The Soulkeepers Read Free

in the sun. His hair was black
and too long to make any adult comfortable but too short to be tied
back, even if he'd wanted to. If there was any family resemblance
at all, it was the eyes. Jacob had his father's pale green eyes and
so did his uncle. His eyes were what seemed familiar to Jacob the
day they met and were his only clue that John might be telling the
truth about being his father's brother.
    "I just want you to know you are welcome
here for as long as it takes to find her. If something has
happened. If she's…passed on, you can stay with us permanently.
There's no reason to worry about that. You'll always have a home
with us," John said.
    All at once Jacob was filled with the desire
to throw something, his stomach clenched with his fists. His jaw
hardened as he ground his teeth. In his head, he knew he should've
been thankful to have a place to stay but everything about this
situation seemed wrong. He hated John for suggesting his mother
might not be found. More than anything, he wanted to be back on
Oahu helping to find her. And worst of all, he hated what his uncle
was about to say. He could feel it coming, those words so often
repeated to him after the death of his father, those words he
wanted to torch from the air before they could reach his ears.
    "All we can do now is pray for your mom and
trust that she's in God's hands."
    Jacob thought he might explode. Pray was
what people said when they didn't know what to say, when they
couldn't offer anything else. Pray meant do nothing. His nails bit
into the palms of his hands. He turned away from John and shoved
the anger down deep, where it coiled like a snake in his gut. He
closed the lid to it.
    "Can I ask you something?" he said.
    "Of course, what's on your mind?"
    "You say you are my uncle, my father's
brother, but your name is Laudner. My last name is Lau. My father's
last name was Lau."
    "There's a very good explanation for that
Jacob. See, um, your father…he changed his name. He shortened it,
from Laudner to Lau." John's face twisted before each word as if
his brain was choosing the right one from a stack of thousands.
    "Yes, you've said that before. But what I
want to know is why." Jacob pressed. It was the first of many
unanswered questions he'd asked without success. Why had he never
met the Laudners? Why had his father changed his name? And, most
disturbing to him, why hadn't the Laudners attended his father's
funeral five years ago? It was more than not knowing John. It was
not knowing of an Uncle John or any of the Laudner family. His
parents had never even mentioned having family on the mainland.
    John opened his mouth, then closed it again
when a rotund woman with beady eyes and short brown curls entered
the room from the kitchen. A sense of relief crossed his pale
features as Aunt Carolyn interrupted.
    "It's getting late," Carolyn said. She
stared at John as if she were beaming her thoughts directly into
his head. Her eyes flicked toward Jacob but seemed to find nothing
to hold her interest and ended up resting back on John.
    As always seemed to happen when Jacob
brought up the topic of his parents, there was no time to talk.
John became obsessed with how late it was, how he had to open the
store in the morning, and how Jacob had better get his rest.
    Once the goodnights were said, Jacob climbed
the wooden staircase and passed through a hallway lined with
portraits of Laudners throughout history. Some were so old their
black and white images had a yellow tint beneath the framed glass.
There were pictures of men and women, and multiple generations
huddled on the front lawn. There were photos of men in military
uniforms and newspaper clippings with Laudner names highlighted.
Dozens of images lined both walls of the second floor hallway.
Besides John, Carolyn, and their daughter Katrina, Jacob didn't
know the names or the faces. It was a hallway of strangers, even
the few he recognized.
    One thing was for certain: there were no
pictures of his