“Just ask her, man. I know it’s not likely, but the thing is, besides you, she’s the only person who never made me feel like a loser, and maybe if a girl like her could see something in me …” His eyes mist over.
“Okay, I’ll ask.”
“Wait,” he says urgently. He licks his hand and does his best to smooth down his hair, which is shooting up on one side from where he slept on it. Then he ducks his head and not so surreptitiously sniffs his pits. He straightens up, looking glum. “Okay, go ahead,” he says, folding his arms across his chest.
ME: Well, Pat?
PAT: Do you think he might have brain damage?
I smile at Zach. “She can’t wait to date you, man.”
PAT: You are such an asshole.
“Tell her I love her,” Zach gushes.
PAT: Tell him he’s supposed to breathe in the oxygen when he’s diving.
“She loves you too, buddy.”
Zach rights his chair and sinks down into it, overcome with emotion.
PAT: Are you planning to fix this?
ME: You want it fixed, then get back here and fix it yourself.
“I always knew we had this special bond,” murmurs Zach. “It’s like you and me, we’re connected.” His eyes burn into me, and I wonder if maybe he’s still running a fever. I walk over and put my hand on his forehead. It feels hot, but when I put my hand on my own forehead, it feels the same. Not surprising, since the room’s a sauna. I sit down in the chair opposite, and Martha comes over with a fresh bowl and dishes him out some stew.
“You want more?” she asks me.
I shake my head.
“I’ve been thinking,” says Zach. “Maybe we’re descended from the same Mayan family, and we ended up all over America but we were drawn back here because this is where we all started.”
“Weren’t no Mayans on Utila,” says Martha. “You coulda been Paya Indian, though. Can’t dig a ditch here without disturbin’ a Payan grave.”
“I don’t think we look much like Indian descendants,” I point out.
“We must be reincarnated,” Zach exclaims excitedly. “That would totally explain everything.”
I’m happy he’s feeling better, but I’m ready to drop from exhaustion and I’ve had enough of this spooky lady and her spirit-infested house. We need to get down to business and get out of here.
“We wanted to ask you about this,” I say, pulling the doll out of my pocket and placing it on the table.
Zach jerks his chair back but leans in to get his bowl, keeping his eyes on the doll the whole time. Martha also stays well back from the doll. It lies there in the eerie lamp glow, sodden from our plunge in the swamp, its black hair muddy and matted. One eye is gone where the stitching has started to fray. As I look at it, my chest starts to ache; sadness overwhelms me, and I get a flash of something. At first it hovers just on the edge of my consciousness, like a forgotten memory, but as the light flickers across the bedraggled doll, the image crystallizes, emerging from the deep recesses of my mind. I’m no longer looking at the doll but at my sister.
It’s her hair, wet and matted but with blood and small white shards in it — bone from her shattered skull. And her eye, like the doll’s, is missing, gouged out, leaving only a gaping hole. Her shirt is ripped and twisted, exposing bare flesh, and her body sways as if it has life, but there’s no life in the one remaining eye that glares accusingly from her pallid, bloated face.
My stomach roils and my legs tremble as I stumble to my feet and dash for the door. I push through it, hitting the railing with a thump, and lean over, my breath coming in short bursts, stew churning inside the burning cauldron of my belly. The ground below blurs as my eyes fill with tears. It’s a relief when I finally start to vomit. Every spoonful of Martha’s stew plummets over the side of her deck, until I’m empty. Still my stomach lurches and twists as if it could expel not just the contents of my body but every thought and memory from my entire screwed-up life.
I don’t realize Martha has followed me till I feel her hand on my shoulder. “Come inside, child. I’ll fix you some tea.”
She holds the door for me as I stagger back to my chair. Martha busies herself in the kitchen while Zach slurps his stew, trying to keep an eye on me and the doll at the same time. I stare at the floor and take deep breaths, still trembling with the horror I now feel for the doll. My heart throbs in my ears as I struggle to vanquish the images of my sister bombarding my mind. It’s a living nightmare. I know it can’t be true. But where did it come from?
“It makes me feel sick, too, man,” Zach says, polishing off his bowl and standing up to help himself to some more.
I stare at him in shock. Did he see Pat as well? But he nods in the direction of the doll.
“It looks like a puchinga doll,” says Martha from the other side of the kitchen, where she’s cutting leaves for my tea.
I put my head in my hands and close my eyes, trying to replace the horrible image of Pat with the one that usually comes to mind when I think of her — green eyes that darken when she’s angry, her teasing smile that always makes me feel no problem is as bad as it seems.
ME: You are alive, aren’t you, Pat? That was just my imagination, right?
I listen for her voice but it’s strangely silent.
“I’ve heard tell there’s some who be practicin’ the old ways,” says Martha. “Where’d you find it?”
I take a minute to realize she’s still talking about the doll. She puts my tea on to boil and returns to the table, circles the doll twice, examining it from all angles.
“It was under my doorstep.” I take a shaky breath. “A girl told me my sister found one under her step just before she disappeared.” It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but Martha’s not laughing.
“Is he cursed?” asks Zach, still wolfing down stew.
“Could be,” says Martha.
Zach and I look at each other. His eyes are round with fear. I struggle to keep my own fear in check. Just because Martha believes in voodoo magic doesn’t make it real.
“My people aren’t no witches,” says Martha, setting a cup of tea down in front of me.
I sniff it. It smells pretty good so I take a sip. It tastes even better than it smells.
“Doesn’t mean there aren’t no witches around,” she continues. “There always be some who prefer evil when they could as easily do good. You got any idea who might want to harm you?”
I shake my head.
“The same person who took Tricia,” says Zach. “That’s his sister.
“And my girlfriend,” he adds.
I choke on my tea and start coughing.
Martha stands up to pat me on the back. “I can help you,” she says. “How much money you boys got?”
This starts a whole new coughing fit. Zach immediately pulls a soaking wad of cash out of his pocket and plops it on the table. He’s already produced more than I want to spend on what’s probably a scam, and I start calculating how much I can afford to repay him from my meager funds.
Martha picks up the money and it vanishes into her skirt. She looks at me for a moment, but I just take another sip of my tea and don’t meet her eyes. She huffs a little before going over to her footstool and pulling down jars again. Zach plays witch’s apprentice this time, while I watch in silence.
“Witchcraft be practiced all over the Caribbean,” says Martha, “but the Garifuna, my people, we aren’t climbin’ into that crazy boat.”
So Martha doesn’t believe in witchcraft either. This is the best news I’ve heard all night.
“The Good Lord doesn’t hold with no witchcraft,” she continues. “It’s not Christian, if ya get what I’m sayin’.”
I’m not sure I’m on board with the God stuff, but I can set that aside for a fellow skeptic.
“There be angry souls among the dead.”
She’s lost me.
“We don’t be callin’ on their sort.” She starts boiling another brew. “But that doesn�
��t mean we won’t try to make peace with them.”
I’d really like to know how much Zach paid for us to appease people who can’t hold their temper, even when they’re six feet under.
Martha starts her spooky singing again as she mixes the new potion. I notice there’s a pattern to it. She pauses every once in a while like she’s giving someone else a chance to respond. Zach and I don’t speak Crazy, so no one answers. In fact, the way she cocks her head like she’s listening, I’m not so sure she isn’t hearing a response.
PAT: Is that so hard to believe?
I’m so relieved to hear Pat’s voice that I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning, but I play it cool. I don’t want her thinking I expected anything less.
ME: What? You’re on the witch’s side now?
PAT: She fixed Zach.
ME: I thought you were the scientist.
PAT: I am. And you’re the one who talks to someone who isn’t there.
ME:
Martha comes over and puts her pot down on the table.
“What’s your name, child?”
“Luke.”
She sticks her finger in the pot, then smears her mixture on my forehead. I can feel her making the shape of the cross. She chants the whole time, her voice wheedling. My name keeps coming up. I wonder what flattery she’s laying out, whose favor she’s trying to secure to protect me. The ceremony, if you can call it that, lasts only a few minutes. As she resumes her seat, the paste hardens on my skin, pulling my flesh tight around it. It feels itchy and I want to rub it off, but instead I stand up.
“We should be getting back,” I say.
“It won’t be light for an hour,” she says.
Zach shoots me a nervous look.
“It’s a long walk,” I say firmly. “We need to get started.”
Zach sighs, then gets to his feet and Martha with him.
“I’ll set you on the right road,” she says, “and give you my flashlight.”
“We can’t take that,” I say. Despite our recent cash infusion, this woman doesn’t have enough to be giving things away.
“It’s just a loan,” she says, fixing me with a knowing look. “Something tells me you’re going to be around awhile. We might even make a Utilan out of you. Just remember, child, the spirits are always there when you really need them, but there will come a time when you need to let them go.”
CHAPTER 10
I say almost nothing on the long five-hour hike home. We emerge from the forest much closer to town than I expected, which means we must have overshot the path the first time. Zach and I part ways at Bluewater, and I head back to the Shark Center alone. I turned down his suggestion we get breakfast and he didn’t push it. He was gleeful about our success in finding Martha and enlisting her help. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I think it’s a load of bull. I rubbed off most of the voodoo protection before we even left the woods. Uppermost in my mind is that we just wasted almost twenty-four hours. It’s the start of my third day in Utila, and I’m more confused about Pat’s disappearance than when I arrived. I didn’t expect she’d be easy to find, but I certainly didn’t expect she’d been targeted by someone practicing voodoo, and I’m still unsettled by her apparent personality transformation and secret boyfriend.
The hike back has sapped every ounce of my energy and I’m drenched in sweat, which seems to be my usual condition in this place. I’m not going to be able to think straight until I get a shower and some alone-time, so when a total stranger rushes purposefully out of an open doorway and plants himself in my path, I simply swerve sideways to avoid a collision.
Unfortunately, as I jog right so does he, and when I shift left, he’s there as well. Standing still in frustration, I give him a bleary stare and take a startled step backward from the force of hostility in his bloodshot eyes.
“You got a problem?” I ask.
“I got a message for your sister,” he snarls, closing the six inches of space between us and shoving me backward. I hold my ground but begin to regret it as the reek of sweat and stale beer radiates off him.
I stare as he twitches in front of me like he’s got invisible bugs skittering across his flesh. Long fraying dreads, thin ropy body, corroded teeth — the guy’s obviously been downing a lot more than beer on a regular basis.
“You may not have heard,” I say, deciding to take a conciliatory approach. No point antagonizing a guy who’s got this much junk in him. “My sister has been missing for almost two weeks.”
“Are you makin’ fun of me, boy?”
I sigh, shift my weight and wonder how hard it would be to just knock him over and keep going. Shopkeepers are starting to appear, unlocking doors and sweeping the street in front of their shops. Is it my imagination or are they all pointedly ignoring us?
“I know ya sister be hidin’.”
“Excuse me?” My attention snaps back to the crackhead in front of me.
“She knows what’s good for ’er.”
“Are you threatening my sister?” I ask, still more confused than upset.
“Just saying what’s true is all. Ain’t no threat. Bobby gonna mess with her bad if she come back ’ere. Ya tell her dat. Ya tell her she bes’ stay missin’.”
I’m shaking from the charge of blood coursing through me as I struggle to keep my voice even. Is it possible I’ve finally stumbled across the person responsible for Pat’s disappearance? “What do you know about my sister?”
“Why don’t ya ask her?” he says, but I can see the thought dawning on him that maybe I really don’t know where she is. A smile creeps across his face and that’s when I lose it.
I’m on him before I realize it’s happening. The first punch connects with his rotting teeth, and I think I feel one crumble beneath my fist. He goes down fast, but I don’t have time to feel victory or even remorse as heavy hands claw at my back, pulling me up and hurling me across the street. I hit a storefront, stagger, then turn to take a full-frontal blow to the face. Stumbling backwards, I go down on one knee and am up again fast, just in time to take another couple of punches, first to my jaw and then to my stomach. As I hit the pavement, I see the crackhead is still lying in the dust where I left him. Looking up to see who’s pulverizing me, I see a boot coming for my head. I roll away and up onto my hands and knees, scrabbling sideways, trying to get on my feet before my attacker can finish me off.
A part of my brain registers shock. Who are these people? How can this be happening? But a greater part of me feels only fury. I’ve been wanting to hit someone from the time I heard Pat was missing. I launch myself at the hulking Rasta, twice my size, and don’t even consider the consequences.
He catches me in midair and half-carries, half-drags me through an open doorway. I realize it’s the door these guys emerged from. I’m struggling, pummeling him, trying to break free, but it’s like he doesn’t feel it. I’m dimly aware we’re passing some half-empty tables. It’s some kind of bar, and there’re guys still drinking, though the sun’s well up. The only light is the wan beam filtering in from the door we just entered and a few slivers from some shuttered windows. There are a few glances our way as I’m frog-marched past, but I know none of these guys is going to help me. I stop struggling and just focus on staying upright as I’m shoved through another open door. I whip around as the door slams shut behind me and I’m in midair, hurling myself at it, when I hear a bolt slide into place.
I’m alone, in absolute darkness. I bang furiously on the door. “Let me out!” I scream. “Open the frigging door! Are you crazy? Let me out of here right now! Goddamnit!”
I hurl myself at the door, which barely shakes under the impact. Finally, I slump to the floor, pulling up my knees and resting my head on my folded arms.
“What did you get yourself into, Pat?” I ask out loud.
I jump as I hear a noise in the corner. For a brief second I imagine I’ve finally found her, but when the noise comes again I realize it’s just some rodent scurrying around.
I peer into the darkness and slowly it seems to lighten. Just a few feet in front of me is a circle of radiance, and right in the center of it is my sister — not the Pat of my nightmares or the party girl I never knew, but Pat the way I’ve seen her a thousand times, sitting cross-legged on the floor, her face buried in a book. She’s so close, I could reach out and touch her. My breath catches in my throat and I hold it, frightened I’ll startle her, scare her away. She glances up and smiles, as if amused by my nervousness, and returns her attention to the book. I hear the soft rustle of a page when she flips it. It occurs to me I haven’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. I’m probably dehydrated, and the blow I took to the head may be more serious than I thought, but if this is a hallucination, I don’t want it to end. I stay very still and watch her breathe.
She turns another page.
Lifting a lock of her hair, she absentmindedly winds it around her index finger, the way she always did when she was engrossed in something.
Her clear green eyes move back and forth along the lines. Her forehead puckers as she absorbs some random fact that she’ll sock away like a castaway hoarding supplies.
She flips another page and looks up, as if checking I’m still there. Then she shifts the book and turns it so I can see the page with her. The caption is too small for me to read, but the vivid photo of an undulating constellation gliding through its azure home is all too familiar.
An eagle ray.
I wonder if she’s reopening our argument of the previous day. I’m prepared to agree that this creature is as beautiful as it is dangerous if Pat will only agree not to disappear again.
Recoiling in shock when the door rattles behind me, I scramble away before realizing I’ve blundered into the space that my sister so recently inhabited. My carelessness has extinguished her luminosity. I sense her absence as keenly as I felt her presence just moments ago.
“Pat,” I whisper desperately, trying to block out the snick of the bolt being slid across. I blink as light floods the room.
The Voice inside My Head Page 10