’d stop you from going with him?
Is there more that might happen? Because Uriah isn’t a big fan of
having gifts and power in the first place.”

“Think about what it’s connected to. It might
not break cleanly,” I said, hoping Kaya would understand my cryptic
message, especially when Uriah looked over at me with a strange
expression. That was too close. I waited for Kaya’s response, but
she had gone very quiet. When she finally did speak, I could hear
the despair in her voice.

“Your soul is your life force. It feeds your
power, but it changes when it leaves the soul, making it different
than your talents. They’re different, but still very connected.
They were created to stay that way. You could die if your power and
soul don’t want to be separated,” Kaya said softly. “Oh, Claire. I
wasn’t thinking about that. I got too caught up in my own
curiosity. You have to tell Uriah what you’re risking.”