AUGUST

Chapter Twenty-Five

My one bag was packed. The room had been cleaned while I’d been at the interview. I could slip out today—now—and leave without checking out and no one would know for at least a day or so. I could take cash and go to the San Jose airport in a taxi, buy a ticket to Los Angeles, and get picked up by Angus. From there, I could fall off the map for another two weeks, at which point my family would be gone for good. Angus’s family would presumably help me procure new identification.

So why wasn’t I leaving?

Housekeeping had placed some of my overlooked items on the glass-topped bedside table. A hairbrush, a book. And that manila envelope Emmanuel had given me.

Don’t. You’ve made your decision.

I wheeled the bag behind me. Whether it was fate or just the breeze, when I opened the door, the envelope slid with a whisper onto the carpeting.

A couple of guests wearing name tags walked down the hall, and I quickly stepped back into my room, vacillating in the doorway.

Once I shut the heavy door, I picked up the envelope and opened it quickly, giving myself a sharp paper cut.

I slid out three pieces of paper.

One was my birth certificate. The card stock was thick. It read that my name was Julia Blackcomb. My mother was listed as Elizabeth Blackcomb. Caucasian. The father’s name was left blank. My birthdate was December 5—I’d been right about her tattoo. I’d been born at three p.m. and weighed almost eight pounds. Elizabeth’s signature was at the bottom.

There was something amazing about touching the eighteen-year-old birth certificate that had been in her hands just after I was born.

I looked at the two other pieces of paper. They were printed emails from an AOL account, wrinkled as if they had been read and reread a hundred times.

The first was dated early September. It said: Don’t be scared or worry what your parents will think. The three of us are going to live the most beautiful life. I’ve seen it. And I’ve seen her. She is going to be amazing, Elizabeth. I can figure this out. You are my life.

The second said: I cannot wait to meet her.

That email was dated December 7.

I took a ride share all the way to the beach.

It was a clear day, and a surprisingly strong late afternoon sun glittered off the water. I took the beach stairs down quickly, the envelope in my hand.

The shore was quiet, but I knew where to go. I knew the schedule by heart. “Excuse me,” I interrupted. I’d let myself into the dining hall and saw some familiar faces, including Emmanuel’s, and a crop of new ones. New week, new guests.

Emmanuel saw the envelope in my hand and leapt to his feet. He made a gesture for me to follow him and guided me out of the dining hall and onto the deck, allowing the group to resume their last meditation of the day.

“Is she here?” I asked as Emmanuel softly slid the door shut behind us.

“She hasn’t left in ten years,” he joked. He put a hand on my back and smiled.

“I need to talk to her.”

Instead of arguing like I’d expected, Emmanuel simply said, “Well, let’s go find her.”

He walked me to the bungalow at the very end, set apart from all the others. The sound of the ocean roared in my ears as I stood in the shadow of the quiet bungalow above me. For a moment, I paused, knowing this feeling and hating it. It was the same as when I’d wanted an audience with my father and knew the ask was unwelcome. But this ask was easier because it wasn’t entirely for me.

Emmanuel let himself in first. Elizabeth’s bungalow felt more like a home instead of a vacation destination. There was more furniture and lots of color. Music was playing at a low volume from speakers suspended in the corners of the room. The ceilings were low and the walls paneled with dark wood.

“Hello?” he called. From behind him, I had a partial view of Elizabeth walking out into the main room in nonwhite clothes. She was wearing shorts and an old T-shirt, as if she’d been caught without her costume. She stopped mid-step when she saw me, caught as off guard as when I’d first shown up at the beach.

She cleared her throat and snatched a long sweater from the back of a tapestry-covered chair. She put it on and wrapped it protectively around herself. “Emmanuel?”

I saw her look at the envelope in my hand.

“You always say we go through exactly what we’re supposed to,” Emmanuel said. “Just talk to her, Maya.” Silence, and then Emmanuel finally asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “It’s fine.”

Emmanuel smiled and walked back out the door, leaving me alone with Elizabeth.

“I’ve tried not to need the story—about where I come from and what happened.” I paused. “But I do. I just do. I’m desperate to keep us all safe. You must know what it feels like to be scared.” I exhaled loudly. “I hate asking for help.”

Elizabeth watched me, not saying a word. I expected her to say something guru-like and before I knew it, I’d find myself on the top of the cliff again and headed to Bel-Air.

“Let’s get some air, okay?”

Elizabeth led me out, down to the beach. I wasn’t sure if this was her consent.

It was low tide, and the water was calm, gently rolling in and out. We strolled a ways, both of us quiet, and just as I began to get frustrated, she said, “I haven’t spoken about this in a long time.” She stopped walking and looked at the water. “He was young. I was young. Twenty-two. I think he was the same age—he never told me. I met him at work, fell desperately in love, and got pregnant. Then he left with his family and he took you with him when you were five days old, I think. No, I know you were five days old.”

“But what happened? Why did he leave? What were you doing at Stanford?”

Elizabeth gave a half laugh. “Miriam Gottlieb found you.”

“I think I found her by accident. Now she’s offered me something I don’t know if I can take.” Elizabeth just looked at me. “It could be a way for me to live. But I don’t know if people like me can do that. Why didn’t it work for you and my father?”

“Who was that boy who was here?” She narrowed her already narrow, sleepy-looking eyes.

“He’s talented like you, and I don’t know if being around me makes it stronger. Is that what happened to you? Was it too intense to stay together?”

Elizabeth looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. Then, her whole body seemed to relent, as if she couldn’t say no any longer.

“I was part of this—thing—at Stanford, and I’d been sent to get a job in the same department of the tech company where he worked to check him out, to report on whether he was just another genius or if something more was going on.

“My first day I walked into the office, and there he was, sitting in a cubicle, an almost identical-looking friend in the cubicle next to him. I’ll never forget meeting Chris for the first time. It was the strangest feeling I’d ever had. It was…there’s no describing it. I felt electrified.”

“What do you mean?”

Elizabeth smoothed her hair into a ponytail and then held it firmly, running her hand down its length. “I’d always been different—there were these odd, extra-sensory things I could do—and then all of the sudden I met him. It felt like I’d been calling out into nothingness my entire life and then he showed up, like he was my answer back. And around him, I kept feeling sharper and more alert.”

Elizabeth kicked at some sand with her bare toe. It was like I was seeing beneath the Maya shield. She seemed so much softer and human, like the person I’d glimpsed when we’d first met eyes.

“Did he tell you who he was?” I asked.

“We worked together for only about two weeks before we were a couple. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be seeing me, but we couldn’t stay away from each other. His friend who also worked there was eerily like him. Being around Chris almost constantly, it was like he was changing me. Maybe that was why he opened up about who he really was and about the tribe. It was clear pretty quickly that his people considered him special. He was so excited that he thought he had found someone like them, from the outside. That they weren’t alone.”

“Were you telling Miriam everything you were learning?” It was hard to imagine Novak ever being so open and trusting. The Novak I knew was the opposite. Outsiders were to be either ignored or controlled. There was a wall between them and us.

“I was at the beginning,” she said. “It felt like I had to because everything I was learning about him seemed unreal. Too marvelous, like this magical circus had suddenly appeared in my life. Miriam kept me tied to reality. Until I wanted to slip away into his.” Her voice trailed off. “And then, like idiots, we slipped up, and I got pregnant.”

Elizabeth intertwined her fingers and placed them on the crown of her head, leaning back into her hands. “I couldn’t tell my parents because my father is very religious and would have disowned me. I flipped out, but Chris was so calm. He kept assuring me that he had these visions that he knew this was supposed to happen. He said it was what would finally make them all accept me and open up the tight circle.”

“Did he want to get out of the circle?”

“He was restless. He was tired of the secrecy and the sameness.”

“You met them?”

“Once. He took me to this Victorian mansion in San Francisco. I think because he was revered, he was too cocky in thinking he could convince them to accept me. They were not happy to meet me. I didn’t get the sense that any outsiders had been let in before. I remember how they all looked alike. They just stared at me. And it was like walking into a room with so much white noise, I almost couldn’t take it. I was hallucinating sounds and colors, and it was hard to keep track of what was reality. But it was also the most uplifting thing I’d ever felt. It made me want to be with them. Chris wanted me to show them these telekinetic things he’d taught me how to do, but I could barely stay coherent in their presence. It was humiliating. I think that was the beginning of Chris pulling away.” She said the last part like she was explaining it to herself.

It was flowing, like the story had been right there, close to the surface, this whole time and needed to come out. Faint chimes drifted from the main bungalow, signaling the end of the meditation.

“So you were pregnant,” I prompted, keeping all emotion out of my voice, not wanting to scare her off from telling me the crux of what I’d always wanted to know.

Elizabeth crossed her arms tightly around herself again. “So I was pregnant. I hid out near Half Moon Bay, avoiding work, avoiding my family by telling them I was at work, stonewalling Miriam by telling her I was working on Chris. His visits became more sporadic. He finally told me his group was leaving soon but that they wouldn’t take me. He said he was going to stay behind with me, and he genuinely seemed happy. I should have told him about the FBI and about Miriam, but I held off, thinking I’d tell him after his family left, when there was no danger of him changing his mind.”

We began walking again, angling down toward the water, to the wet, hard-packed sand.

“I had you by myself at the hospital,” she said. “I was so angry when he didn’t come. Days later, he finally showed at my apartment and told me he’d been busy negotiating with his family to bring us with them after all.” She smiled at the memory, completely transported to that moment. “The three of us together…it felt like I was getting it all. I loved him so much, and we had this baby together. My future was right there. I was touching it.”

Elizabeth moved her head to the side, as if she were trying to turn away from an emotion before it spilled out. I was so scared she was going to stop there.

She cleared her throat and more quickly said, “Then he told me he wanted to show you to his family. He said he could only take you at first though. I told him that was hard, I was nursing, but he convinced me. He said he’d be back soon, and I handed you off with my backpack filled with clothes and diapers. Then he said ‘I’m coming back.’ There was something in his eyes, like he was trying to tell me something, but I also think he meant what he said. At least he did right then.

“I waited and waited. And then I got scared. A day passed. I called him. I went to that Victorian house in San Francisco, but it was empty. After a week, I called Miriam and she told me that she’d gone to see him, thinking I’d told him everything. I knew then what he thought of me. And I knew it was over. You were gone.”

“Why didn’t you fight it? Try to find him.”

“I wanted to. I would have. But they were ghosts. I knew no one would ever find them. So I told myself it was okay. That it was better for you to be raised in all that splendor. Be with your people. Maybe you would be safer if you were more like him. And he was convinced you were going to. He said you were going to be important to them. I thought I could start fresh.

“But this hole opened up inside of me.” She started shaking her head, and I knew she wanted to cry. “I can’t describe what it’s like having your baby taken away from you and not knowing anything more. A part of me did die then.”

I could tell how hard it was for her to ask the next question. “What did they tell you when you were growing up?”

We’d drifted down to the surf, and the shallow water lapped at our ankles.

I answered, “We weren’t allowed to talk about the past. As a child I knew I had a different mother, but I thought maybe she was from the tribe and had done something bad and been left behind. It’s so stupid now in hindsight. I should have known—look at me. But I had no idea why I was the way I was until this past year. Why I couldn’t seem to conceal the parts of me that were different in the same way. Why I had darker hair and pale skin. I think I told myself it was an aberration, just like they happen in any group.” I realized I could ask her. “Why do I have pale skin? What’s my background?”

“Irish.” She smiled.

“What happened to the traits he brought out in you?”

“I wasn’t functioning very well for at least a couple of years. Maybe that was it. When I tried to use my abilities again, they were gone. It felt like a part of me that was supposed to happen never did.”

“You never felt like it was dangerous, how he was changing you?”

“Are you worried about what you’re doing to that boy?” she asked.

I nodded, looking behind me at a small group that walked past and waved.

“No,” she said, “the opposite. It felt like a relief. Like I could finally realize everything I was capable of and go one step further. I felt a whole other layer of connection to the physical world, to other people. What I wouldn’t wish on anyone is to have this heightened experience and then have it suddenly taken away. To open up a new world for them and then close off access.”

“Do you regret it? Do you wish you had never met him?”

Elizabeth looked out at the water, resting her hand on her clavicle. “I was positive that was the future I was supposed to have. It didn’t help that he kept saying he saw it, this life we were supposed to have together and what we would be able to do together as I grew stronger. He talked about how our daughter would be the next leader and integrate his people into our culture. I believed something went horribly wrong because I messed up by keeping secrets. Maybe that’s true. Chris also had an equal part to play.” Elizabeth gestured around her. “But this did grew out of that. And, I think I’d rather know what I do than to have never experienced it at all.”

More people were clustered onto the beach now, and I prayed no one would interrupt us.

Elizabeth faced me. “I had to believe that with him, you could get that—that those people could give you an experience I couldn’t. I’m scared to know the truth because obviously you chose to leave it.”

“It was like that in some ways. I have a sister. She’s gone with the rest now. But I loved her.” I wondered what Liv would think of Elizabeth. “You know he kept tabs on you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You bought this place from him. He was Edgewater Holdings.”

“Are you serious?” Elizabeth looked around, as if he were watching us right now. “I had no idea. I never would have guessed…but I guess that’s why…”

“Why what?”

“After leasing this place for so long, I bought it for so little money. The owners approached me and said it had been in the family for fifty years and they wanted it to go to the right person.” She shook her head. “That was totally made up.” Elizabeth suddenly seemed miles away.

“So—Miriam Gottlieb,” I said. “She wants me to come in, go to Stanford, be myself.” I knew her reaction would help me determine my future. If Elizabeth scoffed, I had to consider leaving town.

“Miriam.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Miriam is amazing. I guess I just never forgave her. Out of all of us, Julia, she may be the best person to take care of you.”

“I don’t need someone to take care of me,” I said, automatically.

“We all do.” She laughed and glanced around, as if looking for Emmanuel.

“I should trust her?”

“I’ve made a life of not wanting anything because I couldn’t have what I really wanted. But when I look at you, I think you should want something. When you walk away from something you want with your heart, I think a part of you dies. Yes, it’s risky. But is it worth it?” She smiled—as wide as I’d ever seen. It was beautiful. “I think the answer is yes.”