Qaletaqa (29 page)

“I want so badly to tell them about the other
Twin Souls before them that have fought the bond, because I know
that when the time comes, these two will fight the bond harder than
any other. I want to tell them, but fear holds me back. My mentor,
Orenda, made me memorize every known story of Twin Souls, the ones
with fairytale endings and the ones without. I doubted a few of the
happier stories, but I believed every word of the sadder ones.

“Reciting the tales of young lovers who spent
their strength searching for a way to break the bond only to
collapse in utter heartbreaking exhaustion, their hearts and bodies
no longer able to fight, had torn away at me piece by piece. Yes,
they wanted another beside their Twin Soul, but that desire alone
was not enough. None of them had enough power or commitment to
match the strength of the bond.

“The lovers in the stories, their love was so
strong in the beginning, but the bond hammered them into submission
as time passed. My heart broke for them because even after they
gave in to the bond they were not happy. They lived the rest of
their lives bitter of the fate they had been forced to accept. What
should have been a joyous occasion was forever tainted by their
loss of choice and freedom.

“I remember asking Orenda one day why such
people were not allowed to choose whether or not they wanted the
bond when they were faced with the decision. Orenda grabbed my chin
painfully and pulled my face close to hers. ‘They already made that
choice once,’ she spat. ‘Why should they get a second chance to
choose?’ I did not understand what she meant, but Orenda refused to
discuss it anymore and sent me to pull weeds in her garden for my
impudence.”

I wasn’t sure whether that was the end of the
entry or not, but Claire closed the journal and set it on the seat
beside her. Ever since hearing about the others who fought the
bond, I knew Claire had been mulling over the problem in her mind.
She felt something important in that realization. Perhaps I was too
focused on reaching Melody to feel it as well, or maybe it was
another of Claire’s gifts manifesting itself, but I’d had no answer
for her when she had asked me about it earlier.

After hearing about Orenda’s angry reaction
to a much younger Quaile’s curiosity, I still didn’t have anything
to offer except more questions. Growing up, my mother never told me
the sad tales of Twin Souls. I heard only about the brave warriors
and happy endings. Twin Souls had been portrayed as a blessing. But
even knowing the darker side, Orenda’s response made little
sense.

I waited, letting Claire try to puzzle it
out.

“It’s starting to make sense…I think,” Claire
said. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “It makes no sense that the
Twin Soul bond would be able to take away your freewill, and like
Kaya said, there’s no origination story for Twin Souls.”

If this was making sense to Claire, it sure
wasn’t making sense to me. “What do you mean?”

Claire turned to look at me as if she had
forgotten I was there. “Oh, um, Orenda told Quaile they had already
made the choice and shouldn’t get to make it again. If they made
the choice before they were born, then the Twin Souls bond isn’t
actually taking away their freewill.”

“What exactly would we be agreeing to? Twin
Souls are two halves of the same soul. That wasn’t a choice. You
can’t choose your Twin Soul any more than you can choose your
parents. And what kind of choice makes it so that you can never
change your mind? How could two spirits know what their physical
lives would be like?” I sighed in frustration at the end of my
spiel.

I often downplayed my intelligence because I
didn’t like having attention drawn to what I could or could not
figure out-I had enough attention because of my physical
abilities-but not being able to understand something, math problem
or a simple recipe, it always burrowed under my skin when I
couldn’t figure something out. There had to be a reasonable
explanation. Claire appeared no less irritated.

“I don’t know, Uriah. Maybe you and Melody,
and Daniel and I, agreed to search each other out when we took our
physical bodies. Maybe promises made in the spirit world are more
binding than they are here,” Claire said. “But Orenda talking about
a choice and the lack of an origination story makes it seem like
the bond isn’t really want we’ve been told it is.”

“Then what is it?” I asked. “And how do I
take it back?”

That was my most desperate question. Before I
left San Juan the first time, Quaile had called me Wakiza,
desperate warrior. I certainly felt like a wakiza then, but I felt
it even more strongly now. Not so much for the upcoming encounter
with the Matwau, even though I felt sick every time I thought about
it, but because of Melody and Claire. I wanted to believe I would
take my precious Claire home to San Juan, but I was finding it
almost painful not to think about Melody every second of the
day.

The color of her hair seemed to be reflected
in everything around me, the hint of fall in the trees, the
lingering light of the sun at sunset, even the color of signs and
cars that I passed on the road. Her scent was inescapable. I was
sure I could smell it everywhere now. The gentle pulse of the bond
in my heart seemed to match the cadence of my own heartbeats
exactly. I couldn’t even escape her when the Twin Soul bond was
nothing more than a faint line between us.

How would I ever walk away when I was faced
with the full and all-encompassing allure of her physical presence?
I had gained strength against the Matwau from the gods, but where
was my added strength against the fiery haired woman who would no
doubt steal my soul whether she wanted to or not? I needed more.
But where would I find it?

Claire knew the battle I was facing. She knew
the risks and possibilities. Letting my questions seep out of the
cab and up to the clouds where maybe someone who knew the answer
would hear it, I pulled Claire closer against me and said nothing.
Neither of us had the answers. We had only each other to borrow
strength from. I hoped Quaile’s words proved right. Where I lacked,
Claire would bolster me up.

26: Limits

When no one explains the limits of what you
can do, it’s easy to tell yourself that there are no limits. The
answers to my questions about Twin Souls lay behind the veil of the
spirit world. No living person could slip past that veil. Or so I
had once believed.

I was very far from understanding even a
small part of what Kaya did as a shaman and wanted me to do also,
but I did understand that the knowledge she gained could only come
as a gift from the gods. The gods were eternal. They gave hints of
the future because that’s what people often sought, but what about
the past?

Could I use the dreams to look back instead
of forward? The choice had already been made once and could not be
made again. If we were all born with our Twin Souls already set,
then the choice could only have been made before birth.

The choice itself was an elusive thing,
though. I couldn’t really conceive what the choice would have been,
or why it was so binding to never be undone except by an art deemed
too evil to be used by everyone but a mistaken Shaxoa named
Samantha, but I knew it was the key to unraveling the mystery of
the bond. If I could only understand the choice maybe I could
puzzle out how to beat it and somehow rescue Uriah from the
grasping fingers of destiny.

Not bothering to find out whether what I
wanted to do crossed over the limits of my abilities, I settled my
breathing into the slow practiced pace of my concentration
exercises. Breath by breath, I drifted closer toward a purposeful
sleep.

The picture in my mind contained very little,
only Uriah’s and Melody’s faces. I had nothing more than a guess to
go off of, but it seemed to be enough. As sleep inched its way
across my mind the picture began to expand. Uriah’s face began to
change. The little lines of worry eased out of his skin. The faded
scars from working the ranch and schoolyard fights melted away. His
features smoothed and I could no longer say exactly what his age
was.

Turning to see Melody, I realized she had
undergone the same timeless transformation. The world surrounding
them was ephemeral and hazy, but it didn’t seem out of place. Uriah
and Melody stood facing each other just I as I had pictured them,
but they didn’t move. Frozen in my sleep-laced mind, they waited
for the dream to begin.

Slowly the corners of their mouths turned up
as they came awake and saw each other. Even knowing it wasn’t real,
my heart ached to see my Uriah look at another woman in the way I
thought was reserved only for me. I wanted to turn away, but I
needed to know. The answers would be worth any amount of pain.

Losing myself in the dream, I released any
control I still had and let the scene play out.

***

“Our time is coming soon,” Melody whispered
excitedly. “We must decide now.”

Taking her hand, Uriah looked down at Melody.
“I thought we’d already decided.” His confidence faltered by the
tiniest degree. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No, of course not. I just meant that we need
to make our decision known,” Melody said. “I can feel our time
running short. We’ll be parted soon. I don’t want wait until the
last minute. I want to do this now, even though...”

Uriah leaned in close and brushed his lips
against hers. Melody sighed pulled against his chest, fearful, yet
firm in her decision. “I know. It will be okay. I love you, Melody.
Nothing could ever change that. But you’re right. We should go
before time runs out.”

“Let’s go then then, before we have to think
about it any longer.” Pulling away from Uriah enough to take his
hand, Melody began leading him through the insubstantial world.

Uriah’s expression grew even more serious as
he let Melody lead him.

I stood watching the entire exchange. Neither
one noticed me there. I hadn’t expected them to, not after having
no ability to impact the dream of Uriah fighting the Matwau, but I
had still hoped that somehow Uriah would feel me near him. The wolf
had. Uriah was utterly absorbed in Melody, though. How much he
truly loved her was plain.

Fighting back tears, I took a reluctant step
after the fleeing pair. I needed answers.

Melody halted suddenly, and Uriah stepped up
close behind her. Their hands locked together as they waited, so
tight Melody’s already pale skin lost all its color. The shifting
edges of the world that wavered between reality and dream seemed to
solidify. Edges took on a more definite shape and something began
to form in front of them. No, it was more than just one
something.

Grace was the only word I could think of to
describe the beings that took shape in front of me. Their bodies
moved sinuously and their eyes held the wisdom of the world. I knew
at once that these must be gods of light. A clear voice sounding
like the wind rustling autumn leaves flitted across the space
between them.

“Why have you summoned us?” she asked.

“We know that we will soon leave this place
and we wish to take each other as Twin Souls,” Uriah said. His
voice was calm and sure of his words, all but the way his voice got
softer with each word. As his volume dropped, his hands held
Melody’s more firmly.

My hands were shaking so hard I had to tuck
them under my folded arms to calm them. Take each other as Twin
Souls? Could it really be? Of everything that had been turned on
its head, every unbelievable thing I had forced myself to accept, I
had truly hoped this would not be one of them. I wanted this to all
be a mistake so badly. The soul had two halves. Two halves that
yearned to be reunited. It was a pull outside of anyone’s control.
That was how I wanted it to be. I didn’t want to admit that Uriah
and I had put ourselves in this situation after all the anger I had
harbored against the gods for interfering in our lives. Uriah
couldn’t have chosen this. He couldn't have chosen Melody over me.
This couldn’t be what Orenda meant when she spoke of a choice. I
wasn’t really here. I had hoped it was still someone else’s choice,
not ours. This was just a dream, not the truth.

I could feel searing tears roll down my face
and fall hissing into the mists.

“This is not a decision entered into
lightly,” the goddess said. She regarded the pair in front of her.
“This choice cannot be unmade, though you may wish to when you
leave this place. The responsibilities which come with such a
choice are heavy and require much from those who enter.”

“We know what will be asked of us,” Melody
said. Despite the ageless quality of her face, her words revealed
her sweet naiveté. The goddess’s eyes held pity, as if she knew
Melody had no idea how much she would truly face because of this
choice.

The goddess regarded Melody more closely. “In
this world you have known only happiness and joy. When you leave
and begin your mortal life you will experience the hardship and
pain that accompanies a mortal body. The events of your life will
change you in ways you may not expect. But these will only be the
beginning of what you must bear.”

“Nothing could change us enough to make us
turn aside from the path we have chosen,” Uriah said. He truly
believed what he was saying. The indignation in his voice at the
suggestion that he would back out of his responsibilities was clear
in his voice and the way he held his body.

I wished Uriah could see me. I wanted so
badly for him to see me and turn away from this choice.

“So many before you have turned away, never
fulfilling their mission, never even coming close.”

“I will fulfill my purpose,” Uriah argued.
“We will.”