Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

Worst, his memories would sometimes pull images from things he’d never done-swashbuckling on a pirate ship, hugging a rifle in a foxhole-only seen in movies or heard from someone else; yet they were as vivid and real to him as watching Beth walk up the aisle toward him in her white gown or holding his newborn son. Confabulation, the doctors had called it.

It all had something to do with damage to his parahippocampal gyrus, where the brain stored its photo albums and home movies. But CAT scans had revealed no trauma there, so the doctors scratched their heads and wondered if his problem was psychological.

Just another jab from the Man Upstairs, he thought. In case losing my arm, my best friend, and my best friend’s family didn’t knock me down enough notches.

“Or maybe she was the one I didn’t like,” he said. “But that alien that abducted me when I was ten sure was cute.”

Beth didn’t laugh, just smiled sympathetically and rubbed his shoulder.

They watched Tyler climb over the fence and pick something up out of the dirt, brushing at it and blowing away the dust.

“I wish we’d met as little kids,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful, to have known your soul mate for your entire life?”

“You wouldn’t have liked me.”

She slapped his arm. “Don’t say that. How could I not?”

“I’d have pulled your hair and called you names.”

She made a smug face. “That’d just mean you liked me.”

Jagger nodded and tugged her closer. “You’re really glad we came?”

“We needed this.”

“What about your writing? Do you miss it?”

“I’m writing,” she said. “Just not articles. I’m making notes for my book.”

“This would be a good setting for a murder mystery.”

“It’s nonfiction. Stories of the people who’ve come here throughout history.”

“I know. Will we have our own chapter?”

“Nah, too boring.”

“Dad!” Tyler called. He had edged halfway to the line of tents. “Come on!”

“When do you need him back?” Jagger asked her.

“Gheronda’s expecting us at two.”

He raised his arm to look at his watch, then realized he’d raised the wrong one. He closed his eyes and sighed. He didn’t know which was worse, that after more than a year he still hadn’t mastered the change in his body or that he’d suffered the involuntary change in the first place.

Beth squeezed his shoulder. He forced a smile and checked the time. “By two,” he said. “No problem.”

She returned the thermos to the lunchbox and handed it to him. “There are some extra cups in there for Ollie and Addison. And a sandwich for you.”

He took it, kissed her again, and watched her walk toward the monastery until she turned to smile back at him and wave. Then he watched a little longer.

Tyler had returned and now tugged at his hook. “Come on, come on, come on.”

Jagger scooped him up and deposited him on the other side of the fence. “Last one there does the dishes tonight.”

As the boy bounded away, Jagger turned to look back toward the monastery, but Beth had disappeared in the crowd.

From her position in the center of the dark intersection at the end of the tunnel, Nevaeh watched Phin storm out of Toby’s room. He turned back and said, “There’s something wrong with the controls. I should have cleared the building that time!”

Sebastian stepped into the corridor and put his hand on Phin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Get some rest and we’ll try again later.”

Phin jerked himself free. “Fix the controls and we will.” He stormed away and entered his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Sebastian shook his head, walked to his room, and disappeared into it. Light splashed into the corridor. Nevaeh waited for him to shut the door, but he didn’t.

A minute later Toby came out of his room, strolled to the kids’ room, and opened the door. The light clicked on, illuminating the skulls opposite the door. “Come on, guys,” Toby said. “Let’s do something.”

Nevaeh could hear Jordan’s groggy voice, but not his words. She guessed they weren’t very pleasant.

She rose and walked through the first flickering sphere of candlelight. The kitchen door was open, and a light over the stove showed an empty room. She continued past Ben’s door and stopped at her own. Three doors away, Jordan bolted out of his and Hannah’s bedroom. He grabbed two skulls to keep from crashing into the wall, then looked back into the room as Hannah pattered out, giggling. Jordan’s hair stood up on one side, and he wore pajamas covered with cartoon skateboarders; Hannah had on a pink nightgown and slippers like pink clouds. It didn’t matter that Toby had just rousted them, nor that it was just after noon: in this windowless dungeon, night reigned around the clock, and the kids had taken to never wearing street clothes unless they were heading out.

Jordan looked in Nevaeh’s direction, stiffened, and squinted into the darkness.

She stepped into the light of a candle so he could see her. He smiled and pressed a finger to his lips. He grabbed Hannah’s hand, and they ran the other direction.

Toby’s voice came out of the bedroom: “… six… seven… eight…”

The children flashed through three pools of light, then disappeared into the black throat of the corridor.

A few seconds later Toby stepped into view. The teenager had on his typical uniform of layered shirts and fashionable jeans: heaven forbid he should ever be caught in pj’s. He looked both directions and addressed Nevaeh in a loud whisper: “Where’d they go?”

She shrugged, and Toby took off. Nevaeh knew he’d never find them: ever exploring, Jordan had found a place where the skulls had crumbled, revealing another room beyond. And she was sure that was only one of many hiding places the boy had discovered.

She thanked God for Jordan. He had been like a son to her since she’d woken up with her legs draped over him on that awful day so long ago. She was thankful, too, that the children’s personalities and mental states had remained childlike. Ben had a biological explanation for that too, but she knew it was God. Without their constant youthful energy, quick laughter, and optimistic outlook, she would have gone crazy a long time ago. Maybe Phin should spend more time with them.

She walked the corridor to Sebastian’s room and looked in. He was sitting at a table against the far wall, his back to her. Three laptop computers crowded in front of him, like children listening to a story. Another device, which resembled a black soda can capped by a glass dome, sat off to one side. Wires ran from it and disappeared behind the computers.

She walked silently toward him, past a big workbench on which he’d arranged his shark fishing gear: rod, reel, fighting harness, sonar. Stacked in a basket on the desk were hand-annotated underwater topographic maps from places like Vigo Port, Spain; Terceira, Azores; and Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. The chair in front of the workbench was the floor-mounted fighting chair from which he’d caught a record-setting marlin-1,362 pounds and 15 feet long. Displayed on the wall was a selection of old whaling harpoons: two-flue and one-flue, toggling, and a bomb lance. They had nothing to do with shark fishing, but Sebastian was nostalgic about them, having used them on a Dutch whaling expedition in 1880. When Nevaeh protested his hobby-reminding him that even Peter Benchley had become a shark conservationist-he’d said the only reason she didn’t shark fish herself stemmed from a general distaste for cannibalism.

Sebastian’s fingers clicked over the center keyboard. He paused to watch numbers and graphs construct themselves on the monitor. Before they stopped moving, his hands flashed over the keys again, restarting the process.