The Steward (24 page)

The path split, or rather, it disintegrated into dozens of potential paths, as I got further into the middle of the island. After studying my options for a moment, I decided to take the highway department’s method and simply pick out the path of least resistance.

It was exceptionally steep, so I spent as much time crawling up the hill on all fours as I did walking upright. After a few minutes, I’d travelled about fifty yards and found a low rock face below the bluff. I finally got closer to the area where I thought I should start looking for the sign.

Climbing atop the rock face, I didn’t see anything that struck me as a potential place for an Air sign.
Like I even know what that place should look like.
I checked my watch—it took longer than I thought it would. I knew by now the sun was getting closer to the top of the hills to the west. My desire to get on top of the promontory grew, and with it, the tightness in my chest. I pushed on and made it to the top of a ledge where I took a short rest to study the bluff.

There didn’t appear to be any easy way to get to the top.
That figures
. The massive stone slab had a sheer edge, and the lowest point was at least twenty-five feet above my head. I crawled around the right side of the plateau and discovered that it dropped back down about twenty feet to the base of the promontory. There was nothing for me to climb on this side. Making my way back to the other side, I had no better luck.
Why didn’t they leave me some rope or something, like they did for the Earth trial?

As I studied the promontory again, I still wasn’t sure if the sign was there above me, but my gut told me it was. With time running out, I wasn’t going to start second-guessing myself.

Then it occurred to me, and I laughed.
Could it be this easy
? I placed my hands on the side of the rock face and calmed myself. After several deep breaths, I pictured steps forming up the side. I concentrated and let my mind search for a connection with the stone, trying to feel the energy patterns. Suddenly the rock shifted, exactly as I pictured it, and a narrow stair-stepped ledge formed up the side.

“That is so badass!”

The steps were steep but manageable, and I made it to the top in a few seconds. I looked around, quickly surveying the terrain. The surface was mostly stone, but there were a few areas of soil with trees growing in them. As the sun got even closer to setting over the hills, I knew I had to concentrate on my task. About thirty feet in front of me the slab of stone angled upward gently. There was another boulder on top of it, standing alone. It was long and narrow, and appeared to be propped up on its end. I looked at the rest of the area and didn’t see anything remarkable.

“This has to be it,” I whispered.

I sprinted up the incline and began searching the boulder. The sun touched the hilltops on the western side of the lake, and the light was just beginning to fade, so I wasted no time. I ran my fingers over the north side of the rock and found nothing. I checked the west side next. There were crevices and irregularities, but nothing that resembled the Air sign. The same was true of the south side. Perspiration formed on my forehead and upper lip, and I found it hard to breathe when there was nothing on the east side.

With a noisy huff, the air rushed out of my lungs, and for a moment I considered searching somewhere else on the island. Did I make a mistake? I thought about it, and no, this was where I needed to be.

A quarter of the sun was now hidden.
It has to be here, but where?

Looking back at the boulder again, I put my hands on my head. “Think Maggie, think,” I whispered to myself, but there was nothing. I felt a little silly expecting to find an Air sign etched into stone.
It doesn’t really make sense
. As I stared at the stone, it dawned on me that I probably needed to look in the air. That didn’t help either.

Even though I didn’t expect to pass the trial, I felt panicked—like I did when I took an exam with time running out.
Think, Maggie. Calm down and think. Air… how do I narrow that down
. “There’s more air here than island...”
They’ll put it where you can reach it.
“That’s true.”

As I thought about it a little more, studying the boulder, I noticed it. The north side was shaped something like a big triangle. There was a dark strata line running across it about a third of the way up. A triangle bisected by a line—the symbol for Air, right there in front of me.

I looked above the stone, half hoping to see a symbol floating in the air. Nothing. I knew better. I walked back around it to the east, on the narrow side, and stepped back. The entire boulder came to a narrow vertical point from top to bottom. The more I looked at it, the more it looked like the shape of a sword. That was a symbol for Air, too.

This is in the right place, but how do I see the sign?

In the cave, I had to control my body in order to control the stone, but the corresponding component in the Air symbol was Spirit. I still didn’t really know what that meant.

“The sign has to be in the air, but where do I look?”

Walking around it several times, I still didn’t see anything. The symbols in the gazebo flashed through my mind again, and I tried to remember what was different about the Air sign—my heart raced.

“The waxing moon!”

I quickly turned and searched the sky—it was crystal clear. I found the moon but it wasn’t a crescent tonight, it was nearly full. I remembered that the sword in the symbol was above the triangle—none of the other element signs had a symbol above them. The sword must be the key. I looked at the horizon and the sun was nearly below the hills on the western shore. It was still light out, but getting darker by the minute. Sweat ran down my face and I panted frantically. My skin tingled.
The time! I’ve got to hurry!
Once the sun disappeared behind the hills, I’d only have twenty or thirty minutes before nightfall.

The minutes ticked by. I circled the boulder so many times I lost count. With each pass, I tried to think of something different. Huffing and puffing, I sounded like a cross between a hot-water kettle and an old steam locomotive. Annoyed, frustrated, tears of anger filled my eyes.
This is so frickin’… It’s right here! Right here! Oh, for crying out loud!

I checked the sky above the sword one more time and saw nothing, so I sat down about ten feet in front of it and tried to think. The key, I knew, was figuring out what Spirit meant. Aunt May had said that it involved looking beyond my own existence, developing an understanding of more than myself. She said much more about it, but my brain could only focus on those words.

“Aaahhh,” I growled. “What does that mean?”

Candace had told me about another meaning associated with Air and Spirit—the heavens. The sky was already turning indigo, getting darker by the moment. A few stars started to show up, and in the west the Evening Star twinkled brighter than the rest. I unconsciously stared at it while I tried to sort through the symbols again.

I had another epiphany—I was here at twilight, the best time to see the Evening Star. I stood up and moved to the right so that it was directly above the sword. As I aligned them in my field of view, I caught the glimmer of a faint line in the air in front of me. When I moved a few inches forward, though, it disappeared. Slowly moving backward a few steps, I froze when the Air sign came into view.
Oh, my gosh…

It was faint, like the trace image of a sparkler swirling in the night, but it was there, right in front of me, suspended in air directly between the sword and the Evening Star. That was it—looking beyond myself literally meant looking beyond my immediate surroundings. The Evening Star was my guide.

I lifted the pale green stone and held it in front of me approximately where the opening was in the gazebo sign. My heart raced as I saw a light appear in the stone, faint at first, but growing. I knew exactly what to do next—somehow. I willed the stone to stay in place, imagining the air cradling it, keeping it still. I let go.

“Congratulations!”

I turned and saw Sara smiling. She was suspended several feet above the ground in front of me, but it was Sara as I’d never seen her—young, vital and beautiful. Her hair was no longer silver but a golden color, and she was absolutely radiant. She didn’t appear any older than me. While not one of the tiny, gossamer-winged pixies of myths, she was as beautiful as any storybook fairy I’d ever imagined. Luminous skin delicately wrapped the elegant curve of her jaw, and a slight pink tint highlighted her cheekbones. Eyelashes, long, thick and golden, curved upward above her piercing black eyes. It touched me to see her this way—it was the first time she’d revealed herself to me in her preferred human form.

“I can’t believe I figured it out!” I wiped the wetness away from my eyes.

“I can, Maggie. You possess the same qualities as so many of your ancestors, and remember—most of them have been inclined to the Air element.”

“But I’ve never really understood my place in the world. I’ve struggled so much with it, and I had no idea what Spirit really meant. I still don’t. I flunked career day.”

She laughed, and said, “You misunderstood your Aunt. Don’t think of Spirit as a concept predicated on your place
in
the world,” emphasizing the term ever so slightly, “or as a construct that is somehow related to a skill or trade that fits seamlessly into a bigger picture. Spirit is not about the individual or individualistic pursuits. Think of it as your relationship
to
the world. Spirit is about being a part of the living world, being conscious of things beyond you—it is the search for a more perfect relationship with the world.”

She smiled, and floated toward me to stand within arm’s reach in one lithe movement.

“More than anything else, this trial was designed to open your mind, to show you the qualities you already possess, and to start you on the path,” she said.

“That was tricky, by the way, using the Evening Star. It appears in the West—the orientation for the Air element is the East,” I jabbed playfully.

“Maggie, the Evening Star is not really a star at all—it’s the planet Venus. It is also known as the Morning Star because it appears in the eastern sky at sunrise. You really should bone up on your astronomy.”

I laughed at her retort, but I noticed the presence of something else—of other Fae. They were everywhere. I could
feel
several of them around Sara and me. She noticed that I looked around and reached out with my hands, trying to gingerly make contact.

“Do you feel their presence?” she said with a bewildered look.

“Yes, I didn’t realize there were so many here,” I said.

Her face went completely slack. “It’s unheard of ... how many of us are here, can you tell?”

I could sense all of them, but the closer they were, the easier it was for me to detect and count. “Over a hundred on this island, I think. There are … sixteen up here with us on the promontory—including you. Eight are in physical form, eight are not,” I said.

Her eyes were huge, and a slight smile formed on her full red lips. “That’s simply amazing,” she said in little more than a whisper.

“Why?”

“Maggie,” she said, her face showing more excitement than I’d ever seen, “a few people have learned to sense the presence of my kind, but only after
years
of practice. It has been a common gift among your ancestors who were Air inclined, except they only learned to do it after we showed them how. What’s more remarkable is that you are the first with the sensitivity to differentiate one Fae from another when we’re in our natural form. A few people can detect Fae when we’re in a physical form. Even fewer people can detect the presence of Fae when we’re in Naeshura, or natural form, but no human has ever been able to comprehend the difference between one or one-thousand.”

“So that’s good?” I asked, trying to keep the sheepish smile off my face.

“No … it’s astounding! If you are this attuned with the Air element during the moments following your trial, just seconds after your connection to Air has awakened, you might develop abilities that, quite frankly, none of your ancestors dreamed of.”

I considered what she meant.

“Oh my god, can I learn to fly? That would be totally off the chain.”

Sara laughed and held her hands up. “First things first—you have to learn to control the element. Like working with the Earth element, you will need to learn the nuances of Air, and that will take time—even for you. Let’s work on gusts of wind before you try to do the Icarus thing.” She paused and smiled. “But for you, flight might be possible, although it’s probably more akin to riding atop a tornado than what you’re probably hoping for.”

I felt the smile slide off my face and she grinned.

“In what way am I different from Aunt May?”

“If I were to take a woman who had never swum before and throw her in the water, would he drown?”

“She might.”

“Most people, including your aunt, are beginners when they experience the true nature of the elements … they are people who have never been in the water, so to speak. Your natural connection to the Air is like a short cut—like you were an experienced swimmer the first time you entered the water. You see, the difference between you and her is that floating and swimming are second nature to you. The beginner has to learn how to keep her head above the surface, and she does that by experimenting—she has to learn to hold her breath. To move, she learns by manipulating different parts of her body. In other words, she must learn what is intuitive to you.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Usually, one’s connection to an element has to be learned and practiced. A learned connection, though, is often a limiting force. You see, if one doesn’t feel the connection naturally, she limits her ability
artificially
. Your mind is conditioned to accept limitations in the physical world. There are some people, and you are apparently one of them, who have a natural connection to an element, and once that connection is awakened, some skills develop easier.”

“So I can learn Air skills faster than most?” I asked.