Chapter Nine

The sun rose as it always did, and yet I felt different as I lay in bed the next morning. It was as if a door had opened, or perhaps had closed. I had not the foolish guilt of a child, but instead the deeper regret of shame. Images floated in my mind and my body burned with the memory of Navarre’s touch. What had happened to me that caused me to lose all sense of right and wrong? And why did I want him so badly that I was willing to do almost anything?

I heard voices from outside my room. Dressing quickly, I came down from my bedroom to see the pastor standing at the door and chatting with my aunt. I knew right then that there could be no doubt of my errors.

“Zara!” said the man, walking toward me to shake my hand. “How nice of you to finally wake up and join us.”

I pulled my hand from his quickly, unnerved by his presence in the house. Especially in light of every sin I had committed the night before. “Good morning,” I finally managed to say.

His gaze lingered on me. I fidgeted beneath it, knowing for certain that he could somehow see inside me, and was taking stock of all my wrongs. “What brings you here today?”

“I came by to say hello.” He took a deep breath. “I had…a feeling that you might need guidance.”

His instincts were not entirely wrong, but he was not the person I would share things with. The man frightened me. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well, I want you to know that I am here for you should you need anything. If you find yourself in any type of trouble.”

“I’ll remember that.” I offered a reassuring smile, full of brightness and happiness and hoped that it worked.

“You know the sheriff is worried about you. Especially considering the company you’ve been keeping lately. It’s not too late. I urge you to reconsider.”

“Reconsider what?” my aunt asked.

“Nothing,” I replied, giving him a stern look. He was wrong. It was too late. I had been branded by what I witnessed and by what I craved.

He held my gaze before he finally spoke. “I suppose I should be going. I’ve stayed long enough. I wanted to say a friendly hello, and let you know I’m keeping my eyes on you, Zara.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, as I shook his hand goodbye. I was so nervous that my palm was moist, but somehow struggled to say, “But I think I’m doing okay.”

The screen door snapped shut, but he hovered just outside. His eyes gleamed. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” He swaggered away, and I watched him leave, certain he knew everything.

My aunt turned to me. “What was all that about?”

“I have no idea, Aunt Cleo.”

“He is a strange fellow,” she said. “But nice enough. Dear, would you mind pouring me a cup of coffee?”

“I’d be delighted to.” Anything at all to change the subject.

I poured both of us coffee and after having a quick breakfast, I spent the rest of my day in the garden, understanding that labor was a type of penance and hoping it counted for something. And still the day lingered. I rather looked forward to bed, as I would put another night between the present and last evening. I wanted all the distance I could get.

We ate dinner on the porch, and when the familiar drums started again, they were accompanied by images. Images from last night. Images of Everett and June—and of course Navarre and myself.

Sleep came quickly and I dreamed that I rode in the canoe, straight out into the Gulf of Mexico, and the water was perilous around me. I had no oar by which to steer. Something from the water was pulling on the canoe. I was afraid I would fall in the water. Then the dream was fading, dissolving right before my eyes.

I was awake. There was a hand on my shoulder.

Aunt Cleo. Upstairs. She never came upstairs.

I bolted upright in bed and heard her panicked, heavy breathing. “Aunt Cleo, what is the matter?” I asked her.

Her thin hands trembled as she reached for me and tried to pull me from the bed. “Water,” she said. Her long white hair glowed in the darkness.

“Water? There’s water in the kitchen.” I felt it then, a cold dollop that fell upon my nightgown. Then another, and another.

“Water,” she said again in a mumbled panic. “The house is filling with water.”

“What?” I jumped up.

She must be mistaken. But her whole body shook and dripped with water. She was drenched. “You don’t understand. It’s like that night. Like when I was a child. Zara, whatever did you do?”

If I live to be a thousand years old I hope I never feel that anguish again. She was so broken, so afraid and horrified, and I was the cause of it. I took her firmly by the hand, vowing that she should not be harmed. Not on this night and not by my wickedness.

“Wait here.” I dashed through the little door and down the stairs. Only four steps down, I could see the black slick of water that waited there like a midnight pool. I crouched and peered out. The water had swamped everything; the chairs and the table floated in the darkness. I estimated that the water would come to my thighs once I descended the stairs.

My aunt screamed again, “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.”

I ran back up the stairs and took her into my arms. Not knowing exactly what to do, I reasoned that the best course would be to abandon the house. But then what? I wasn’t sure.

We made our way arm in arm down the stairs and entered the dark water. The river was strangely warm, and swirled around us. Moonlight lit the house in an eerie silver light and I gasped to see the water rushing through the open windows. I pushed against the current, holding her behind me with both hands, guiding her and explaining every step to her.

Our progress was too slow. The water now reached my waist and was still rising. But finally I coaxed her to the porch. Water rippled and glistened under the moon. A serene picture on any other day. But it was my worst nightmare right then. What were we going to do?

Suddenly, I knew. The roof. It was our only chance. “We’re going to the roof, Aunt Cleo. And then I’ll go and get help.”

“I won’t make it,” she said, and I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know if either of us would make it. From the porch, we emerged into the dark water, and I could feel the current tugging gently, sweeping across our bodies. My hand grasped the tin roof, and with the other hand, I held my aunt by the waist. “Aunt Cleo,” I said to her. “Here, grab the wood. Help me push you onto the roof.”

“This is so scary.”

“You can do it,” I urged her.

She struggled to lift herself. With a quick decision, I climbed to the roof. Grabbing my aunt beneath her armpits, I heaved her beside me. But she slipped from my fingers, and I both saw and heard her head hit the corner of the roof. A surge of panicked energy helped me try again and I hoisted her onto the tin slab. “Are you okay?”

She seemed dazed. “I think so.”

Her tone was not convincing, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had to leave her and run to get help. “Don’t panic,” I told her. “I’m going to get help. No matter what I promise you that I’ll get help and save you. Just don’t let go.”

She grabbed my arm. “From them?” she whispered. “Maybe they sent it. Maybe that’s what caused it.”

I hated her words because they scared me to the bottom of my soul.

“God could have caused it,” she said. “Like the pastor said. To get rid of the sinners. Maybe God is trying to purge them away.”

Or maybe God is trying to purge me away, I thought. God could try to take me, but not my aunt. I must save her. “I have to go, Aunt Cleo. Please, don’t move, not even an inch. I will be back for you, with help, but you can’t move. If you fall in the water…”

She grabbed hold of me with and held with all her might. “Don’t let me die.”

“I won’t. I promise. I swear to you. Please, you promise me that you won’t move, okay?”

She clutched me even tighter, “Zara. Be careful.”

“I will.”

I pushed away from her, dropped into the water, and then the blackness embraced me.

Swimming between trees, I grabbed their coarse trunks and pushed against them, propelling me toward the road. The current was weak. A gentle but deadly reminder. Sharp objects snagged my nightgown. Eventually, just before I came to the bridge, the water shallowed to a shore and I emerged from it drenched, scratched and bleeding and very much afraid.

There was no choice. I had only one place to turn, one man to turn to.

I saw the bridge in the moonlight. The waters were swollen, moving faster here, carrying things along that bumped and scraped beneath the bridge.

The gate was locked and chained shut. I looked up and saw the jagged teeth of the gate’s spires against the moon. There was no way I could climb it.

Almost as if from a dream I heard Navarre’s voice in my head, “I left the fence down for you…your own personal doorway.”

I was off through the brambles, splashing in the now ankle-deep water. I saw the tree ahead of me, a haggard shadow in the night forest. When I reached it the tree seemed wraithlike, ominous, and no longer just ugly. Gripping my hand on a limb I hoisted myself up, fought through the brittle branches and stood on the trunk. I clawed forward until I crossed the fence and jumped.

I landed in a painful heap, righted myself and began to run once more. How had I ever thought this ground was soft and velvety? Dry, brittle undergrowth stung my bare feet. As I sped past the archway of the glade, I stole a look. The trees hovered over the pool like a coven of witches. The silver moonlight covered the water with an evil visage. The foliage knotted tighter and tighter around me, and I lost my courage for a moment. I looked back; the forest had closed behind me, forcing me farther, closer to Navarre.

It would have been so much easier to stop and scream, to cover my ears. To slip into madness. But I persisted, pushing and pushing, because I knew why the river flooded the bank. And I would make it right with my aunt. No matter what the cost. No matter what it took.

I saw a light in front of me bobbing in the distance. Encouraged, I ran faster still, and broke free only to spill out onto a lawn that was lit by numerous torches. Behind those torches the mansion loomed. I had arrived at the Lucian compound.

For a few precious moments, I stood gasping for breath. Then I stumbled forward, raced toward the steps of the house. I felt no thrill to the house this time, only a choking panic and a desperate need. I didn’t run now; I flew. Up the wide set of stairs guarded by stone columns. My muddy feet slipped as I raced up and stood before the double doors. One door was ajar. Only a few inches. I nudged it open farther. “Hello?” I called out shakily.

My voice echoed back to me. I took a few steps inside, feeling the slick, cooling marble floor beneath my feet. The room, a grand hallway, felt hollow. A mirror flanked an entire wall, and candles flickered orange light across the room.

“Hello?” I called out again and took a few more steps. Movement caught my eyes. Only my own image in the mirror. I looked like a ghost, my eyes wide and afraid. My drenched and mud-splattered nightgown revealing every contour of my body.

“Think,” I told myself before walking across the big empty space of the entry hall toward an archway on the opposite side. When I reached it, a gust of wind welcomed me, and I saw patio doors at the far end of a long room. I can scarcely remember crossing it, only the few items I saw. A piano covered in books, a fireplace large enough for me to step inside. Dark furniture.

Ahead of me curtains billowed in the night breeze of the open double doors. As soon as I stepped outside I saw the gardens, dark and mysterious. Beyond them, the bay glistened silver beneath the full moon. I heard drums then, and knew exactly where I had to go.

I raced across the terrace, down into the gardens, past the still and broken statues that stared impassively as I raced by them. As soon as my feet hit the sandy beach, I turned and headed toward the standing stones. The drums grew louder, a low-pitched thumping that droned on and on.

I saw the light from a bonfire stretching toward the sky, and the familiar archway that I had explored earlier. Just before I entered the archway, a man sprang from the shadows and grabbed me. His tall body was adorned with a white tunic, his face hidden beneath a mask of gold with only dark hollows for eyes.

“Zara,” he said.

“Everett? Is that you?” I was shocked to see the affable geologist dressed as one of them. “What have they done to you?”

“Nothing, Zara. I’m one of them now,” he said. “I understand so much now.” He came toward me, a looming specter with a familiar voice. “You’re the one?” he asked incredulously. “You?”

“Everett, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I spoke quickly, in a rush. “I need your help. The river has risen, or changed course, or something very strange, and it’s swamped our house. Aunt Cleo, she hit her head, and she’s on the roof, and I need your help.”

“You are the one,” he said with certainty. His gold mask remained frozen and impassive. Then he said the words that turned my blood cold: “You have been prophesied. ‘And one shall return to the flock, a broken woman seeking help.’ That’s you.”

“Everett,” I pleaded. “Please stop.” I could see that he was almost delusional, and would be of no help to me. I began to run toward the archway, to where I heard the drums and the hushed voices of people, but he grabbed me and easily lifted me into the air. “Please.” I squirmed and begged. “Stop, Everett, you’re scaring me.”

He ignored me, and carried me through the arch. I was now inside the stone circle, among scores of robed people. All with masks of gold. The stones glowed pearly white as Everett brought me to the center of them. An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.

Everett lowered me to the sand. I felt hands cruelly about my body as the gold-faced people crowded me. I was being moved, hoisted upright. A cold slab of stone greeted my back. My arms were yanked above my head and my hands bound together with a single coil of rope. I looked up to see the rope slipped through one of the iron rings. Now someone was pulling on the rope. My body stretched helplessly, arching higher, until my toes barely touched the sand.

I was strung taught and shook all over in fear. It was then that I began to plead, not for help for my Aunt Cleo, I’m ashamed to admit, but for me. I begged in that aimless and desperate way that we never think we would do if faced with such a situation. What words I spoke, I don’t know, but not one person responded. They only looked at me with their golden faces.

Just as I was resigned that my fate would match my aunt’s and that we would both die on that night, the crowd parted and a path of darkness opened up. My gaze lifted. At the end of the darkness stood Navarre.

He wore no mask, only a simple white tunic that was opened to his waist. His face seemed both serene and hardened, perhaps by the shadows. He regarded me with glittering eyes.

At least a familiar face. One that I could plead to. One that scared me so, but he was all I had. “Thank God,” I sobbed. “Navarre.”

He looked otherworldly, strange. Possessed of an intensity.

But I was lost to my fear and mumbled incoherently. “I need your help Navarre, I need your help. Please, please, I’m begging you, say you’ll help me.”

An excited roar came from the robed figures. Navarre lifted his hands. Silence fell over the crowd.

Then, he said the words that would ring in my ears for days to come. “We have been waiting for you, Zara.”

I didn’t understand the significance of his words, only that I had to convince him to help me. Immediately. “Navarre, please, I know you told me to stay away, but I couldn’t help it. I need you to come, the river changed course, flooded, and my aunt… I left her there, and the water, Navarre, the water keeps coming. Please, please, say you’ll help my aunt.”

Now he was standing before me. Staring at me with a kind expression. He reached out and caressed my cheek. “Hush,” he whispered. “Of course I’ll help you.”

I gave a half-shuddered sob of relief. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. I didn’t know if you would. But you did, thank you.”

Up close, right next to me, he seemed so kind, so understanding. I closed my eyes and felt the light touch of his hand, which was reassuring and warm. “Of course I’ll help you. You don’t need to worry anymore. I’m here.” He kissed my cheek and I turned to rest my head against him. “I just need one little thing from you before I can help you,” he whispered.

“What is it?”

He was silent for a moment, and a very strange feeling swept over me. I felt that he might turn around and leave me. I panicked. “Anything,” I whispered.

He leaned close to me, so close that his lips grazed my ear as he spoke. “Zara,” he said. “I need to make an agreement with you. Then I’m free to help you.”

“Hurry, hurry,” I urged, wanting him to stop talking. He just needed to start running, and now. “I need your help right now, right now!”

“Listen,” he said harshly. “In order for me to help you, you must become one of us, a member of our group.”

“Fine. Anything.”

He kissed me then, and I shocked myself by responding desperately to the kiss, almost clinging to him with my lips. When he pulled away, I cried out in protest, needing reassurance.

“But more than that, you have been prophesied, and are destined to become our queen.” A kiss light as a caress over my lips. “My queen.”

His words fell like stones inside me, gave me strange sensations in my stomach. But, whatever nonsense he was saying, I still needed his help. “Yes,” I said, hotly, frustrated. “Whatever you need, I agree to. Now will you help me?”

“You must become mine. All mine, in ceremony and in body.”

“Anything. Anything, Navarre, just please help me.” I yanked on the ropes. “Get me down. She could be drowning right now!”

He kissed me again. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” Two words. Simple.

“No, Zara. You must promise me in blood.”

I didn’t answer this time. He flashed the smallest knife in the air. I watched in awe as he nicked his palm. A dark drop of blood pooled on his skin.

He took my hand. A quick slice. Another drop of blood.

He was resolute. His voice low and when he spoke a chill went up my spine. “Say you promise me.”

I shuddered.

“Say it.”

“I promise.” My words were thin, papery.

He took a deep, triumphant breath, threaded his strong fingers through mine, and crushed our hands together. Then he lifted our hands triumphantly in the air and said loudly, “Thank you, Zara!” The group of people roared, but he continued speaking. “You have given us hope. Two thousand years, and now the prophecy unfolds before us.” His voice grew bolder, deeper, more commanding. “Do you hear that, Lucians? She promised to become our queen! To become mine! The prophecy is happening!”

The fire blazed wickedly, leaping higher in the wind. “But there is no time to celebrate! We save that for another night. Now we must meet our commitment to her.” Another ripple of excitement in the crowd, except this time it was more somber. Navarre barked out an order in a language that I didn’t understand, and the crowd broke apart immediately. Every person moved with speed and intensity, shedding their robes and masks and streaming toward the path that led to the cottage.

In a flash, Navarre undid the rope that bound me, and I slid into a heap on the sand. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Where is your aunt? Tell me exactly.”

I told him where I left her and about the strange behavior of the river.

“It must have changed course,” he said distractedly. “Don’t worry, I promise you I’ll get her and she will be safe.” He gave me a swift hug. “You can always trust me, Zara.”

Then he was gone.

I got up, moved past the piles of robes and masks and ran. I heard their voices just ahead, calling to each other. I passed the gate, now thrown open, and then on to the cottage. It made me sick to wade in the water that was our land. I stood watching by moonlight, the river coursing across my body, reminding me of the deal I had just struck.

Only the tin roof was visible, like a silver boat floating on a sea of blackness. I saw my aunt, draped halfway onto the roof with her legs dangling over the side. She wasn’t moving and lay perfectly still at an odd angle. Her silver hair fell like a waterfall over the side of the house and into the water.

Navarre was swimming toward her, men flanking him on either side. I heard the deep tenor of Navarre’s voice as he spoke to her. She did not reply. He swung onto the roof and scooped her up as if she were just a girl. He slid her over his shoulders. Then, with his men around him, he eased into the water and swam back to shore.

When he reached the shore I rushed over and took her hand. It was limp and cold. “Aunt Cleo, are you okay?”

She didn’t answer me. Her eyes were closed. But I saw the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

Navarre spoke to me in his soothing voice. “Don’t worry, Zara. She’ll be okay. Trust me. I keep my word.”

I followed Navarre back in silence to the mansion, all of the events swirling in my head. Somehow I knew he would deliver on his promise. I knew that Aunt Cleo would be okay. But most of all I knew he would expect me to deliver on my promise. How could I keep a promise like that? With a man like him? I did not belong to these people, and their strange world, no matter what they believed about me.

After that, I have only brief flashes of memory. Walking into the strange mansion behind Navarre. Hands at my back gently guiding me upstairs. I remember Aunt Cleo, sprawled on a bed with people gathered all around her. A doctor was examining her head. Briefly I saw her eyes open, and in that strange and disturbing way scout around helplessly for something to lock onto. I called out her name in response, and someone brought me to the bed and laid me next to her. I held her hand.

Most of all I remember Navarre, talking to me, soothing me. Then he was gone, and when he returned it was with a woman who spooned something bitter into my mouth, and I drank all of it without question. I slept then, and was grateful for the pure darkness of a sleep with no dreams.

∗ ∗ ∗

I woke with heavy limbs. My eyes hurt from the bright sunlight that streamed into the room. In a flood of memories, events of the previous night rushed back. Remembering the dark water I hugged the blankets tighter around me, wishing last night was a dream.

But I only needed to look around to see it was real. A strange stone room. A small window and a heavy oak door. All of it Navarre’s. But most of all I knew it was real when I saw my aunt sleeping beside me with an ugly blue bruise on her temple. At least I had kept my promise to her. I touched the ring on my necklace.

No! It was gone! I remembered that I had left it beside my bed when I went to sleep. I had forgotten it. My throat pinched and my eyes pricked with tears. How foolish of me. Of all the nights that I would do something so careless. Nature seemed determined to steal what was mine. First, the wind and drought took my family. My home. Now the water had taken the one tiny connection to my mother. My only physical link to her lay somewhere in that dark river or perhaps even in the Gulf of Mexico by now. Well, nothing could be done about it now.

I saw a skirt and shirt lying across a chair right next to the bed. I pulled back the covers and rose from the bed. I was nude. I couldn’t remember who had taken my clothes off. Dressing quickly I discovered the blouse was too big on me, the skirt too short. But they would have to do. I ran my fingers through my hair and hastily braided it.

Like so many people who have survived disasters, I felt the pull, the stark need to return to the scene. So, like a ghost, I crept from the room through the marble hallway and down the wide sweep of stairs.

The house was strangely quiet. I left unnoticed, straight out of the wide double doors to the bright world outside. The gate was wide open, and as soon as I passed through it I could see the river. The bridge had been spared, but just beyond the bridge, the river now cut to the right, and flowed directly through the forest of pines. Over my garden. The water rippled happily as it passed the house.

I thought of the world hidden just beneath the water. My world. My life. Gone. All of it gone.

A voice came from behind me.

“I thought you’d be here.”

I turned to see Navarre. It was hard to look at him because my emotions were in turmoil, so I stared instead at the traitorous river. “I still don’t understand what happened.”

“I spoke to Everett. He said that rivers sometimes will suddenly change course.” He shrugged and seemed very accepting of the strange event. “These things happen.”

“A river?” I replied. “Just moving, shifting course? These things shouldn’t happen.”

“Like a dust storm shouldn’t happen. The earth does odd things. It cares less for us. We are at its mercy. You know enough to be afraid of it. Remember why you came here, Zara.”

“That’s my point,” I said emphatically. “None of these things should happen. The earth and sky should be dependable. Predictable. I should be able to plant things in the ground and then harvest them later. Not watch the wind carry them away. Or the water. It shouldn’t happen. What can you trust if you can’t trust the ground?”

“Me,” he said.

I shot him a dark look. “I can trust nothing. No one.” I started to walk.

He fell in stride next to me. He was very calm and self-assured, while I was flustered and emotional. We walked until we reached the bridge, and then he took my hand and brought me onto it.

“Let’s sit,” he said.

We sat down, our legs dangling just over the dark water. I saw the water swirling, eddying and rolling away from us.

“Do you remember what you promised me last night?”

I hedged. “No.”

“You made two promises. But, I promised you something, too. I kept my promise. But I’ll make you another.” He looked at me with his magnificent blue eyes. “When you are one of us, I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. My obligations are the most important part of me. The heart of me. I won’t let you down.”

I said nothing.

He went on, “We’ll have two ceremonies. The first will happen right away—as soon as possible. It will be a ceremony to initiate you. And the next night you shall become mine.”

“Initiate me? Are you crazy? You think I will just be initiated? Easy as that?” I began to stand up. “Maybe you’re just trying to take advantage of me.”

His hand shot out and grabbed me. “You would give yourself to me right now and you know it. It is not that. Tell me, does your promise mean nothing to you?”

“I needed to save my aunt,” I said hotly.

“I need to save my people. We have waited for you. If you think I will let you walk away, think again.”

I gave a cynical noise. “You mean to hold me to that? Seriously? What’s the big deal about this prophecy? It’s just a coincidence that I asked for help.”

“It’s no coincidence.”

“Of course it is. How many people ask their neighbors for help? Thousands. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence and you play some terrible game, some magic perversion with spells and chants.”

“This isn’t some trivial game we are playing. This is our life. The Lucians have been together for two thousand years. And from the start your presence at our gate last night was foretold. One of the royal lineage who left us shall return. Begging. You are the one who will lead us to a new beginning, and your presence on our compound is a joyous one. We will not tolerate losing you.” He spoke so quietly and calmly, but I felt the edge beneath his words. “We need you. Don’t think of backing out and don’t even try to cross this bridge.” His words were said with such vehemence that I had no doubt he meant what he said.

“Yes, you. Here we are, dwindling in numbers, dying a bit more each generation. Holding on until the very last moment, never giving up hope. We have been rewarded. You are here. Think of those who will return. Think of how your presence will reinvigorate our group. My group. Which I will do anything to protect.”

“Don’t you think I should have some say in the matter?”

“No. None of us have a say in the matter.”

I decided to change the subject. “When you say a union, do you mean like a marriage?”

“Not in the traditional sense. Not usually. But you will be mine. All mine. Exactly how you imagine.”

I tried to ignore the nervousness that I felt when I heard his words. “I’m not even sure exactly who you are or what your group even does?”

“I bring truth. See the water?” he said, nodding to the river. “It rolls by, dark and ominous. Unpredictable.” He turned his head to look at me. “But you and I both know the truth. Beneath that surface lurks a whole world, hidden from us. From you and I. Fish, plants—”

I interrupted him. “My house. My garden.” A band of tightness wound around my chest. “My ring.” My voice cracked. “I left it on the floor next to my bed. I took it off before I went to sleep. It’s gone.”

“No. It’s not gone.” Another look. “It’s not visible, but it’s not gone. Still there nonetheless. Lurking unseen in the darkness. Lost.”

He stood up and offered me his hand. I took it, and easy as that, he pulled me up before he continued speaking. “As surely as you and I are standing here, your mother’s ring is underwater. It’s a truth, yet that truth is concealed to us. But, still, it is a truth. That’s what I bring to you. What I invite you to see. Truth.”

A gust of wind blew and whistled among the trees, and the moss that dangled from their limbs swayed back and forth. Navarre looked at me, but it was hard for me to meet his eyes. Everything seemed so raw and emotional, and the promises I uttered the night before felt foolish in the light of day.

“Are you having regrets?” he asked.

“Of course I am. I’m mortified. How do I know you are not some strange religion?”

“No. We only open your mind’s eye, and you then see the world as it is. See all truths.”

“But why don’t you have more people? Share it with the world? And why is everyone so suspicious of you?”

“Because not everyone deserves the truth.” For the first time, I heard a touch of anger in his voice. He reached out and cupped my hand in his. “Feel this,” he said. “My skin is calloused. I work hard. I fight hard. Just like everybody else. I’m no charlatan. I don’t profit from the truth. I’m a simple man with an obligation. I keep my promises, Zara. I’ll hold you to the same,” he warned.

When I returned Aunt Cleo was still sleeping in bed with a doctor attending to her. June sat beside her and took me aside to explain my aunt’s condition. She had suffered a head trauma and though the doctor expected her to make a recovery, she would suffer from confusion and headaches over the next few weeks. The doctor had given her medicine to help her sleep and she was to take it for the next four days.

By then I would be his.

When we finished discussing my aunt, June said to me, “Navarre’s decided. The initiation ceremony is to be in two nights. You’ll become one of us.” Then she leaned closer. “And one of his.”