Savior (13 page)

“And, now, do you understand why?” Giorgia inquired.

I fell silent but only for a short while. “She was preparing me, introducing me to people who would someday have an impact.”

“Smart woman, your mother, eh?” said Giorgia, tapping William on the forearm as a sign to continue out the door.

Yes, she is, I thought. Yes, she is.

Being the last to leave the room, Jameson and I waited until we were alone before speaking again.

“Jameson, my mother knew back then what role I would play. Which meant she and Isadora know more than they have told us. I feel…,” I paused, releasing a heavy sigh “…like we know so much less than everyone else does.”

“We do,” he agreed, his tone growing tense as he held out his hand to me. “Come on. It’s about time we find out….”

7  TRANSGRESSION

“Ten?” asked Vinnia, always more insightful than most. “You brought back only ten?”

“Ten what?” We heard Nolan ask before he entered the shack, joining us. He came into view with Alison at his side and openly gawked. “Ten what?” he pressed.

Jameson grimaced, thinking about the inevitable answer as he turned to leave. “Survivors.”

Not able to work out the hidden meaning, Nolan unintentionally rubbed salt in our wound by asking, “Where are the rest?”

It was my turn to deliver the blunt news, which I did passing him on my way out the door. “Dead, Nolan. They’re all dead.”

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Jameson asked Vinnia, “You’ll handle the details, then?”

She had been designated as coordinator of new arrivals. Unfortunately, the small number of this lot wouldn’t keep her as busy as she had been.

“Sure…,” she muttered, still dazed by the news of such devastation. “Where will you be if we need you?”

Jameson took a long, deep breath, as if he were about to face a difficult challenge. “Isadora’s.”

This morning, the village was buzzing with activity when we landed, and it hadn’t lessened when we stepped out onto the dock. Moss-covered boats were leaving for their fishing holes, and people leapt from dock to dock carrying buckets of fresh water or bundles of food, as if the docks had become a highway from one end of the village to the other. While passing one another, newly formed neighbors tipped their heads in greeting, stopping for brief conversation.

There were other signs of life too. New culture and customs were surfacing: A man sat a few shacks down playing a jazz tune through his horn; two elderly men had started a game of checkers using black and white rocks on a board drawn across the top of a barrel; and the smell of fresh bread hung in the air from a group of bakers testing various recipes.

“People are getting into a routine,” I noted.

Jameson’s optimistic grin told me that he’d picked up on it, too. “Your cousin, Vinnia, she’s good.”

“I’m going to credit her ability to understand others. She knows what they need in order to feel comfortable.”

“And she’s delivering it.”

Jameson stopped suddenly, causing me to do the same.

Seeming to be piecing something together, he fixed his eyes on the edge of the dock we were just about to cross. “I-I didn’t understand until just now why The Sevens were so dedicated to keeping our families apart.”

“To keep us from ever meeting.” I was unclear why this was such a discovery. We’d learned about it months ago.

“No…,” he fixed his eyes on me, overwhelmed with understanding. “They knew how dangerous the Caldwells and Weatherfords would be together.”

“You mean, we work well together,” I concluded.

“We do. All of us.” The smile of someone who had just learned a secret of his enemies crept across his face.

The sight of it mesmerized me, making it impossible to turn from it, even after he caught me staring. It fell away then.

“I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone, Jocelyn. Committing ourselves to prison; being unable to talk to family or friends; living with the constant risk that we’ll be found; unable to even go down to Café Du Monde for a quick beignet. But if it has to be, I’d rather be enduring it with-”

He cut himself off, evidently not wanting to go any further; guilt over what he was about to say evident in his expression.

But I didn’t feel guilty about it, because I felt the very same way. “Me,” I finished for him. “You’re glad it’s with me.”

He let loose the breath suppressed in his lungs. “Yes….” Shaking his head in confusion, he tried to understand it himself. “You’re my motivation, Jocelyn. You’re the reason I’m still going after what happened last night. When I touch you, when I’m even near you, I feel…driven, because I know that someday I’m going to marry you and we’re going to have children and we won’t be constantly waiting for Vires to appear out of nowhere to apprehend us.”

When he had finished his outburst, his unabashed release, I could only remember one part. “You want to marry me?” The reality of it was disorienting.

He exhaled with a laugh, as if it was an inevitable conclusion. “Yes, Jocelyn. I do.” His eyes softened, the sparkle in them conveying a different kind of passion. “You’re the only one I want. The only one I’ve ever wanted.”

He seemed entranced by that idea as I closed the space between us, raising my lips to press against his ear. I hoped the sensation would tickle him…tempt him. “You can stop waiting…,” I breathed. “You have me.”

Slipping his hands inside my cloak, he released a primal sound, bringing me closer to him and showing me that I was successful.

“Do you remember the last time we were so close?” he asked, his voice husky as his lips found my ear.

“Yes…,” I murmured.

“I had to fight myself to stop.”

“You did?” I teased, remembering it clearly.

His breathing became unsteady as he groaned seductively, “You know I did.”

I realized that my body had started to tremble, a result of the undeniable surge of heat coursing through me…between us. It limited my awareness to only one other movement…his powerful hands slipping up my back, pressing me toward him.

He chuckled and his chest pressed against mine, causing me to inhale sharply from his contact. “You realize you’re teasing yourself, too,” he whispered. “Don’t you?”

Holding my body up against his, I moaned, prepared to admit defeat. And then my mother’s voice intruded, abruptly separating us. “Recuperating from the long night?” she asked, accusingly.

When I looked over at her, she was standing firmly planted with her hands on her hips. It was clear by her stance that she’d been there for a while.

To his credit, Jameson remained composed. “Isabella, we were going to look for you next.”

“Next?” Her eyebrows rose.

“We were on our way to Isadora’s.”

“Yes,” she muttered skeptically. “I can see that.” Her snide comment elicited a smirk from Jameson, a reaction that was missed by my mother only because she had passed us by that point. “You were at the Great Britain penal colony last night, were you not?” Without allowing us to respond, she added, “Then we’ll all go to Isadora’s together.”

Her statements gave me the sense that her knowledge of where we’d been last night and our visit with Isadora weren’t mentioned innocently. As we followed her, I began to wonder if she hadn’t searched for Jameson and me this morning for that very reason. It wasn’t often I met up with my mother. Her concentrated efforts to find new and various ways to reach her sources at the ministry kept her busy.

I was thankful when we finally reached Isadora’s shack and found her there. So many questions were left hanging. Jameson aired the first one. “Why didn’t you mention you were a Vire?” His tone nearly demanded, as he came through the door.

Isadora, who had been stirring a pot on the primitive wood-burning stove, slid her food to the side and turned to face us.

My mother entered the room, giving Isadora a meaningful look. Jameson and I stood side by side, just barely a foot in.

“Come inside,” Isadora urged.

“I’m fine here.”

Justifiably, his feelings were hurt, and he was finally showing it. Isadora, being a second mother to him, had kept a vital part of her past hidden from him, one that could have cleared up so many matters.

“You’ll need to close the door then,” Isadora directed, her feeble body working against its aches as she made her way toward the bed.

Despite his frustration, Jameson crossed the room and gently escorted her to her destination. I quietly closed the door but didn’t come any farther in.

I was just as upset, but for a different reason.

“What do you know about our future?”

Isadora glanced at my mother, seeming to exchange a silent message.

“Stop,” I insisted, openly offended and they turned their attention to me. “Jameson and I deserve the truth.”

Isadora agreed, with a shrewd smile, and then began to speak, starting from the very best place: the beginning. “At one point, I was indeed a Vire. This, I kept to myself for more than one reason, Jameson.” She added his name pointedly. “First, had I arrived here branded a Vire, I would have been lynched.” The authenticity of her words was not lost on Jameson or me. “Second, I was stripped of my moldavite stone, henceforth, I was no longer considered one; and finally, I never embraced the ideologies of the Vires or their rulers. Like those in my unit and a few random others, I did not consider myself a Vire. Oh, I was raised as one, taken from my mother at age three to spend the rest of my childhood in a compound. There, I was taught…and tested…on casting, weaponry as it pertains to our world, coercion techniques, and Vire customs. It was at that school, I bore witness to atrocious crimes…brainwashing so compelling my bunkmates forgot the sight of their father’s faces and the sounds of their mother’s voices, the slaughter of innocent children unable to meet the standards The Sevens had set for us, the pitting of children against one another to improve their fighting skills, and more…so much more….” She took a moment to regain her vigor and perspective before continuing. The rest of us stood silent and immobile, humbled by her confession.

She had been through so much, more than I could ever imagine. This frail woman sitting before us endured unthinkably cruel practices, had lost her family, her friends, and very nearly her identity. I deeply admired her. As she began again, I felt my muscles tense, reawakening after that short break, and it told me just how affected I was by what she was recounting.

“While there are Vires who remain loyal to The Sevens, I and my unit saw use for what we were - slaves. We acted only on the command of The Sevens, executing their requests at their will.”

“So when we were given the records, it was expected of us to follow orders: Deliver them to a specific location and guard them, preserve them, give our life to protect them. And it was in that period of time, in that isolated space, we began to grasp how each of us felt, truly felt.” She laughed softly. “Finally, we were free, liberated from the constraints the Vires had imposed. We began to think for ourselves and testing our boundaries, cautiously at first but steadily becoming bolder. Then one night, we made the pact to each take a scroll, to hide it from the Vires who would come for it, to live in hiding until one day we could unite the records again when the war began.”

“But you no longer have them,” I stated, recalling that they had been burnt.

“Indeed, we don’t. That was a measure agreed to in the pact. To guarantee The Sevens would no longer have access to a second account of what was to come, and to ensure our survival, we destroyed them.”

“But, I don’t understand,” I said, my tone stressed. “The Sevens could just make a copy of the one they had.”

Isadora shook her head in dissent. “They wouldn’t risk it, having seen what happened with their original copy. We were their warning.”

“So you weren’t sent here to the village because you witnessed the death of Jocelyn’s father?” Jameson deliberated.

“That is the reason.”

“None of this makes sense,” he contested. “You’re saying you defied The Sevens and burnt the scroll.
That
must be why you were sent here.”

“I told you that my transgression, my reason for having been sent here, was for witnessing his death and that is the truth,” Isadora reflected. “Had I not been present at her father’s death where he was killed by Vires, The Sevens would not have found me. I would have remained hidden.”

I felt a stab of pain pierce me, my subconscious assembling the logic of what had happened. “You gave yourself up to save my father.”

“I gave myself up to save you,” she corrected. “Your father was already….” She didn’t need to finish her statement. We all knew the outcome.

It was no wonder my mother was good friends with her.

Still, I was confounded.

“Why me?” I mumbled.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I knew who you were before your parents did.”

“But how?”

“The scroll,” answered Jameson, exhaling fervently. “Then you did read it?”

“The night Jocelyn’s father was killed, I returned home, withdrew the scroll, and lit it on fire in the kitchen sink.”

Frustrated, Jameson and I exhaled.

She grinned softly and continued on. “But not before Isabella was given the chance to examine it.”

Jameson’s head, having dipped at the first mention of burning the scroll, snapped up.

“And that’s how you knew she was The Relicuum,” said Jameson, rhetorically. “The scroll.”

My mother nodded, a mischievous smile lifting her lips.

“And that’s why you knew to remove me from the city, to hide me in New York, when the Vires came for me?”

My mother, in her typically stoic way, replied as if she were agreeing with what we had for dinner the night before. “Yes, it is.”

None of this was new to her. She had been an eyewitness to most of Isadora’s account, had lived with this knowledge for years now. But Jameson and I were stunned.

One crucial question lingered and Jameson and I, in an act that demonstrated how much alike we were, asked in unison, “What did it say?”

Isadora broke into a full smile then. “Isabella, would you like to do the honors?”