Hiding The Truth

A Plan... Maybe

"Wait till the last minute," Cam recommended. "Act natural; don't let Doug or anyone else guess your plans. Spend the next two weeks gathering any supplies you can. Clothes for Junior, canned foods, all the cash you can carry. Put them in a suitcase. Something normal looking. Nothing too new and shiny, nothing too old and beat-up. I have a contact in Magic City who's often in Progress City. He's one of the ones working against the Organization. I heard he has a trip coming up that will take him all the way to South Beach, down on the tip of the Sunshine Peninsula. I'll see if he has room for two more."

"Where will we stay when I get there? How will we survive? I have to have somewhere safe to take Junior." Lila's mind raced and she tried again to shrug off the truth her Discernment had shown her. Was she really going to do this? To walk away from the biggest opportunity of her life because some crazy foreigner had concocted an insane cockamamie story about Druids, for heaven's sakes?

"I don't know. I'll ask around. You could go to a Women's Shelter, tell them your husband left you." He suggested thoughtfully.

"And go on the dole? No. No way. You already know I was born Red. I didn't take up White ways just to become poor White trash." She refused. Absolutely not. No way.

"Lila, what's more important to you? Junior's safety, or your pride?" Cam's exasperation made her defensive and angry.

"You don't understand. Pride is all we'll have if we do this. He's safest if he has money and a good White upbringing. I've been over this with Mama already. The Organization is the only choice."

"Would you go if I could get you comfortable in South Beach?"

"Honestly, I don't know." She said. Now that she knew Cam had the Talent of Truth-seeing, she didn't see any point trying to lie to him. Why bother? He'd just Read her intentions anyway.

Cam thought for a minute, then hesitantly offered, "I have another idea, but it's even more dangerous."

"More dangerous how? What could be more dangerous than being on the street in a strange city with a four year old child?"

"You could carry on as planned. Go to Shadow Holler. Work in Limestone. Do your Organization training. Learn everything you can, and then report back to me or another Druid whatever you find out. Give us information. Be our woman on the inside."

"Spy on the spies?" She cocked her head. She could still take the job and the coveted salary and status. If she could, she would help Cam, she guessed. If she got too scared or he was wrong about the Organization, she could always just... not tell him anything. Or tell him the truth: it was an anti-Nazi agency, and nothing more.

"Exactly. You get what you obviously want, we get information. Everyone wins when we take Them down." Cam asserted.

"Them?" Lila raised an eyebrow.

"The Organization. It's our shorthand for it, since nobody really knows what the agency is really officially called or if it even has an official title." He said, shrugging.

"I like this plan better." Lila allowed.

"Fine," Cam said. "Now we need to work on getting you caught up on your Talented learning."

"What do you mean?"

"Until today you didn't know Druids were still practicing and you haven't used your Talents in years. Clearly, you have a lot to learn." Cam rolled his eyes, but he was relaxed and smiling again, and Lila knew everything was alright between them once more.

"So catch me up, then," she challenged.

And he did. He talked to her about meditation and controlling her breathing, but those were nothing new. All Red children learned those skills from the cradle, so they moved on quickly to more lessons. He did something sideways with his hands and made a light appear. "See?"

"I do see. How did you do that?" She asked.

"It's... life force. Magical energy. Most people make the mistake of using their own, but trained practitioners draw from the environment around them. It works best in nature but you can do it anywhere once you know the trick." He explained. They practiced forming balls of energy and throwing them back and forth like children on a ball field for awhile.

"I can't get the hang of pulling it out of the air. It all comes from inside me," Lila complained.

"Don't worry, you will." Cam reassured her.

They went over tapping into and following her Intuition and he reminded her of all the knowledge she had tried so hard to forget about Reading people and situations with her Discernment. He talked a little about how his Truth-seeing was different, how he couldn't pull detailed assessments out of thin air the same way people like Lila and to a much greater degree Mrs D'Angelo-Skye could, but instead simply knew a relevant piece of information at the opportune moment and could use that knowledge to kickstart his search for evidence. Or use as leverage the way he had done to her family, going on about Red history.

At the end of their lessons for the evening, Cam drove Lila home, the windows still down and the radio still crackling out it's jangly tunes. He reached to turn it off, but the strains of a different, more fun song by that same long-haired, tight-trousered boys came on and Lila reached out and touched his hand to stop him turning the dial.

"Listen," she said. "It's us!" And the band played on, a boppy little ditty about 'a hard day's night' and 'working like a dog."

"So it is," Cam smiled. "So it is."

She didn't let go of his hand, and their fingers remained layered while he shifted the gears all the way to her house. She was still humming it when he saw her to the door, humming it as she fumbled at the lock. Humming it as he kissed her and the world sparkled with starbursts of possibility.