inevitablepub

  Brent helped Steve prop his injured leg onto the ottoman. “She means besides DJ and Janette. That thing detects spirits that have crossed over.”

  I glanced where Cherie pointed and saw a shimmery distortion of light, the faint outline of a woman. I rubbed my eyes, but she was still there.

  “I can see her! Kind of.”

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  Brent grinned. “I’ve heard couples get more alike as they get older.” In my ear he whispered. “The binding thing must work both ways.” His smile crumbled. “Wait. Do you think that means you’ll be getting my illness too?”

  “No.” I hadn’t considered that, but felt confident in my answer. “There’s no way that Vovó would have performed the soul binding if she thought that would happen.”

  The worried crease in Brent’s forehead relaxed. “True.”

  “I can see the spirit too. Sort of,” DJ said, appearing on my left.

  “Can you tell who it is?” Kalina asked, peeking over Cherie’s shoulder at her phone, then at the spirit.

  Brent nodded. “It’s a woman I’ve seen a few times. She’s always smiling at me.”

  “Any idea who she is?” Faith asked.

  Brent shook his head. “No, but I’ve seen her before. It’s at the edge of my memory, but I can’t place her.”

  The other spirits Brent had seen all made sense to me. They were linked to the Pendrell curse or to Brent’s life, but this woman didn’t fit, and I wondered why she was here.

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I complained to Brent, flopping down on the couch in the living room. I buried my face in the crook of my arm and enjoyed the near silence of the house. Besides my dad, who was hiding out in his home office, Brent and I were the only ones home. My mom, sister, and grandma had taken my Brazilian relatives grocery shopping. We were trying to be careful, but we still had to eat, Dad had to go to work, we had to live.

  Lifting my arm I studied Brent. “I know there’s a cure out there to save you, but I don’t know where it is. I need to stop Crosby, but I’m not sure how.”

  Brent stretched out on the carpet, resting his back against the couch. He tilted his head so he could see me. “One thing at a time. What do you want to work on first?”

  “The cure for you.”

  “I’m good with that.” He smiled. “I hope you don’t want me around just ‘cause I’m the best weapon you have against Crosby and his bodyguards.”

  I chuckled and threw a pillow at him.

  Brent caught it and tossed it back. “All joking aside, you can’t do it alone. You’re going to need me. Kalina and Faith are great, but they’re not as strong as you, and I don’t want you in any situation where I can’t watch your back.”

  “So where do I start?” I absently ran my fingers through his hair. My dad wandered into the room and sat down in his armchair. He un-tucked the newspaper under his arm and snapped it open.

  “Start at the beginning,” Dad suggested. “You’ve read your Waker journal, you’ve read through both of Vovó’s journals, but you might have missed something.”

  “Okay, but I’m not sure if I’ll see something in it that I haven’t caught before.”

  “You could read it to me,” Brent said. “I’m a fresh pair of eyes.”

  My dad harrumphed. “That isn’t allowed.”

  I raised my head to look at dad. “Why?”

  “Only the Matriarca’s allowed to read it.”

  “Why?” I asked again.

  My dad shrugged. “That’s just the way it’s always been.”

  I pushed myself to my feet. “Well, that’s stupid. I need all the help I can get.”

  Grabbing the journals, I carried them back to the couch. They felt heavy on my lap. I creaked open the Matriarca one and turned the aged pages. My dad leaned forward, his face eager.

  “Hold on,” my dad said. “Those two pages are stuck together.” He separated them, sliding his finger between the thick paper, and a slip of newer stationary slid out, Vovó’s handwriting instantly recognizable.

  “Wow.” I scanned the discovery and compared it to the journals. “She translated the first few pages into English.”

  Brent squeezed next to me, glancing over my shoulder. The first few pages were filled with the stories my grandma used to tell me. I started to skip them like I had the last time, but Brent caught my hand.

  “No, you need to read everything again.”

  “Oh yeah.” My eyes skimmed over the words on the page and I smiled. “This used to be my favorite bedtime story. The First Waker.”

  I started reading the story out loud.

  Maria died the day her daughters were born, the three identical girls still in her womb when she passed. Some say the midwife, a healer who knew the secrets of the herbs, forced Pankurem down the dead woman’s throat, reviving her with the powerful plant. Others say that her departing spirit passed those of her three arriving girls, and that they cajoled and teased her, grabbing her hands and leading her back to life. Either way, Maria returned to her body to deliver the triplet girls. From that day on, Maria was blessed with certain gifts. She developed a special relationship with the earth and understood its secrets. The wind spoke to her and obeyed her, fire would do as she bid, and when she cried, the heavens wept with her. She could see the spirits, and she talked with them, becoming their friend. She helped them and they her, doing for her whatever she asked. And it is said her strength healed the land and the people.

  As they grew to womanhood, her daughters also developed the ability to see and talk with the ghosts. Her daughters feared them until their mother said, “Speak to the spirits. They are our friends.”

  And so they did, but none of them were as strong as their mother.

  The youngest daughter, Adriana, married and followed her husband to his new home far away in Recife. Camila, a wanderer at heart, boarded a ship to discover new lands, while Luciana, the eldest, traveled south with her mother.

  When Maria died her final death, Luciana sent word to her sisters, though she knew they would not be able to attend the burial. She alone washed her mother and dressed her for death. It is said that she had no need to fetch water because her tears were enough to bathe the body.

  Before Maria was lowered into the earth, Luciana kissed her mother’s cheeks and in that moment, a flash of blue and white exploded behind her eyes and she collapsed to the ground. Some of her mother’s power and strength had transferred to her. Though she could not command the air, the water, or the fire; the earth spoke strongly to her. And so it went for generations.

  “That’s cool,” Brent said. “I didn’t know the first Waker was a Returned like you.”

  “Huh.” I stroked the page and smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That isn’t the story of the First Waker, that was the story of the Light in the Darkness,” my dad said.

  “The what?”

  “The Waker who brought light to the darkness.” He noticed my blank stare. “I’ve always heard it called the Light in the Darkness. Did Vovó tell you it was the story of the First Waker?”

  I thought for a moment, my fingers tracing Vovó’s words. “No. I think I named it that myself.”

  “I know something you don’t?” My dad rubbed his hands together in delight. “I wish my Pai were alive to see this moment.”

  “I’m thrilled for you, Dad, but how do you know this?” I slipped Vovó’s translation back into place and closed the journal.

  “From the Waker journal my father gave me.”

  “You have a journal too?” I asked.

  My dad nodded and left, returning carrying a thick cloth book.

  “This is handed down from the husband of one Waker to the husband of her successor. It lets the men know more about what it is their wives do, and also passes on ways to protect their families. My pai left it for me, even though I didn’t marry a Waker. He said I should keep it for one of my sons in law.” My dad carefully turned the page
s until he came to the story he was searching for and handed it to Brent. “You’re not quite my son in law yet, Brent, but I know it’s meant to go to you.”

  Brent’s swallowed hard as he took the journal, his eyes shiny with unshed tears. My dad reclined back in his seat and crossed his ankle over his knees. “I practically had the Light in the Darkness memorized. What caught my attention though was that your version calls her a friend to the spirits, not a guardian.”

  I read through the version in dad’s book; it was identical, word for word except for the use of the word “friend” instead of “guardian,” and Maria’s admonition to her daughters. In dad’s journal, she told them to sing to the spirits, in mine it just said speak.

  “This story keeps coming up,” I said. “The paper Faith gave me had the exact same story on it. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  Brent raised his eyebrow and I jumped up.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I ran up to my room and grabbed the paper Faith had given me and brought it back to show Brent and my dad. I smiled when I saw we had visitors. Cherie and Steve were both poring over the books.

  “Hey guys! When did you get here?”

  “Just now. We got our permanent casts today.” Cherie held up her arm. “See? We color coordinated?”

  Steve’s ankle was covered in the same shade of cobalt blue as Cherie’s arm.

  “Nice.”

  “Brent says you may actually have a lead?” Steve asked.

  “Maybe.” I read Faith’s version aloud. It was identical except it said the eldest daughter went to a city called Agora. It read “sing” just like my dad’s, but agreed with Vovó’s on “friend.”

  “What if it’s a clue? Like maybe each of the words that are different are important.” Cherie scribbled down the words. “‘Recife sing friend’ or ‘sing friend Recife’?”

  “That doesn’t make much sense,” my dad said.

  “Maybe it’s the opposite,” Steve suggested. “Maybe it’s ‘Agora speak guardian’ or ‘speak Agora guardian’.”

  “Agora means ‘now’ in Portuguese,” Brent said in a quiet voice. “What if it’s ‘Speak now, guardian’?”

  A silence fell over the room.

  “But speak what? To who?”

  My eyes darted between the three versions of the First Waker—no, The Light in the Darkness story. Maybe I needed to know more about its origins to know what to do next.

  “Dad, you said this story wasn’t about the first Waker, but about the Light in the Darkness. What do you know about that?”

  Dad laced his fingers behind his head, and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Let’s see. It’s been years since I’ve thought about this. The darkness was a time when most of the Wakers—actually all but her—died. She came in to fight the darkness, she and her husband. And there was something about a nephew. What was his name?” He opened his journal again and turned the pages, searching for something. “Here it is. Modesto. The nephew was named Modesto.”

  Cherie and I exchanged a look before I turned back to my dad “Her nephew was named Modesto. What was the darkness? What else do you know?”

  “All is know is what it says here, that her family would be the caretakers of souls in secret until the spoken words brought them to light.”

  He handed me his journal and I read through the section he pointed out. Beside the story was a hand-sketched portrait of a woman who looked familiar. I couldn’t place her, but by the way Brent’s breath caught in his throat I gathered he did.

  “That’s the woman who keeps appearing to me, she’s been trying to tell me something. Her lips move, but I can’t tell what she’s saying.”

  Brent touched the drawing, his eyes widening.

  “I finally remember! I know where I saw her before. I saw her the night you changed your death. There was a moment when you teetered on the edge of life. She was there. She reached down and kissed you and there was this bright light. You opened your eyes, sort of smiled, and then closed them again.” He looked at me, his eyes bright. “You died, and you told me that you loved me while Steve gave you CPR. And then you were alive again.”

  “She was there?”

  Brent nodded. “I never said anything because . . . well, I don’t know why. I guess I forgot about it, which is weird. She was the first spirit I saw when I started seeing people who have crossed over. I thought maybe she was an angel who escorted souls into the afterlife or something.”

  “And she kissed me?”

  “Yeah, in the middle of your forehead. She said something as well. I didn’t hear it though. It was like she blessed you or something.”

  This was so strange. Who was she? And why had she been following me for years?

  “I wish I could talk to Vovó. A spirit blesses with a kiss . . .”

  An image flashed behind my eyes and I remembered the lady who had appeared to me when I became the Matriarca. I studied the picture again. It was her! She’d also been there when Brent and I had our binding ceremony.

  “Oh, wow. I saw her too, when I was made the Matriarca. No one else saw her and I forgot what she said until now. She said, ‘We’ve waited for you, Yara. You shall be the first full Waker since me.’”

  I sank against the couch, shivering at the heaviness of the words.

  “Oh. My. Stiletto. Heels! It’s like you’re the chosen one or something, Yara.” Cherie threw her arms around me, her cast knocking me in the back of the head. “You have like a prophecy written about you.”

  “Help,” I mouthed to Brent.

  The corner of his lips trembled.

  “What about this?” He pointed to the words drawn underneath the picture that were like a banner. “The answer remains with those who died, but must be freed by those who live,” Brent translated.

  Cherie slid closer to the book. “Why does it sound like we’re going to be digging up a grave or visiting a crypt?”

  Steve itched his big toe with the tip of his crutch. “Life is never boring with you people.”

  Brent gave a humorless laugh. “I long for boring and dull. It says her nephew and his whole family died.”

  “And his name was Modesto?” Cherie asked. My dad and Brent nodded. “Maybe where they’re buried will be important? I can start researching that. Can you hand me my computer, Steve?”

  My eyes were drawn to the portrait of Maria again. “She looks familiar to me.”

  “Because she appeared to you?” Steve offered pulling Cherie’s laptop out of her bag.

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that.” I flipped the page and found another picture of her, this one in profile. “But there’s something else familiar about her—” I broke off and shoved the picture toward Cherie. “Look at the arch of her eyebrows and her nose.”

  Cherie’s eyes went wide. “She looks just like Modesto LaTorre, our mango tomato loving friend.”

  “He has the right name, he studies plants and the drought. It has to be him. I refuse to believe that it’s coincidence.”

  Cherie grinned. “Looks like we need to visit Modesto again.”

  Chapter 16

  We made another appointment with Modesto, timing our visit to be in the middle of one of Crosby’s public functions, just to be safe. Cherie and I went alone. DJ trailed behind us, but waited outside the office door.

  “Hello, girls. Are you interested in hearing more about the tomato I was telling you about last time?” Modesto asked from behind his messy desk. “Have a seat.”

  “No, we’re here to talk about the Light in the Darkness. About Fale agora, guardião.” I moved a stack of paper from the chair and sat down, watching his face drain of color. “Speak now, Guardian, in case you don’t speak Portuguese.”

  He sprang from his chair and rushed to lock his office door. He spun around, his chest heaving as he leaned against the door. “How do you know that phrase? What do you think you know?”

  “We found all three versions of the story and we figure
d it out.” He looked like he was going to faint. He swayed on his feet, knocking over a vase of flowers. I bent down, gathered the flowers from the floor, and put them back in the vase. As I touched each crushed petal, it sprang back to its previous beauty.

  “I’m sorry about your flowers. Easter lilies are my favorite. My vovó even had them on my casket at my funeral.”

  His mouth dropped open even further and he sank into a wooden chair beside him. “What did you say?”

  “The part about ‘Speak, Guardian’ or that I liked Easter lilies?”

  “The lilies part.” His voice was quiet and his face pale. “Please repeat what you just said.”

  I was tempted to lie. I hadn’t meant to bring up my own funeral, but something about the glimmer in his eyes and the beseeching quality to his voice changed my mind.

  “I said Easter Lilies are my favorite. My vovó even had them on my casket at my funeral.”

  He gulped before dropping his head between his knees.

  “I thought that’s what you said.” His hands trembled. “It’s you.”

  “What?”

  He met my gaze. “I have a message for you, Yara Silva.”

  I startled at the use of my full name.

  “Yes, I know who you are. I researched you after your first visit. I knew you were a Waker, and what you were really after, but I had to make sure you weren’t working with Crosby or someone like him.”

  “Wait, you know about Crosby?” Cherie asked.

  “Yes, we’ve met.” His expression was dark and strained. “I think I fooled him into believing the absentminded professor bluff. You see, my family has been entrusted as guardians to protect certain information. It’s only to be shared with those who know the proper phrase. You just said it.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “The original Modesto LaTorre, my namesake, was Maria’s nephew. He was reported to have died during the drought, but he didn’t. He traveled to the United States in the early 1900’s, with explicit instructions from his aunt. He was to see Christopher Pendrell and help him clean up the mess his sons had made. The Pendrell boys were doing horrible things. The victims were sick and their father sought out Maria’s help.”