The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(15)
“Always? These things are never, ever wrong?” I don’t try to hide my disappointment. I hoped he’d say the visions were all metaphorical and up to interpretation, like dreams, and shouldn’t be taken literally.
“If the beings in those visions are to be believed,” Rose says, “they’re just us. Since we can be wrong, they can also be wrong. It just so happens that we’ve never witnessed a vision that has proven to be incorrect. Some of us believe these beings are divine and simply lie about being us to conceal their true nature. Others think it makes sense that the combined intellects of so many wise people would produce—”
“So what did you see?” Paul asks.
I don’t have a lie on hand, and I don’t want to tell them the truth, so I decide to annoy Paul by asking a question of my own. “What do you plan on having me do?”
He continues walking in somber silence. Rose winks at me, I guess to show she’s not angry. I don’t trust her. Not fully, not yet. I think they’re still playing good cop / bad cop with me.
We walk through the Temple, allowing me to get a better look at the monks. I notice that they’re not all men. The women are harder to spot due to them having the same shaved heads as the men. Their bare faces and shapeless robes also serve to conceal their gender. Despite this androgyny, I find that one of the lady monks we pass looks pretty.
The diversity of this place doesn’t end with the presence of women. The monks are also a good mix of ages and races. The latter is in contrast to the Enlightened, who, like nearly all Readers and Guides I’ve met, are white. My friend Thomas, who’s half-Asian, is the only non-white Guide I’ve encountered thus far.
Paul leads us through a smaller side door to the outside of the Temple. This must be a sort of backyard. Unlike the beauty-packed front, with its rock gardens and cherry blossoms, this area is more practical and plain. We’re walking on a field of green grass, with blue forget-me-nots scattered here and there.
As we walk, something on my left catches my attention. In this part of the yard, a bunch of monks stand frozen in poses that look like either kung fu or tai chi. Whatever they’re doing, it’s different from the other sorts of meditation their brethren inside the Temple are practicing. When I see Caleb performing some type of martial art on his own, I realize they probably are practicing kung fu. Though his moves aren’t the same as the frozen figures’, it puts this open space into context; it’s some kind of outdoor dojo. Now that I’m paying attention, I spot tall, wooden poles in the distance, each with a monk standing atop them on one leg, with the other foot held in their right hand. The pose looks like a combination between a stretching and a balancing exercise. In another part of the dojo, someone is crouched, deep in concentration, about to break a slab of stone with his bare hands.
“Here we are,” Rose says as we reach the end of the yard.
Paul opens the door to let us into another large structure, saying, “This is the guesthouse.”
The ‘guesthouse’ is the size of a mansion. The Temple dwarfs it from the outside, but once we’re inside, the grandness of the house feels comparable. When my attention settles onto two women sitting near the entrance, frozen, my awe of the place is extinguished, replaced by shock.
Because while one looks vaguely familiar, the other woman I know very well.
It’s Julia, the Reader woman I usually think of as ‘Eugene’s girl,’ even if they aren’t currently together—a situation that’s due in large part to her late father, Jacob.
Fuck. My heart starts beating faster.
I shot Jacob and was present when Mira finished him off. I can’t think of a good reason as to why I’m being reunited with Julia, other than for some kind of reckoning. The woman accompanying Julia must be her mother, Jacob’s widow.
What is going on? I can see a very logical chain of events: the Enlightened who Joined with me learned the truth, and now they want that truth to come out. After all, Caleb knew it was me, so they might have decided to bring Julia in ahead of time and do the whole Joining just to confirm the situation.
“What the hell are they doing here?” I ask evenly.
Caleb is outside, so if I had to, I could utilize a few desperate measures, such as killing Paul to phase out of the Quiet. But I remind myself that if I killed him, I’d only end up back in the car, next to Inert Paul and angry Caleb—not to mention that killing my newfound grandpa would feel wrong, or disrespectful, or something.
“You know Julia and her mother,” Paul says calmly.
“Is that a question?” I’m starting to get annoyed. “You just poked around in my head, so you know what I know.”
“Allow me, Paul,” Rose says, putting her hand on my elbow. “Your friend and her mother think they’re here to get our clarification on who will be the new leader of their Reader community.”
“And the real reason?” I brace myself for the answer.
“The real reason is a bit more complicated,” she says.
“Simplify it for me.”
“Okay. Let’s start with this. You’ve probably already gathered that you’re unique,” she says tentatively.
“Well, yeah. Because of my mother.”
“No,” she says. “Well, yes. But aside from your mother being a Pusher, you are different.”