35

Caleb returned to the plaza fronting the university entrance just as the streetlights began to glow. Their illumination was feeble at first, but still enough to cause some pedestrians to stop and watch them come alive. He was glad that he was not the only one captured by everything those lights represented. All along the darkening street, they glowed like gemstones laid upon the path to . . . where? Caleb knew what he wanted. A world where people were free to cross from city to city, to travel and explore and be who they were, without subterfuge or fear of imprisonment for the crime of being different.

As if in response to his yearnings, thunder rumbled in the distance.

Caleb did not need a glimpse beyond time’s next corner to know Maddie had been arrested in a sweep for specials. She was caught in the snare of people holding power and wanting more. He was fairly certain she was alive. And not hurt. There remained a sense of being bonded with her at some level below any direct communication. He hoped he was not fooling himself. He didn’t think so. In such moments of solitary contemplation, he still caught a faint assurance that she was there. Silent for reasons of her own, waiting for him.

As he entered the plaza, Caleb hoped desperately he had been right to speak openly with Hamlin Turner. He’d entrusted his fate and that of his entire community to an Atlanta lawyer. Yet he liked Hamlin. He felt better having the man on his side. And for no other reason than that, he crossed the park and entered the tavern with a light heart.

It was a shame the feeling could not have lasted a little bit longer.

Zeke and Hester were not there. Nor was Enya.

Caleb searched the outside tables, then went inside and spotted the same waiter who had flirted with Enya earlier. The man recalled Caleb, offered him a table, and took his order for food Caleb doubted he could eat.

Two and a half hours later, the others still had not arrived.

The storm continued to gather, the wind fitful and damp. The clouds massing overhead flashed and thunder growled. Finally the waiter returned and pointed at the long line of patrons seeking a table.

Lightning flickered like electric veins overhead as Caleb returned to his hotel.

Caleb spent a sleepless night trapped in a double blanket of fear and guilt. He should never have left his two friends in the company of an Atlanta student. What was worse, he was doubly afraid he had been wrong to trust Hamlin. Nothing he had done seemed right, starting from the terrible moment he had revealed his ability to Harshaw and his Catawba clansmen. The enclave’s future lay on his shoulders like a huge grey rock.

Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled, a portent of the storm beyond the horizon. There was no escape from the fact that he had endangered the lives of everyone he held dear.

The rain arrived with the dawn. Caleb rose from his bed and showered and ordered a breakfast brought to his room. He could not bear the thought of entering that vast restaurant alone, staring at all that wasted food, and knowing the day could well mark the last time he ate anything decent. Even so, he could scarcely force himself to keep down a cup of tea. The food sat on the tray on the elegant table in the middle of his grand parlor, mocking him and all his worries.

Flash! Boom!

The lightning crashed so close to his window that the thunder exploded in that very same moment. Caleb was hammered off his feet and landed hard on the carpet. He lay there, his limbs outstretched, as he realized for the first time what it meant to truly see.

All his searches for truth and right actions up to this point had merely been dabblings. He had touched his toe into the sea of his own potential, then retreated. He had done what came easily. Nothing more. Now there was no longer anything to hold him back. He was stripped bare. Even his skin was gone, even his life. Now he dove in.

He saw.

Caleb stood on an open field at midnight. A vein of fire began at his feet. Two paths opened up and raced away from him, forming a brilliant V that illuminated the empty plain. They reached the horizon at the very same moment, then exploded.

He opened his eyes and rose slowly from the carpet. He stood before the rain-streaked window, his chest heaving. His entire body shook. He listened to the thunder of his own heart and knew without the slightest doubt that he stood at just such a juncture. He could remain the man shaped by his youth. Caleb of Catawba enclave, a quiet-spoken man who did his best by all who came his way.

Or he could become something more.

There were no guarantees to accepting the position of leadership represented by this other path. Caleb saw how the tension and fears and doubts that had wrecked his night were mere shadows of what he would know in the future. If he accepted the challenge and sought to grow. Become a man who sought to be strong for others. To seek the right way, even through the darkest hour. To help. To serve.

It was a terrifying choice. But as he wiped his face and waited for strength to return to his limbs, Caleb knew the choice had already been made.