Her hair is black, without a trace of grey, and her is face brown, like mine. It looks coffee coloured against her white blouse, but her features are more Native American than Mexican: broad face, a flat nose, wide-set eyes.
Those eyes. Her penetrating gaze tells me she's anything but a bag lady, for all that she sits here on a junked sofa under this overpass, with a red shawl around her sloped shoulders and the folds of her blue cotton skirt falling to the ground.
I don't need the super-ping coming from her to know why Elzie would describe her as formidable.
The ground seems strange and spongy underfoot—as though it's not entirely solid anymore—and I feel like a little girl who still has everything to learn about the world.
She gives me a slow smile, as though she knows exactly what I'm thinking and approves of my acceptance of my place in the order of things. That smile says that I can't learn until I've realized my own ignorance.
"Hey, Auntie Min," Elzie says as we approach the sofa.
Her casual greeting breaks the spell. Auntie Min's gaze remains deep, but it's mild at the same time. The ground feels solid again, no give, unless I step on a squishy piece of garbage.
Elzie flops down beside the old woman. I can't believe she'd do that uninvited, but there are so many things I don't know about the older animal people.
Desmond and I look around. Desmond spots a couple more old wooden fruit crates and drags them over for us to use as stools.
"These are my friends," Elzie says. "Marina and Desmond."
Auntie Min nods a greeting as she looks from me to Desmond. Her gaze rests on him for a long moment.
"Why did you bring a five-fingered being to see me?" she asks Elzie.
Desmond looks confused. "Five-fingered being?" he starts, but Elzie lifts a hand and wiggles her fingers.
"Humans," she explains. "Wildlings only have hands in their human shapes, so the old cousins call you a five-fingered being."
"So why's she only looking at me?" he asks. "What about Marina?"
When Elzie doesn't reply, he turns to me. I almost see the light go off in his head. Oh crap. I didn't see this coming.
"Seriously?" he says. "You're a Wildling, too? Is everybody one except for me?"
"It's not like you think," I tell him.
"How's it not like I think? We're supposed to be friends. Josh told us as soon as it happened."
"And look where that got him," I say.
I want to pull the words back into my mouth when I see the hurt in his eyes, but it's too late.
"I guess you just knew I'd screw up," he says.
I shake my head. "I didn't know that for sure. I trusted you to try to do the right thing, but I didn't think it was fair to put the burden of my secret on anyone but me."
"Why don't you just admit that you don't trust me? That you've never trusted me?"
"Because it's not true."
"I noticed you said 'try,' not 'do.'"
"Oh, for God's sake, Des. Get your head out of your ass. It's not about you, it's about me and my own fears."
Elzie clears her throat. We both look at her.
"Not really the time or place to bicker," she says.
"Really?" Auntie Min says with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "I'm finding it pretty entertaining."
"I'm sure you are," Elzie tells her, "but right now we've got big trouble."
Auntie Min cocks an eyebrow. "Tell me what happened," she says.
Elzie tilts her head toward us. "Let them tell it. They were there."
Desmond and I take turns relating the story of Josh's capture. I see Auntie Min is paying attention, but she remains expressionless.
"I wish you'd brought him here before this happened," she says to Elzie, when we're done. "I haven't seen one of the Mountain Lion Clan in decades."
"Why not?" Elzie asks.
Auntie Min adjusts her shawl and shrugs. "The more the five-fingered beings intrude on our lands, the harder it is to stay safe from their weapons and traps. Members of the larger clans find it more difficult to hide than the little cousins do. A cactus wren or a lizard blends into the landscape easily, but it's not so simple for a mountain lion or a bear.
"The world has changed," she continues. "Everybody needs papers now, so the older cousins are no longer safe, even in our human shapes. These days we're likely to end up in jail because we can't prove we're citizens—we, who were here before any of the five-fingered beings arrived."
Elzie nods. "Jail is where Josh is right now and we need to get him out."
"Perhaps," Auntie Min says.
"Perhaps what?"
"If you were to ask my advice," Auntie Min tells her, "I might suggest you allow him to complete this journey on his own."
"What?" Desmond breaks in. "That doesn't make any sense."
Elzie and I nod in agreement.
Auntie Min regards us with a puzzled look.
"How is this hard to understand?" she asks.
"No one gets out of Federal custody on their own," Elzie says.
"But this is his journey," Auntie Min says, wagging her finger at us. "Not yours."
This isn't going at all the way I expected. I don't understand why Auntie Min is suggesting that we just abandon Josh.
I look over at Des, who, like me, is shifting uncomfortably on his crate.
"But what if we make it our journey, too?" he asks.
"Then it becomes something different," Auntie Min says. "It becomes a new wheel upon which you will all turn and the young lion loses his chance to learn from the challenge set before him."
"But if we don't try to help him," Elzie asks, "will he be safe?"
Auntie Min shrugs. "Our spirits grow strong quickly when we face adversity. Perhaps he'll be safe. Perhaps he'll use this experience to prepare for a greater danger yet to come."
My heart leaps into overtime. "He's already been captured by the FBI," I say. "What's the greater danger?"
"I'm no shaman, young otter. I can only suppose—the same as you."
Des turns to me. "Otter!" he cries. "Dude, I should've known."
"Later, Des," I tell him, returning my gaze to Auntie Min.
"You said you can only suppose," I continue. What is it that you suppose might happen to Josh?
"I can't read the future. If you want to know how the future will unfold, you must look to the Thunders. Only they know how to read the days to come."
"Who are the Thunders?"
"They're kind of like what we'd think of as gods," Elzie explains, "except nobody calls them that. Apparently they're big-deal spirits who've been around forever—way longer than Auntie Min or Cory."
Auntie Min laughs. "Cory! Oh that boy still has to learn how people need to make their own choices."
I think about the lousy choice that Dillon made and how it's too late for him to learn anything. Killing yourself makes you dead. Period.
"What if those choices are mistakes?" I ask.
Auntie Min shrugs. "We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Who are you or I to steal the opportunity to learn from another being?"
"But what if somebody else gets hurt because of a mistake we make? Or what if someone chooses to end their own life? How can they possibly learn from that choice?"
"Those are good questions," she replies enigmatically, without further elaboration.
I give Elzie a look. She shakes her head as if to say, don't bother—she won't answer if she doesn't feel like it.
I'd like to see if Auntie Min has the answer to something else I've been wondering about ever since the otter woke up under my skin.
"Okay," I say. "Can you at least tell us this. Why is this happening now? Why are we changing? Why here? Why us? We're just kids."
She studies me just long enough for me to think she's going to ignore this as well.
"It's not our place to question the big Thunders," she finally says, "and why their wheels turn as they do. Our role is simply to take what we are given in thi
s world and make Beauty."
I make an obvious scan of the ugly mess around us. "Do you really believe that?" I ask.
"I don't say things that I don't believe."
I wave my right arm toward the piles of trash all around us. "You seem so wise and powerful. Why do you live like this?"
"Live like what?"
"Homeless. In poverty."
Elzie rolls her eyes, but Auntie Min only laughs.
"I'm not poor," she says. "I have the land under my feet and the sky above my head. I have the company of friends and students. I have a place to lay my head, food to eat, water to drink. How is that a life of poverty?"
"But all this concrete and pollution ..."
"… are like a dear friend wearing an ugly set of clothes. It will pass. And nothing can change what lies under the skin of the world. The spirit that burns in its heart remains unchanged."
"So," Desmond breaks in, "about Josh. You're saying that if we help him escape, his life becomes our responsibility—right? That whatever he does or doesn't do from then on—good or bad—it's partly on us."
Auntie Min nods. "At least someone is paying attention."
I give Desmond a considering look.
"What?" he asks.
"I'm impressed," I tell him.
"Don't be," he says. "There was the same kind of a deal in a samurai movie I saw awhile back."
I smile. "Now that's the Desmond we all know and love."
He raises his eyebrows.
"So we're good?" he asks.
"You tell me," I say. "Are we?"
He gives me a slow nod. "Yeah. I guess. But I still can't believe you held back on being a Wildling." He holds up a hand before I can say anything.
It's clear that he still feels hurt and that makes me even more anxious about having kept my secret from Josh. Now I'll have to tell him soon. Except for my crush on him, there've never been any secrets between Josh and me until this happened. When I get the opportunity to tell him that I'm a Wildling—if that comes—I have no idea how he'll react.
But first we have to get him away from the Feds.
I look back at Auntie Min. "So are you saying that we shouldn't interfere with anything?" I ask. "That even though our friend got kidnapped, even though people are destroying the planet, we should just sit back and let it all happen?"
She shakes her head. "You must do what is strong and leads you into Beauty. For some, it is contemplation that brings them grace. For others, the path to Beauty lies in confrontation and striving. Only you can tell what path you should choose."
"But you said we shouldn't try to rescue Josh."
"No, I said that you should consider letting him complete his journey on his own. But if you twine your path with his, remember this. Having stolen his chance to learn and grow strong, you must be strong for him. Not simply for a day or a week, but throughout your lives. As your friend Desmond already knows, it's a grave responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly."
"So what would you do?" I ask.
"If a friend of mine were in the same circumstances," she says, "I would do everything in my power to set him free and damn the consequences."
I can't believe she just contradicted herself that badly.
"Then why did you tell us not to?" I ask.
"I didn't. I simply asked you to consider those consequences."
Elzie lets out an exasperated sigh and gets up from her side of the sofa. "Unless you've got some practical advice as to how to set him free, we need to get going."
Auntie Min nods. "I will ask the little cousins to look for your friend. As for advice, if you must intervene, you could do worse than to ask the grasshopper mouse for help."
"Who?" Desmond says.
"It's okay," Elzie replies before Auntie Min can. "I know who she means."
"What's a grasshopper mouse?" I have to ask.
"It's a mouse that's more like a wolf or a coyote than a mouse," Elzie says. "They're carnivorous and can howl like a wolf. They live—"
She breaks off as Auntie Min suddenly lifts her head. The old woman's nostrils flare slightly, reading the air.
"We have company approaching," she says.
I watch Elzie rise up on the balls of her feet, trying to see who's coming. "Who?"
"Your friend Daniel."
Josh
I'm floating in an impenetrable haze. The mountain lion is trying to wake me up, pressing to get out. There is screaming in the distance … a girl … a blood-curdling sound beyond anything I've ever heard. The air is charged with panic … and something else … an intermittent series of pings. I know what they mean. There are other Wildlings here. Is the girl one of them? What is happening to her?
I need to wake up. Am I dreaming? I have to find out if this is a nightmare or real. An electronic beep that I hadn't noticed before quickens, matching my pulse. There is rustling beside me. A sharp sting in my arm. Nothingness.
Marina
Elzie scowls and spits in the dirt. "Daniel's no friend of mine."
"He comes ahead, but there are others following him. Five-fingered beings."
"Isn't this the guy that ran off to the Feds?" Desmond says. "Shouldn't we be worried about him showing up?"
"That little weasel? Not likely. I've been dying to get my hands on him."
Desmond frowns. "Weasel? I thought his Wildling shape was a deer of some kind."
Elzie gives him a look.
"Oh," he says. "Not an actual weasel."
I can smell them coming now, too. I don't recognize any of the scents, but one continues to approach, while the rest hang behind. Then the wind shifts and I lose them. But by then, I have a visual of a boy I don't know making his way through the trash to where we're sitting. He has short brown hair and a dark tan. The tails of his white golf shirt hang out over beige trousers and he has brown loafers on his feet. In his right ear is a Bluetooth receiver.
"Jesus," Elzie says when he reaches us. "Look at you. They cleaned you right up, didn't they?"
He shrugs. "Nothing wrong with looking nice."
"Nice? You look like you're on your way to a friggin' golf course."
He doesn't rise to the bait. "I need to talk to you."
"So talk."
"Alone."
"If you think I'm going anywhere with you, you're living in dreamland."
His gaze drifts from her to Auntie Min, then to Desmond and me.
"I'm here to offer you a job," he says when his gaze returns to Elzie.
"The way you offered Josh a job?"
"Josh. You mean the kid who got kidnapped from Sunny Hill this afternoon?"
"Like you had nothing to with it."
"We didn't. The Bureau Chief is catching major crap for letting it happen on his watch."
"See?" Desmond says. "I told you they'd play dumb."
"I swear. We didn't take him. Someone else did."
"Yeah, like there's a whole other government branch calling themselves the FBI, running around in their black SUVs, wearing suits and shades."
"Think about it. If that had been our operation," Daniel says, "the guys would have been wearing vests with 'FBI' splashed across them in big bold letters."
He studies Desmond for a moment, before adding, "You're not one of us. Who are you?"
"None of your business," Elzie says. "So what's this job you're offering me?"
"Identifying and tracking down Wildlings, then helping them adapt to the change their lives have taken."
"And you lock them up to help them 'adapt' according to the government's terms," she says, using air quotes.
"It's not like that," he says. "But we have to consider the safety of those kids and the general public as well—"
"This is what you've become?" Elzie breaks in. "From an idealist to a government lackey?"
"Give me a break."
"Why? So you can spout more bullshit propaganda at us?"
"Christ," he says. "When did you become so naive?"
"I'm nai
ve?"
"Working for the government," he says, "is a way for us to get it all done—all those things we talked about. I'm on the inside, Elzie. I can actually help people and the environment, instead of just talking about it the way we used to."
"What makes you think the government gives a rat's ass about ordinary people or the planet? All they care about is staying in power and not making waves. Unless it's to get rid of something that might upset the status quo. Like us."
He shakes his head. "It doesn't work that way."
"No, it's probably way worse than that."
Daniel sighs. "Why do you have to make this so hard?"
"Because I'm true to myself. I don't want to be like you—pretending you're living in la-la land, fighting the good fight—when it's all crap. You're ratting us out for your own benefit. Simple as that."
"It's not like—"
"So what happens now? You call in those FBI buddies who are hiding just out of sight and take me away?"
"I don't want it to come to that. I went out on a limb for you, Elzie. I told them you'd make a great member of the team."
"Really? You must be smoking some really primo stuff."
He sighs and looks back at Desmond. "Look, I don't know who you are," he says, "or why you're hanging around, but you need to get out of here. The rest of you are coming with me."
Either he doesn't notice the dangerous flicker in Elzie's eyes or he doesn't care.
"So," she says. "Do your friends know that I can take you down before they can do one damn thing to stop me?"
"You can try," he says.
She starts to move forward, but Auntie Min grabs her wrist and pulls her back onto the sofa. Instead, she stands up herself.
"This has been very amusing so far," Auntie Min tells Daniel, "but you appear to have forgotten who I am."
Her voice is mild. Standing, she's not even as tall as my own five-four. But Daniel still takes a step back.
"I'm wired," he says. "The rest of the team has heard everything we've been saying. If you do something stupid now, you're only going to make things worse for yourselves."