“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” Thomas whispered. “Or how tired. I guess a life or death battle really takes it out of a fella.” He peeked down at Sophie. Her head was nestled down close to his chest and her eyes were shut. “Well, good for you. Get it while you can.” Then, just like that, he closed his eyes and joined her in sleep.
28
Sala sat on the cold stone altar doing her best impression of a happy, nurturing mother. The tiny blue-eyed baby that seemed to be the source of all this trouble stared up at her from its small nest in her arms, making tiny blubbering noises. Bubbles of spit bloomed up from the corners of his toothless mouth and she wiped them gently away with the bottom of her shirt. His chubby little arms flapped up and down three times, then he raised them up toward the ceiling, clenching ten delicate fingers open and closed. It wasn’t her he was staring at now, but the lamp that hung high overhead, illuminating the deep recesses of the raised ceiling.
“I’m sorry, little one. I like the light too, but I can’t get it for you. It’s too high.”
This was met with another series of blubber talk, then the baby reached over and grabbed hold of one of her fingers in a grip so tight it surprised her. The lack of tears or complaint also surprised her. Since the baby had been in her care it had yet to cry. Not once. She hoped her own child would be this happy.
She wished she could be so happy. The only thing that kept her from breaking apart completely was the fragile infant that was in her care. She would be strong for him. Her thoughts over the last few hours covered a whole range of emotions. Fear was constant, with the thought that the demon at any moment would decide to act out the vision He had promised them would happen if Bolo failed Him. Outside of the fear, she jumped back and forth with her feelings toward her husband. There was blame, oh yes, plenty of that. She had been perfectly happy in their village on Kabara. They had a home, food, friends, and a child on the way. Who wouldn’t be satisfied with that? Bolo, for some reason. He hadn’t been satisfied. It had seemed like he was, like his happiness was firmly entrenched, but then why would he bring them here if he was happy before? So yes, she was angry at him. Furious even, for brief moments.
Then she would think of the creature and the power of Its visions. He tricked Bolo, she would think. He made him believe he was special and necessary to a God. What man wouldn’t be seduced by such flattery? That consideration would quell her anger, for a time.
Then the last escape would play out in her mind. Bolo had finally come to his senses. They were going to leave, to be free. The perilous flight across the lake had been the most frightening experience of her life, to that point. The terrible vision after would supplant that, of course. But they had made it! They had crossed the lake, just steps ahead of the furious God who had given chase. Then those dark spirits had swarmed in. For just a moment, she thought that they were going to be torn apart from both sides, only the spirits didn’t seem interested in harming them. They’d seemed intent on protecting them.
Well, not all of them. As it turned out, they had protected Bolo, but she was further behind, and when the spirits swarmed out in their protective circle, she had been outside of it. Would they have protected me too? she wondered. If I had been closer, next to Bolo, would they have chased off Daucina and kept me safe? Along with the baby? Something about the way it had happened made her doubt that. It was almost like they had separated her from her husband. Drove her out and made her in league with Daucina.
At that moment it wasn’t those dark, shadowy spirits she blamed for being dragged back to the island by the unyielding grasp of an evil god, it was her husband, who had been too weak to fight for her. He had abandoned her. Her fury had nearly matched her fear at that moment, and for several moments after as she watched him fade into the distance, safe on the sand.
But then he had come back, causing her to wonder at him. Truly, she had been in awe of his bravery and dedication to her. He could have been free, to run to his boat and flee to the village where he would be safe. To do otherwise, to return and confront a furious god who he had just betrayed, was akin to walking willingly through the gates of Hell. And he had done that. For her.
Now fear was all she knew. All that remained. There had been a terrible sadness too, for the choice that Bolo had to make. Guilt, as well, for asking him to choose her. That had been a moment of great weakness, but wouldn’t most people do the same? Wouldn’t they ask great sacrifice of their loved ones if it meant having a chance for safety and avoiding their own doom? So, she had pleaded, had asked that Bolo risk his own life, and worse. To take the lives of others.
Murder. Now she feared she was meant for Hell. The Hell she would experience with Daucina if Bolo failed, or the Hell she would experience later, at the end of her life, if Bolo succeeded.
Then there was the baby. She feared for him too. What a ghastly creature like Daucina could want with a sweet, innocent baby she couldn’t even begin to imagine, but it wasn’t likely to be pleasant. If Bolo failed, she would make one last attempt at freedom. The baby deserved to have some small glimpse of hope for a real life.
With her legs turning to pins and needles, she slipped off the edge of the altar, touching the ground with both feet, but waiting patiently for the tingling and numbness to subside before risking her weight on them. For a while after Bolo left, Daucina had remained in the Bure with her. To taunt her or to watch over her, she wasn’t sure. Several minutes ago, he had risen abruptly and stormed out. Sala couldn’t tell what was worse, having Him there before her, wondering what he might do, or having him outside her vision, wondering what He might be doing. She wanted to check on Him. If He was gone, then just maybe …
She shuffled over to the nearest doorway, quiet as a mouse, and peeked outside, ready to duck back quickly if she should meet with His attention. There was nothing, no sign of him. Her hopes rose just the tiniest bit. She moved back across the floor to the opposite doorway, the one her and Bolo had fled through in their hasty escape.
There He was, but He wasn’t looking back at her. He was striding back and forth, His posture forward and tense, like He was preparing for battle. His attention seemed focused on the far side of the water. As she raised her eyes to see what had Him so stirred up, she saw the shadows again, highlighted under the growing light of the moon. The white sand created a backdrop that framed their shivering forms. They were massed all over the stretch of beach along the opposite shore. There appeared to be well over a hundred of them. They buzzed around like bees in a hive, and the buzzing seemed to be driving Daucina into a mindless fury. As she turned her gaze back toward Him, He stomped at the ground, then kicked at the sand like a petulant child, sending a great arc of it flying out over the water.
Sala wanted to laugh, wanted to shout at Him, make fun, like a bullied child who was finally witnessing the brute that was so used to terrorizing others be teased and bullied themselves. So strained and slippery was her sanity she was about to do it. She could feel a big daddy of a laugh bubbling up from her gut. Don’t do it, girl. That’ll be the end of you. But it was a freight train coming and when it came, she felt she might just hop right on aboard and ride it straight to la-la land.
Just then the swarm of shadows beyond the lake stopped in unison. They seemed to shimmer in the glow of the moon, then they were off, drifting back toward the North of the island where Sala and Bolo had originally travelled from.
Thankfully, the laugh that threatened to burst forth and carve out a large chunk of her sanity stopped in her throat.
Daucina waded out into the water and was gone.
29
Thomas woke to somebody shaking his ankle. Sophie lay still and quiet in the same position she had been in when he fell asleep. He blinked up at the windows of purple sky framed in by the tall, broad-leafed trees overhead. The moon was bright up above and the light joined with the orange flickering of another source of light behind him to brighten a face staring at him from his feet.
“Bolo, ho
w long have I been asleep?”
“Two hours, maybe. Noni has called on the spirits to join us. I think you might want to be awake for this.” With that his face receded into shadow.
Thomas shook his sister gently by the shoulder before realizing she was already looking up at him. Giving her a smile he hoped was comforting, he sat up and looked around. A large fire was burning, sending shadows dancing around the small, cleared space they’d made their temporary home. Not living shadows though, Thomas was relieved to think, just good ole regular shadows. For now.
The witch was standing close to the fire, opposite where they were nestled in the brush, and sprinkling something into the amber flames that created a black smoke that smelled earthy, with an underlying dose of corrupted mint. She was chanting in a strange language that sounded somehow different from her normal way of speaking. To the left of the fire, standing at the edge of the glowing ring of light it made, was Bolo. His eyes darted back and forth from the witch to the dark perimeter around them where the reach of the firelight stretched out as far as it could before failing.
Thomas approached him and spoke quietly. “You’re nervous.”
“Yes, Thomas,” he whispered back, eyes still darting, “I don’t think the spirits here are to be feared, but I do not know if the spirits are the only thing that will be drawn to the flames tonight.”
Sophie spoke up from behind Thomas’s shoulder, causing him to flinch involuntarily. “You think Daucina might come here? Or are there other things on this island as well?”
She doesn’t even sound scared, Thomas thought, she’s just gathering information to prepare herself. He looked back to marvel at her strength and resiliency but Bolo’s response interrupted him.
“There is nothing more to fear on this island but Daucina. Noni says that his power weakens when he moves from his Bure. She does not think he will come here. He knows why you are here and He will wait for us to come to Him.” He looked at Sophie then, a single eyebrow arched up. “But I prefer to watch, just in case.”
“I see. I feel better knowing you’re keeping a good watch, Bolo.” She offered him a simple smile that made her face look radiant in the light. It was a face made for smiles. “What is going to happen, Bolo? With this,” she said, nodding over toward Noni.
“This is not a thing that I know about, Sophie. I’m just a fisherman. But this … I don’t think anybody else, even Chief Josefa, would know what is happening. Not really. The only one that knows is the Vuniduva.”
All three stood together along the distant edge of the firelight and watched as the old woman performed her rites. She no longer spread anything over the fire as the smoke she had already created hovered in their little hollow like a dark cloud, filling up their nostrils with its peculiar smell.
Bolo and Sophie stared at the ring of darkness around them, watching intently for shadows to separate from a black night that had, in their minds, become an entity. Thomas’s focus was squarely on the witch. There was nothing in Bolo’s eyes that suggested deception when he spoke to them of this Daucina. Thomas believed now, fully, that they were up against some malevolent force, but that didn’t mean he trusted the witch. There was a comfort in having a local with them when they set out for this island, yet he had felt unsettled ever since she came into their presence. Maybe it was just his suspicious nature, but he still suspected some falsehood hid behind those robes and brown teeth.
Even now he wondered if the strange smoke filling the air was meant to bring actual spirits, or meant to enchant their minds into thinking they were seeing spirits. Are we breathing in a hallucinogen right now? he wondered. Maybe that stuff she tossed into the flames was a type of dried up magic mushroom ground into powder form. We breathe in the fumes, then when she declares there are shadowy spirits with us, we see the real shadows and they become what she says they are. Power of suggestion. But Bolo claimed to have seen one already, and he hadn’t been under a witch’s spell then. Thomas relented in his witch hunt and decided he was best served just taking everything as a real-life ghost story. If it turned out to be false, then so be it. Not the first time I’d feel like a fool.
When the spirits finally did arrive, all thoughts of foolishness fled before them. They emerged from the shadows in complete silence. One moment the world was as it should be, the next it was like slipping into an alternate dimension where ghouls and goblins were much more than stories meant to frighten and entertain children. All around them they danced, and the small circle they inhabited was filled with a chill that had Bolo, Thomas, and Sophie rubbing their arms and huddling into each other.
Then the witch began to speak in a loud voice that projected far out from the dark circle. At first, Thomas and Sophie thought she spoke to the spirits, but after a moment, Bolo began to translate quietly to them and it sounded more like a story lesson.
“The spirits of our people are here tonight. The poor souls who remain in this sad and lonely place. Once a humble and happy people, they are now brought low, tethered to the physical world by grief and hatred. They long to take their revenge on the God Daucina, who is a trickster and deceiver, and who professes to bless the people while he curses them.” As she spoke, Thomas and Sophie began to experience flashes in their minds. Faces of the villagers of long ago. Happy moments of hunting, playing, and gathering. Then followed more somber scenes, those of sickness, suffering, and death. They moved through their minds while the words of Noni lulled them. “Yet they lack the strength to punish a god, and so they linger! Torment fills them in death, as it did at the end of their lives.
But you don’t belong here anymore, great spirits of my people! You belong in the After, at peace with those who left the island long ago and have moved on.” Sweat was pouring down Noni’s face as she shouted over the hot flames, then she froze, a strange look passing over her face. “You don’t belong,” she repeated, but this time her voice was different, almost curious. “There is another who was inflicted with the curses and trickery of Daucina … another, but not of us.” Her eyes scanned the throbbing and quivering mass of shadowy beings around her, searching.
Then Sophie gasped. The visions flickering through her head were no longer those of the old Fijian villagers that lived and died here in ages past, these scenes were much more recent, and not entirely of the island of Vaqava.
She saw herself, strolling along a beach that looked familiar. That was on the big island, she thought, the Coral Coast maybe. Then another scene of her having a drink at a small beach bar, laughing and smiling in the sun. What is this? Why is this happening? she thought, bewildered. The next scene exhilarated and frightened her at the same time. It showed her lying asleep—or unconscious—and naked upon the stone altar in the temple on this island. Then her, swimming in the fading light of day in the lake surrounding the temple. Her and Jacob’s lake, as she now thought of it.
Jacob! Her eyes, which were closed as she drifted along to the old woman’s words in a half-sleep, snapped open in surprise. Directly before her, tall and shimmering, was a spirit that didn’t seem to ebb and flow amongst the living with the other spirits. It remained mostly still and squarely before her. There was no face, but if Sophie could see one, she knew she’d see Jacob’s kind eyes staring back at her. Then another vision flashed, them making love in the lake, and she smiled and laughed. My Jacob, she thought, trying to send the feeling out as hard and powerful as she could. Then another vision, a baby. Their baby, blue eyed, with a patch of dark hair that poked straight up from the top of its beautiful and perfect head. Kai! She had never even seen her own child but she knew it was him. Not only did it not make sense to be any other child, but she knew in her heart that if she walked into a room full of infants, all babbling and squawking, she’d pick out her precious Kai.
“Our baby, Jacob! We’ll get him back! Oh Jacob, I’m so sorry!” But the spirit, Jacob’s spirit, was melting into the squirming mass of the others. Then he was gone. “Jacob, come back! Don’t leave!” Sophie’s eyes searche
d the horde of shadows frantically but they were all once again a single writhing mass. Then she realized Noni was speaking out again.
Bolo began to speak to them, “The spirits have some power, but only for a brief time, then they must fade, but your Jacob will return. He is stuck here in this place with the others, another victim of the Deceiver.” Bolo favored her with a sad smile as Noni kept up her speech.
Only now, Bolo wasn’t translating, just watching with awesome appreciation of what was going on all around him. After a few moments, he gave a brief description of what was being said. “She is speaking to the spirits, telling them that we wish to free them. To help them get their revenge and move on to what’s next, to be at peace. She is asking that they help in whatever way they can.”
When the old woman was done, the dark forms around them seemed to dissipate. One moment they were an army of shadows pressed in around them, and the next they seemed to melt away and were gone. With them, the chill upon the air faded and the warmth seeped in to their bones again. The fire seemed to die down with their passing and just like that the world appeared as it should be, normal and predictable. The small group standing around the fire remained silent for a time, absorbing all that had happened.
There was a sense of foreboding amongst them, it lay heavy over their heads and in their minds. In every storm there is a calm, and each of them knew intuitively that the moment of peace they were now experiencing was about to end. Soon they would have to enter the maelstrom, and not all of them would pass through.
Noni’s voice cut again into the night. It was low and somber as she spoke on in a long stream of instruction. The robe billowed around her, though no breeze could be felt by any of them, and the dying firelight flickered off her corrupted teeth and keen eyes.
Cave of Bones (Dark Island Series Book 2) Page 19