Authors: Aric Davis
CHAPTER 20
Darryl and Terry walked out of the airport and into the brutal shock of Midwestern humidity.
The rental car that Darryl had arranged for them was just outside of the terminal, in a parking garage across the road, and Darryl wanted nothing more than to be in it and gone. Mexico had been a place of mistakes, and it was time to be done with that. Having a dead bank account—even if they still had many others—was an ugly thing, and there was no reason to think that they wouldn’t eventually be traced to Des Moines.
Don’t think about that now. Get the car and go.
Try as he might, though, Darryl couldn’t stop thinking about the mess they were in and just how much work it was going to take to get out of it.
They showed the Hertz attendant the receipt for their rental, and then Darryl and Terry were pulling free of the parking garage aboard a Ford F-150. Darryl hated driving trucks and hated that the cost was almost three times what a compact car would be, but he hated the idea of sliding off the road into a ditch and having to talk to the law about it even more. Making a quick stop for supplies was almost as nerve wracking as driving. As they purchased clothes, food, and a computer, he could feel eyes probing him, even though he never caught anyone actually staring at him.
Darryl was most nervous about checking into the hotel—if there was anyone who might be ahead of the news, it would be hotel managers and state troopers—but the sun was shining on them at the check-in desk. A large and loud troupe of grade school–aged cheerleaders and their parents were either on their way to a competition or had just returned from one, and they had clearly drawn the ire of the hotel staff. Darryl didn’t even need to probe, much less bend the woman who checked them in. In minutes he was walking back to the car with a pair of key cards in his pocket.
When they finally made the room, Terry unlocked the door with one of the key cards, and then Darryl slid the luggage dolly in through the door. No one had seen them park, nor had anyone laid eyes on Terry. The situation could go bad at a moment’s notice, but right now Darryl and Terry were as smooth as baby shit.
Terry unloaded the cart quickly, the only heavy items being the computer, and then Darryl walked the cart back to the elevator before heading back to the room. Terry was sitting on the bed watching the TV, and Darryl moved to see the screen.
“It’s not good, not at all,” said Terry.
Darryl sat next to Terry for a few moments, watching the talking heads on CNN discuss the murders in Mexico, flashing between pictures of the savaged and slain girls and an image of Terry that had been taken from a security camera at the last bar. Along with the airport security footage, there was a sketch of Terry that looked exactly like him. Darryl sighed, thankful they could at least stay in the Holiday Inn for a day or two, then walked to the computer and started unboxing it.
“What the hell are we going to do?” Terry asked as Darryl slid the heavy monitor free from the box and set it atop the table in the corner of the room.
“I told you before that there was going to need to be another tragedy to get this thing out of the news,” said Darryl. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be just yet, but I’m going to get us a tragedy. Something big, something mean.” Darryl swallowed thickly. “Like that Columbine thing this spring.”
Terry nodded and stood, the TV forgotten, and together the two of them worked to assemble the computer.
CHAPTER 21
1945
A week has passed since I was moved into the room where Katarina sleeps, and though I hate to admit it, life has been wonderful.
I feel at times like I am doing something wrong, that I am one of those Jews who is given special privileges for telling the secrets of my fellow prisoners to our captors, but I have done nothing of the sort.
And yet I have been rewarded far more richly than any of those traitors.
I have a bed—my own bed—and the bedding is clean and washed every few days. There is heat from a little stove in the room that I share with Katarina, along with books to read on a shelf. We are fed thrice a day the same food the commandant eats, and I feel like I am actually gaining weight. It’s the most comfortable I’ve been in years, and it’s hard not to enjoy it, even with the misery going on around me. I could smell the ovens today, and I know what that means, but I was alone in the room and I just buried my head in my pillow and tried not to think about it. Even all of that death couldn’t chase away the thought of how lucky I am, how wonderful it is to be warm and fed.
Of course, none of that is as wonderful as the rest of it.
Katarina calls what we do “weaving” because of the threads that she can see coming from people’s heads. I can see the threads, too, of course, just not the people beneath them. Not that that matters—all I need are the threads. We talk about all manner of things that deal with this weaving—what the colors mean, how to manipulate or ruin those threads, how to make someone align with your own thinking. Many of the things we talk about I’ve been doing for years without even knowing that I’m doing it! Katarina says that this is why I’m alive, and I believe that to be so. Without my abilities, why else would a blind girl be left to live when so many more fit people have been taken away and disposed of?
Every day there is a new lesson, and today was no different. Katarina has been teaching me about mapmaking. It’s a hard concept for me to grasp, but the more she explains, the more I understand.
“Think of it like this, Ora,” said Katarina, and I nodded, ready to try. “You can’t picture the courtyard, but can you tell me where the fences are, where the guard towers are, where the showers are?”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
Just because I cannot see doesn’t mean I don’t know how to get around the camp. I’ve been here for years, after all.
“Perfect,” said Katarina as she clapped her hands together. “Take my hand. I want to try something.”
I did as she said, but already I could feel my heart flutter.
Katarina has never needed to touch me to do her weaving before
, I was thinking,
so whatever she is planning must be either dangerous or—
The second that our skin made contact I could feel myself racing through the air next to her, and then there was a flash of light like nothing I had ever experienced. I rubbed my eyes, rubbed them again, then pinched my skin. Turning to Katarina, I could see she was beaming. I could see it with my own two eyes, as if I’d always been able to see. Looking from her to the ground, I could see that we were several hundred feet above the camp, but there was no fear in my belly over being suspended like this above the ground, because I could see.
Below us was Dachau. I could see the barracks houses, women working, guards standing around and smoking, the area by the showers, workers earnestly removing ashes from the ovens in the forbidden brick building. The whole world inside of these fences was visible to me, yet outside of the fences the world faded to black. I stared at the house of ovens, then turned to Katarina. I want to ask her how she could be here amidst all of this evil when she is so sweet, so kind, but I forced the question from my mind.
“You want to know why you can see?” Katarina asked, and I nodded my head emphatically. I did want to know why I could see, almost as much as I wanted to know why she is here. “You can see because only Ora’s eyes are damaged. Here you are not using Ora’s eyes. Our bodies are below in our room, sitting comfortably right where we left them. Can you imagine the scare that would give one of the guards if he was to walk in there? He would think we’d gone mad.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I am showing you my map, Ora,” explained Katarina. “Because of your affliction, your own maps would be much more stark. Still visible to you, of course, but plainer. No shingles on the roofs, for example. The guards with unpolished shoes—details such as that would be gone. Your view would still be serviceable, and very impressive when one takes into account your affliction, but different from mine. Do you understand?”
“Do you make a map like this for everywhere that you go?”
“I do for everywhere that I might get myself into trouble,” explained Katarina. “By having a map, I can quickly bounce from person to person, manipulating them as I see fit, all the while leaving my body in a safe place.” I nodded, and Katarina shook her head. “It’s hard to grasp, but you’ll get there. Do you see that guard tower there?” I nodded again. “Inside of that are a pair of men—Herr Henkel and Herr Junkers. Go in there and convince one of them that he sees something in the trees. Pick whatever you like.”
“Just go there?”
“Exactly,” said Katarina. “Picture yourself diving there, and soon you will be. Trust me, Ora. Give those men a show.”
Not sure what else to do, I did what she said. One second I was hovering in the sky below the clouds, and the next I was roaring toward the tower. My hands came up instinctively over my face, but I slipped through the guard tower as easily as if I were a ghost. In an odd way I suppose that may have been exactly what I was—just another ghost here in this place, which must surely be haunted with so very, very many.
Herr Henkel and Herr Junkers were playing cards and drinking schnapps from a flask, and I found myself frozen there, wondering how often they’d wiled away days doing this same thing. The number of women who could have escaped near the southwest tower due to the sloth of these men was incredible to contemplate, and I hoped I would have the chance to do this with Katarina again to see if this was a routine for the guards.
It took a few moments of watching them to remember that I had a job to do here. Katarina had been explicit about my purpose. She wanted me to make one of the guards see something in the woods that the tower looked over. I found myself wondering if it would be possible to make both of them react while I was at it. I could see their threads—mostly bored blue, with a few strands of limp and dead black. I took a deep breath, and then I was in them both at once, working their minds like I was walking down a crowded street, feeling my way to the right path. When I felt I had the reins of each of them, I made a simple observation:
/ Sherman tank and American soldiers on the tree line /
It was like watching a landmine explode under the two guards. They were out of their seats in an instant, bringing the MG-42 that had been pointing toward the inside of the camp to bear on the trees outside of the fence, and then Henkel was shouldering the machine gun while Junkers began to sound the alarm. Below us, guards and prisoners alike were scrambling and screaming, running to their positions or barracks. As Henkel began to fire, I leapt back toward Katarina, but when I arrived at our place in the sky, she was nowhere to be found. There was a time when that would have terrified me, but that was before I knew what to do.
Leaping toward Katarina’s room was easy now that I’d gone to the guard tower, but I was disoriented as I hit my body, and my sight winked out. I sighed heavily. Tricking the men had been thrilling, but it was a relief to be back in my own head.
Katarina was walking behind me, and she said, “Coffee?”
“Of course. Thank you.”
I could hear her going through the coffee ritual behind me, and the idea of a steaming cup filled me with even more happiness. Around us the alarm was still being raised, machine guns chattered like typewriters, and men could be heard screaming. One voice, which I was quite sure was the commandant’s, was shouting at his men to cease fire, but they weren’t yet following his command. Katarina set the coffee cup softly in my hands, like she always did, and I smelled the delicious treat, as though it might be my last.
“Those men are idiots,” said Katarina, “but it is not the idiots that we need to fear.”
“Who do we need to fear?”
“Everyone else,” said Katarina. “The word from the front is the Americans will be here very soon, that the last of Hitler’s winter gambit in the Ardennes has been destroyed. He cost the Americans some lives, but now the best troops in Germany are dead, and there is no one to replace them but old men and boys. We will need to run soon, my dear, but we will live. We have to.”
“Where will we run?”
“Wherever we can be safe.”
CHAPTER 22
1999
“Yellow is my favorite color,” said Mrs. Martin, and Cynthia nodded in agreement.
“Yellow can mean that someone is content, or that they are trying to comfort someone else. Yellow is not only friendly, however. You can control a mule with a stick or a carrot, and people aren’t much different.”
“There was yellow when you were talking to my mother,” said Cynthia. “Why?”
“Because your mother was scared, Cynthia,” explained Mrs. Martin. “My thoughts were woven yellow because I wanted her to be calm. I wanted her to know that everything was all right and that she would be fine to leave you with me.”
“So you tricked her.”
“That’s a way of explaining it, but I prefer to see it another way,” said Mrs. Martin. “I may have been tricking her, but it was all for her benefit. She was able to get rid of the sick feeling in her stomach, she stopped worrying about you, was able to go looking for a job, and you and I get to have this little talk.”
“Wouldn’t she be mad if she knew?”
“Of course, dear, but however would you explain it to her? You need to remember that I’m not pushing thoughts into your mother’s head that she doesn’t wish to have. I’m just nudging her toward what would be best for everyone involved. Plus, by weaving those pretty gold thoughts with her angry red ones, she was able to have a much better day.”
“So red is mad but yellow is happy?”
“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Martin. “They’re both powerful colors, but they don’t necessarily mean exactly what you’d think. Blue and green are much more passive—those just kind of happen. Red and yellow aren’t just emotions a person or animal is feeling. They can indicate something that they want to change.”
“I think I understand.”
“There isn’t going to be a test at the end, Cynthia,” said Mrs. Martin. “My point, little one, is that someone who isn’t a weaver can still try to influence another person through cruelty or kindness, and that is why those will be some of the most common colors.”
“What about purple? What does that mean?”
“Purple can be bad, but it can mean a lot of different things,” said Mrs. Martin, and for the first time Cynthia wondered if the older woman was being entirely truthful with her. “What purple usually means is unpredictability. They could be thinking of hurting themselves, or maybe even hurting someone else.”
“So I should stay away from my dad?” Cynthia asked. “I already don’t live with him anymore, and now I’m just supposed to stop seeing him? That’s not fair.”
Mrs. Martin shook her head, took another cigarette from her pack, and lit it. She looked at Cynthia, exhaled smoke, and said, “No, I don’t suppose it is. It’s not fair at all when you put it that way.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“I should be the one apologizing,” said Mrs. Martin. “It’s been a great many years since I’ve spoken with a person who can do what we do, much less a child who can see so clearly. Still, fair or not, avoiding your father might not be a bad idea.”
“He was worried about money. He thought we were going to take it all from him.”
“Money is a problem that has everything to do with the world of adults and nothing to do with weaving,” said Mrs. Martin with a wave of her cigarette. “If I had to guess, I’d say that your father has little to worry about in that regard, and I imagine spending his money will begin to feel like a mouthful of poison after a very short amount of time. I would say that his purple will have faded to a nasty bloodred the next time you see him, and then maybe just red the next time. It could be a while until he’s blue or green again, but it will come, child, you just have to believe. Of course, trying to remind him how much he loves you might not be a bad idea when you do see him, and you needn’t be a weaver to do that.”
“I’ll do it,” said Cynthia, but as she spoke she could see that though Mrs. Martin had been mostly truthful, she was still leaving some of it out. Cynthia didn’t know if she could jump into Mrs. Martin’s mind the way she did over the knot, but she did have a feeling that Mrs. Martin might not want Cynthia poking around in her head.
Instead of invading her privacy, Cynthia asked another question. “How many weavers are there?”
“Not many, not many at all,” said Mrs. Martin gravely. “I’ll see a child every now and again that I can tell has a bit of a spark, but never anyone like you.”
“How can you tell?”
“Trust me, you’ll know,” said Mrs. Martin, and Cynthia nodded, not sure she believed the older woman, but unsure of how else to phrase the question to get a new answer.
“Why are there so few of us?”
“That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I have a good answer,” said Mrs. Martin. “I think a long time ago, maybe even a few hundred years ago, there were a great deal more of us than there are now. Take the advances in art in Europe during the Renaissance, or the explosion of technology at the turn of the twentieth century. If you listen in history class over the next few years, you’ll be able to put together some guesses as to who might have had some help.”
“All right, I will,” said Cynthia, “but that still doesn’t explain why there are less of us now than there were before. Shouldn’t there be more?”
“I don’t know if there should be, but I do have a few guesses as to why there are not,” said Mrs. Martin. “First and foremost, many of the children who are born with the ability to see drown it out with drugs or alcohol. Remember, ours is a world still in recovery from the death of magic, and a child who told a normal parent what she was seeing might make her mother think there was something wrong with her. For a very long time, many so-called crazy people were shamans or magicians or fortune-tellers. Nowadays, it’s assumed that when someone can do something like that they’re either mentally ill or fakers.”
“So you think other weavers are in hiding?”
“Hiding in plain daylight like you or I,” said Mrs. Martin with a smile. “Though I do find it much more likely that a lot of those poor people who discover their sight live on the fringes of society. Of those born with it who do live here, enough years of alcohol or drug abuse will either stop the visions, or make the so-called normal folks decide that someone who should develop into a powerful weaver is just a person prone to seeing things.”
“That makes sense,” said Cynthia, and Mrs. Martin nodded.
“I’m glad to hear that. There will be a time in your life—and I know this seems impossible—where you will be tempted by pills, a bottle, a needle, or maybe all three. There is nothing more important in that moment than saying no.”
“I will,” said Cynthia, and she meant it, but she could also see yellow threads spinning from Mrs. Martin’s head. Cynthia didn’t block the threads—she wasn’t even sure she could—but she did wonder if that was a possibility.
“Are there any more questions, my dear? We need to get these pups fed, and we will have many more days this summer to discuss the colors, the rules, and weaving.”
“The Moirai—what are they?”
“The sisters,” said Mrs. Martin. “It’s a Greek myth, but probably much older, in truth. The myth says that the sisters live alone, high on a mountain, and their names are Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.”
“What do they do?”
“They measure the string that determines the length of a person’s life. At a certain time, Atropos will cut that string and the person will die.”
All at once, Cynthia understood. “Those are the strings—”
“Yes, exactly,” said Mrs. Martin, a sad smile creasing her face. “I think it’s more a case of the strings being the reason for the myth rather than the myth being the reason for the strings to exist at all, but the sisters, real or not, are all the proof I need to know that this is far from a new phenomenon.”
“Phenome—”
“A new thing, honey,” said Mrs. Martin. “It’s so easy to forget, when we get to talking, just how young you are.” Mrs. Martin stubbed out her cigarette and then clapped her hands. “Let’s get these dishes cleaned up and then feed these two little piggies. There will be plenty of time to ask questions next time, all right?”