UnSouled

“Someone knows we’re here,” Co

“I’m sorry!” Kele pleads. “Nova promised she wouldn’t tell anyone, but she must have. It’s my fault.”

“Maybe so and maybe not.” Pivane turns to Co

“The old sweat lodge?” suggests Kele, which somehow sounds appropriate, since this is making them all sweat.

Pivane shakes his head. “I know a better place.”

34 • Una

The knock on the shop door is so quiet, Una barely hears it from upstairs. She has just put a steak on the skillet. Had the skillet been sizzling any louder, she might not have heard the knock. She descends from her upstairs apartment into the luthier shop where she used to apprentice but now runs. As she crosses through the workroom, her bare feet smart from sharp wood shavings on the floor. She continues on through the showroom, where her handmade guitars hang from above like sides of beef.

Pivane is at the door with Lev, Co

“Something happened,” Pivane tells her. “We need your help.”

“Of course.” She opens the door to allow them entrance.

Sitting on stools in the back room of the shop, Pivane explains the events of the evening. “They need a safe haven,” Pivane tells her.

“It won’t be for long,” Co

“Please, Una,” says Pivane, holding intense eye contact. “Do our family this favor.”

“Yes, certainly,” says Una, trying to hide the trepidation in her voice. “But if whoever shot at them knows they’re here—”

“I do not think any more shots will be taken,” Pivane says, “but just in case, you should keep your rifle at the ready.”

“That goes without saying.”

“It’s good that I gave it to you,” Pivane says, “for if it’s used in their protection, it will be used well.”

Pivane gets up to go. “I’ll be back to check on them tomorrow with supplies, food, anything they might need. If Chal is successful with the Hopi and it draws the Juvenile Authority off track, they’ll be able to leave the reservation soon and continue their journey.”

Una notices that Lev shifts his shoulders uncomfortably at the suggestion.

“I believe,” says Pivane, giving her once again the all-encompassing full focus of his eyes, “that this is the safest place for them. Do you agree?”

Una holds his gaze. “Maybe you’re right.”

Satisfied, Pivane leaves, the bell on the shop door jingling behind him as he goes out. Una makes sure the door is locked, then escorts her guests upstairs.

Her steak is burning, filling the kitchen with smoke. Cursing, she turns off the burner, turns on the fan, and drops the skillet into the sink, dousing it with water. The steak is about as ruined as her appetite.

“Cajun Blackened Steak, my brother calls that,” says Grace.

The small apartment has two bedrooms. She offers Grace her room, but Grace insists on the sofa. “The less space I have to bump around, the better I sleep,” she says. She lies down and seems to be snoring instantly. Una covers her with a blanket and scares up blankets for the boys. “The spare bedroom has one bed and a bedroll on the floor.”

“I’ll take the bedroll,” says Co

“No argument,” says Lev.

Una now notices that Co

Co

“Yes, considering,” she echoes. She expects him to try to charm her, maybe sidle closer to her, because she assumes this is the kind of boy he is. When he doesn’t, she is almost disappointed. She wonders when it was that she started looking for reasons to dislike people. But she knows the answer to that. It started the day she put Wil’s guitar on the funeral pyre and watched as the guitar burned in his place.

She hands the two their bedding and fetches her rifle, leaning it against the wall near the stairs. “You’ll be safe as long as you’re here.”

“Thank you, Una,” says Lev.

“My pleasure, little brother.”

She catches Co

35 • Lev

The bedroom has more pictures of Wil than in the Tashi’ne home, all from long before the brief time that Lev knew him. In fact, the room has the uneasy sense of being a shrine.

“Ya think she’s got issues with her lost love?” says Co

“Her fiancé,” Lev corrects. “They knew each other all their lives—so try to be a little more sensitive.”

Co

“If you want to win her over, wash that shirt and leave it here when we go.”

“Wi

Lev shrugs. “Guess you won’t be getting any discounts on guitars.”

After he’s settled in his bed, Lev closes his eyes. It’s getting late, but he can’t sleep. He can hear Una in the kitchen, cleaning up her burned di

Although Co

“Tonight at di

It takes Lev a few seconds to recall the moment, which was much more traumatic for Co

Co

“Because,” offers Lev, “you’re good in a crisis and you suck at normal.”

It makes Co

“Lev, do you ever—”

“No,” Lev says, shutting him down. “And neither should you. Not now, anyway.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“It’s the parent question, right?”

Co

Lev snickers and flips his hair back. It’s become a habit. Anytime someone reminds him of his days as a tithe, he takes comfort in that shock of long, unruly blond hair.

“I’m sure my parents know I’m alive now,” Co

That catches Lev’s attention. “I never even knew you had a brother.”

“His name is Lucas. He got the trophies, and I got detention slips. We used to fight all the time—but you must know all about that. You’ve got a whole busload of siblings, right?”

Lev shakes his head. “Not anymore. As far as I’m concerned, I’m now a family of one.”

“I think Una might see that differently, ‘little brother.’ ”

Lev has to admit there’s comfort in that, but not comfort enough. He decides to tell Co

“When the clappers blew up my brother’s house, my father—who I hadn’t seen for over a year—disowned me.”

“That’s harsh,” says Co

“Yeah. He basically said I should have blown myself up that day at Happy Jack.”