Daughter of Destiny (13 page)

“I'm sure your mother was overjoyed to have you back,” Kai said, suddenly emotional. She couldn't imagine being torn away like that. But in a way, she could, having lost her own mother at age nine and living in a foster home until age thirteen. After her parents' death, the state had felt Grams was too old to take care of her, so Kai had been sent to a foster home. Grams had eventually proved to the officials that she was more than capable of caring for her, so Kai was able to go home to the res once more. But Kai refused to be taught anything about medicine even though Grams had offered.

Reaching out, Ooranye patted Kai's hand. “All things have purpose, child. We do not know the answers to why they happen, only that the Rainbow Serpent has a greater plan and path for us to follow.” Her fingers curled around Kai's. “And just like I was, you are lost, child, and yearn to go home.”

Uneasy, Kai wondered if the elder could read not only her mind, but what lay in her wounded heart. She knew enough not to try and lie her way out of this, for there was an incredible energy swirling around Ooranye. Kai recognized it as the kind of nurturing, loving energy that Grams also possessed. It told her that Ooranye was a very adept medicine person who knew a great deal of magic. Kai was sure that the elder understood the world of metaphysics as few could, and had likely completed decades of work on
herself to lighten her spirit and make a powerful connection to the Rainbow Serpent so revered by her people.

“Grandmother, in all honesty, I do not know why I was chosen for this mission. I am not whole. I don't walk in balance as I should. My people seek harmony and wholeness, but I possess neither of those things….”

Patting her hand again, Ooranye whispered. “That is
why
you were chosen, child. You have the heart of Kuniya, the woman python or Dream Snake, and the humility to admit that you do not know everything. Do not feel bad about this. When I was stolen, I used to sit in a school that had bars over the windows to stop us from leaving. I cried nightly to the Dream Snake and asked why this had happened to me. Now I understand why I had to be taken. There is a greater plan for all of us, so do not feel bad about where you are presently. In time, all things heal within us, if we allow it. Everything is more than it seems….”

Hot tears stung Kai's closed eyes. She felt such gentle love flowing from Ooranye as she held her hand. The heat was alive and she realized that there was a healing going on between them. Sitting quietly, Kai closed her fingers around the old woman's gnarled and callused ones. Once the heat reached her heart she felt pain so sharp that it made her gasp out loud.

“Just accept it,” Ooranye counseled gently. “The hurt will go as you give it back to the Rainbow Serpent to digest….”

Breathing shallowly, Kai felt the pain in her heart arc upward. Was she going to die of a cardiac arrest? With each indrawn breath, she felt the ache go deeper. It hurt to inhale, it hurt to think. Gripping Ooranye's hand, Kai bowed
her head, her other hand pressed to the center of her chest. Was she going to die?

The moment she thought it, the pain began to ease. Over the next few minutes, the hurt dissolved, and soon Kai could once more take in a full, deep breath of air without resistance. Gradually, she loosened her grip on the elder's strong hand.

“There…” Ooranye murmured. “It is done. Now you will feel better, a little more each day.”

Kai looked at the woman, whose ebony face shone with an ethereal glow. Blinking, Kai realized that the glow went beyond her head, surrounding her whole body in a golden, oval-shaped aura. Kai sent Jake a quick glance, wondering if he saw it, too. He did, she realized. His eyes were wide with awe and surprise.

Sitting back, Kai gulped. Only once, in her late teens, had she seen Grams's aura. It had startled her, almost frightened her, until she'd remembered as a child seeing an icon of the Mother Mary with just such a halo of gold light around her head. When it happened with her grandmother, Grams had just finished conducting a sacred ceremony for their clan.

Understanding that Ooranye was a sacred person, someone holy in the tradition of her people, Kai gulped again. She felt so far below her, spiritually speaking, that she had no right to even be near her. Kai knew her life so far had been one of bruising pain and nonstop suffering. She was not a light to the world, as this Aboriginal elder certainly was. And as was Grams.

“I came into your dreams, child, because the Rainbow
Serpent told me it was time.” Ooranye looked directly at Kai. “Last year we had a dark-hearted man near here. He had stolen a sacred object, and it was made of stone. That much I know.”

“You mean the quartz crystal mask we're looking for?” Kai asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. She gave Jake another quick look. He, too, was leaning forward raptly.

Nodding, Ooranye said, “I have seen this stone face. It has come to me often in the Dreamtime. It cries out to go home.”

“We're here to bring it back to our people,” Jake told her. “It's the Paint Clan crystal mask. A sacred totem for our people.”

Unable to contain her excitement, Kai whispered, “You know it's here?”

Ooranye nodded. “Yes. But to get it back will be very, very dangerous. You may lose your life trying to rescue it….”

“D
id you sleep well, child?” Ooranye asked the next morning as they sat in her brush hut.

Kai nodded. “A dreamless sleep.” She smiled at the old woman, who now wore a crinkled but clean pink shift.

“No, I wasn't in your dreams last night.” The Aborigine chuckled indulgently.

Jake sat a few feet away from Kai. They'd been given a brush hut with a grass mat to sleep upon last night. Kai hadn't protested about sleeping in the same space with him. Given the fact that they were exhausted from the journey and the murderous heat, neither of them had anything on their mind but deep, healing sleep. Shortly after they had awakened, Kai had been given a hand-hewn wooden bowl of fresh water, and she'd eagerly washed the grit from her face, arms, neck and hands.

Jake had gone to the rock hole about a quarter of a mile from the village. Kai had wanted nothing to do with the murky looking pool of water. At the spring, Jake had found a large wooden dish that was curved enough to hold water,
and he'd bathed as well as he could. It felt good to be clean, the salty perspiration cleansed from his body.

“You feel refreshed now?” Ooranye asked Kai kindly.

“Yes, Grandmother, thank you.” She sat cross-legged, her elbows resting on her knees, hands folded in her lap. The morning sun was shining through the east-facing door. Outside, Kai could hear the soft chatter of villagers as they went about their day.

Jake pushed his fingers through his recently washed hair. This morning, Kai's hair was neatly combed into a thick black braid that hung between her shoulder blades. She had on clean clothes—a pink silk, sleeveless top with a scoop neck and another pair of Rail Ryder nylon pants. He tried not to allow his gaze to drift to the swell of her breasts, the nipples clearly visible against the soft fabric. Last night had been a special kind of hell for him, with only a foot or so of space between them. Kai had fallen asleep immediately, but he'd lain awake for a long time, aching to roll over and pull her into his arms. Would she have come? No. He had to talk with her first. He thought what he saw in her eyes was yearning for him, but he couldn't be sure. He could be misreading her.

Kai quashed her impatience to know about the crystal mask and its whereabouts. It wasn't polite to push elders to speak on any topic until they were ready to. Kai was finding that Aboriginal culture was very similar to her own in that way. Younger people were taught to wait until an elder asked before they gave their thoughts. Young people were expected to sit at the feet of wise elders to listen and learn.

“Your eyes are beautiful gems,” Ooranye said. “They re
mind me of when I stood on the shore of Mother Ocean and saw that amazing color in the water.”

“How can you see me?” Kai asked, stymied.

Chuckling, Ooranye tapped her brow. “Child, we have three eyes, you know? There are two here—” she pointed to her milky, sightless orbs “—and a third one that is unseen, yet works just as well as the others. I had fleshy tumors grow across my eyes when I was middle-aged. The doctor call them pterygiums. From then on, I was blind. Over the years, with my mother's instruction and help, I was able to develop my ability to see with my middle eye. When I finally went blind, I simply switch to seeing with this other one, and it serves me just as well. I can see you as clearly as you see me.”

Shaking her head, Kai smiled at Jake, who had a surprised look on his face, too.

Ooranye said, “In order for you to find the stone mask, you must be prepared to die.”

Gulping, Kai whispered, “Die?”

Nodding, Ooranye looked at Jake. “Yes, and I must warn you that there is darkness that wants to surround you.”

Jake frowned. “What do you mean by darkness, Grandmother?” He felt terror deep in his heart as he looked over at Kai. She seemed surprised, too, by the elder's statement.

“We are given glimpses of things, of possibilities…but that is all.” She sighed and folded her hands, her voice lowering. “Here is what I have been shown. I see dark clouds gathering on the horizon, racing toward you. I sense that a person or group of people wants the crystal mask you speak of. They know about you. How, I do not know, so
do not ask me. This darkness wants the crystal mask because it represents power. The dark ones are always enchanted with power. If this man finds the mask before you do, he will exploit it for his own selfish greed and desire. They know who you are and they track you now as a dingo tracks her quarry. Are you aware of them?”

Shaking her head, Kai murmured, “No, Grandmother, we aren't.”

Jake scowled. “Have you seen them?” he asked the old woman.

Shaking her head, she said, “I see them only as a symbol. That is all I am being shown.”

“How dangerous are they?” Kai asked, glancing toward Jake, who returned her worried look.

“They will kill for this stone mask. They have been searching the Red Center for over a year and have not found it.”

“It means that we have to stop being lackadaisical about our welfare,” Kai told him. “We both thought there was little danger to this mission.”

“We didn't think anyone would care,” Jake muttered. “Obviously, we were dead wrong.” His heart pounded. The thought of Kai being killed alarmed him as nothing else could. Jake knew she could take care of herself. Kai was a warrior through and through, yet Jake wanted to be there at her side. Together, they would stand a better chance of survival.

Ooranye smiled, brushing a fly away from her face. “Children, you underestimate the darkness of man. Earth is a school, where we come into a physical body to learn
certain lessons. There is light here, which we represent, but also a darkness that cares nothing for those within the circle of life. We are learning lessons about the use and abuse of power, about greed, lust, desire, prejudice and all the other harmful human emotions we encounter.”

Kai sighed and gave Jake a searching look. “We'll have to stay on guard twenty-four-seven until we figure out
who
is behind this.”

“Yes,” he agreed grimly. “I've been racking my brain just now, trying to think if we were followed and didn't realize it.”

“No other camels or riders followed us here, that's for sure.”

“True,” Jake murmured with a slight smile, “but there are satellites up in the sky that could track us.”

“Those are defense satellites,” Kai objected.

“So what? What if our enemy is military?”

Scowling, Kai growled, “This sucks.”

Raising her hands, Ooranye said, “Children, you do not know who it is—yet. My sense is you will know shortly. Therefore, you must remain alert, like the woma python, which is always stalked by the dingo.”

“Don't worry, Grandmother, we will.”

Nodding, Ooranye said, “Now, I must tell you about this crystal mask of your people and where it is located. There is a Red Canyon perhaps a day's camel ride from here. At the back of it is a cave—a very deep, old cave. No one goes to it because it is dangerous. We know that others have tried to walk into it in the past, and when they did, they disappeared.”

“Because?” Kai asked.

Shrugging, Ooranye said, “It is dark in there. You walk into it and suddenly there is no floor beneath your feet. Many have fallen to their deaths.”

Jake glanced at Kai. “And this is where the man who stole the crystal mask went?”

“Yes, my grandson, he did.” Ooranye pointed toward the ceiling of the hut. “He came from the sky like a bird.”

Frowning, Kai muttered, “In a plane? A helicopter?”

“No, neither of those. It was odd looking. It had wings and a noisy motor….”

“An ultralight!” Jake said excitedly. “It had to be one of those little homemade airplanes.”

Shrugging, Ooranye said, “He landed near the canyon. We saw him and his noisy, sputtering bird put down. One of our hunters went to see why he was here. He said the man pushed the bird beneath a large tree to hide it and then ran into the canyon. He was carrying a brown leather sack in his hand. The hunter tracked him. When he came to where the prints of his boots disappeared, the hunter knew he'd fallen into the cave.”

“Was he alive?” Kai asked.

“No. The bird man had fallen to his death, as all others have.”

“Then the man with the mask is down on the bottom of this cave floor?” Jake inquired.

Wrinkling her nose, Ooranye said, “Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Kai demanded.

“The smell of dead, rotting flesh has filled this canyon for nearly a year. Only of late has the odor left. The desert
is hot and dries things out. We are sure this bird man is dead at the bottom of that cave. There was a great sandstorm about three months after he died, and it swept away the wings and motor he flew here with. They are no more, torn apart by the winds and buried by the shifting sand. But we found this in his bird.” She handed Kai some folded, dusty papers.

Eagerly unfolding the badly crinkled papers, Kai opened and quickly perused them. A feeling of triumph soared through her. She handed them to Jake.

“Look at this!” she said, excited as she tapped her finger on the papers he held. “The man's name was Giles Rowland. And see that? Marston's address is on it!”

Frowning, Jake read the scribbled notes, eyes squinting. “Marston's Hong Kong address. It says here in ‘instructions' that Rowland was to fly from the U.S. to Sydney and then to Marston's villa on the island.”

Snorting, Kai muttered, “It looks like Rowland had other ideas. He might have landed in Sydney, but he was taking the totem for himself. Why else would he be out here? Probably looking for a good place to hide it where no one would find it until he could pawn it off to some millionaire who wanted to buy it instead of giving it to Marston as he'd agreed to.”

“I think you're right,” Jake murmured, handing her back the papers. “That's proof against Marston. It also gives you a double check on that one totem where you were told it was on an island where yellow-skinned people lived. That would be the Chinese and Hong Kong is an island.” He smiled proudly over at her. “You're batting a thousand on your dreaming ability,” he congratulated her.

Feeling a warm flush creep up her neck and into her face, Kai absorbed Jake's warm praise. “I'm still so new at this….” She folded the papers and put them into a zippered pocket of her Rail Riders for safe keeping. This was more evidence implicating Marston.

Ooranye smiled at Kai. “You are a far seerer. And I'm glad these papers mean something to you.”

“Did the hunter find the sack the man was carrying?” Kai asked.

“No, he did not.” Ooranye tapped her brow between her eyes. “I know the stone mask is down there. I hear it crying. The man is dead and the sack he brought holds the mask you seek. We cannot get down there. We tried and failed.”

Jake gave Kai a meaningful glance. “It makes me glad I stowed some climbing gear in our baggage. We're going to need it.”

Nodding, Kai pursed her lips. “How are you at spelunking, Carter? You got a degree in that, too?”

Grinning, Jake murmured, “Camels and caves. What do they have in common?”

He saw her eyes dance with mischief. “They both start with a
C,
for Carter.”

“Bang on. Yes, I've done my fair share of caving over the years. In the Great Smokies where we were raised there were plenty of limestone caves. I used to explore many of them.”

“I didn't.”

Chuckling, Jake reached out and gripped her hand for a moment. “I'll teach you.” He felt her squeeze his fingers in return. How badly he wanted quality time to talk to Kai of their past and their present.

“Good.”

“Rest for today, children. Tomorrow, I will show you how to get to the canyon. That will be soon enough,” Ooranye counseled. “You need another good night's sleep to be alert, so you will not die in your attempt to get the stone mask.”

 

“What do you think about someone wanting to steal the crystal mask?” Kai asked. Lying on her back, hands behind her head, she looked up through the brush ceiling, to where stars were winking in the ebony sky. Jake lay on the other side of the hut, with a few feet of space separating them.

Rolling onto his side, Jake used his arm as a pillow. “Rowland could have had help. He could have hired others to help him hide the mask in Red Canyon or Marston realized he took it.”

“Yeah,” Kai said, “and he's got his men here in the Red Center trying to find it just like we're doing.”

“I think you're right, Kai. Your dream is proving to be true and it's gotten us this far.” He saw the vague outline of Kai's body near the open doorway. There was a slight breeze and he was grateful for it.

“Having clairvoyant skills is a blessing and a curse,” she muttered, closing her eyes. Kai felt comfortable being so near to Jake. She didn't feel threatened by him; on the contrary, she was glad he was here. Somehow, Kai felt he understood her need to be left to make her own decisions and come to her own conclusions. Maybe that's why she felt comfortable asking his thoughts now.