Naheyo looked at them over her shoulder. Her face was blackened with charcoal, the whites of her eyes extraordinarily bright in contrast.
Pilar froze in her step. “She promised me.” Her voice was low and tight. “Naheyo’s never lied to me before. Now she’s lied twice.” She leaned close to Jake, whispering in his ear even though the women wouldn’t have understood what she said. “You have to know. Naheyo promised this would be easy—a quick ritual to drive away the evil spirit and you’d be on your way. This rite, it’s a healing, the black on her face, it’s . . .” She clamped her jaws shut and shook her head.
“It’s what?”
“It either works or the Helpers kill the patient. Either way, the world is protected from the contamination.”
He couldn’t move for a moment, taking in what she’d said, his feet as heavy as boulders. Then his muscles twitched and screamed, wanting to run. It took all of his will to stay where he was.
The women closed in behind Jake and Pilar, surrounding them in a circle, each one standing behind a white rock about the size of two clasped hands. Jake’s eyes were like cameras, fear clicking the shutter. He looked over the women’s heads to Naheyo. She sat bent over a bowl made from a halved coconut. Long, green macaw tail feathers were woven into her tar-colored hair. She wore a short skirt of yellow-speckled leaves and the cape of jaguar fur that Jake had seen in her room. The cape was pushed back over her shoulders. The skin from her elbows to her wrists was covered in black mud circles, wavy lines, spirals, and yellow dots. A light drizzle began. The rain did nothing to cool the heat. Sweat poured down Jake’s body.
One of the Helpers tilted back her head and screamed. He flinched at the wild, piercing sound—a call, he thought, to the spirits, or the signal to begin. The women began singing, moving their feet in place, lifting them only inches from the moist ground, left, right, left, right, going nowhere.
“They’re charming the field,” Pilar said, low. “Setting up a protective barrier against the harmful spirits. When they’ve finished, Naheyo will take over. Don’t step outside of the ring, no matter what happens. If you step out, they’ll see it as the demon trying to escape. They’ll—”
Jake nodded. He understood.
“Jake—”
“It’s okay,” he said, his nerves strung tight.
The women began shuffling in a slow circle around them, stepping to the side and dragging their sticks in the dirt, digging out a visible ring. Jake picked out one to watch—the tallest of the Helpers, with a necklace of dead lizards around her neck—concentrating on her to track the steps of the ritual, to help keep focused. They circled completely three times, then abruptly stopped singing. The Helpers turned and walked away and found places to sit on the ground outside the ring, by the white rocks. The ever-present cacophony of birdcalls seemed too loud to Jake, and he realized he’d tuned them out completely while the women had been singing.
Naheyo pulled herself to her feet and walked toward Jake and Pilar, the coconut bowl in her hands. Jake’s heart galloped. He was keenly aware of being much taller than the shaman, of the top of her head not reaching halfway up his chest—an odd and pleasant feeling, to look down at her. A quick smile bent his mouth.
Naheyo chattered in Lalunta, her eyes narrowed, her young face suddenly as pinched and harsh as an old Puritan’s.
“She wants to know why you are smiling,” Pilar said, “and asked if you are so stupid that you don’t know this is a serious time.”
Not a good beginning. Jake’s pulse rang in his ears.
“I apologize,” he said, looking at Naheyo as he spoke. “I know how important this is. I thank you for being willing to help an ignorant stranger and I promise to do better now that you are here to help me know how to behave.”
Pilar translated. The shaman looked Jake up and down, hissed, and then spoke.
“She says that I should tell you what a good teacher she is, that there is no other like her in all the world, and that if you are not stupid after all and you work very hard, she might be able to teach you something this morning, as well as drive out your demon.”
Jake scratched nervously at his cheek. “I’m honored that such a great teacher and healer is willing to help me,” he told Naheyo. “I will work hard and do what you say.”
Pilar translated again and Naheyo seemed satisfied. The shaman settled herself cross-legged on the ground and motioned for Pilar and Jake to sit.
Naheyo took several large swallows from the bowl, then handed it to Jake. He felt grateful for his bigger hands that let him hold the bowl without fumbling. He looked into the container, half expecting to see the green-mud concoction of benesha. Instead, the bowl held a brown liquid that smelled like licorice.
“You drink the rest,” Pilar said.
Jake lifted the bowl and let the liquor flow into his mouth. It tasted awful. Anise was certainly an ingredient, but its strong licorice flavor didn’t block the taste of whatever else was in there. He forced himself to swallow instead of spitting it out, and handed the empty container to Naheyo. She held it up and turned it over, showing that he’d drunk it all. The Helpers murmured their approval.
“How long until the effects set in?” he asked Pilar.
“Not long,” she said. “A few minutes, maybe.”
Nervous heat radiated through his chest. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if the healing failed. What he wanted was to ask Naheyo if she’d seen or heard of benesha. She was likely to know about most of the trance-inducing substances found in the forest. He’d been told that only the Tabna had benesha, but now he’d begun to see how unlikely that was. Nomadic people crossed into each other’s territories to hunt, fight, trade, gossip, and find mates. Surely more people than the few members of the Tabna would have run across a green mineral lying on the forest floor? Unless benesha was mined and there was only one, well-hidden vein that lay within Tabna territory.
His mouth was as dry as sand, which was strange since he’d just had something to drink. He licked his lips and tried to swallow. His thoughts were foggy—too late to ask Naheyo about benesha. Too risky now that his mind was clouding. He could easily say the wrong thing and be stuck here.
Stuck. The mantra of the lonely and disappointed.
Stuck in the Amazon.
Stuck in a boy-sized body for too many adult years.
Stuck, and yet Jake didn’t feel as disappointed as he might have. Maybe it was the drugs, but it all felt . . . inevitable. It seemed obvious now why he’d stopped himself from growing all those years ago—so he would be sent to meet with Mawgis and discover the truth about benesha. Wasn’t he clever to have known that when he was only five? And it was equally obvious to him why he was growing again—he’d fulfilled the mission and didn’t need to be small anymore.
“Jake, it’s time to work now,” Pilar said, breaking into his thoughts.
He turned to look at her, moving impossibly slowly, like pushing through a syrup sea. When he found her face, he shook his head. “I’ve done my job already.”
Naheyo spoke, stood up, and walked past the circle the Helpers formed, toward the trees.
“Is it over?” Jake said, asking himself as much as Pilar.
“Wait,” she said
His eyes burned. He realized he’d been staring a long while, and closed his eyes slowly, to rest them. When he looked again, he saw Naheyo standing inches from a tall, thick-trunked tree, her back to them, her arms raised above her head. He thought maybe she was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her over the birds. The Helpers who sat between him and Naheyo kept their eyes on him, not turning to watch their shaman. Naheyo dropped her arms and turned. She ran toward Jake and Pilar, bent at the waist, her rump stuck out behind her. Not over, Jake thought, his confidence sliding away, a frizz of nerves tingling in his chest. He leaned away.
The Helpers began singing again, each making her own song—magpie voices that hurt his head. Naheyo screamed in his face, then backed off, her e
yes never leaving his, her body still bent in the same unnatural position.
“She’s calling the good spirits to come help you,” Pilar said. Her voice sounded easy but edgy—worried and trying to hide it. “You need to summon them as well. She’ll break the request into easy phrases. You repeat exactly what she says.”
Jake exhaled a long breath. “I’m ready.”
Naheyo came toward them again, not running this time, but skipping almost, with tiny steps. She spoke, or rather, half sang her words, the syllables meaningless to Jake, taking life inside the tones. He listened carefully to repeat the sounds exactly. Her words seemed to hit his skin and penetrate straight through, then ricochet up his chest and out of his mouth. Naheyo cocked her head, listening. She shifted position slightly and spoke to Pilar.
Pilar touched his arm. “Naheyo says you must be part human after all. You call the spirits well.”
He knew that already. He’d felt the rightness.
“Do you want me to translate what the words mean?” she asked.
He shook his head. He knew the essence of the words; the exact meaning was unimportant.
The women stopped singing. Naheyo called again. Jake repeated her words. Seconds or hours passed. A faint path had appeared in the dirt from Naheyo’s runs forward and back, her bent position never changing. Time stretched out, became eternity and no time. Naheyo called. Jake repeated. The forest breathed. The earth’s heart pulsed in a soft and regular rhythm. Drizzle fell, as soft as kisses on his skin. Jake learned the words and no longer waited for Naheyo’s lead, but called with her, two voices merged into one. She came and sat in front of him, their knees touching.
The women were singing again. Birds and beasts from the forest made their way into the cane field—a leaf-shaped mata mata turtle, an anteater, a snowy egret walking as stately as a diplomat on long black legs beneath its pure white body. A cricket hopped beside Jake, settled in, and began chirping. Jake watched them come, fascinated, wondering if the singing had drawn them. A jaguar appeared, and a pink river dolphin swimming through the air above their heads.
“The spirits are here,” he whispered to Pilar, as though sharing a deep secret with her.
“Ask for their help,” she said.
He looked at Naheyo. She sat, their knees still touching, her eyes closed, paying no mind to the arriving spirits or to him.
“How?”
Pilar shrugged.
Panic rose in him. He jumped to his feet. “Ask Naheyo for me,” he said, suddenly desperate. “Ask her what I should say.”
“You know the words,” Pilar said, or he thought she said—an odd ringing clogged his ears.
Irrational fury pumped through his blood. “This is crazy. You can’t hold me prisoner here. I have to get to a telephone.” He leaned down and shouted into Pilar’s face. “Don’t you realize what’s at stake?”
Pilar looked pained, but she only shrugged again. Naheyo sprang to her feet and began screeching.
“The evil one is speaking through you.” Pilar’s voice as she translated was maddeningly even, professional. Her arms were wrapped over her chest as though she were afraid of flying apart. “Your demon has filled you with anger and fear. He wants you afraid, so you will do his bidding. Ask the spirits for help, or you will be lost.” Her voice broke. “Ask for help, Jake, or you’ll never, never get home again. Please.”
Naheyo stood near him, her hands on her hips—the jaguar sitting on its haunches near her feet—watching, waiting to see what Jake would do. The Helpers sang, leaning forward, attentive. The turtle stretched its long neck and regarded Jake with its dark, wet eyes. Jake turned back to Pilar.
“Ask for help,” she said.
He licked his lips and knew his throat wouldn’t work even if he could find the words.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, silent, his mind frozen. The Helpers had stopped singing. Birds cackled in the trees. Naheyo watched him, her head tilted to the side. Slowly she raised one arm and stretched it out straight in front of her.
The Helpers rose to their feet. In silence, they gathered the sticks and rocks that lay near them and looked to Naheyo for orders.
Pilar grabbed Jake’s arm. Her eyes were wide. “Say it,” she begged him. “Ask for help.”
He wanted to. He could say anything—the words didn’t matter. All he needed to do was open his mouth, give the words the right sound to satisfy Naheyo. It would save him for a while, at least. His tongue felt like iron in his mouth, too heavy to move. He wanted to run, but his legs felt as heavy as his tongue.
The Helpers squeezed toward him.
“Say it,” Pilar said again.
Jake’s heart boomed in his chest. The sky ruptured and rain poured down. Across the cane field, the tree leaves began to rustle, too much to be caused by the rain.
Someone, something was coming.
His gaze darted among the leaves, the Helpers, and Naheyo. The shaman turned toward the rustling leaves, waiting, expectant. Her arm dropped to her side and the Helpers stopped coming toward him. Jake felt the breath shake out of his chest. They weren’t going to kill him, not this moment at least. Maybe whatever made the leaves rustle would distract them, give him time to find his voice again. Or to run—what he wanted to do, but knew that was the wrong thing. He had to stay and finish this.
The Helpers had all turned toward the rattling leaves, their hands tightening on the sticks they held. Jake thought it ironic that if it were a boar or other dangerous animal shaking the leaves, the Helpers might save him before they turned on him.
The quaking foliage parted, and Jake blinked. Mawgis stepped onto the edge of the cane field, the bottom half of his face painted red and the top half covered in what looked like blue glitter. His short hair stood out from his head as though he’d used static electricity as a comb. He raised his hand in a slight wave and walked casually across the field. They watched him come—Jake, Pilar, Naheyo, and the Helpers, everyone’s eyes trained on the same spot, not one of them moving. Only the drum of rain against the dirt and leaves broke the silence.
Mawgis stopped in front of Jake.
They were the same height.
Oh, God. Had he shrunk? Was he again no taller than a five-year-old? He looked around wildly at the others. Naheyo had not grown taller. Pilar didn’t look larger. Mawgis had grown, as Jake had grown.
Were their fates tied together?
Mawgis wagged his finger. “You are too trusting, Jake Kendrick. If you take drugs with strangers, what can you expect but an unpleasant experience?”
English, Jake thought. He didn’t know how he could understand Mawgis without the translator—or benesha traveling.
Mawgis grinned. “Life is full of surprises.”
“Lish gorum,” Naheyo hissed.
“She thinks you’re a devil,” Jake told him, surprised how easy it was to speak when he hadn’t been able to manage it before. “She says you’ve invaded my soul.”
Jake listened for Pilar’s translation to Naheyo, but none came. When he shifted his gaze to the two women, he saw they were as still as stone.
“I’ve disrupted their time sense,” Mawgis said. “Or rather, stopped it altogether for a bit. It’s just the two of us now.”
Jake didn’t believe that. His mind searched for an explanation. Hypnosis sprang up as a possibility. Either that or the women were in on it with Mawgis, but that didn’t seem true.
Mawgis smiled and stepped closer. “What do you think? Am I a devil?”
Jake leaned away from him. “There’s something evil about you.”
“If that were true, would I be here now to save you? No, I’d have left you to these superstitious women and their crude methods of dealing with the possessed.”
Jake stepped back again. Maybe whatever Naheyo had given him to drink made him see things that weren’t happening—the forest was full of hallucinogenic plants. Pilar and the women couldn’t be frozen in time. Mawgis wasn’t here at all. But maybe he was.
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“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have much choice. Either the shaman sees a demon fly from you or her women kill you. Sticks and stones may break your bones, Jake. Not a pleasant way to go. I’m the only hope you have.”
The rain hammered down, heavy as quicksilver. The muslin pants stuck to Jake’s skin as though they were glued on.
“What do you want, Mawgis? You’re not here from kindness or concern for me.”
Mawgis cupped his hands and watched the heavy rain bounce off his palms. “Perhaps I’ve missed the pleasure of your company. Most likely, I have future plans for you. Something for you to do. Whatever reason I’m here, I wouldn’t turn down my offer if I were you.”
Mawgis was playing him. He felt sure of it. A bright-green lizard darted across the ground near Jake’s feet and vanished into a pile of sopping leaves. He could run now, with the women frozen. He knew the way to the river. He could run and keep running all the way to Catalous.
“Really, Jake?” Mawgis said. “You think you could outrun these women’s stones once I freed them? They’re not like us. They have very good aim and absolutely no remorse.”
The rain pelted down, tiny bullets against Jake’s skin.
“All right,” he said. “How do we give the shaman what she wants?”
Mawgis spread his hands. Water streamed from between his fingers. “Do what the woman said; ask the spirits for help. Beg for deliverance.” He grinned, leaned close to Jake, and said, “We’ll give ’em a good show. I promise.”
Jake raked his fingers through his hair and glanced around. Naheyo, Pilar, and the others were like cardboard cutouts, their eyes wide and empty. His skin prickled at the sight. Mawgis clicked his tongue and light returned to the women’s eyes. They were all looking at Jake, waiting.
He felt stupid, with no idea what he should say. The words didn’t matter, but tone did. Determination. Desperation. Anger. He dropped to his knees, folded his hands together, and looked up through the hard rain to the glimpse of gray sky above. Jake raised his voice for everyone to hear. “Drive this foul demon away from me. Save the world from the death he wants to bring it.”
Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller Page 9