UnSouled

“So how do you know you won’t still blow up?”

And in the awkward silence that follows, Kele says, “I was kinda wondering that too.”

Lev makes his eyes wide. “Maybe I will,” he says ominously, then waits a few seconds and shouts “BOOM!” It makes everyone jump—but no one quite as much as Grace, who spills her stew and lets loose a stream of curses that makes everyone burst out laughing.

After dinner everyone goes about their own business, and Connor gets him alone.

“So what’s the deal here?” he asks quietly. “How do you know all these people?”

Lev takes a deep breath. He owes Connor an explanation, although he’d rather not give it. “Before I showed up at the Graveyard, I came here, and they gave me sanctuary for a while,” Lev tells him. “They almost adopted me into the tribe. Almost. It all got ruined by parts pirates. They cornered a bunch of us out in the woods, and Elina’s son—”

“Wil?”

“Yes, Wil. He offered himself in exchange for the rest of our lives.”

Connor considers this. “Since when do parts pirates negotiate?”

“They were looking for something special. And Wil was something special. I’ve never heard anyone play guitar like he played. Once they had him, they didn’t care about the rest of us. Anyway, since I was there, and I was an outsider, I kind of became the scapegoat. There was no staying after that.”

Connor nods and doesn’t press for more details. Instead he looks toward the window. Outside not much can be seen in the dark but the lights of other homes across the ravine. “Don’t get too comfortable here,” Connor warns.

“I’m already comfortable,” Lev tells him, and leaves before Connor can say anything more.

• • •

The cliff-side home is spacious. The individual bedrooms are small but numerous, and all of them open to the great room, which serves as living room, dining room, and kitchen. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity, Lev checks out the room that was Wil’s. He thinks they might have kept it as it was, but they haven’t. They haven’t redesigned it for anyone else either. Wil’s room is now empty of furniture and decorations. Nothing but bare stone walls.

“No one will use this room again,” Elina tells Lev. “At least not in my lifetime.” As everyone begins to settle down for the night, Lev goes looking for Pivane. There’s been more awkwardness between them than Lev has found with anyone else, and Lev hopes he can bridge the gap. He expects to find the man down on the first floor, creek-bed level, in the workroom, tinkering with something. Perhaps preparing hides for tanning. Instead he finds someone he wasn’t expecting.

She sits there at the workbench, her hair pulled back in a colorful tie, looking exactly the same as Lev remembers. Una.

Una was Wil’s fiancée and must have been more devastated than anyone when Wil was taken by the parts pirates and unwound. After that, his petition to join the tribe was quickly denied, Pivane had driven him to the gate, and Lev was set loose without ever saying good-bye to Una. Lev had been glad for that at the time. He’d had no idea what to say to her then, and he has no idea what to say now, so he lingers in the shadows, not wanting to step into the light.

Una is absorbed in cleaning a rifle that Lev recognizes as Pivane’s. Does she know that he’s here on the rez? Elina was very clear that his presence was to be kept low-key. His question is answered when Una says, without looking up, “Not very good at lurking, are you, Lev?”

He steps forward, but Una keeps her attention focused on the rifle without looking at him.

“Elina told me you were back,” she says.

“But you didn’t come to see me.”

“Who says I wanted to?” Finally she spares a look at him, but she keeps her poker face. “Anyone ever teach you how to clean a bolt-action rifle?”

“No.”

“Come here. I’ll show you.”

She takes Lev through the steps of removing the bolt and scope. “Pivane has been teaching me to shoot, and I’ve been finding a desire to do it,” Una tells him. “When he gets his new rifle, he’ll give me this one.”

“A little different from making guitars,” Lev says, which is what Una does.

“Both will have their place in my life,” Una tells him, then directs him in cleaning the inside of the rifle barrel with solvent and a copper brush. She says nothing about what happened the last time he was on the rez, but it hangs as heavy and as dark as gunmetal between them.

“I’m sorry about Wil,” he finally says.

Una is silent for a moment, then says, “They sent back his guitar—whoever ‘they’ is. There was no explanation, no return address. I burned it on a funeral pyre because we had no body to burn.”

Lev holds his silence. The idea of Wil’s guitar turned to ash is almost as horrifying as the thought of his unwinding.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” Una says, “but Wil would not have helped lead that vision quest if it hadn’t been for you and would never have been taken by those parts pirates. No, it wasn’t your fault, little brother—but I wish you had never come here.”

Lev puts down the rifle barrel. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”

But Una grabs his arm. “Let me finish.” She lets go of him, and now Lev can see the tears in her eyes. “I wish you had never come, but you did—and ever since you left, I wished you would come back. Because you belong here, Lev—no matter what the council says.”

“You’re wrong. There’s nowhere I belong.”

“Well, you certainly don’t belong out there. The fact that you almost blew yourself up proves it.”

Lev doesn’t want to talk about his days as a clapper. Not to Una. Instead he decides to share something else. “I haven’t told anyone this, but I had a dream before my fever broke. I was jumping through the branches of a forest.”

Una considers it. “What kind of forest? Pine or oak?”

“Neither. It was a rainforest, I think. I saw this animal covered in fur. It was leading me.”

Una smiles, realizing what Lev is getting at. “Sounds like you’ve finally found your animal spirit. Was it a monkey?”

“No. It had a tail like a monkey, but its eyes were too big. Any idea what it could have been?”

Una shakes his head. “Sorry. I don’t know much about rain forest animals.”

But then Lev hears a voice behind him. “I think I know.” He turns to see Kele standing in the doorway “Big eyes, small mouth, really cute?”

“Yeah . . .”

“It’s a kinkajou.”

“Never heard of it.”

Una smirks at Lev. “Well, it’s heard of you.”

“I did a report on kinkajous,” Kele says. “They’re like the cutest animals ever, but they’ll rip your face off if you mess with them.”

The smirk never leaves Una’s face. “Small, cute, and not to be messed with. Hmm . . . Who does that remind me of?”

That makes Kele laugh and Lev scowl.

“I am not cute,” Lev growls.

“Matter of opinion, little brother. So tell me, did your guide give you any sort of task?”

Lev hesitates, but then decides to tell her, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. “I think he wanted me to pull the moon from the sky.”

Una laughs. “Good luck with that one.” Then she snaps the rifle closed with a satisfying clang.

21 • Cam

Cam and Roberta’s Washington town house becomes the place to be invited to. Dinner soirees abound with international dignitaries, political movers and shakers, and pop culture icons, all of whom want a proverbial piece of Camus Comprix. Sometimes their attention is so aggressive, Cam wonders if they actually do want a piece of him as a souvenir. He dines with the crowned prince of a small principality he didn’t know existed until the entourage showed up at the door. He does an after-dinner jam with none other than music superstar Brick McDaniel—the artist who comes to mind when you think of the words “rock star.” Cam is actually so starstruck, he becomes a gushing fan—but when they jam side by side on guitar, they are equals.

The heady lifestyle he leads is addictive and all-encompassing. Cam keeps having to remind himself that this is not the prize—nor is it the path to the prize. All this glitz and glamour are merely distractions from his purpose.

But how can you bring down the people who’ve given you this extraordinary life? he occasionally asks himself in weaker moments. Like the moment when Brick McDaniel actually asked for his autograph. He knows he must be careful to ride the tornado—and not be drawn into it.

* * *

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“I’m needed back on Molokai,” Roberta tells him one evening. She’s come down to the basement where they’ve set up a full gym for him. His old physical therapist, back when he was first rewound, used to say that his muscle groups didn’t work and play well with others. If only he could see Cam now.

“I’ll return in a couple of days. In time for our luncheon with General Bodeker and Senator Cobb.”

Cam doesn’t let her announcement interrupt his set at the bench press station. “I want to come,” he tells her, and finds that it’s not just posturing—he does want to go back to the compound on Molokai, the closest thing to home that he knows.

“No. The last thing you need after all your hard work is Hawaiian jet lag. Rest up here. Focus on your language studies so you can impress General Bodeker with your Dutch.”

Dutch, one of the various languages that wasn’t included in the nine he came with, has to be learned by Cam the old-fashioned way. His knowledge of German helps, but it’s still a chore. He prefers when things come easier.

“Just because Bodeker has Dutch ancestry doesn’t mean he speaks it,” Cam points out.

“All the more reason for him to be impressed that you do.”

“Is my whole life now about impressing the general and the senator?”

“You have the attention of people who make things happen. If you want them to make things happen for you, then the answer is yes—impressing them should be your primary focus.”

Cam lets the weights drop heavily, with a resounding slam.

“Why do they need you on Molokai?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

He sits up and looks at her with something between a grin and a sneer. “ ‘Not at liberty to say.’ They should put that on your grave. ‘Here lies Roberta Griswold. Whether or not she rests in peace, we’re not at liberty to say.’ ”