Unity and Destiny Pt. 07

After dinner, she was pleased to find the others helping without complaint, though without talking much either. Mark was obviously exhausted, but he insisted on standing and drying dishes all the same.

"In the morning we'll figure out what tasks you are all best suited for," said Tyrone. "Good night, and sleep well. If you find you're missing something overnight, you can come in and bang on Samuel's door. He drew the short straw."

Samuel smiled slightly, and they said their good-nights. Selena followed the rest of them silently to the little cottage. It was a clear, chilly evening, the moon lighting the landscape far into the distance.

When they all got inside, Javier sighed. "Can we talk freely?"

Esther nodded. "Diana is the only one sensitive enough to eavesdrop from this distance, and she will not be offended to find me concealing us."

"Why do you give a fuck what Diana thinks?" Nicola asked, flopping down on the couch.

"She's just being polite," Javier said.

"Is that what it was?" Nicola asked. "Chumming up to all of them at dinner? We're here because Mark needs training, and you want some information. That's all. We don't need them to like us."

"It would make it easier," Esther said uncomfortably.

"These people need someone to drag them into the fucking twentieth century. And someone to take those poor kids away before they get turned into zombies too. Me keeping my mouth shut? That's as polite as it gets, Esther. I'm going to bed."

Mark looked after Nicola unhappily before following her into their bedroom and closing the door.

Selena looked back at Esther. "I know you want to get along with these people, and I won't get in the way of that. But I'm not going to help them. I'm going to do my fair share of the work as long as I stay here, but that's all. Esther, you must realize I'm here for your sake, and Mark's. I'll watch and try to see if there's more here than meets the eye. I'll try more actively to find things out if you'd like me to. And I still desperately need your instruction. But we don't owe these people anything. Diana is dangerous, and you can't possibly understand her motivations as well as you think, not without understanding Unity. Never forget that."

Esther managed to hold back the tears until Selena left. And by then Javier was already holding her tight.

"I don't think you're wrong," he said. "We don't lose anything by being polite, and I know how much you learned from Diana by getting her to trust you. Besides, this group is already different from the one in the ancient place. Something big split them away from the others. I'll do whatever you think is best, Esther. Let's go to bed, and let's talk."

But when they squeezed into the tiny bed together, neither of them felt much like talking. And that was all right, because Javier's hand was stroking her under the ear, and she couldn't seem to stop tracing that line up the inside of his thigh, the one that made him shiver every time. And as their hearts sped together, their smells and tastes and sounds mixing, for once it didn't feel like an escape. It was the two of them, holding hands and running into a future neither of them could see.

It was only in the beautiful afterglow, as Javier's breath slowed against her ear, that Esther's thoughts turned to Unity, and she began to wonder again whether the future really was so unknowable.

* * *

Nicola kicked the bucket of concrete mix and flung her shovel away, cursing loudly enough that the kids could probably hear it all the way back in the house.

"Lunch time?" Javier asked, and Nicola shook her head wordlessly. But she joined him anyway, sitting in the shade of the utility truck.

They were alone, of course. Nicola had demanded an assignment that let her work alone, and she'd grudgingly admitted to her construction expertise. Javier was helping her mostly to make sure she didn't do anything stupid. After two days, he wasn't sure how successful he'd been at that. But despite everything the greenhouse was coming along well enough that the Chosen had no reason to complain.

It hadn't taken Javier much to find out what the big schism was about. Everyone here knew of the gigantic fight Diana had gotten into with some other elders when she revealed that she'd allowed the Owl to cure Peter. But it wasn't just about that. Tensions had never really lowered after the Exodus from the ancient place, and old arguments came up, mixed with new. Diana insisted they'd mistaken their interpretation of the vision that sent her to the power plant. Others had blamed Diana's excessive Blessings for putting her out of balance with Harmony, and of course they'd seen Tanaka's disabling vision as proof, when it hit those most Blessed the hardest. The other elders' suspicion of the Owl's great Blessings only heightened the divide.

In the end it had shaken out with Diana effectively expelled, along with the others with the most Changes: Samuel, Peter, Henry, Mateo, and Eva. The rest of this group had joined them voluntarily. Knowing the reasons for the split made Javier feel a lot more kindly towards these particular Chosen.

Javier glanced towards the grassy field, as he'd already done many times. Mark had been out there for an hour, sparring with Henry and Diana as they'd done yesterday for several hours. It was painful to watch, and no doubt it was worse for Nicola. Over and over, Mark was grabbed, tossed, pummeled, pinned down. His movements were slow, clumsy, and utterly unlike anything they used to be. But he kept getting up, nodding mildly, sometimes asking a question. Finally he had to sit down, and then it was worse, because when Diana and Henry sparred Javier could see how much the other two had been holding back. Despite Henry's skill, he was no match for Diana's unbelievable speed and wiry strength. But surely the old Mark could have handled both of them at once.

"It's not the same at all, is it?" Nicola said.

Javier looked at her uncertainly.

"The same as last time," she clarified. "I was so fucking terrified, and I had to pretend I loved all of them even while my mind melted away. These people are just shitheads, and I could walk right up and tell them that. There's nothing holding me here. I could walk right out of here. I could pick up Mark and he couldn't even stop me."

She stopped talking suddenly, putting her face in her hands. Javier slid slightly closer, but Nicola didn't seem to want comforting.

"When we were captives, I was going to do that to you," Javier said finally. "I spent half a night worrying about exactly how hard I needed to hit you on the head with a rock, so that you couldn't fight me when I took you from that place."

"Hopefully not as hard as you hit Castillo," Nicola muttered.

Pain shot through Javier's stomach, and dimly he was aware of Nicola raising her head, looking horrified at what she'd said, and trying to frame an apology. Some strange noise was coming out of Javier's mouth, a gurgling moan. It was a sort of laugh, though. Because it was too terrible to do anything else. And the pain wasn't quite so bad as long as he kept doing it.

Nicola put her hand on his knee. When Javier finally stopped, she leaned against him.

"This is such shit," she said.

Javier nodded, wiping his eyes. "I half want to rig this greenhouse so it falls over."

"Don't think I haven't considered it, Javier. C'mon, let's eat lunch."

He wasn't particularly hungry, but he did his best on the bland sandwich. And when they'd finished, Nicola put her arm around him.

"It would've been the right thing," she said. "No matter how hard you hit me, that's what I would have wanted."

* * *

"Elizabeth tells me you are a wonderful, patient teacher," said Diana. "She said she might have learned properly the first time if she'd had someone like you."

They sat together at a table in one of the unused cabins. Gray afternoon light filtered through the large window.

"That's kind of her," said Esther. In truth she'd found the whole experience exhausting and disheartening. She could think of thousands of ways to explain the concepts, and had no idea which ones were appropriate. She could recite lessons from her one year of formal high school math, but Eva wasn't ready for calculus, and the children definitely weren't. She wasn't even sure they'd been good lessons anyway.

They lapsed into silence.

"I need to attend devotions in an hour," said Diana. "With so few of us, we all must join to achieve glimpses of the Way. Please, ask me what you will."

Esther swallowed uncomfortably. "I want to know what you have seen. All of it that you remember."

"I'm not sure that is appropriate," said Diana after a pause. "I should not have told you as much as I did, before. This is a matter for the Chosen, and yet you have all rejected Unity."

"We have rejected Unity," said Esther. "We have not rejected the Way, though we do not claim to understand it as you do. And we certainly are trying to find our path to harmony."

Diana nodded, frowning. "You use my own argument against me. Did you listen to it all, from so far away?"

Esther shook her head. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I imagine it has to do with your split from the others?"

Diana nodded and looked out the window.

"It's not a secret," she said. "The pain is too fresh, and I would simply rather let another explain. You are right, of course. You are all searching for your own glimpses of the Way. I suppose I'm surprised that I have anything to offer someone with vision like yours. My memory is precise, but my sight has only occasionally been clear. It may not be as helpful as you expect, and it would take far longer than an hour."

"There is an alternative," said Esther. "It will still take time, but it will let me see everything you do. It is something like what I did with Peter. I would even perceive the images and feelings that are too confused for you to put in words. But I have to warn you that it is a very intimate thing, and you may also sense some of what I am feeling. I would of course make every effort to preserve your privacy about things you do not wish me to see or feel."

Diana was silent for a long time.

"Peter thought he had joined Unity," she said finally. "But with just a single other person. He speaks of it with joy, when he remembers. I don't believe you intend any harm with what you propose, but you say yourself you don't understand Unity, and are not interested in ever joining properly. Tell me, Esther, what is it that makes you so desperate to know what is in my head?"

Esther didn't know what to tell her. And so, in her halting way, she began to talk about the feeling when she'd recognized the vision of the Kobe earthquake. Her terror about the future, and what she might become. She didn't say in so many words what she was already capable of, but Diana wasn't stupid, and surely she was beginning to guess. It was a foolish risk, a reckless admission, but Esther knew deep down that Diana would never betray her about this.

When she'd finished, Diana looked at her, wonder and concern in her eyes.

"You seek the Way," Diana said slowly. "You need to discern your own path, and now I begin to understand why Unity may never be your route. Your Blessings so vastly exceed mine, or any I have heard of. Attempting Unity would never be a balanced endeavor, as you could never separate your own thoughts from true visions. It speaks well that you reached this understanding on your own, without any of our traditions to guide you. And now I see the Way has brought us to this moment, so that I may provide the modest benefit of my perspective. Though I must warn you of what I said before. I also have always feared unbalancing Unity with my strength. Everything I might show you is tainted with my own imperfections."

"As for any of us," Esther said, and Diana smiled.

"Well," Diana said. "How exactly does this work?"

"We should touch, skin to skin," Esther said. "I usually undress partly. Then I will guide you. If you need to stop, I will likely sense it anyway, but you should remain free to pull away from me."

Diana nodded, looking more uncomfortable. "If you were so inclined, would you be able to prevent me from breaking away? The way you held me still in the ancient place?"

Esther nodded. "I'm afraid so. I would never do such a thing, of course. I only immobilized you then because every alternative seemed worse. But I should warn you there are at least a few in the world with coercive abilities and the willingness to use them. The ability to change perceptions, memories, thoughts. I helped to defeat a man like this, one who had enslaved many others, those with and without Blessings."

Diana looked sick. "That is disgusting," she said. "To use Blessings in such a way. When we perform the devotions of forgetting, there is always a choice, as much as we can provide." But her gaze was distant, and Esther wondered if she was thinking again of what they'd done to her son when he was young, to limit his Blessings.

Esther shook her head. "And to Nicola, the influence of the ancient place and the pull of Unity were exactly such a use of Blessings. Consider that when you wonder why she's so angry."

Diana looked as though Esther had slapped her. But finally she nodded unhappily.

"Perhaps the Way has brought you here for other reasons as well. To unsettle some of my arrogance, in those places I've learned to overlook. Very well, then. I don't have much time left, but we might as well see if this is going to work."

Without apparent concern, Diana stood up and undressed, folding her simple work clothes on the table. Nudity was an ordinary part of life for them, Esther reminded herself. Of less notice even than it was for Nicola.

Diana's Changes were something Esther was already aware of, from her desperate early attempts to probe the invisible stranger. But of course Esther kept them out of mind when she could, in a way that was slowly becoming second nature. The brownish-red markings extended up the back of one thigh and spread like faint vines across the lean muscles of Diana's back.

A woman in the prime of life, though she was probably in her seventies. Esther stood up and removed her upper layers. Diana's gaze was casual, curious at most, but of course Esther wasn't as comfortable. Likely she never would be. She motioned Diana to sit, and then she put her arms around the older woman in her usual way.

To Esther's relief, there was nothing erotic in the joining. But it was as easy as with Nicola. Diana's senses were incredibly acute, and there was a rich foreign feel to everything. She heard Diana gasp, and she hurriedly retreated farther into otherspace, letting Diana gather her memories with less distraction.

Perhaps the presentation was meant to be chronological, or follow some other logic of Diana's making. But to Esther it was a confusing sequence of images, sounds, and feelings, and she struggled to follow it. When she edged closer to Diana's senses, it was easier, but she could feel Diana's discomfort.

A boy waiting at a train station. A vulture circling over a rocky hillside. Blurry faces laughing in a crowd, a hand taking an envelope, strange colors, lightning flickering in the distance. Esther slowly unraveled the way Diana's mind had compressed this information, and she followed more easily, sensing a time and place for many images. These were all old visions, from the time Diana had lived with all the others on this very farm. They came faster and faster, as Esther quietly urged Diana ahead.

A brilliantly decorated room. Something like a throne at the front, a single man sitting with his eyes closed, mind elsewhere. Books and papers floating like fallen leaves next to a boat. An athlete raising his arms in triumph after a race. An older woman, cloak around her face, hurrying through the woods in the night, holding a wrapped bundle. The woman turned, and her face was oddly familiar. Esther distantly heard her own astonished yelp.

By the time she'd opened her eyes, she was sitting several feet away from Diana, trying to control her breathing. Diana rubbed her eyes and focused on Esther with difficulty.

"That was difficult," Diana said slowly, standing up and retrieving her clothes. "I'm afraid there is much more to share than that, but I sense I'm already late for devotions. Was it as uncomfortable for you as well?"

"Yes," said Esther, relieved that she wouldn't have to explain her reaction. "But I think it is very important to finish this another time, if you're still willing."

"I am," said Diana. "And I admit to a selfish motive as well. The things I felt with your senses, even at such a remove—it was astonishing, Esther. And comforting, in truth. It's not easy believing there is no one who perceives the world the way you do."

"No," agreed Esther. Diana gave her a nod of sympathy before walking out of the cabin.

Esther had no paper to draw on, but she had a pen in her pocket, and the ink would wash off of her palm. And so she drew, desperately solidifying these precious glimpses of Unity. Surely all of those scenes were in the past now, whether they had originally been prophetic visions or simply snapshots of contemporaneous events. When she was finally finished, she had to confront the last vision.

The woman in the cloak had surely been Benjamin's sister. The resemblance was unmistakable. Diana's memory placed this vision some twenty-nine years ago, which meant Esther could not deny what the bundle was. Or rather, who it was.

* * *

Javier knew there was something wrong the moment he saw Esther at dinner. He sat with her and the Chosen, trying to make polite conversation with Tyrone, wondering if her distress was as obvious to everyone else. He suspected it wasn't. Esther was very practiced at hiding her worries.

When dinner was over, he caught Selena alone.

"I guess the three of you meant to practice with Esther again tonight," he said. "There's something really wrong. I don't think she should keep pushing on until she talks about it."

Selena glanced at Esther and nodded. Of course Esther could hear this conversation, but it was just as well.

The others had heard as well. When they left the main house, it was Nicola who spoke up.

"The three of us should practice on our own tonight," she said. "God knows I have enough to work on. Maybe Selena can give us her own tips."

Esther sighed and nodded, knowing how she was being handled. When they went in their cottage, she started undressing right at the door. Javier raised his eyebrows, wondering if she was trying to distract herself another way. And sure enough, she kissed him with a desperate passion that on most nights would have had him ready to fuck her brains out.

So he kissed her, and he ran his hands over her naked skin, finding the places that relaxed her, letting her try without success to get his dick to respond, until she finally started crying.

"I don't want to think about it, Javier," she sniffled. "I'd rather do anything else. Could you at least get into bed with me?"

It was twenty minutes before he finally coaxed Esther to begin talking. She murmured into his shoulder while he stroked her back and tried to stay calm for both of them. But Javier thought it was a terrible risk she'd taken, admitting so much to Diana and then going so far as to share senses. And he wasn't sure what she'd gained from it, aside from confirmation of a past that she'd be better off putting behind her, just as she herself had intended.

When she finished, he kissed her for a long time.

"I'm sure there's information in those confused visions," he said. "Your mind may dig it out, when you combine it with the other information you have. But I don't see what the point is worrying about Benjamin's sister. You pretty much believed his story already, and that's a past that you'll never remember. A different Esther entirely. Maybe you're another year older than you thought, but you hardly look it."