“Agh!” He grumbled and waved his hand again, refusing to acknowledge that he had done something nice for someone.
“So, why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” The mental question slipped out of my mouth before it registered in my brain.
“Nice?” He stopped and turned to me so quickly I ran smack into the solid wall of him, staggering backward on my feet. “No. I’m tolerating. Don’t confuse me with someone who cares.” With that he wheeled back around and stalked off, leaving me reeling to keep my balance and understand this Rubik’s-cube of a man I was going to spend the next three weeks with.
There was no road or path navigable by humans leading to Paititi. Its entrance was cleverly hidden under a thick rock ledge, shrouded in the secrecy of an ever-present cloud bank. A security measure that was pretty useless considering only the hardiest of plants could survive at such elevation. When we stepped through Paititi’s crevice opening onto slick black rock, I was too concerned with not plummeting to my death to consider how hostile and unforgiving the terrain would be to humans.
A mile from the entrance, we picked up a barely there trail at an abandoned campsite. Popping out of the lush jungle terrain so tightly packed on the mountain slope there were times when Chassan literally had to pull me between obstacles, we stumbled into the tattered remains of old teepee style tents and rusty metal relics of ancient camping gear.
“What’s this?” I asked, picking my way through the debris in the muddy clearing.
“The closest anyone ever got to Paititi. They did not have the gear they needed to breathe at this elevation. Everyone perished.”
I marveled at how easily Chassan spoke of death. He neither feared or revered it like humans. Never spoke of the dead as if they warranted any regard from him. He merely spit it from his mouth, as casual and inconsequential as breath. Death seemed to hang like an old sweater on these mountains. Everywhere I turned it was lurking in the shadows.
“Couldn’t breathe?” I jerked my brow into a low line when I realized what he said. “Why didn’t you tell me? What if I couldn’t breathe?” I stammered, wondering why he had failed to mention something as important as the lack of oxygen before we left Paititi. Was he trying to kill me after all?
“Do you doubt what you are?” Chassan’s eyes narrowed as he cast a glance over his shoulder at me. His incredulous glare making it clear how ridiculous my question was.
I stopped in my tracks, watching Chassan’s shirt strain over his back muscles as he took a machete from the holster on his belt and began hacking at the forgotten trail.
Did I doubt what I was?
No. I knew I wasn’t like Mattie and Sam or Rose and Phin. But the thought of not needing the one thing they absolutely had to have to live gave a finality to my life as a human I wasn’t exactly prepared to face following an angel of death through the jungles of Peru.
For eighteen years I’d thought I was just some pathetic freak who’d be better off marooned on a deserted island than allowed in normal society. It had been easy in Ireland—thoughtless almost—when I learned for the first time what I really was. Dayne had fit so seamlessly into my old life because he was trying to appear human himself. But what about the rest of them? What about the ones, like Chassan, who obviously didn’t care very much for human life. Would accepting what I was be so easy when I had to let go of all that made me human? I wasn’t so sure.
“Where’d this come from?” I marveled when we burst from the rainforest onto a dirt road and Chassan made his way toward a black jeep parked underneath a shady tree.
“We can’t very well fly through the mountaintops in day light,” he answered as he slung his heavy pack into the back of the mud splattered Jeep Wrangler.
“So, you just bought a jeep?” With as much sarcasm as I could muster, I shrugged wildly as I walked to the passenger side.
“I bought a jeep,” he answered steadily. “I wasn’t sure you could hike all the way, and after last night I know flying isn’t an option for you either.”
I flopped down into the worn pleather seat, its smooth plastic warmed by the sun. Now that we were down to a normal elevation, summer had returned and I shed my fleece jacket.
“Thanks,” I offered softly. “That was nice of you.”
“Not nice,” he corrected as he fired the engine and placed a pair of sporty black shades in place. “Tolerating.”
We bounced down potholed roads for the better part of two hours without speaking. Chassan’s eyes stayed forward, focused on the road as he hummed a tune in his head, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel in time. I was amazed he could be so normal.
My hair was blowing around like a tumbleweed in a prairie town, tossed by the winds that constantly swept down distance mountain peaks.
I had yet to see the real side of Peru Chassan was leading me deeper into. Airports and trains were generic at best—more often filled with strangers from foreign countries instead of locals. Machu Picchu, while breath taking, had been more of the same—tourists and hospitality workers who preferred Hollister and Abercrombie to traditional Peruvian attire.
The land was simple, untouched. Its beauty rugged in a way that you knew was formed by the hand of something greater than man. Some areas were worn by weather and the relentless sun, the rounded backs of those less obstinate terrains bowed in humble defeat.
These were the areas where the people lived. The little pockets of life, sandwiched into valleys where rivers could rage and crops could flourish. More than once we had to stop for an entire flock of sheep or alpacas to cross the road. Chassan yielded the right of way without a second thought, throwing a smile and friendly wave to the shepherds as they passed. As we ventured deeper into the mountains I noticed a shift in Chassan. As if his own forgotten humanity was waking up.
Life moved slowly, but desperately, for these people. Every task of their day essential for survival. The land gave them life, and they honored it for that. There were no McDonald’s to run to and grab a quick bite. No megastores to buy those little “necessities” that make life so much easier. Malls and supermarkets were days away, and automobiles were as scarce as electricity in the remote villages we traveled through.
There were two great contrasting forces I noticed as we drove.
The land was full of color, though muted to soft, almost out of focus hues. It seemed as if a good long rain shower might wash the land clean into a shimmering beauty that lay shrouded beneath a layer of dust.
Contrasting with the dull landscape were the brilliant natives, their clothing adding brilliant flourishes of color to the otherwise boring dirt road we traveled. Indigenous dress in Peru had all the flash of a Vegas showgirl. Brightly dyed ponchos and shawls rested over the shoulders of the people bent to their daily tasks. A chaotic rainbow of patterns so dizzyingly bright I caught myself smiling in wonder. On their heads, they wore funny little bowler hats to block the sun from their eyes or knitted skull caps with earflaps in the higher elevations.
Men wore black pants under their ponchos and women had heavy black skirts that fell to the middle of their shins. The kind of skirt that would fan straight out if they twirled around. Some of the women carried babies tied securely in the shawls on their backs like little papooses, others carried crops fresh picked from the fields. Some men had bags tied onto their belts, made for carrying the coca leaves that grew wild in this country.
They were tiny in stature. I’m sure some of them would have thought Chassan a giant with his impossible height and strength.
As we left the lower altitudes and began to climb the hills again I learned color wasn’t the only contrast in Peru. Where the populated areas were rolling and muted, the soaring mountains were anything but.
These were the intransigent victors of Peru, strong and stately despite the endless weather that roared up and down their slopes. They could not be broken, much like the spirit of the people that called their unforgiving slopes home. They stood tall and black, jagged as they rose
unabashedly to the sun, defying whatever force had humbled the weaker valleys into submission.
Chapter Fourteen
Complete Stranger
“This is where the fun starts.” The corner of Chassan’s mouth tugged up in an almost smile as he slid the jeep into a makeshift parking space along the roadside.
“Fun?”
“This is where we start hiking!” He actually did smile then, his mouth breaking into a wide toothy grin shockingly out of place on his usually stoney features. His mood was a complete 180 that left me wondering if he was mental, or doing his best impression of a human so no one would suspect what he really was. I wasn’t sure, but I nearly fell out of the jeep when he began to whistle like Snow White’s dwarves, pulling hiking packs from the back seat and adjusting the straps that covered them.
Ten minutes later, I was having to learn to walk again with a sixty pound pack strapped securely to my back as I stumbled to keep pace with Chassan’s stride on the wide walking path.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” I asked, grabbing onto a nearby tree to catch myself when I swung my weight too far left.
“Yep. This is the only way to the Q’ero.”
“How far?”
“A day, maybe two. Depends on how quickly you learn to carry that thing,” Chassan turned around, snapping a photo of me struggling to stand with one of the long lens cameras slung around his neck.
“Is that necessary?” I asked, huffing at a tendril of hair escaped from my ponytail.
Chassan actually laughed—a sound I once thought incapable of passing his solemn lips—as he continued up the trail, using a large wooden hiking staff and flicking though the images he had taken on the camera’s digital screen.
Two hours later, I was in major need of some relief—from the pack and for my bladder. After Chassan unhooked the behemoth bag from my back, he set off to find fresh water.
When he was out of sight, I scrambled off the trail and slipped into the jungle cover to find a private place. The only problem was I didn’t really pay attention, or maybe the jungle all looked the same to me. When I was finished, I couldn’t decide which way to go.
Sunlight spilled through the forest unfiltered to my left, something that told me there must be a clearing. In jungle so thick, a clearing was probably the trail. Pushing away the giant leaves and gnarly vines, and picking delicately through the heavy underbrush, I emerged into a clearing of sorts, but it certainly wasn’t the trail we were traveling.
It was a complete circle, maybe twenty feet in diameter, with a moss covered cave entrance at the far end. A breeze blew, and the dancing sounds of wooden wind chimes clattered softly from the trees, mixing with the constant chatter of forest birds. Split logs lay around the opening to keep the jungle at bay and provide a stable walking path.
Obviously, the place was made by the locals for something, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what. Walking over the logs, thankful to finally have a somewhat even surface to walk on instead of a rocky, washed out goat path, I made my way to the great stone at the far end, arms out to the side for balance as I tiptoed from log to log. What I had thought was a cave from a distance was no more than an alcove recessed into the side of a mountain wall, its black rock slicked over by green moss so it blended into the jungle.
On the alcove’s floor sat a pile of old embers and ashes, as if someone had taken shelter here not long ago and lit a fire for warmth. All innocent and practical enough, but there was something unsettling about the place. Something that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise in the soft wind blowing down the mountain.
Lingering in my nostrils like it still burned at my feet, the ember’s heavy, smokey stench choked out all other smells. Not that it was unpleasant, especially not to me. moonfaced, I found myself breathing deeper, greedily taking it all in, the smell relaxing the deeper parts of my brain.
I closed my eyes, pulling air deeply into my lungs, unable to believe that the suffocating sting of smoke was as fragrant to me in this new life as flowers had been before. An audible sigh slipped from my throat, and I turned my face up to feel the sun’s warmth.
That’s when it happened. The calm darkness of my closed eyes was stolen by the visions of a child. Only it was a child I knew. A familiar vision. The same little moonfaced girl with long black braids and a gap toothed smile that had found me at St Anne’s. She stood a few feet before me on a trail, holding out her hand to call me forward and looking over her shoulder to where a hidden path diverged from the main road. Instinctively, I smiled and reached for her hand.
The logs jostled behind me and, just like that, the vision vanished. I whirled around to find Chassan, the solemn, angry look firmly back on his face. He stormed toward me like a charging bull, so angry my heart sank to my toes and I shrunk against the cold, stone wall.
“Why did you leave the path?” His foul temper was palpable as he grabbed my arm and began dragging me back the way I had come.
“What is this place?” I broke free from his grasp and took a few steps away from him, refusing to be dragged around like a little child, even though he terrified me at that moment.
“It’s an altar. The locals offer sacrifices to the Apus here,” he growled as he impatiently reached for my arm again.
“What kind of sacrifices?” I demanded, sliding from his grasp again. He sighed, dragging a hand over his face, pulling his features taut in his frustration with me.
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“I think I do.” I put a hand on my hip and tucked my chin in a take-no-prisoners kind of way.
“Human sacrifice,” he leaned into me and whispered. My eyes went gadfly wide, darting all around the clearing like there might be ghosts lingering in the shadows.
“But like, from long ago, right? Not recently.” I tried to shake my head but it was more of a shudder, certain I didn’t really want to hear the answer I feared he was about to give me.
“You aren’t in America anymore, Faye. These mountains are just as primitive as they’ve always been.” He reached out to take my arm again and this time I gladly let him drag me from the cursed place. “If they found us here, they would kill us. Or at least try to. Human presence desecrates such a holy site.”
“But, we aren’t human.” I gulped as I said the words.
“We aren’t the gods they worship either.”
“Who do they worship?”
“My father. And he’s long gone.”
From the tone of Chassan’s voice, and the cold way he spit the answer over his shoulder at me, I knew better than to push the conversation any further. Chassan was alone, and for some reason, that was a really touchy subject with him.
He hastily saddled me with my pack and we continued up the rocky mountain trail. Chassan quickly disappeared from view, hiking so quickly he attacked the trail with his staff like he was mad at it. Every now and then he would call back to me, just to be sure I was still behind him. Other than that, the afternoon passed in silence.
My mind was reeling and I couldn’t get the image of the ash pile, or my little imaginary friend, out of my mind. Had that been the remains of a human? Burned on some ritualistic altar to gods that didn’t exist anymore? How could human life hold such little value in these mountains?
Alone with my thoughts, I had a long time to ponder such questions. Yet I never found answers that satisfied me. Chassan’s foul humor was back, in full force and even after he slowed his pace enough to keep me in sight, we still didn’t talk. No matter, I was quickly learning that the jungles of Peru were almost as beautiful as LisTirna, and way better company than an angry sun-god.
The cool green and rocky grey were alive, dancing with the shimmery wings of butterflies, so dense they traveled in colorful clouds through the forest, brushing my cheeks with powdery kisses a few times along the way. Feathers rained down on the trail from time to time, the forest canopy so full of avian life the leaves constantly rustled overhead as birds fought for the
best limbs to sing and soak up the sun.
It was a magical place, the microclimates changing every time we descended over a ridge or climbed higher. We went from thick, dense rainforest where it was difficult to breathe and walk, to arid grasslands where the sun was so bright it burned my eyes, to high altitude jungles that were cool and slick. The weather and terrain constantly changing as we progressed.
The sun hung low in the western sky along an exposed ridge when Chassan finally stopped.
“We’ll make camp soon,” Chassan said, staring at the sun as it blazed low on the horizon. I came to rest beside him, the sun casting shadows deep into the chiseled lines of his face, making him look more like a god than he ever had before. His shoulders fell heavily down his back, thrusting his chest out as his chin rose infinitely higher, eyes closed, drinking in the sun as if his heart ached to see it go.
Ignoring me like he did, it was obvious he wanted to be alone, so I continued on, following the worn line along the ridge as it traced its way into the forest a few yards away.
Seconds later, a bright orange glow sliced through the trees at a severe angle, telling me the sun was saying goodbye for the night and the sound of Chassan’s long stride was behind me again.
I’m not really sure how it all happened.
One moment, I was walking along in the fading orange glow, the next I was flailing wildly through the air, smacking against a tree with a force so violent it would have crushed me had my pack not softened the blow.
Chassan lunged in front of me, hunkered low to the ground like a prowling animal ready to strike. His body spread wide enough to shelter me and gain traction to attack whatever rustled the tree-line ahead. The forest was precarious during the day. At nighttime, when the real predators awoke hungry and ready to hunt, it was down right deadly.
My heart hammered in my chest, feeling as if it might beat out of the hollow at the base of my neck. A hand instinctively went to my throat, remembering Chassan’s deathly grip on me the night before and knowing he wouldn’t hesitate to snap the spine of whatever was unlucky enough to emerge from the forest.
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