“I am sorry,” the girl said to them. “For everything we have done. Do not be afraid. We will not hurt you. We have been waiting for you.”
“Oh, what now?” Celia groaned. “Are we, like, the chosen ones or something?”
“Yes,” the llama girl said. “Exactly that.”
“Of course,” Celia rolled her eyes. “Like always.”
She really hated sudden twists of fate.
“So, Mnemones?” she said. “Lost cities? Ancient libraries? What is it this time?”
The llama girl just nodded.
“Well.” Celia shook herself free from the warrior’s grip. “Let’s go down and get this over with. There’ll be a prophecy, right?”
“There’s always a prophecy,” Oliver sighed.
“If it’s not certain death, it’s destiny.” Celia tossed Oliver their backpack. “Why can’t it just be, you know, normal?”
“First, we will feast in your honor,” the llama girl added with a smile. “And we will help you find your parents.”
“You mean our father?” said Celia.
“I mean both your parents,” the girl said.
Oliver and Celia really wished they could skip the feast and go right to finding their parents. Even if they weren’t on the menu, dining with cannibals was not their idea of a good time.
29
WE UPSET SOME OTHER CHICKENS
BY THE TIME the warriors had helped Oliver, Celia, and Corey Brandt down from the high rain forest canopy, through the jungle, and back to the village, word had reached the chief of the remarkable turn of events. A bonfire blazed. The villagers were preparing a feast.
They ran up to Oliver and Celia, hugging them and pulling at their clothes, tugging at their noses and earlobes, laughing hysterically. Much to his dismay, they mussed Corey Brandt’s hair. It should be noted that a simple handshake was not the way of greeting in their village. They got right into the children’s faces and studied them in close-up. Just as Celia had imagined, it was awkward.
Oliver carried their somewhat tattered backpack, while Celia clutched the khipu to her chest tightly. That khipu had saved their lives and she wasn’t about to let go of it now.
They were led to the maloca, which is what the villagers called the longhouse. Just outside, logs and stumps had been arranged in a circle and they were urged to sit. The elders emerged from the darkened opening of the longhouse, looking grave and thoughtful.
Women wearing grass skirts brought folded banana leaves to each of the children and to Corey Brandt. Their faces were painted with stripes and dots, and they wore necklaces of colorful stones and beads. Their hair was long and dark. It looked like they spent a long time working on their fashions, which was remarkable, because, other than the grass skirts, they wore little else. Oliver and Corey blushed. The women were not even the least bit embarrassed.
The women made eating motions. Celia glanced at the elders. None of their faces betrayed any emotion. They watched the visitors closely.
Oliver unfolded his leaf and saw that it contained a few blackened chunks of mysterious roasted meat.
“Uh, Celia,” he whispered. “What do we do?”
“Eat!” the llama girl urged. “Eat or it will be a great insult.”
“They’re cannibals!” Celia whispered at her brother.
“The tabloids would go crazy if they knew about this,” Corey Brandt said, holding a piece of the mystery meat between his thumb and forefinger.
“Couldn’t we just eat bugs or something?” Celia asked. She hated eating bugs, but anything would be better than this. She wished their mother were here. She would know what to do. She must have dined with cannibals a thousand times. Was this why she had made sure they got that khipu? Did these cannibals know her? Did they know where she was?
“It’s good,” the llama girl said. “A great delicacy.” She nudged them on. “It was very hard to … catch.” She smirked.
The rest of the village was staring at them. Smiles faded from the women’s faces. The chief whispered something to one of the warriors, who nodded and clutched his blowgun.
“Oh boy,” Oliver said to himself as he lifted up a small piece of meat from the banana leaf.
“Oliver, what are you doing?” Celia’s eyes widened at her brother.
“When in the Amazon, do as the Amazonians do,” he said.
He shut his eyes, held his nose, and dropped the piece of meat into his mouth. It was moist and rich. A little burned, but in a way he liked. It was horrifyingly delicious. As her brother chewed, Celia stared at him with her mouth wide open.
“You just …,” Corey Brandt said, and fainted.
“Well?” asked the llama girl as Oliver swal-lowed.
“Tastes like chicken,” Oliver said. He opened his eyes and looked at the stern faces watching him. He turned to the llama girl. “Who … who was it?”
“She had no name,” the llama girl said sadly. Oliver’s stomach did a somersault. “Because she was a chicken!”
The girl burst out laughing. The entire village did the same. The chief had to lean on one of the warriors for support because he was laughing so hard. The trees shook with laughter.
“But—,” said Oliver.
The llama girl looked up at Oliver, still shuddering with laughter. “We don’t eat people,” she said. “We aren’t cannibals!”
“But—,” Oliver repeated.
“Long ago, there were tribes that would eat parts of their enemies after a battle, and so stories of cannibals spread from the jungle to the lands beyond. Outsiders spread these stories about the natives of the forest to make us seem like savages. Now we allow the stories to continue for our own reasons.”
“To scare people away,” Celia said, understanding. “To protect your land.”
“That’s right,” the girl explained. “Sometimes a myth is far more powerful than a spear. Look at what it did to Mr. Corey Brandt.” She pointed at the unconscious actor on the ground. “You know, he looked shorter on Sunset High.”
“I know!” said Celia. “I liked that Annabel was taller than him. It was romantic.”
“I still think he should have ended up with Lauren,” said the llama girl. “They had so much more in common. Annabel was holding him back. Lauren would have become undead for him.”
“Annabel was his destiny!” Celia objected.
“But …,” Oliver said again, still in shock.
His sister seemed suddenly to remember her brother was there. “I can’t believe you ate that when you thought it was people.”
“Well, it wasn’t people, was it?” he told her, and ate the rest of his chicken. Celia shook her head again and dug into her own meal. She ate quickly while she and the llama girl talked about their favorite episodes of Sunset High.
The other villagers joined in the chicken feast. Corey Brandt was eventually revived. They had to explain to him all over again that they weren’t cannibals. Still, he claimed to be a vegetarian and would only eat the sweet potatoes that the women had roasted.
“Just like Annabel,” said the llama girl, and she and Celia burst into fits of laughter. Oliver just looked at the actor and shrugged.
When the meal was done, the old shaman stood and, with one gesture, the entire village grew silent. He began to speak. A few of the village children shifted uncomfortably on the ground or plucked at the dirt by their feet. It kind of reminded Oliver and Celia of the Ceremony of Discovery back at the Explorers Club, when all the scientists and adventurers gave speeches.
The chief sat on a log off to the side with the rest of the warriors. Whatever was about to happen was not up to him. He handled the normal affairs of the village, like organizing marriages and hunting parties, settling disputes, and fighting off intruders. The shaman—like shamans all over the world, whether they are high in the Himalayas, deep in the Amazon rain forest, or nestled in the VIP room of a celebrity fitness club in Los Angeles—was responsible for the link between the spirit world and the phys
ical world. He was the keeper of prophecy, and it was his turn to speak.
“You have the Inca’s Itinerary,” the llama girl translated for the shaman. “We have long awaited its return.”
“Sure you have,” Celia interrupted. “How come our janitor had it?”
“Custodian,” whispered Oliver.
“What?” his sister snapped at him.
“The right way to say it is custodian. Even I know that, and I don’t have a rhyme for it.”
“Right, okay. Sure. Custodian,” she said. “How come our custodian had it?”
“Destiny,” she said. “We were told long ago that two explorers would bring it back to us.”
“We are not explorers!” Celia objected. “We just want to find our father and get cable TV and go back to the sixth grade without getting killed.”
“Whatever you are, or think you are, does not matter. You are here now, and you have brought our itinerary back to us.”
The shaman and the llama girl talked back and forth for a moment. It sounded like an argument.
“What?” Celia said. “What’s he saying?”
“There is much you do not understand,” the girl answered. “Your path ahead is dangerous.”
“Of course it’s dangerous,” said Celia. “It’s always dangerous.”
“You will have to make a choice.”
“A choice about what?” said Oliver.
“A choice about your destiny.”
“We just want our parents back,” said Celia. “We don’t care about destiny.”
The llama girl put her arm around Celia’s shoulder. “Do you know what a vision is?”
30
WE GET SOME TV TIME
OLIVER AND CELIA knew all too well what a vision was. In Tibet they had been forced into a deep, dark pit and their only way out was to meditate and try to have a vision. They still weren’t sure it worked, because some kid who might also have been a vision himself interrupted them. He saved their lives. Or he put their lives in more danger. They couldn’t be sure. This vision business was complicated.
“Yeah,” Celia said. “We know what a vision is. It’s like television. Only the tele- part is in your mind.”
“Close enough,” said the girl. The shaman produced a bowl filled with some sort of potion. Some of the village men started to sing and pound on drums.
The shaman passed the bowl around the circle of villagers and each drank from it and the shaman refilled it when they were done.
“This is the Vine of the Soul,” the llama girl explained. “It is our way of summoning visions, a potion that will unlock for you the mysteries you seek.”
“Like where our father is?” Celia asked.
“Like where our mother’s gone?” Oliver wondered.
The llama girl didn’t answer. She simply helped the shaman fill the bowl with liquid and take it to everyone who had chosen to sit in the circle, young and old.
When the bowl reached Oliver, he drank the potion down without hesitating. For the second time, Celia stared at him with her mouth agape. The shaman chanted more loudly.
“It is okay,” the llama girl said. “If you do not wish to unlock the mysteries, you may simply sit and wait with the others.”
Celia was through with sitting and waiting and not understanding anything. She drank the potion and closed her eyes. It was bitter and thick and it made her stomach hurt. Next to her, Oliver looked pale too. Corey Brandt waved the bowl away. He stood and left the circle.
Celia suddenly doubted the wisdom of drinking strange jungle potions, but the shaman began to dance and shake the rattle in his hand and Oliver and Celia began to feel very strange.
Oliver tried to stand and walk over to a hammock he’d seen in the longhouse, but his legs felt like cooked noodles.
“Noodles,” he mumbled as he felt himself being carried. He suddenly felt very, very sleepy.
Celia wasn’t sure why she was so tired all of a sudden, but she was happy when she felt hands lift her from her seat and carry her to a hammock next to her brother, who was sound asleep.
The llama girl and the shaman stayed by their sides; the chanting grew louder and faster. The llama girl held the khipu in the air and the shaman ran his fingers over it, murmuring.
That’s when Celia’s dream began. Or maybe it was Oliver’s dream. He was there too, and he looked just as confused as his sister. Oliver always looked a little confused, though, so it was hard to tell.
“Did I just say noodles?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Celia.
“Are we asleep?”
“I think so.”
“Is that why we’re back in Tibet?”
“Oh,” said Celia, looking around. They were back in Tibet, standing on a snowy cliff, with the llama girl, the shaman, and a large stinky yak. “What are we doing here?”
“It is your dream.” The shaman shrugged, catching some snow on his tongue. “I am not sure that I like the cold.”
“We should go inside,” the llama girl said, and a house seemed to appear from the snow high above them on the edge of a steep cliff.
“Do we have to climb in our dreams too?” Oliver groaned.
“Just go up,” said Celia. “Let’s get this whole vision thing over with.”
They began to climb, straight up. They stretched and strained for tiny toeholds and handholds and struggled not to look down.
If you ever find yourself scaling the jagged rocks of a treacherous cliff face, remember this advice: do not look down. Many a great climber has made the error of looking down. The sight of great height and the realization of one’s smallness in the face of gravity have overwhelmed more than one of these climbers, and the results have been disastrous.
Oliver and Celia looked down.
They were impossibly high up. Oliver’s leg started bobbing like a sewing machine needle. Celia froze in place.
She wondered what would happen if they fell off a cliff in their dream. Would it ruin the vision? Would they fall in real life? Would they never wake up?
“Keep climbing!” she told her brother, and, never one to question his sister’s wisdom while hanging off a cliff thousands of feet in the air, he kept climbing.
“We even have to exercise in our dreams?” he muttered as he climbed. “This is totally unfair.”
The llama girl and the shaman were already standing outside the house when Oliver and Celia reached the top. Somehow they had not needed to climb with Oliver and Celia.
“Totally unfair,” Oliver repeated.
They opened doors for the twins and showed them inside.
They were in their apartment back at the Explorers Club. Beverly sat on the sofa in front of the television. The monkey who’d stolen their backpack sat next to her.
“Fancy a spot of telly?” Beverly said with a thick British accent.
“Oliver?” Celia asked. “Why is your lizard talking?”
“She’s not my lizard,” said Oliver. “And anyway, you tell me. It’s your dream.”
“How do you know it’s my dream?”
“Because I would never dream about Corey Brandt,” he said. Corey Brandt was sitting in an armchair across the room, wearing a tuxedo.
“It’s not my dream,” he said. “I’m not even here. I don’t even know you.”
Then he went to the Cabinet of Count Vladomir, which sat next to their refrigerator, and stepped inside, vanishing into a strange forest that the twins were pretty sure did not usually exist inside their parents’ antique furniture.
“Strange,” said Celia. “He had his freckle back. Under his eye.”
“That’s what was strange?” Oliver shook his head at his sister. Girls.
“Ahem,” said the lizard. “A spot of telly?”
“Pushy lizard,” said the llama girl.
“They all are,” said Oliver.
Celia found herself suddenly holding the remote control. She turned on the television.
They saw their father on the s
creen. He was lying on an ugly plaid couch in the living room of an unfamiliar house. He was talking to someone sitting in an ugly plaid chair.
“I just can’t believe this,” he said. “I can’t believe you would do this to the children.” He was pale and sweating, like he was sick. He was shaking his head back and forth. “I can’t believe you would do this to our children.”
The image on the screen changed to the person in the chair. A close-up on her face.
“Mom!” said Oliver.
“Mom?” said Celia.
“Oggie,” she said, resting her hand on their father’s knee. She was the only person in the world who called him Oggie. “I had to do it,” she said.
“You left us, Claire. You left us for three years.”
“I had to leave you. There is an ancient battle going on and Oliver and Celia are the only ones who can win it.”
“The library?”
“That’s part of it,” she said.
Oliver and Celia looked at each other in surprise. The Lost Library was only part of it? What were the Council and the Mnemones really searching for?
“They’re only children,” their father said. “They can’t do this. They watch too much TV. They complain about everything. They aren’t cut out for the lives we imagined for them.”
“Oh, so now you notice?” said Oliver sarcastically. Beverly and the monkey glared over at him.
“They are amazing explorers. Better than you or I,” their mother said. “That’s why I had to kidnap you and Sir Edmund.”
“Mom did this?” exclaimed Oliver.
“She’s done worse,” said Celia.
“I don’t understand,” their father said.
“The guardians would never have shown themselves to an entire expedition, especially not one filled with explorers. And Sir Edmund could not be allowed to know their secrets, no matter what. So I had to get the children into the jungle on their own.” She leaned closer to her husband. “They are going to find El Dorado, Oggie. They are going to find the Lost Library.”
“But you know how dangerous that is! How many explorers have died in that very search? This is madness!”
We Dine With Cannibals Page 14