by Cole Alpaugh
She reached out and pressed the Bible into his hands. “Hold this until I’m ready.”
“What are you doing?”
“You must be quiet and not move. Sit here.” She stood and patted the first chiseled step that led to the altar, then climbed up onto the huge flat rock and swept away dead leaves and brown, skeleton-like fronds. She sat and brushed her hands, then took a few deep breaths. She held out one hand and wiggled her fingers at him.
“What?”
“The Bible.”
He put the book in her hand, and she clutched it to her chest. She made the sign of the cross, then put the same index finger to her lips to keep him quiet. She lowered onto her back and dropped both arms to her sides, the Bible lying there as if weighing her down.
He listened to the birds talk and small animals rattle through the undergrowth. He watched the pretty little girl’s chest rise and fall under the leather-bound book, her brown eyes fluttering closed just as a dragonfly came in for a closer look and then zoomed away. Minutes passed, and he had to stifle a yawn, thinking she might have fallen asleep. The girl seemed at peace, a child in a comfortable place about to dream.
The leaves scattered about the stone’s perimeter began to move. And as if Tiki knew he was about to call or reach out to her, she slowly raised one hand to him, waved her fingers for him to stop. The swarm of a million tiny creatures, black spiders no bigger than grains of rice, emerged from every direction and scrambled over themselves to reach her smooth skin. The spiders came up from the heels of her feet and from her pointy elbows. They surged along the tops of her fingers, tumbling over her knuckles, sprinting past her wrist for the long stretch of her forearm. Her hair began to sway and shift as if it had come to life, the tight curls a twisting roller-coaster path for countless scurrying legs. A palpitating black shade was lowered over her face; a wriggling mask out of some fever-induced nightmare.
Dash wanted to go to her, brush them away, but he held back because this is what she’d wanted him to see. In only two or three minutes, nearly every bit on her skin was coated in a throbbing layer of tiny spiders that seemed to be turning in circles, searching for something once they’d found their place on her body. Even her underpants had gone black as they raced across and under the thin material. The Bible had also come alive; it moved and swayed, threatened to slide off her body as though balanced on ball bearings.
A few more minutes and the process reversed course. Sections of Tiki’s skin reappeared as the spiders finished their crazy waltz and flooded back down her arms and legs. The spiders rushed from her chest and face, poured from her hair out onto the stone, where they disappeared into the carpet of leaves. Under the dappled sunlight, he could see the girl’s skin had been left perfectly clean. The specs of dead flies, the sweat-streaked mud, and every bit of oil in her hair had been consumed by the swarm that streamed off her fingertips and down her ankles like black sludge.
She opened her eyes and sat up, smiling. She brushed her hands together. “It’s kind of icky when they go up your nose.” She shook out her hair, then rubbed her face. She turned and looked at him closely. “Now it’s your turn to be saved.”
Chapter 16
They’d been scavenging the eastern beach for an hour when Tiki let out a squeal that chased a hundred birds from a cluster of nearby trees, the brown-winged creatures careening through the air as though navigating an invisible maze. She hopped up and down, bird-like herself, and waved a pink toothbrush above her head.
She stopped to hold it out, turning it over in her hands. “Can you believe it? It’s so pretty. I wished for one like this.”
“It looks brand new.”
“The missioners gave us ugly black ones.” She ran a finger through the bristles. “The hair was no good and fell out. This is special.”
She smiled, then stepped up on the crown of a large rock and began brushing her teeth, turning a slow circle to scan for more goodies.
It was morning, and Tiki had pulled him away from a dream in which he stood poised at the very end of a diving board, toes curled over the edge, judges in all-white off to one side with score cards at the ready. The Olympic-size pool was filled with millions of tiny spiders instead of water, but they weren’t his concern. Spiders were a good thing, in fact, since they didn’t cause a splash even with a less than perfect entry. It was the chanting crowd that was making him sweat. “Burn up slow, burn up slow,” they sang with increasing fervor. And the dreaming Dash knew they meant for him to suffer a long, agonizing death in the volcano. They were willing him to miss the fire, land among the scorched rocks to languish in a slow broil. He’d woken with the image of the cards held high over the judges’ heads, and he quickly tried adding the numbers before they dropped their hands. He was certain his score was how many days he had to live.
He held his bucket half-filled with pieces of civilization that might have traveled from cities for which the girl was destined when the soldiers returned. He’d hoped for containers to store water, recalling the bleak news reports of islands made up of plastic bottles floating across the Pacific, slowly disintegrating into pieces small enough for aquatic life to eat and thus becoming part of the food chain. But the bottles he found were torn and useless, except as souvenirs. He picked up each fragment, brushed away the sand. If only their labels—with numbers and weights and words—had survived, perhaps some generic warning to prove he was worth keeping alive.
Tiki scoured the rocky beach, head down, picking at tangled seaweed clumps. “I want to find a special decoration for tonight, something better than a toothbrush or coral. All the kids find stupid coral.”
She squealed again before he could ask what she was decorating. She dropped the pieces she’d found and ran, feet kicking a spray of sand. He followed, stealing a glance in the opposite direction, half expecting a ghost, or maybe a giant man with a fish where its head should be.
She stopped and fell to her knees, allowing him to catch up to her. “What is it?”
“A little woman,” she said, her voice awe filled and breathless. “A fairy princess.”
He watched her carefully lift a blonde Barbie doll that was missing both legs, but otherwise intact. It had blue eyes, and lips the same color as the nipples of last night’s dancers.
“It’s Barbie,” he said.
“I get to name her,” she snapped. “I found her.”
She smoothed the doll’s hair with her palm, licked her thumb and cleaned smudges from the mounds of its bare chest.
Dash stood, not wanting to argue. She also got to her feet, held the doll out by its tiny hands. He could see her thinking hard then break into a smile.
“Her name is Sarah, like the girl you wanted to marry. She’ll be my decoration.”
He laughed. “Sarah would love that. It’s a wonderful tribute.”
“What’s a tribute?”
He scratched his head. “It’s doing something to show respect for someone.”
Tiki nodded that she understood. “Like how Manu is giving you to the Volcano?”
Joy from the treasure hunt drained away. “Are we done now?”
“It’ll be the best decoration ever,” she said. “What jewelry did Ginger have on her island? The movie star woman.”
He tried remembering. The rich old lady had strings of pearls, but he couldn’t picture a necklace accenting any of the Hollywood starlet’s low cut evening gowns. “Earrings, I think. She sometimes wore diamond earrings.”
“Okay, let’s find diamond earrings. Then we’re done.” Tiki tiptoed across the round rocks to deposit the doll in his bucket. “I can wear them when the soldiers come.”
“Stop saying that stuff. You can’t go with them,” he said, but she acted like she didn’t hear, or didn’t care, walking out to where the water splashed the lava rocks to continue her search.
The east side of the island was leeward facing and had no reef. The black earth dropped immediately away at water’s edge, the ocean steadily undulating rather
than forming waves.
“That’s where Mama went.” She pointed out over the water. “Her body, anyway. It’s where the dead start their journey. They put them right here, then the Sea God swallows them when they float out a little.”
“What if I build a boat? One like the fishermen have, or a bamboo raft. You could help me. You tie better knots than I ever could.”
“To go to Vermont?”
“We could make it to the shipping lanes, where a bigger boat would take us to Vermont. You could ride in an airplane.”
She looked at the sky, shaking her head. “Manu would know.”
“It would be a secret. We’d hide it until it was ready to go.”
“You see all the birds? They watch. They see everything.”
Dash looked back at the jungle. The treetops were again filled with small birds that hopped and preened. Seagulls picked at things along the tide line, patrolled the sky above.
“If the Bird God didn’t tell him, then another god would,” she whispered.
He thought for a minute. “We’d leave when it’s darkest. There’s more than a week until the new moon.”
“The black face moon,” she corrected.
“Most birds will be asleep. And the others won’t be able to see us. What if you could have beautiful clothes and a kitten in Vermont? You’d see the same moon and stars from your bed every night.”
She squatted, picked a broken clam shell from between the rocks. “I’d be too lonely in Vermont, even with a kitten.”
“No, you’d be with me. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be in a safe place where no one will hurt you. You’ll go to a real school and have new friends. I’ll sign you up for soccer. You’ll play just like here.”
She shook her head as she dropped the shell into his bucket. “You already asked your god to be saved. Everything will be okay.”
“I’m about to be pushed into the volcano and you’re going to be taken from your people. No little book is going to stop it from happening.”
“You need to have faith,” she said. “Like I have faith I’ll be chosen as pretty enough.”
He stooped to pick up another toothbrush that had also survived an overseas journey, although sun-bleached and missing half its bristles. He dropped it into the bucket. “You aren’t going with them. We’ll figure something out.”
Tiki lifted a dead crab, held it out and jiggled it to make its legs dance. “I’m going to name my kitten Ginger, even if she isn’t orange.”
Chapter 17
Tiki begged him to return to the village with her, something to do with the legless doll she’d found. She remained cryptic, and he couldn’t handle surprises. Every noise made him jump. They would come for him soon if he didn’t find a way out. Thatching together a raft was a thing of stories, not something a sane man considered when sitting on a beach at eye level to the open ocean. It was suicide.
“They will be kinder,” she promised, and took four of his fingers to squeeze. “You are needed. You will save them. Manu warned that anybody who hurts you will also be given to the Volcano God.”
Misery loves company.
“I will protect you,” she told the man who’d already lost a fight with an unarmed little boy, the man who’d scurried away in the dark, a drunken eunuch with soiled underwear balled in one hand.
“It’s important to me,” she said, and the coward relented.
Tiki pulled free when they reached the edge of the compound, sprinting to a tree that had appeared out of nowhere. As he warily followed, he saw the tree was adorned with shells and chunks of coral, but was currently overlooked by villagers going about late day chores. It was a relief to also be unnoticed.
He walked slowly around the tree while Tiki searched out a spot to put her ornament. She pulled down a piece of vine being used for a garland and spliced it into a thin strip to fashion a noose. She hung the Barbie torso from the highest empty spot within reach, then stepped back and turned to him with an enormous grin.
He nodded. “It’s perfect.”
The tree was a twenty-foot bamboo pole plunged into the earth in the village center. Smaller shoots had been driven through the upright tube every foot or so, similar to the artificial Christmas tree Dash’s father had kept year ’round in his store. Ferns were woven into each level of branches, adding girth, and delicate flower petals were strung and looped from top to bottom. Ornaments were hung by woven grass blades, their weight pulling at the branches, making them droop.
White shells the size of dinner plates were scattered beneath. Shiny new ones at the perimeter, nearest their feet; older, dull shells, some badly chipped, were at the center. Tiki knelt and began lifting the half shells, shaking her head each time until she found the one she was seeking. She handed it to Dash, who tilted its concave interior toward the fire. An image of a woman’s face was scratched into the surface.
“Mama,” was all she said before taking it back.
“Is this Christmas?”
“It’s Yule,” she said, stepping back and turning her face to him. “It comes on the same night every year.”
Instead of a star, the tree was topped by what first appeared to be a chunk of bleached driftwood. But when a nearby cook fire flared, he could see the bleached eye sockets and nasal cavity. The human skull was missing its lower jaw.
“Who is it?”
She frowned, as though the answer was obvious. “It’s Jesus.”
“Who told you that?”
She only shrugged, and before he could press her, a woman came up from behind and put a torch to the first of four wood piles set in vertical, teepee shapes. By the time she reached the last, the entire population had converged around the tree, shadows cast down over the shell memorials. Tiki crowded him as the heat rose, flames licking into the night sky.
Rising panic and claustrophobia grew nearly unbearable. He wanted to bolt, make a break for the tunnel, but the circle was at least ten souls deep, a mass of brown flesh and flashing eyes and teeth. The fire crackled, threw sparks into the night. He would be dead soon, murdered by these savages. Their eyes were everywhere, boring into him through gaps in the tree, drilling into his temples from each side, into the back of his head.
He wanted to scream, and for a brief instant believed the high-pitched sound was coming from inside his own frail body. It was the women’s voices first, and then the children’s, a song in tribal language from a hundred mouths. The tune was familiar, a Christmas carol.
His heart slowed, and Tiki again took hold of his fingers, watching him from the shadows.
“Pa rumpa pump um,” she sang along, and the men joined in with gusto, their voices so deep the words seemed to vibrate.
The second song was an unknown mishmash, but “Let It Snow” was definitely third. And then the villagers with their backs to the volcano slowly turned, heads rising, voices lifting toward the orange eye reflecting in the low clouds. When the eye blinked, some of the carolers lost their place.
The people swayed, clapping in rhythm, although Dash didn’t feel there was much joy until it began snowing. Voices reached higher pitches as the space between the first wafting flakes began to fill in. His eyes began tearing and then burning, and he rubbed hard with his free hand, a horrible bitter taste on his tongue. He closed his mouth when he realized it was ash. It was accumulating on the Yule tree, pushing down the already burdened branches; the coating on top of Jesus’ skull was a gray toupee.
Tiki tugged his fingers, pulled him through the crowd now performing “Winter Wonderland” in their own language, squeezing sideways out into the cool air toward the unmarried women’s huts. Except for the end units, all shared outside walls. Row houses, he thought, as they left the light of the fires. She took him to the farthest structure, where the odor from the outhouse and pig corral mixed with the low hanging smoke. She let his hand go and ran inside. He could see his feet had turned gray when she emerged from her small home with a fat candle in one hand, a cup in the other.
> “Men can’t go inside the girl huts or they have to get married. It’s a silly rule.” She carefully placed the candle on the ground between them to brush ash from two sitting logs. “Here’s some water. The ash burns your throat.”
“I thought it was snowing.”
He drank half and handed back the cup.
“Stay here while I find something.”
She ducked back inside, and he listened to her rummage in the dark. The ash made his body itch, had attached itself to his oiliest spots. He thought how good a plunge in the swimming hole would feel, but resisted any temptation at the thought of all the terrible things gliding through the ebony water.
He could see her smiling face when she came through the opening with hands cupped together, eyes bright from the distant flames, hair frosted from ash. Sweat ran from her collar bones down to her belly in shiny lines.
“What is it?”
“Something I made.” She held out her hands. “It’s a Yule present for you.”
“I’m so sorry. I should have found you something.” He looked down at his empty hands, then guiltily at hers. He was almost crying and didn’t know why. “I would have made you a gift. I would have found diamond earrings.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She rocked from foot to foot, anxious for him to take the gift.
“Thank you.” He lifted a hand and she let the present drop into his palm, then covered her mouth to stifle a squeal.
It was the size and shape of a quarter, and he took it between his thumb and index finger to hold it near the flickering candle. The molded amber disk, probably formed from tree sap, was translucent against the flame. Trapped inside were a dozen white crescent moons.
“That’s me,” she whispered. “I got the idea from the missioners. They made us eat the body of Christ, but it was only little pieces of stale bread. Eating people is bad, even if the person is a god.”