“Shhh,” Rachel hissed. “You want everyone to know we’re here?”
Eric looked at Rachel like she was nuts. “This is a jungle, Rachel. There’s no one here except noisy birds, crazy monkeys, and... and Tarzan.”
“Tarzan lives in Africa,” Ben said, “not Central America.”
“Tarzan is fictional,” Anna said. “He doesn’t live anywhere.”
The monkeys and birds got tired of yelling at us, or realized we weren’t a threat, and calmed down. It was almost like someone muted the jungle volume, because the area suddenly became peaceful again.
I heard Anna whisper to Rachel, “This place is amazing... and beautiful.”
Rachel agreed. “This is way more fun than sneaking around at night. But make sure you stay away from bushes, shrubs, and other low plants—they’re covered with leeches.”
We wound our way up the slope and stopped when we reached the holes.
“Holy cow!” Eric said. “What a mess!”
“They must have dug a hundred,” Anna said.
I studied the many holes that covered the area. There was no order or pattern I could see—just a mess of random pits. Some of the holes were a metre deep, others only shallow dents on the jungle floor. It looked like they gave up digging and moved on to start a new hole any time they hit a root or rock.
“There’s one of the pillars,” I said, pointing to a stone column poking out from under a bunch of ferns.
“And there’s the other one,” Eric said. He jumped over a hole and headed to the second astronomical marker.
“The third pillar would have been around here,” Anna said, stopping and using her body to from a triangle with the other two stones. “Or, straight across from me over... over there.” She pointed to a spot between the markers.
Eric walked to the second possible location where the third pillar might have stood.
“Okay,” I said. “Anna and Eric can stay where they are and we’ll pace out the pillars to make sure they’re standing in the right spots. Then, all we have to do is find the two centre points of the two triangles and dig.”
Ben worked on the triangle formed by Eric, and Rachel helped me make sure that Anna was standing where the missing marker might have been. I counted ten paces between the stones that were still standing, which Rachel confirmed with her strides. Then, we each started at one of the pillars and began walking toward Anna. Her initial guess of the missing stone’s location was pretty close. I moved her body back one pace and we measured again.
“Perfect,” Rachel said, when she finished walking the triangle a second time. “All three sides are ten paces.”
I estimated where the centre of the triangle might be and stuck my shovel in the ground. “Does this spot look like it’s in the middle?” I asked Anna.
She nodded.
Rachel ran and looked over the top of a pillar. “Move the shovel back one foot,” she said. “Toward Anna.”
I moved the shovel and waited for Rachel to confirm the alignment using the third marker. The ground where I stuck the shovel, in the centre of the three pillars, was untouched. Excellent, I thought.
Rachel grinned at me over the stone. “That looks good.”
Next, we helped Ben triangulate the centre point of the triangle formed by Eric. That one was trickier because several thick trees blocked our sight lines. We ran around checking and re-checking for several minutes until we were finally all satisfied. There were no holes near the shovel stuck in the centre of that triangle, so we now had two untouched spots to investigate.
“Good enough,” Eric shouted. “I’m tired of standing around.”
“Does that mean you want to be the first to take a turn digging?” Rachel asked her brother.
“I’d like to,” he said, “but I’m not allowed—I’m sick.”
We all laughed at that, including Eric.
Ben didn’t waste any time. He grabbed the shovel and began digging into the soft moss and overburden that covered the ground. Suddenly he stopped and looked at the four us. “Is it just my imagination,” he said, “or are you guys scared of the centre of these markers?”
I suppose I hadn’t realized it until then, but we were all subconsciously avoiding the spot where Ben was digging. We weren’t going to tell him the truth, of course—that if you stood in the middle at the wrong time, you could vanish into a wormhole—but I had to say something. It’s not that I didn’t trust Ben with the information; it’s just that if we told him what happened to us in Sultana, he might think we were all nuts.
“Ummm,” I began. “We’ve heard a lot of rumours about these stones. And I suppose they do give us the willies a bit.”
“What kind of rumours?” Ben asked, handing me the shovel.
“Nothing too specific,” Rachel cut in, “just wild stories about magic.”
The last time I stood in the middle of three similar pillars, I vanished into a wormhole and travelled forward in time to the present. But that was only because a full moon occurred at the same time as a summer solstice. I didn’t think any unique astronomical events were taking place exactly then, so I took a deep breath and kicked the shovel into the wet earth. Nothing unusual happened—thank goodness—and I rapidly deepened the hole.
Rachel went over to the other spot we marked and replaced the shovel with her backpack. She carried the shovel over and helped me work my hole.
“My turn,” Anna said, enthusiastically taking my shovel as soon as I paused to catch my breath.
Our strategy of using two shovels and taking short shifts was working perfectly. The hole deepened and got bigger right before our eyes. In fact, it was now just as big as the other holes that dotted the area.
But still no treasure, and still no missing skulls.
“Maybe we should try the other spot,” Ben suggested after his fourth turn digging.
I nodded. “We could always come back to this hole later... I mean, if you guys want.” I was beginning to think my entire theory was wrong. I had thought for sure we’d have more luck at the spot we were excavating.
Rachel remained optimistic. “Don’t worry, Cody. We might still find something over there.” She pointed at her backpack.
Anna studied the location where the third pillar would have stood. “It actually does look like a better spot,” she said. “See how much lower that area is—the area where the missing marker was. The stone likely slid down the hill and got buried during a heavy rain or mud slide.”
We dragged the shovels over to our second possible location and began digging. After watching us work for several minutes, Eric took the shovel Ben was using and shooed Rachel from the hole. “Nurse Angie will probably give me heck for doing this, but I can see you guys need my help.”
We stood around the crater and caught our breath while Eric shovelled earth from around the thick roots that crossed in every direction. He did a great job deepening the hole, and the heaps of earth around the rim swelled rapidly. But after five minutes, even Eric looked exhausted.
“You better take it easy,” Rachel cautioned.
“Yes,” Anna agreed. “Let one of us take a turn.”
CLUNK.
We all froze.
The blade of Eric’s shovel had struck something hard.
“Did you guys hear that?” Eric looked over his shoulder at us.
We all nodded.
Eric gently double-tapped the soil in the bottom of the hole.
CLUNK. CLUNK.
He threw his shovel from the crater, narrowly missing my shin, and dropped to his knees. Eric prodded the loamy earth with his fingers. I watched as his shoulders stiffened. “No way,” he whispered.
“What is it?” Ben said.
“Don’t joke around,” Rachel ordered. “If it’s just a dumb rock...”
>
“It’s not a rock,” Eric said standing again. He turned around to show us something in his hands. “It’s a crystal skull!”
“Wow!” Anna gasped. She reached out and carefully poked the top of the skull with two fingers, like she had to make sure it was real.
Eric passed the skull up to me.
I shook my head and pushed mud from the creepy eye sockets. “I can’t believe it,” I mumbled. “I can’t believe we found something so...”
“So unbelievably important,” Ben added.
I passed the head to Ben using two hands. “Careful... it’s pretty heavy.”
Ben eagerly took it from me. “Yeah,” he said, enjoying the weight of it. “It must be a real crystal skull. If it was plastic it wouldn’t be this heavy.”
Anna held the skull next, while Rachel poured the rest of a water bottle on it. Together, they rubbed and rinsed the head until it was clean.
“We’re going to be rich,” Eric said, taking the skull from the girls again. “Filthy rich!”
“I don’t know about rich,” Ben said, “but famous for sure.”
Eric held the skull over his head and screamed, “YAHOO!”
I heard the crunch of a branch down the hill and turned quickly. Anna and Rachel heard it too and whipped around.
“What was that?” Rachel whispered.
I squinted into the jungle. “I don’t see anything.”
“Is someone watching us?” Anna asked.
“The way Eric keeps yelling,” Rachel said, “half of Camp Gatun could be here by now, watching us.”
Eric and Ben ignored our paranoia and continued to admire the skull.
“You know what this place is, don’t you?” Eric said to Ben. “It’s a pet cemetery.”
Ben considered that for a few seconds and nodded. “Could be,” he said. “You guys mentioned this place might have magical powers.”
Rachel shook her head. “Don’t be stupid, Eric. This isn’t a pet cemetery.”
“It’s the only possible explanation,” Eric said.
“I don’t understand,” Anna said, “What do pets have to do with any of this?”
Rachel tried to explain. “We saw a movie about a pet cemetery where all the dead pets came to life again—and they were healed.”
“Exactly,” Eric said. “Whoever stole the broken skulls from camp buried the pieces here. And because this place is like that pet cemetery in the movie, the crystal skull is now fixed.”
“I know it sounds pretty far-fetched,” Ben said, “but it’s perfectly logical.”
Anna looked at Rachel and me to see what we thought.
Eric and Ben’s theory sort of made sense. “But this area wasn’t touched,” I reminded them. “There was no sign of any digging.”
“That could be,” Ben said, “because the area healed itself after they buried the stolen pieces.”
Eric nodded. “That’s why they had to dig so many holes to find what they buried. They got confused because the spot looked different.”
I didn’t really buy that, but I couldn’t offer an alternate explanation either.
“If that’s true,” Rachel said, “where’s the second skull? Two broken skulls were stolen, so if they buried all the pieces, there should be a second skull here, in the hole.”
Ben and Eric hopped in the pit so fast they almost bashed their heads together. They rooted through the damp earth with their hands like excited puppies. Mud flew in all directions for several minutes. This time it was Ben who suddenly stopped digging. He paused, pressed his face against the spot he was working, and said, “I think I found it.”
I heard Anna mutter, “This can’t be possible.”
Eric twisted and helped Ben pry something from between the roots. It was impossible to see what they had. All we could do was wait and listen to them pant from exertion.
Eric began laughing like a madman. “It’s the second skull! It really is!” He leaned back in the mud and caught his breath.
A few seconds later Ben placed a skull next to the first skull. He gave Eric a high-five and sat on the edge of the hole.
Rachel fell to her knees and examined the second head. “This is impossible!” she said.
Eric was still huffing but managed to say, “It’s just like in Pet Cemetery, Rachel. I was... I was right.”
“The bad guys stole two broken skulls,” Ben said, giving Eric a knuckle bump, “and we found two fixed skulls.”
“And you will now give them to us,” a stranger’s voice called from up the hill.
Chapter 9
“HUH?” ERIC SAID, looking up the slope.
Two people were standing between the stone pillars, only ten steps from us. It was the girl and the guy we saw last night—I was sure of it. They wore shorts, T-shirts, and rubber boots. The boots made them look kind of funny, but the machetes they held in their hands made them look dangerous.
Ben jumped up, turned around, and looked in the direction we were staring. “Like heck,” he said. “We’re not giving you anything.”
“You got that right,” Eric shouted, standing defiantly beside Ben. “We found them, and we’re keeping them.”
Both strangers seemed startled by Eric and Ben’s brave front. The young man—he didn’t look anything like Rudi, by the way—stared down at the girl, like she was the decision maker. She frowned at her partner and then walked a few steps closer.
“Yes, you found them,” she said, speaking with an accent. “But you found them on our land.”
“These skulls aren’t yours,” Rachel said. “You stole them from across the river, and we’re going to bring them back.”
“We need them to prove my uncle is innocent,” Anna added. “He has been accused of stealing them, when it was you.”
“What?” said the young man. “We did not steal anything. These skulls have been here for hundreds of years.”
I decided to join the debate. “Then what happened to the two skulls that were stolen from Camp Gatun?”
The girl didn’t say anything. She lifted the straw cowboy hat she was wearing, ran her fingers through her straight black hair, and set the hat down again. I wasn’t positive, but I thought they were both local Natives.
“And,” Eric said, “what were you doing here last night?”
The tall guy said something in a strange language to the girl in the cowboy hat. She twisted her mouth and seemed to be considering what to do next.
“We are going to take the skulls,” Anna said, “and we are going to leave now.”
“Yeah,” Ben added, “and if you make a ruckus about it, we’ll go straight to the cops.”
When Anna and Rachel began packing away the skulls, that really alarmed the strangers.
“You... you can’t go,” the girl said, suddenly sounding more scared than angry.
“Just watch us,” Eric said. He strapped on Rachel’s now-heavy backpack and led the way down the hill with Ben right behind him.
The girl dropped her machete and ran up to me—I think because I was closest. “Please,” she begged. “Please do no not take our skulls. Something horrible will happen to us—to everyone in the world.”
That caught us all off guard.
Even Eric stalled and turned around. “But they’re not your skulls,” he said.
She grabbed my shoulders and shook them violently. “Please listen to me,” she said. “Hear our story and what I have to say. Then, if you still want the skulls, they are yours—I swear it to you.” She looked in my eyes with such an intense energy, I had to trust her.
“I don’t feel like hearing a story,” Ben said, “especially from a thief.”
“We stole nothing,” she insisted. “You are the thieves—taking sacred Chocoan artifacts from sacred Cho
coan land.”
I looked at Rachel and Anna, but neither one said anything. Maybe they were starting to feel guilty too. Were we really the bad guys? I wondered.
Eric sensed I was about to do something dumb. “Come on, Code,” he said, “let’s get back and show everyone what we found. Let’s free Rudi.”
The girl yanked on my arm again. “Please, listen to our legend,” she said softly. “Please.” I watched a tear slide down her cheek and decided I had to hear her out.
I turned to Eric. “Let’s just hear what she has to say.”
Eric groaned and kicked a rotten log. The wood disintegrated into a pulpy mess.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Rachel scolded her brother. “What’s the big deal? She’s only asking us to hear a story.”
“The big deal is,” Eric said, “that we finally solved a crime and found a cool archaeological artifact, and now she’s trying to mess everything up.”
The girl stood up straight and proud. “Are you an archaeologist,” she challenged Eric, “or a greedy treasure hunter?”
Eric didn’t say anything.
“A real archaeologist,” she went on, “would want to know the story behind the artifacts he has found.”
Ben sighed. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to hear whatever local legend is behind the skulls. Maybe we’ll be more famous if we know all the facts.”
“Okay, okay,” Eric said, “but why do I have the feeling we’re going to be leaving this place without our skulls?”
The girl smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said. “My name is Lucia, and this is my cousin Diego.”
Eric and Ben walked back up the hill and joined us.
“Please follow me,” Lucia said.
“Whoa!” Eric cried. “We’re not going anywhere with you.”
I didn’t like the sound of that either. It was way too easy to get lost and disoriented in the jungle. “Why can’t you just say what you want to say here?”
“Our village is right there,” she pointed north, “perhaps a ten minute walk. Everything will be easier to understand if you see our home.”
“How do we know you’re not tricking us and that it’s not a ten hour hike?” Ben asked.
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