by Leylah Attar
“Look us up if you’re ever in the area.”
“It’s called Ken and Judy’s.”
They completed each other’s sentences and entertained us with their stories for the rest of the night. Jack and I hung around after they left, watching the flickering lanterns sway in the night breeze.
The watchman did not need his flashlight to show us back to the tent. Someone had built a roaring fire in the center of the semi-circle of tents. A few of the guests sat around on blankets, while one of the guards played a harmonica.
“Stay a while!” Judy patted the empty blanket beside her. “There’s no heating in the tents.”
I wove through the small boulders around the circle of guests and sat down next to Ken and Judy. Jack followed, taking the vacant spot beside me. Above us, a spray of stars hung suspended in the velvet sky. The fire crackled, like leopard eyes in the night, reminding me of ancient men who had come and gone, in the rolling grasslands and volcanic highlands around us.
The warmth from the fire softened my bones. The harmonica played in long, slow drags, lulling my senses. Another guard started beating a drum to the same languid beat. Ken and Judy got up and swayed to the music. The couple sitting next to them passed me a pipe.
“What is it?” I asked.
They said something, but it wasn’t in English.
Another time, I would have declined, but thoughts of Juma and Mo and Lily were starting to crowd my mind. I took a deep puff of whatever it was and handed it back to them. It warmed my lungs and left a woody, astringent taste in my mouth. We went back and forth a few times, exchanging the pipe.
The wood smoke, soft voices, ember light catching on gleaming foreheads, the slow warmth, the cold stars—all melded into a throbbing night sorcery. The music slid under my skin, its drunken notes pulsating through my veins. The valley quaked, the sky glowed in a flame. I felt like a forgotten galaxy in a vast universe, like I was about to float away.
“Dance with me, Jack.” I gripped his hand. It hung heavy, until I got up and tugged.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had danced, let alone asked someone to dance. It was good to be held in Jack’s arms, to shuffle around the fire with his warm hands circling my waist. I lay my head on his chest and heard the drum beat through his heart. I felt like an oracle listening to it. It said I was equal parts earth and stars, equal parts animal and soul. I was hope. I was calamity. I was love. I was prejudice. I was my sister. I was his daughter. I was Juma. I was Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
“I like the way your heart beats,” I said. “And I like the way you say my name. Rodelle. It makes me sound pretty.”
“You are pretty.” He paused mid-step, like I’d thrown him off. He lifted my chin gently and watched the play of golden light across my face. “You’re insanely beautiful.”
They were not words I would have used to describe myself, but in that moment, I believed him. I felt insanely beautiful, even though I wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup, and my clothes were wrinkled, and my nails were bare and ragged. I believed him because he said it with the simplicity of an observation, one that seemed to hold him arrested, as if he had just noticed it himself.
The blood rushed to my cheeks, my lips, the arch of my brows, the tip of my nose—everywhere his eyes seared my skin.
“No.” I averted my gaze. It felt wrong to feel so alive, wrong to feel this burst of exhilaration. “Mo was beautiful. And fun. And funny. I miss her. So much.”
Jack didn’t move away, but it was as if we both took a step back from whatever had momentarily blazed between us, turning instead to our private thoughts, our private grief. As we swayed in silence, I found myself burrowing deeper into the comfort of his arms. He was so warm—warmer than the fire.
“Is that Bahati laughing?” I mumbled, my cheek pressed flat against his chest. Jack was tall, the tallest guy I had ever danced with. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know what you smoked, Rodel, but that’s not Bahati. It’s a hyena. Somewhere out there.” He laughed.
“I like it when you laugh. I mean, when you really laugh. It starts here.” I touched his throat. “But I feel it here.” I splayed my fingers across his chest.
We both felt it then—the flare of something wild and combustible, like a flickering ember leaping from the bonfire. Our eyes locked and Jack turned stone-still, every muscle in his torso locking down in taut, tight tension. His chest was red hot under my hand, as if all of our senses had fused there, in a scorching, molten mess. Then he cleared his throat and stepped away.
“I think we better get you to bed,” he said.
I nodded, feeling a bit like I was standing in quicksand. My legs were wobbly and my heart was pounding. It must have been from the pipe, because I stood there, limp and drained, like a stewed noodle.
I can’t remember if I walked, or if Jack carried me back to our tent, but he tucked me into bed and wrapped the blanket tight around me.
“Goodnight, Rodel.”
“’Night, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.”
I heard the soft thud of his shoes and the creaking of his bed. The buzzing of night beetles and the drunken warmth of the bonfire had almost lulled me to sleep when there was a loud roar.
“Is that a lion?” I mumbled. It sounded like it was just outside our tent, but I was too gone and too tired to care.
“Yes. But it’s not as close as it sounds. A lion’s roar travels a long way.”
“Are they doing it?”
“Doing what?”
“Mufasa.” I yawned. “That’s why he’s the motherfucking king of the jungle.”
“Mufasa?”
I turned around to face him, but I was sliding into a deep fog. “Nevemrind.”
I heard Jack chuckle in the dark.
“You make me laugh, Rodel,” he said softly. “I haven’t laughed in a long, long time.”
MY EYES WERE heavy as they fluttered open. It took a moment to focus on the beams running across the ceiling. There was a bitter taste in my mouth, and my tongue felt like it was coated in thick wool. Something wasn’t right.
Then I remembered. The tent. The pipe. Dancing with Jack. The fire. The drums. His heartbeat. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. Something roaring between us.
I flipped to my side and moaned. I was hungover from whatever I had smoked.
“You all right?” Jack’s morning voice was raspy and rough.
We were lying in our beds, facing each other.
“I’m fine.” Mine came out like I had sucked on helium. It wasn’t every day that I woke up in the same room as a big, lumbering man. Or a mid-sized one. Or anything that can grow stubble overnight.
The pale light played up his hair, giving it a soft, bluish cast. One hand was under his pillow, while the other dangled off his bed, his fingers close enough to touch. Even through all the layers, it was easy to make out the solid sinew of Jack’s body.
When I get home, I am going to get a life, I promised myself. Meet some hot men. Date. Have lots and lots of sex, so I’m not so miserably ill-equipped around a male body.
Now you’re talking! Mo popped into my head.
Really? This is when you choose to show up? When I’m having R-rated thoughts?
You owe me. Big time. You never had any juicy stories to share when I was around.
Well, nothing juicy is happening here right now.
Not yet.
Mo! He just lost his daughter, and I’m still getting over you.
So? There’s nothing more life-affirming than sex.
You know I’m not about a quick romp in the hay.
No. You want more. You’ve always wanted more. But you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you get exactly what you need. And good God, look at him! Don’t tell me you don’t want a slice of that.
I sighed and closed my eyes. Tell me something, Mo. Are we really having these conversations or am I making you up in my head?
Whatever floats your boat.
You’re absolutely no help.
Anytime, dude.
A bittersweet knot lodged in my throat. I miss you, Mo.
No answer.
“Rodel? You sure you’re all right?”
My eyes flew open.
Jack was watching me across the small space that separated our beds.
I nodded and wiped the stray tear that had escaped. “Just having a moment.”
He didn’t take his eyes off my face, and I was strangely comfortable with that, with him seeing the part of me that no one else got to see. He was so achingly familiar with loss that sharing it with him didn’t feel foreign. There was an acceptance, an understanding, that lifted me and held me steady in his gaze. Perhaps he found the same in me because his face turned soft—the shape of his lips relaxed, the bottom one falling slightly open.
The clang of something outside the tent shook us out of the moment.
“I think they just brought the hot water,” he said. “You want to take that shower now?”
“That would be nice.”
But neither of us moved. We lay there for a few beats, while the water turned cold outside, wisps of steam rising in the chilly morning. We had found a pocket of quiet, where all the ghosts in our minds had gone to sleep, and we were the only two people awake.
Then Jack blinked, and the moment drifted away. I watched as he brought the buckets in and carried them to the bathroom. I went first, making sure I left enough hot water for him. Then again, maybe not. There was a hell of a lot more of him to cover.
I stepped out of the tent while he showered. A hazy sun was just peeking over the horizon. Wisps of pink clouds were saying goodbye to a pearlescent moon. The watchmen were gone so I figured it was safe to walk around in the daytime. The camp was perched on the rim of the crater, with sweeping views of the landscape below. Keeping a respectful distance from the edge, I peered over and saw patchwork colors in the grassy plains. As I watched, they changed and moved. Then I realized they were herds of wildebeests and zebras, grazing on the floor of the caldera. They were barely discernible from this height, like blocks of little marching ants.
It was a beautiful, surreal sight. I crept closer, but thick clouds that were sweeping down from the rim and covering the crater obscured my view. The air was noticeably colder, and there was a fine drizzle on my face. I zipped up Jack’s hoodie and headed back to the tent.
I didn’t get too far. Everything had turned thick and gray. The mist rolled around me in smoky swirls, giving me a tiny peek before shrouding it again. I walked one way, saw something, and started walking in that direction instead. After a few minutes, I was completely lost, completely disoriented. I didn’t know if I was walking toward the crater or away from it.
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” My hair clung dankly to my head as I held my hands out, trying to steer my way out of the heavy, silver labyrinth.
Something shifted in front of me.
“Jack? Is that you? Anyone there?” I turned to follow the movement.
A gigantic, dark figure rose ahead of me. It had the ghostly outline of a person but with arms and legs elongated way beyond proportion. Its head was sheathed in a shimmering ring, like a hazy, rainbow halo. I blinked, pretty sure I was imagining the unnerving apparition, but it stood there, as real and chilling as the droplets of water clinging to my skin. I took a step back, and it moved with me.
Motherfucker.
I turned and sprinted blindly, stumbling over the uneven ground. I thought I heard my name, and then the fall of heavy footsteps behind me. I picked up my pace, high on the fumes of adrenaline, but it was no use. A strong grip clamped around my wrist and spun me around.
“What the hell, Rodel? Didn’t you hear me? Why are you running?”
“Jack!” I let out a soft gasp. “Thank God. That thing.” I looked over his shoulder, my chest heaving. “Did you see?” I broke away from him, searching for it.
“Listen to me.” He pulled me back with such force that I crashed into him. “Stop moving. You hear me? Stop. Fucking. Moving.”
The urgency in his voice shackled my floundering footsteps.
“You were this close to the edge.” He left an inch between his thumb and forefinger. “This close. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He was furious, his face a glowering mask of rage.
“Listen to me!” I yanked my hand away, my heart still black with fright. “I saw something. A ghost. A dark figure. I don’t know what it was, but it was following me.”
Jack ran his hand through his hair. It was damp from the mist. Or maybe his shower. His hair was darker when wet, the ends curled up to an almost decent length.
“Was it big?” he asked. “Long arms, long legs?”
“Yes.”
“Rainbow colors around the silhouette?”
“Around its head. Yes.”
He let out a deep breath. “Rodel?”
“What?”
“Don’t go wandering off without me, okay?” He started walking away from me. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.
“Wait.” I wasn’t about to lose sight of him. “Are you going to tell me what it was?”
“We’ll talk inside.”
I followed him into the dining room and waited until we were seated.
“How did you do that?” I asked, after the waiter brought our food.
“Do what?”
“Find me. And then find the dining room in the mist.”
“When you spend a lot of time in the wild with no markers, no buildings, no road signs, you learn to keep track up here.” He tapped his temple. “How many paces, which way. As far as you’re concerned, I just followed your voice and footsteps. It’s not hard once you know what you’re tracking. I just didn’t expect you to start running toward the cliff.”
“It was that thing.” A shiver went through me that had nothing to do with the cold. “What the hell is out there, Jack?”
“Nothing.” He buttered a piece of toast and handed it to me. “You just witnessed an optical illusion called the Brocken Spectre.”
“The broken what?”
“Brocken Spectre. B-R-O-C-K-E-N. It was your own shadow projected in front of you through the mist.” He took a bite of his toast and washed it down with a swig of Coca-Cola.
“That was no shadow, Jack. It was huge, and there were these colored lights around it.”
“I’ve seen it.” Jack nodded. “Once. While climbing Kili—Mount Kilimanjaro. It doesn’t happen too often. Only under specific conditions. The sun must be behind you, low in the horizon, to cast that kind of shadow. The rainbow-colored halo is produced by light backscattered through a cloud of water droplets. Depth perception is altered by the mist, so it appears distant and larger than expected.”
“But it moved. I don’t just mean with me. It did that too, but it was . . . it wasn’t just dull and flat like a shadow. It was changing.”
“That’s because the mist is thicker in some parts and thinner in others, so there’s a play of light involved.” Jack finished his plate and signaled to mine. “Are you going to eat your breakfast?”
“I’m just . . . it’s fascinating.” It made sense when I thought about it. “I wish I’d known. I’d have taken the time to study it instead of freaking the hell out.”
“What we don’t understand always scares us.”
“Yes, but now that I know, I find it rather beautiful. I mean, I was something much bigger for a moment. With the longest arms and legs, everything within my reach. And let’s not forget my spectacular rainbow halo. I may look ordinary, but I am freaking magical!”
Jack smiled and regarded me over the steeple of his fingers.
“What?” I asked, digging into my plate.
“There is nothing ordinary about you. I thought we established that last night.”
I flushed as I recalled his words. Insanely beautiful. In spite of the haze of last night, that one moment still sparkled through. And the crazy thing, the thing that made it matter, was that he meant it abo
ut all of me—not just the way I looked.
“I have to admit,” he continued. “I’m kind of glad you had the living daylights scared out of you.”
“That’s awful. Why would you enjoy something like that?”
“Sometimes we need to be jarred out of our own reality. We base so much of ourselves on other people’s perceptions of us. We live for the compliments, the approval, the applause. But what we really need is a grand, spine-chilling encounter with ourselves to believe we’re freaking magical. And that’s the best kind of believing, because no one can unsay it or take it away from you.”
I nodded and sipped my tea. “And what about you, Jack? Do you believe in your own magic?”
“I stopped believing,” he said. “After Lily.” He stared out into the gray vastness of the crater. “All the Brocken Spectre means to me now is a dark projection of myself. Grotesque. Eerie. Contorted. It’s what the world does, you know? It distorts you until you can’t recognize yourself.”
My heart squeezed at the pain that flickered in his eyes. “You’re a good man, Jack,” I said. “You saved my life today. I might have ended up at the bottom of that crater if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”
His eyes came back to me, like he’d been far away and I had just pulled him back. “What were you doing so close to the edge?”
“I was looking down over the rim. It was beautiful. The animals, the lake, the forest. That was before the mist rolled in and blanketed everything.”
“You should see it up close before we leave. Do it now. You never know if we’ll be passing this way again.”
I nodded. A few weeks ago, I had no idea what this trip would bring. New faces, new places. A few weeks from now, they would all be left behind. A twinge of sadness hit me, but this time it had nothing to do with Mo.
“Have you heard from Goma?” I asked.
Jack had asked Bahati to stay with Goma and Scholastica while we were away. After what had happened to Juma, I understood why. I thought of the walled perimeter of Gabriel’s house in Rutema, the broken glass on top, the hastily abandoned swing.
They can’t promise her safety, Gabriel’s sister, Anna, had said, explaining why Scholastica didn’t go to school. I had chalked it up to kids being mean because she was different, but it was much bigger than that.