Spirits of Ash and Foam

by Greg Weisman

  They proceeded to the cave, three thirteen-year-olds and two insubstantial ghosts, armed with one wooden stick.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  BLOOD RELATIVE

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

  ’Bastian entered first, followed by Cash. A single ghost light on a metal post, set up that morning by Vector Control, illuminated the surroundings. The two spirits spotted the bugs huddled and buzzing—perhaps even cowering—in the back of the cave. That looked promising, so ’Bastian called out for Rain to enter. She came, spear in hand, and marched straight toward the swarm. Once more, the mosquitoes seemed to merge into the form of a small boy. Now it definitely cowered away from Rain—or at any rate, away from the zemi—against the cave wall.

  Charlie and Miranda entered, and Rain told them to keep their distance from the swarm while they searched. Her words echoed loudly inside the cavern. Miranda stared at the swarm and froze. Charlie grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, which worked surprisingly well. (Perhaps Charlie has a bit of the Healer in him too.) Miranda offered Charlie a nervous smile, and they began looking about, carefully keeping Rain and the spear between themselves and Mosquito Boy. Miranda pulled her phone from her pocket and turned on its flashlight app, shining it into every dark space, including around the circumference of the small saltwater pool. She shone the light into the pool but barely scratched the surface of its depths.

  Rain never took her eyes off the Hupia. “Any luck?” she asked.

  Charlie said, “Not yet.”

  ’Bastian asked Cash, “Where did you drop it?”

  Cash didn’t seem to hear. He stared at Mosquito Boy in much the same way Miranda had. There it is. The creature that killed me.

  ’Bastian repeated the question. “Where did you drop the thing?”

  Cash snapped out of it enough to answer defensively. “Don’t know. I was kinda busy dying at the time, so I just dropped it.”

  “Well, where were you standing when you opened it?”

  Cash looked around, then pointed at Rain. “Pretty much where the kid is.”

  Rain glanced down at her feet, heard a slight buzzing, and looked up again. The swarm had moved a few inches from the wall—and was losing its boyish figure. Rain tightened her grip on the spear.

  ’Bastian said, “So it could have fallen to this side of the cave.”

  Rain said, “I don’t want Charlie or Miranda anywhere near the Hupia.”

  The two teens looked up. Miranda started to speak but quickly realized she and Charlie weren’t being addressed.

  ’Bastian said, “We’ll look over here.”

  Cash shook his head. “I’m not going near that thing.”

  ’Bastian got all military on him. “Mister, it can’t hurt you now. Start looking!”

  A cowed Cash made a halfhearted effort while’Bastian searched in earnest. He found the loose dirt where Cash had dug up the jar in the first place. He found a couple of broken spearheads, some small animal bones, and a few massive piles of dried bat guano—but no bat-jar zemi.

  Charlie was searching around a stalagmite in another corner of the cave. It was dark, so he felt around for the jar and didn’t find it. He stood up and called out to Rain, “What if the jar’s not here?”

  Perhaps, in hindsight, it was the wrong thing to say. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered. It’s unclear if the Hupia understood English. Either way, it grew bolder, swarming outward from the wall. Rain stabbed at it with the spear, but how do you strike a stake through the heart of a thousand flying insects? She had a brief thought: Where’s the rice and garlic when you need it? Then Mosquito Boy, no longer afraid of these ignorant children and ghosts, attacked.

  Rain—descendant of shamans and chiefs—was clearly his primary target. The swarm could feed on the others later. The Healer snake strove mightily to keep her whole, but it hadn’t completely finished healing her after the first attack. It was falling way behind now.

  Rain staggered back under the swarm’s onslaught of bloodsuckers. She swung the spear, and the swarm focused on her hand and wrist until she dropped it, screaming.

  ’Bastian and Cash could do nothing but look on as Rain was eaten alive, a very little bit at a time.

  Miranda was frozen against the far wall. Charlie took a few steps forward, and the bugs came after him. But their focus was still on Rain, so he ran and dove and scooped up the spear. He rolled up onto one knee and held the spear aloft, ready to throw it. The flute bounced painfully off his head, but he ignored it.

  For a second the swarm seemed to hesitate. Then it released Rain—who collapsed onto her hands and knees—and confronted Charlie in the form of that laughing, buzzing First Murderer, Mosquito Boy. Charlie took aim, and Mosquito Boy laughed louder. Charlie heaved the spear right at the heart of the demon child. It was a good throw. The spear soared through the air, right on target—and the bugs separated to let it pass through Mosquito Boy harmlessly. The spear thunked into the soft earth, five feet beyond the swarm, out of reach and useless.

  As it flew the bat-flute whistled again briefly, and something clicked for Miranda. The Taíno myth of flutes: the baijo that granted power. She shouted (practically screamed), “It’s not the spear! It’s the flute! The flute has the power!”

  Unfortunately, that epiphany came too late. The swarm expanded and attacked Charlie and Rain. Miranda—gaining bravery with knowledge—ran forward but was cut off by another wall of bugs.

  Rain gasped out, “Papa, it’s a zemi!”

  Suddenly, ’Bastian shared her epiphany. If I can touch one zemi, maybe I can touch them all!

  Sebastian Bohique—descendant of First Shaman—ran to the spear, grasped it solidly with both hands, and yanked it from the ground. He was almost smiling.

  Miranda, backing away from the bugs that still attacked her two friends, saw the spear rise of its own accord and flip upright. She saw the flute rise up and for a second she had hope …

  But ’Bastian called out to Rain, “I can’t play it. I have no breath!”

  Rain managed to lift her head. ’Bastian saw his granddaughter as a mass of tiny wounds, her face swollen and distorted and covered with bugs. She was dying. He held the zemi in his hand, and still she was dying. He held it, and still he could not save her.

  In pain and light-headed from lack of blood, Rain saw her ghostly grandfather standing there with the spear pointing straight up, the bleached white flute hanging from its leather sinews. Despite the fear she would join ’Bastian soon, other thoughts still managed to claw their way out of her fevered brain. She remembered Miranda trying—and failing—to play the flute. But the holes are in the wrong place. They go side to side. And another image, another memory, popped into her head: a pole, a white object on a tether. Through swollen, bloody lips, Rain croaked out one word. “Tetherball…”

  Fortunately, the whisper carried. Miranda understood immediately. “Tetherball!” she called out, and her words echoed. “The ball, the flute, goes around the pole!”

  Then even ’Bastian understood. He allowed the flute to drop and placed both hands low on the spear. He began to swing it in a tight, quick rotation. The flute swung around on its tethers, picking up speed. As air flowed through its sideways holes, the zemi’s music began to play. ’Bastian Bohique swung the flute around faster and faster. It whistled louder and higher. The swarm rose en masse off Rain and Charlie. It fled, trying to hide amid the shadowy crevices in the cave’s ceiling.

  ’Bastian could feel the rush of power from within the zemi as it flooded hotly up his arms to energize his entire ghostly form. Answering his command, the flute spun faster, its single swirling tone echoing louder and louder off the walls of the cave. And as its pitch moved beyond the register of human hearing, the panicked swarm fled toward the mouth of the cave, only to pull up short and fly back inside, afraid of what was coming, of what had answered the call of the flute’s magicks.

  Bats.

  Julia’s storm, her wind and rain, had wreaked havoc on their
echolocation. But the call was more powerful than any hurricane, and the little brown bats came.

  They returned to their cave in droves and quickly proceeded to eat the bugs comprising the vampire’s self. The swarm fled up, down and all around like some parody of a children’s game, but the bats were everywhere, rapidly picking the Hupia apart—eating him alive—one mosquito at a time. The diminishing swarm tried to find the exit, but more bats came, answering the bohique’s call and cutting off all escape.

  Mosquito Boy’s buzzing screams echoed off the wall. And as Rain reached out to place her hand on Charlie and share her zemi’s healing power with him, Miranda pointed at the saltwater pool and cried out, “Look!”

  Aycayia the Cursed rose from the pool in human form. Her torso was wrapped in seaweed, and she carried the gourd-jar with its carved ring of nine bats that Hura-hupia had dropped into the ocean. Aycayia stepped out of the pool onto the hard surface of the cave floor. Then, opening the jar, she sang a lullaby in the old tongue:

  Come, my child,

  Come and sleep.

  The day is long.

  The night is longer,

  But here in your mother’s arms,

  You are safe.

  Come, my pretty child,

  Come and sleep.

  Come my love, my child,

  Come and sleep …

  And the few mosquitoes that remained of the Hupia beelined for the jar, as they had in the time of the Taíno and in the time of the Spanish. When all were safely stowed, Aycayia sealed the gourd. ’Bastian stopped swinging the spear. The flute spun around a few more times, slowing, its own song winding down into an audible register and then into silence.

  The satiated bats ascended to take possession of their old roosts, their old perches, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the cave.

  Rain—the snake charm already beginning to return her swollen face to some semblance of normalcy—sat back on her knees, one hand still holding tightly to Charlie’s wrist. She looked up at Aycayia and understood. Though Rain couldn’t speak the language and hadn’t comprehended the meaning of the lullaby, she was able to translate Aycayia’s pain. Meeting Aycayia’s gaze, holding that gaze in her own, Rain swallowed painfully and spoke aloud to Her. “Mosquito Boy. The Hupia. He’s your son.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  ASH AND FOAM

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

  When Aycayia sang again, she sang in English—or so it seemed to those assembled. There were moments, though, when Rain and Miranda and ’Bastian thought they heard Spanish. Even moments when Charlie and Miranda thought a few words were in French. To me, treading down a poorly lit dock on a different island, it sounded like a plaintive howl. But I think Aycayia the Cursed sang in the old tongue of the Taíno one last time, for such was the power of her song that all could understand its meaning.

  The song told a story, and the story was this …

  In the First Days, the most beautiful woman in the cacicazgo was Guanayoa. Every man desired her. And not simply the strong, young warriors. The little boys desired her. Old men desired her. Husbands desired her. Even women desired beautiful Guanayoa. None were immune to the curve of her hip, the fullness of her breast, to her raven-dark hair and the light in her eyes.

  And Guanayoa relished the power over others that her beauty brought Her. And so she sought more. She bargained with First Demon to gain his magicks, and she became First Witch. But there was a cost. There is always a cost. The very magicks that made her powerful and extended her life for many, many years also ruined her beauty. And as Guanayoa’s beauty faded, even the memory of that beauty faded from the cacicazgo.

  But Guanayoa remembered. And like First Bat, she hated the beauty of those around her. And the one she hated most of all was Aycayia.

  But this First Witch was clever. She convinced Aycayia’s Six Sisters that she had found a husband for Aycayia, a mighty warrior, a man of power. The Sisters thought she meant First Chief or perhaps First Shaman, and they agreed to the match.

  But Aycayia’s husband was neither Chief nor Shaman. Her husband was not a man at all. He was First Demon, who took Aycayia as payment for the magicks he had gifted to Guanayoa.

  Aycayia’s wedding night was a nightmare, one she barely survived. But her Six Sisters—wracked with guilt for giving her up to the Demon—nursed her back to health, and soon Aycayia found she was with child. The Six Sisters feared what the child of such a father might be, but Aycayia loved her baby from the moment of conception. Before he was even born, she named him after Jurupari, the son of First Sun and First Woman. Jurupari, keeper of the Sacred Flutes, who after First Woman’s death, used his mother’s body to create the First Stars.

  And such a name has power. And such a boy might defy his Demon Father and become a great cacique or bohique. But that was not the wish of Guanayoa. She cursed Jurupari in his mother’s womb by feeding Aycayia ajiaco tainted with a single drop of human blood. She gave the First Born of First Demon a taste for blood and knew he would never be sated.

  And so when Jurupari was born, he became First Murderer. And First God sent First Bat to uncover Jurupari’s crimes. And First Bat was horrified by what he discovered. First Bat forgot his anger and all his bitterness over losing his coat of colored feathers and swore to serve the Taíno as their spirit-god to keep First Murderer in check. And First Bat revealed Jurupari to First God, who sent a dream to First Shaman, who told the dream to First Chief.

  And though he was but a child, Jurupari was apprehended by First Chief. And First Shaman denounced the boy to the entire tribe as a demon. And all but his mother, Aycayia, agreed the sentence must be death.

  But Jurupari only laughed. He said, “There is only one way to kill a demon. And you do not have the courage for it.”

  But First Shaman knew the method for killing demons. And First Chief had the courage. Together, they dragged First Murderer to the First Fire, eternally burning in its great pit. Again the boy laughed, saying, “You have not the courage…”

  And so First Chief and First Shaman consigned the child to the pit, to the fire, to a true demon’s death. But First Murderer had fooled them both. For although the flames consumed him, his ashes rose into the air and became the First Mosquitoes.

  And the plague of death continued worse than before.

  And Guanayoa blamed Aycayia for Jurupari’s rampage. Guanayoa lied with truth, saying Aycayia had lain with First Demon to conceive First Murderer. Then Guanayoa lied with a lie, saying Aycayia was First Witch.

  And Aycayia the Cursed was so beautiful that this lie was believed by all—for they believed that none but a witch could possess such beauty. And Aycayia was banished to Punta Majagua to serve Guanayoa. But Aycayia’s Six Sisters refused to abandon her. And in her way, Aycayia refused to abandon Jurupari.

  Fourteen Warriors were placed in seven canoes. They were blindfolded, so they could not look upon Aycayia. And their nostrils were plugged with rubber gum, so they could not revel in her scent. Aycayia was led to the First Canoe. She was bound so she could touch no one. And she was gagged so her voice could make no appeal. For Aycayia’s beauty was so potent, all the senses must be thwarted, lest someone take pity upon her.

  Aycayia’s Six Sisters sat in the six other canoes. Guanayoa sat beside Aycayia and guided the blind warriors far away to Punta Majagua. There, Aycayia, her Sisters and Guanayoa were abandoned. The Fourteen Warriors were instructed to row toward the heat of the setting sun with their blindfolds in place. Only when night had fallen could they remove them and find their way home.

  But there was no peace for Aycayia. She and her Sisters were forced to build a new bohio for Guanayoa. And they served the old crone as her slaves.

  And Guanayoa was cruel to Aycayia in many small ways. But Aycayia would not be brought to anger. It seemed nothing Guanayoa did could harm Aycayia more than her own grief.

  For First Shaman had called upon First Bat to honor his vow and become a spirit-god for the tribe. First Sh
aman carved a flute from driftwood in the shape of First Bat and tied it to a spear with a spearhead also carved in Bat’s likeness. And First Bat entered this flute and spear, and it became his own zemi. And when the zemi played, all of First Bat’s little brown children answered its song, and they fell upon the First Mosquitoes and consumed them.

  As Jurupari’s swarm shrank under this attack, he fled to his mother at Punta Majagua. Aycayia had created a jar from a gourd and had carved the image of First Bat nine times around it. She sang a lullaby to her son, and Jurupari flew inside the jar to sleep in his mother’s arms once more, safe from the bats, which remained outside the gourd. And the Taíno were now safe from him.

  And so the Six Sisters sent First Hummingbird to tell the cacicazgo of Aycayia’s sacrifice. Hummingbird flitted to each of the Fourteen Warriors, and each and every one answered the Six Sisters’ call. They sat in their canoes and put blindfolds on again. And they remembered their First Journey and crossed through the darkness in the same manner.

  The Fourteen Warriors found the bohio of Guanayoa on Punta Majagua. They found Aycayia and her Sisters bathing Guanayoa. But Guanayoa saw the Warriors first and knew they had come to bring Aycayia back.

  And this infuriated First Witch beyond all measure. She cast a spell upon the Fourteen and told them only the strongest might have Aycayia. Thus enthralled, each Warrior did battle against friend and brother. And by nightfall, all Fourteen lay dead on Punta Majagua.

  Aycayia was one of only ten witnesses to the crime. She threatened to tell First Chief and First Shaman of First Witch’s evil. But Guanayoa warned, “There is no land safe from my magicks, Aycayia! And if no land is safe from me, then you will never be safe on land.”

  Frightened, Aycayia and her Sisters fled to First Ocean, hoping to escape Guanayoa’s wrath. They stumbled through the water, trying to reach the canoes of the Fourteen Warriors. But Guanayoa’s curse reached them first. The Six Sisters were transformed into dolphins. And the First Witch transformed Aycayia into a hideous manatee.