The Soulkeepers (20 page)

"She's nowhere. You won't find her. She's no
longer of this Earth, " Dr. Silva said.

"I'm going to find her. I will find her,
with or without you. You didn't hold up your end of the bargain,
Dr. Silva. Don't think I'm going to forget that any time soon."

Jacob turned his back on her and stomped
across Rural Route One.

He entered the Laudners' house and slammed
the door behind him. He was relieved that no one was home. It was
late morning on Sunday and he assumed they were still at church.
The one highlight of this weekend was he wouldn't have to sit
through another hour of mass.

Up the stairs, down the hall and to the pink
room, he bolted. The shock of what he saw left him standing in the
doorway. The pink room wasn't pink. The walls were the dark gray
blue that Malini had picked out. The bedspread had been replaced
with a light brown comforter and the floral wingback was now an
orange chair. The antique furniture was gone, replaced with walnut,
brushed nickel and glass. On the desk was a laptop computer.

Leaning against the doorframe, he tried to
shift gears from the anger and disappointment he'd felt with Dr.
Silva to the emotion that overwhelmed him now. Jacob could not
process the generosity or the time and effort the room represented.
He stared into the space, trying to sort it out, long enough for
his shoulder to ache from the leaning.

"Do you like it?" Uncle John asked from the
hall behind him.

Jacob hadn't even heard him come in.

"It's fantastic. How did you…?"

"Malini helped. She picked out most of this
stuff. I just did the painting. She should be here any minute. Said
she was coming by with a late birthday gift for you."

"It's amazing. It's really…more than you
should have."

"Don't mention it."

He felt like there was something else he
should say but Jacob couldn't find the words. The most he could
manage was a nod in John's direction.

"Well," John said, "you must be tired.
Abigail said she would have you up all night running tests and by
those bags under your eyes she wasn't kidding. Why don't you try
out that new bed of yours? I'll wake you up when Malini gets here."
He smiled before wandering off toward the stairs.

Jacob crawled under the comforter, hoping
for dreamless sleep. But the gratitude he felt about the room was
not strong enough to hold back his worry for his mother. He closed
his eyes. Why hadn't Dr. Silva told him the whole truth about what
the medicine woman had said? He was positive she was holding
something back. What was it she had said? "It is best that you
consider your mother dead. She's in a spiritual destination, not a
physical one." Well, if that wasn't a load of crap, he didn't know
what was. Just the thought that his mother might be some maniac's
prisoner, suffering somewhere that was so bad she might as well be
dead was enough to make every muscle in his body tighten to the
point of nausea.

As he rolled over to try to avoid getting
sick, the stone that hung around his neck caught under his body and
the cord dug into his skin. He adjusted himself, pulling the red
stone off over his head. Turning it between his fingers, the light
from the window exposed facets deep beneath the smooth exterior.
There was something in there: something black, something shifting.
Warm in his hand, the disc seemed to grow larger. He could feel
himself being pulled forward into the redness.

"How'd it go last night?" Malini's head
poked through the door. Jacob snapped out of it.

"Fine." Reluctantly, he set the stone on the
nightstand.

"That's beautiful. Where did you get it?"
she asked, moving toward the table.

"Don't touch it!" he snapped and snatched it
back up. Immediately, he felt embarrassed about yelling at her.
"I'm sorry, Malini. I'm really tired. That came out wrong. The
edges are sharp. See I cut my hand." He held up his cut palm. "I
made it from a stone I found in Dr. Silva's garden."

He hated lying to Malini.

"Oh," Malini said, a note of concern in her
voice.

Jacob slid the stone under his pillow.

"I brought you something," she said, handing
him a package.

"You didn't have to do that. This place is
amazing. John told me you helped him do this."

"You're welcome, but I wanted you to have
this too."

When he yanked the wrapping paper off, a
heavy book fell into his lap.

"I know for a fact you don't already have
one," she added.

It was a Bible. He ran his hand over the
black leather cover and frowned.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't believe in God," he said, plainly.
"God is something people made up to control other people."

"Why would you think that?"

"Malini, no offense, I know this is what you
believe, but I just feel that more wars are fought over religion
than anything else. If it wasn't for religion, we would have a more
peaceful world." He looked away from her, out the window. "For one,
my dad would be alive."

"What?"

"He died in Afghanistan. It started as a
religious thing you know… Muslim Jihad."

"I'm so sorry, Jacob." She crawled onto the
bed behind him and circled his shoulders with her arms. Her cheek
rested against his ear. "It still hurts." It was a statement not a
question but something in him wanted to deny it.

"No. Not really. It's been years. I miss him
but it's not as raw as it used to be."

"And your mom? Any word on what happened to
her?"

"No one knows for sure, still."

"That's horrible. It must be so difficult
for you."

"It is," Jacob whispered.

"I can't disagree with you on the war thing,
but I will tell you that what people have done with religion hasn't
always been what they should have done. People are corrupt; they
make bad choices, they bend the truth for their own gain. But
before you reject God, the entire concept of God, I think you
should know what you are rejecting for yourself. How much of the
Bible have you read?"

"Just what you've read me."

"So, then you've never actually learned what
it says?"

"No."

Jacob stared blankly out the window. The
last thing he needed right now was to have religion shoved down his
throat. It was all voodoo, no better than the dancing of the Achuar
tribe. There were different words, different objects but it was all
a false comfort. People needed a story to tell themselves and
religion made a nice one.

"I won't bother you anymore about this." It
was as if Malini could tell she was pushing him too far. "I know
you don't need talk, you need hope."

She ran her hand over the black cover of the
Bible, as if to say that hope was right under her fingertips, just
inches away.

Jacob turned his head to look at her. She
had good intentions, but he knew better. He'd make his own hope.
Jacob had a plan and although Malini didn't know it yet, she was
already a part of it.

The Skeleton is Thrown From
The Closet

The next Saturday morning Jacob woke to the
front door slamming. He looked out of his window to see Carolyn and
Uncle John backing out of the driveway.

"Whitaker Wedding," Katrina said from his
doorway.

He jumped at the sound of her voice. He'd
assumed she'd gone with them. Before he could tell her to take a
hike, she helped herself to a seat at his new desk.

"So, how's it feel to be the family charity
case?" she said. "My God, look at this place."

"Excuse me?" he said. "If you have nothing
nice to say, just leave. Get out of my room."

"Well, I just thought we should get to know
each other, I mean if you're staying and I'm leaving."

"Katrina, you haven't said more than a
sentence to me in months. You've treated me like crap since I
walked in that door. Why in the world would we get to know each
other now?" He glared at her and pulled a t-shirt over his head

"Do you want to know why I hate you, Jacob?"
she said.

He did not dignify the question with an
answer.

She seemed to be considering something. She
tapped her fingers on the desk for so long Jacob was tempted to
reach out and slap her hand. "Has anyone told you why we'd never
met before you came here?" she said.

"No. I never got a straight answer on that
one."

She looked at the floor. "Paris is a small
town, an all-American town. Do you know that almost every man in
the Laudner family has served in the military?"

"No. I didn't know that."

"They did. See our Grandfather served in the
Navy during World War II." She motioned for him to follow her out
into the hall and pointed at a yellowed picture of a man on an old
battleship." In 1944, he was on the USS Essex when a Kamikaze pilot
hit it. You know what Kamikazi were, right?"

"Of course, I grew up near Pearl Harbor.
They were Japanese suicide pilots. So what?"

"Grandpa's ship was hit by one," she
repeated. "He lived but he never fully recovered. He had nightmares
about that last day on the Essex for decades. And, as you can
understand, he hated the Japanese until the day he died. It was
just two years ago, you know."

Jacob's face twisted. If Grandpa Laudner
died just two years ago, he was alive at the time of his father's
death. Why hadn't he ever met the man?

"Here's a picture of our great Uncle Jerry,
grandpa's younger brother." She pointed her finger at one of three
uniformed men standing in front of the Laudner oak tree. Jacob
recognized the man on Uncle Jerry's right to be a young Uncle John
and on the left was the same man from the picture with the USS
Essex. It was Grandpa Laudner but older.

"Grandpa must have been so proud when his
brother left for Korea. I never met Uncle Jerry though. He was
killed in 1952 in the war."

The picture of Uncle Jerry was yellowing but
the man looked young, too young to die in a far away war.

"My dad fought in Vietnam. Barely made it
out alive."

"Katrina, I'm really sorry about your uncle
and grandfather, but what has this got to do with me?"

"It has everything to do with you Jacob. IT
IS YOU!" she hissed. "Don't you get it? Your father, my Uncle
Charlie, after all the pain these Orientals caused this family,
brought one home to marry!"

Jacob's breath stopped in his throat.
"What?"

"You heard me."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He
knew there was bigotry in Paris, but Uncle John had treated him
pretty well since coming here. Katrina must be exaggerating. There
was no way marrying his mother was reason enough for John to cut
off his own brother.

"Grandma was beside herself. Grandpa told
Uncle Charlie it was your mother or the family. Uncle Charlie chose
your mother. "

"That doesn't even make sense. My mother was
Chinese. She wasn't Japanese or Vietnamese, and she wasn't a
soldier."

"So, there's a difference?"

Jacob stepped back as if her words had
knuckles. It was all he could do not to punch the smirk right off
her face. She was lucky he wasn't near water or she might be a
popsicle. Katrina was a liar and for all he knew this was a ploy to
crack him. She would love it if he blew up again.

"That's why you've never met us. Uncle
Charlie was estranged from our family since I was three years old.
My mother told me he even changed his name as a last strike of
defiance against our Grandpa. That's why your last name is Lau, not
Laudner. Apparently being married to one wasn't enough."

What she said was horrible but was it true?
He scanned the images lining the hall. Every one of them was white.
It would explain some things. Was this what Uncle John was talking
about when he mentioned the worst thing he's ever done? Jacob had
to admit the pieces of the past fit within this frame. Uncle John
and the rest of the Laudner family had disowned his father for
marrying his mother.

But something didn't make sense about
Katrina's story. Something was missing. The way she paraded the
family skeletons made Jacob believe there was something else. He
didn't trust her, but still, he needed to know the truth.

"So, you're telling me that your family is a
bunch of bigots." His voice sounded louder than he'd intended. "If
that were true, then why did Uncle John bring me here?"

"First of all, there's a difference between
bigotry and good common sense." She sneered at him and he resisted
the urge to slap her. Through her teeth she growled. "My father
brought you here because I'm a girl. My parents can't have any more
children. That means that you, as hopeless as you are, are the last
male Laudner heir. Apparently, meeting the terms of our great,
great, grandfather's one hundred fifty-year-old last will and
testament is so important that it is worth associating with
you."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"The shop, the Laudner livelihood, is held
in trust based on a vision our great, great, grandfather had one
hundred fifty years ago. The shop must be handed down to a male
heir or the property will be donated to the city. No it doesn't
make sense. But it's the truth. So excuse me for not being
overjoyed at your presence here. I've worked in that shop for my
entire life and they pick you. I'll be gone soon enough and you can
swoop in and seal the deal. My inheritance is all but yours.
Obviously, my father hasn't had any problem casting me aside for
you."

Katrina stormed toward her room, slamming
the door behind her.

"I don't even want it. You can have it!" He
yelled after her. He could hear the click of her door locking
behind her.

Jacob rubbed his eyes with the heels of his
palms. It made sense. This was why he'd never in his life heard of
the Laudners. In a numb fog, he dropped his hands and backed down
the hall. Never taking his eyes off of Katrina's door, he backed
into his new bed and collapsed on the comforter. He lay on his side
with his knees to his chest. It wasn't his choice to come here; it
certainly wasn't his choice to stay. At this point, he had very few
choices.