Unity and Destiny Pt. 03

"That's monstrous," Esther said, shaking. "Do you have any idea what you did to those people? You used them like tools, then discarded them, all so you could get your visions within the canyon?"

"You can't comprehend the vastness of what we saw there. Even I could barely sort through it. I realized I didn't know enough—"

"And so you did it again, and again," said Esther, standing up. She'd never felt fury like this, not even at Franklin. "You selfish piece of dirt."

"I did it for you, Annie," Benjamin said, struggling not to cry.

"I'm ESTHER!" she yelled, running at the disgusting man.

A cool grip on her arm yanked her to a halt. It was Selena who was holding her, Selena who would never touch another person, unless it was an emergency.

Esther gasped a breath, then another. She looked at Selena's face, tired and strained with discomfort. There was nothing here but a pathetic old man, and a very good friend.

Selena sensed the moment was over, and she let go. Esther shook her head and moved away, trying to breathe into a calming meditation.

"Tell us how you left the canyon," said Selena. "You and the others. Surely it pulled you there with its power?"

Benjamin looked at her in surprise, and with a strange hunger. "Yes. How did you know about that? Have you been to the canyon? Where is it?"

"What?" Esther asked. "You know where it is—"

"First question first," said Selena. "How did you leave?"

"There is a meditation I learned as a child. They taught it to all of us who were Blessed enough to make the ancient place dangerous."

"Teach it to us," said Selena.

He looked at her as though she were crazy. "Me? Teach? I barely even remember it. I learned it so long ago that it was automatic when I needed it, but I suspect even that instinctive knowledge is gone now. As for the others, they were easy enough to lead out. By then their senses were utterly exhausted by the power of what we accomplished."

"Don't speak that way again about what you did," said Selena. "Just tell us absolutely everything you can remember about this meditation. The words your teachers used. The feelings it produced. Anything."

He sighed. "It was all about focusing your senses within your own body. In the end we are all governed by our senses, and that is how the ancient place overwhelms those with too many Blessings. The solution was a kind of reversal of the senses. I can't explain it, but that's how it felt to me. As though I was trying to listen to my own body from the outside in."

Esther nodded. This was useful information, and Selena was right to focus on it. Her own past was not what was important here.

"Is there anything else? Anything at all about the meditation?" Selena stepped closer, and Mr. Price flinched away, shaking his head. Selena sighed. "Then tell the rest of it quickly. You learned enough to know where to deposit Esther, after a year. How exactly did you do that?"

"I almost didn't manage," he said. "That's what I was going to tell you. They found me, somehow. A Chosen of immense power must have learned of the blasphemy I was doing. Or perhaps a group of them, in some form of Union I don't understand. That entity ripped the memories out of my mind, from what seemed an unthinkable distance. I didn't know that was possible. I lost some of my hard-earned memories of the Way, and all the details about the ancient canyon. When I attempted to contact my dream partners, that presence was there again to block me."

Esther and Selena exchanged a glance. Surely that had been Abuela.

"But I pieced together what I could, and in the end I had two linked events. First: Annie, rather Esther, would be undergoing another set of changes, the sort that we sometimes recognize in infants. In my case it happened shortly after I first began to talk. For a week I was silent again, and then I was subtly different. Or so my parents said.

"With you, it was closer to a month. You became more and more silent, and began to forget things. It was terrifying, though I guessed what was happening. Towards the end I had to feed you like a baby. And that's when I loaded you in my car and drove you to Virginia, the place where I'd worked out the second event was supposed to occur. I didn't understand what I was seeing. Just woods and a creek, a sense of place and time. I drove and followed my instinct, and somehow I knew where I needed to be. When I parked and walked into the woods, I saw them from a distance: two grieving parents, and a child who was obviously dead."

"She was dead before you arrived?" Selena asked sharply.

"Yes," he said. "I don't know how it happened. It was unnerving to me, even knowing how subtle the Way is. But I understood why I was there. That child was young, but Esther could pass for that age. And when she came to her senses I suspected she'd have no memories of me to weigh her down. So I brought her out and pushed her in that direction. She hadn't shown any signs of understanding for a week, but she walked to them as though she knew her destiny."

"Why did you leave her naked?" Selena asked. But Esther had already guessed the answer.

"They had to understand right away that I was unusual."

Benjamin nodded, gratified. "If they had rejected you, or brought you to someone else, I would have found another choice. Somehow. But they looked at you as though you were their salvation. I stayed nearby for a few more days, long enough to hear them call you by your new name. Long enough to believe they had taken you as their child, and to hear you speak again. Then I left."

Esther paced across the room. It made sense. She should be happy to know where she came from, or at least much more of it. But all she wanted to do was scream.

Selena spoke up. "Esther, is there anything else we need to ask him about the canyon? Or related matters?"

She tried to focus. What kinds of things had they been hoping to learn?

"Mr. Price," she said. "How many groups of Chosen do you think there are? Do they exist all over the world?"

He sighed. "I know people with Blessings may come from anywhere. A few members of my family's group had even come from the outside world, but they were not allowed to talk about their pasts. While growing up I was only aware of two other groups of Chosen, and only by rumor. Even my sister's husband wouldn't talk about the people he'd grown up with. I assumed there were more, but I never once ran across another gathering of Chosen in all my travels, and I am good at finding those with even subtle Blessings. I can't imagine they're common. But then I don't know what to make of my sister's comments about a schism. She seemed to be speaking of a broader community than I knew existed. Perhaps there are more than I know, using methods of concealment beyond my understanding. "

"Have you ever heard of a group of Chosen living inside another ancient place, like the canyon?"

His mouth opened in astonishment. "No! Of course not. There were tales of other ancient places, but again they were thought to be extremely rare. I can't believe the Chosen would profane an ancient place in that fashion. And what good could possibly come of it? Such places have too much power to be immersed in more than occasionally."

Was there anything else he could help with? Esther couldn't think of it. And she wanted to be rid of this man.

"Mr. Price," she said. "I know you started contacting your dream partners again, perhaps a year ago. I assume you realized you were no longer being blocked."

"It was only to find you," he insisted. "Small chance of that, but I hoped perhaps I would catch a glimpse. When I went back to Virginia years ago, you had moved and no one knew where you'd gone."

"You found me," she said. "And now you'll stop contacting people in dreams, forever. I know the person who stopped you all those years ago. And if you start again, I will stop you myself."

Benjamin flinched back, staring aghast at Esther. She shouldn't have revealed the scale of her power to him. She'd reached for something to make him scared, to show he didn't have power over her.

But now he was nodding vigorously. "I won't. I promise I won't. It was all I needed, to see that you were safe. The one good thing I did in my goddamned life."

Esther closed her eyes, thinking of Marianne, and all the others, lives damaged by Benjamin's casual cruelty on her behalf. He would keep this promise, and if he didn't, she believed she had the power to make him. That was good enough reason to have threatened him.

She turned and strode to the door, Selena hurrying after. Just as she walked out, he called one more thing.

"Please, Esther. Tell me your parents loved you. Tell me you had a good childhood."

She thought about not answering.

"They loved me," she said finally. "More than anything in the world. I had a good childhood."

She knew without looking the way his face relaxed at her answer, with a peace that he didn't deserve. But who was she to decide what he deserved, anyway? She'd given him the honest truth, that was all.

When they opened the car doors, a wave of ludicrously hot air poured out, and Mark was comfortably half-asleep on the floor in back.

* * *

It was dark by the time Nicola returned.

"Hey," Javier said, sitting on the bed next to her. "Long day?"

She didn't answer immediately, and Javier put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned against him, breathing carefully in a way that told him she was trying to meditate. Probably clearing her mind.

<< I have a lot to tell you >>, he said without saying. But Nicola didn't seem to notice. She'd have to be paying attention for it to even work.

"I'm tired," she said faintly. "This is a good place. But my brain isn't used to this much thinking. Maybe that's what's wrong. They said it shouldn't take so much thinking. I'm probably working too hard."

Javier thought he heard Nicola in there, still. But he needed to play his part as well.

"Nicola, they said I could stay if you wanted to stay. They were sure you would want to, but I know you haven't decided yet. But, see, there's something very important. If you decide to stay, there's only one way for me to stay. And I was already thinking about this, but I've been too scared to bring it up."

She finally seemed to be focusing on him, which was good.

"Nicola, would you marry me?"

Her eyes widened in surprise, but he saw her take a measured pause. And then she kissed him, a long desperate kiss that he suspected was as much for her to gather her thoughts. But he kissed her back just the same.

"Yes, José, of course I would marry you. Is that what would be needed for you to stay with me here? Is that why you asked?"

He hugged her. "Yes and no. They said it was necessary, though they called it 'binding'. But I would have asked eventually no matter what. We're meant for each other."

He was sure anyone listening would find this performance pathetic. But Margaret and Diana had seemed to believe it so far. Who knew what living in this place did to your judgment.

Nicola nodded slowly. "José, I still don't know if I'm staying. But I want you with me wherever we are. I guess we should have talked about this before, but better late than never, right?"

Now it sounded more like Nicola. There was pain in her tone, and Javier suddenly wondered whether she'd talked like this with Mark either.

"Let's not talk any more," said Javier. "I just want to curl up with you. I miss you. I hope they let me participate in devotions, or just let me out to see you more tomorrow."

"Me too," said Nicola. She got up to turn off the light, and as Javier's eyes adjusted he realized she'd dropped her robe on the chair before slipping under the covers. She would be naked underneath.

Javier undressed to his boxers, wondering what exactly he was doing. They were just acting here. Nicola was tired and hadn't wanted to put on anything more to sleep in.

When he squeezed in next to her, she pressed her entire body against his side, throwing one leg over his. He was frozen, overwhelmed by the intimacy.

<< I'm drowning >>, she said quietly into his head. << Talk to me. Tell me about your day. About Esther. About soccer. Anything. >>

So he began talking in that odd way. After a few sentences she told him to slow down, and he did. He told her everything that had happened that day, about the meeting with the elders, what he'd guessed, and of course Esther's message.

<< I keep dreaming she and Mark will come down on this place like God's own angels >>, she said. << It's the only thing that kept me from succumbing this evening. That and thinking of you. I don't know what would happen if I plunged fully into this Unity. I can feel how much they want me to, and it's pulling at me like the most powerful drug you can imagine. And if I did succumb, I couldn't hide my strength any longer. I'm like a rare prize to them, and it's scary how excited they are to add my strength to theirs. But they don't even understand how much I'm hiding. >>

<< Tell me about what you saw when they carried us in. Were we on that path that you can see from the dining room? Is that where the vehicles are? >>

<< Yes. Not too far down that path, I think. But it's not so easy. I met a familiar guy today, someone I recognized as one of Lukas's group, and he definitely remembered me. Aside from Janelle he was physically the strongest person Lukas had. I bet he's the one who told them about me and Mark. He was on guard duty today, and he let slip that there's a guarded gate and only one way in or out. There were other new people I met today, guards or people caring for children. People with more Changes than I'd seen before, aside from Diana. That was confirmed this afternoon when we went skinny-dipping in that freezing lake. I thought my tits were going to fall off. Anyway, I think Diana spends most of her time doing things in the outside world, but she's sticking around for the moment. Probably they're still nervous about me or someone coming after me. >>

Javier thought about that.

<< I wanted to come up with a distraction, and then run to steal the car. Maybe we could distract guards. Maybe we could smash through the gate, or you could manage to off-road it for long enough. Or we could escape into the woods on food. But probably none of that would get us past Diana. >>

<< The Huntress >>, Nicola agreed. << She's fucking terrifying. We're not going to do this without outside help. Fuck, I'm tired. Losing concentration again. Give me a few minutes. >>

She settled closer against him, her arm draping over his chest. Javier was painfully aware of the warmth of her crotch, pressing against his hip. Only his underwear separating them. He was getting an erection, and to his embarrassment Nicola shifted her leg to accommodate him.

<< Sharing senses with Esther felt like really good sex >>, Nicola said eventually. << Unity with them feels more like a drug. They're all addicted, but they don't notice. It's just part of their identity now. I'm terrified, because I think I'm having withdrawal pains. I need distraction so I don't give in or go insane. >>

She pressed her crotch more insistently against him, as if Javier hadn't guessed what kind of distraction she wanted. He was sure this was a terrible idea. Every part of him except his stupid dick.

He found himself stroking her bare shoulder, and she reached eagerly to feel his dick.

"Not yet," he blurted out loud. Well, if someone was listening to them, it was plausible bed talk.

She stopped, unsure, and Javier kissed her, trying to sort out what he felt. It was hopeless. All mixed up. He moved his hand closer to her breast and she quickened her breath.

<< Well >>, he said silently. << I guess we are engaged now. >>

Nicola let out a brief laugh, and it was what Javier needed. She wasn't a total zombie, or out of her mind. He circled her breast with his hand, finding the sensitive spots on her chest. Almost like Esther. Nicola caught her breath and stroked his hair.

When he took her nipple in his mouth, she growled and rolled on top of him, pinning his arms back and tantalizing him with her breasts. After a bit she pulled away, and he struggled against her. She held him harder. He thrashed, and her grip tightened.

She was stronger than he was, and she was enjoying this. She pulled his boxers down, letting his dick pop into the open air. And now she began to kiss his chest, further and further down. He stopped struggling and she grasped his turgid shaft in her hand.

"So big," she murmured, and he was embarrassed. Only a little bigger than Mark. But she bent over and took him in her mouth, swirling her tongue the way she probably did with Mark. He didn't want to think about that, so instead he thought of Esther, joined in blissful ecstasy with Nicola. And maybe him, holding Esther, or Nicola, or both. His dick twitched with another long stroke of Nicola's tongue and she started to brush his balls lightly. Different from Esther. He wanted to make her forget everything.

Just as suddenly as she'd started, Nicola pulled away from his dick, and he reached for her. But she held him down again, sitting on his chest. And then she moved forward, and his world was filled with the powerful smell of her pussy, her wet arousal leaving a trail across his chest.

When she sat on his face, he kissed her as gently as he could. Thick pubic hair tickled his nose, and he tried to remember what this was like. He'd done it for Kat that one time over the summer, but he'd been so distracted that he barely remembered. And Esther was so unlike other women.

Nicola growled and ground herself against him, making it hard to breathe. But he kept kissing her slowly, learning her delicate folds and skirting around her clit.

"Just do me, you fucker," Nicola hissed, and Javier almost giggled. But he wanted to keep her frustrated and distracted as long as he could.

He started using his tongue, long strokes up and down each side, as slowly as he could. When she rocked herself against him in frustration, he reached to hold her butt. He suddenly remembered the spots on her thigh continued around to the base of one cheek, and he ran his fingers lightly on that side. The gasp she made told him he'd remembered correctly.

He increased the speed of his tongue, still well short of what Nicola wanted. His face was dripping with her juices, and her whole body was shuddering, but he held his pace as steady as he could. Nicola was making a soft sound, so strange and quiet that he couldn't even make sense of it. And she was crying, but he didn't know what that meant. In truth, he didn't know anything about how she responded. He was guessing, and painfully aware that both Esther and Mark knew her body perfectly, could remember everything she liked the first time around—

Nicola stiffened and her pussy pulsed against him, her thighs squeezing him uncomfortably tightly. She had a hand at her mouth, but she was making that noise again, louder now. More than one pitch, like a fractured chorus. It was beautiful and alien and heartrending.

She was starting a titanic orgasm, that much was clear. He held on and kept licking her even as she bucked and cried and sang. He'd heard her orgasm before, occasionally from across the camp. But this was something private, something he'd never heard.

When it was done, she slid back bonelessly, curling her torso to hold Javier's head. He kissed her breasts and she put her lips on his head. But she didn't say anything at all. For a long while they lay together that way.