The Blood Jewel (The Shomara Diaries Book 1)

by Carol M. Henderson

  Then there was my arm. If the bird didn’t kill me, my infected arm would. I had begun to notice that my arm had grown hot, and it was even more swollen and tender than ever. It had even wakened me out of a deep sleep several times lately. Severe pain now extended right up to my shoulder and into my neck. If I didn’t get help soon, my wounds would kill me for sure. I tried to imagine what a slow, painful death from infection would be like. No! I had to escape somehow. I needed to get back to civilization. I needed a doctor.

  I cracked my knuckles and stood up. Okay. Problema uno. How did I climb down a mountain I’d never seen? Surely there was a way down that wouldn’t kill me.

  I suspected, from the echoes, that a huge canyon lay below. I would have to feel my way down. Crawling across the huge nest, I extended my arm over the edge. The nest seemed to be resting on a flat rock. I felt my way around the nest, reaching over the side as I went. Near as I could tell, a wide rim of level rock lay outside the nest all the way around.

  When I made the circle a second time, I noticed that the wind was stiffest on one particular side.

  “Okay, that’s got to be the side closest to the edge of the cliff,” I muttered. To mark it, I found a good sized rock to wedge into the twigs of the nest on that side. “Now I’ll know, when I feel that rock, that this is a danger spot,” I muttered. “Don’t want to get out of the nest on that side.”

  Then, I groped for the other three sides. Opposite the rock marker, on the far side of the nest, there was a rock wall just a foot away. No escape there. On the other two sides, the ledge felt much wider, so wide, in fact, that I could not reach the edge on either side.

  Decision time. Should I leave the nest and go see how far out the ledge stretched? Which side should I start with? I decided to go to the closest side. I climbed out and reached my arms as far out as they would go. I still could not find an edge. I broke off a stick from the nest to use as an extension of my arm. By tapping the nest with the stick, I could reach out another two feet. I felt around and at last touched a rocky lip. There had to be at least five feet between the nest and the edge on this side. Beyond that, there was nothing. Just air. I found a small pebble and tossed it into the emptiness. It glanced off the rocks below for a full minute before the noise faded to nothing. I went weak at the knees. Just as I thought. I was a long way up.

  I climbed back into the nest and crawled to the opposite side. Hauling myself out onto the rocky platform I again threw out my arms in a wide sweep, always using my stick to stay touching the nest. The ledge was even wider on this side. Even with my guide stick, I couldn’t extend my arm far enough.

  Then, all of a sudden, the sound of a loud crack ripped through the rock where I lay. Everything beneath me began to lurch and I slid backward.

  “No-oo!” I screamed and lunged toward the nest. It wasn’t there!

  “The nest! Where’s the nest!” I yelled.

  As I slipped back more and more, I thrust my arms out to find something to break my fall. I grabbed a bush—but a sharp pain shot through my hand.

  “Ah-eey! Thorns!” I howled. But I didn’t dare let go. I had to hang on. A few seconds later, the entire ledge gave away under me. I found myself dangling in mid-air listening to the rumble of boulders pounding their way to the canyon floor below.

  The only thing standing between me and certain death was the tiny sticker bush. To let go was certain death. I thought about trying to pull myself up. Nope. Too risky. The roots of the little bush might give way. As the wind whistled around me and the cold seeped through me, my arm began to go numb. I still hung on. Again, I came face to face with my disastrous life. Helpless to change it I also knew nobody could save me now. I even took to praying.

  “Oh God, if you’re out there, I need your help.”

  That’s when I heard the rhythmic lop, lop, lop of bird wings. Okay. Yeah. I was actually glad to hear it. When the bird swooped in, I felt my jacket tighten again as the creature hauled me up over the edge of the rock and dragged me back into the nest. I lay there gasping for air, my heart threatening to break my rib cage.

  But the bird seemed restless. It began circling around me. The nest creaked and felt the long tail brush my face.

  Then, without warning, the bird grabbed my arm—my wounded arm—and began tearing away at the jacket sleeve covering it! I tried to pull my arm away but the bird’s weight pinned me down.

  I gasped. “I knew it,” I ground out through gritted teeth. In my panic I kicked like a wild man shouting, “Okay, you sicko wherever you are! I know you can hear me. I know you’ve got a video camera trained on this nest. Call off your flying dinosaur. Bet you forgot to feed it today, didn’t you?”

  “Get off me!” I shrieked and tried to pull my arm out from under the wicked talons. Between my screaming and my sobs I struck out with my other hand trying to free my arm.

  “Barry, would you please hold still!”

  I blinked.

  Was that a voice?

  CHAPTER 24: THE BIRD

  Though the facts may seem overwhelming, believing the unbelievable demandscharacter and courage.” ~Martin Moonglow I froze. Was my mind playing tricks on me?

  “That’s much better. Thank you,” said the strange voice. I hadheard a voice! “Wha . . . who is that?” I stammered,

  hardly daring to breathe.

  “It’s your friendly neighborhood bird of paradise. Now hold

  still,” the voice said.

  No way. That was too much of a stretch. This bird had to be

  little more than a trained monkey, at the whim of some bird trainer

  working out of a garage. No doubt there was a sadist out there

  somewhere with a remotely operated video camera pointed at us. I

  lashed out again at the bird’s claw gripping my arm.

  “I’ll bet this is just a cruel gag!” I shouted, hoping I sounded

  braver than I felt. “You’re some guy who’s piped his voice into this

  nest for a cruel joke. You’ve trained this bird, haven’t you?” The ripping stopped.

  “Believe what you like,” the voice said, “But if I don’t

  remove that worm lodged inside your arm, it’s going to kill you. Once it reaches your heart, your life will end. Now take off your

  jacket.”

  “No!” I shrieked. I was sure that I was talking to someone at

  the other end of a speaker wire. “This bird is trying to eat me!” I

  shouted. “Whoever you are, this has gone far enough!”

  “All right. Have it your way,” said the voice, and I felt the

  claw release my arm.

  For a moment, I just lay there, stunned. My arm throbbed

  from all that wrenching and twisting. I rolled to one side and let out

  a choked sob.

  “Why is this happening to me? Where am I? I want to go

  home!!” I howled. The canyon echoed back, “Home . . . home . . .

  home . . . ho . . . .”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then the voice said, “I didn’t think you ever wanted to go

  home again after what happened over your bicycle.”

  I stiffened and some bell went off in my head. “How . . . how

  do you know about my bike?” I asked.

  The voice answered, “Barry, I know everything about you.

  Now take off your jacket.”

  I began to blubber like a two year old. “No! You want to eat

  me! I know it!” I cried.

  “Stop that caterwauling, young man, and listen to me!” said

  the voice.

  I stopped.

  “Okay,” I said, wiping my nose with my good hand. “I’m

  listening.”

  The voice began by saying, “Hasn’t it occurred to you that if I

  had been planning to eat you, that I would have done it long ago?” “Well . . . yeah, I guess,” I said, snuffling.

  The voice went o
n, “And haven’t I fed you, watered you, and

  kept you warm all this time?”

  “I suppose so.” I hated to admit it, but I knew the bird was

  right. It was a question that had bugged me more times than I could

  count.

  “Then why can’t you trust me? Use your head, boy!” said the

  voice.

  I couldn’t speak. My brain was on overload. Yo, Mr.

  Whoever-YouAre. It’s hard enough to trust somebody when I can

  see him. Being blind makes it impossible.

  I flopped down on t he bottom of the nest. “What choice do I have?” I asked.

  “None,” replied the voice.

  I lay there breathing hard.

  The voice went on. “On the other hand, I have several choices.”

  I moaned and ran my hand through my hair.

  “First choice,” the voice began, “We could continue as we were, and that worm in there will eat your heart out in a week. Two, I could just leave you up here to freeze. You’ll be dead in even less time. If you want the truth, I’m leaning more toward this one every minute. If I don’t see some respect and trust from you, I’ve a good mind just to leave you here to rot. You deserve no better.”

  I kept silent for several seconds. Then, I finally managed to whisper, “And the last option?”

  “The last option,” said the voice “is that I dig that worm out so you can live.”

  That was when I knew for certain there was no hope for me.

  “Go ahead and leave me,” I cried. “My life is wasted anyway. What use am I to anybody? I’m blind. I can never go anywhere alone again. I’m stuck up in this nest, and if I try to get out of it, I’ll fall into a canyon. If I can’t do a thing for myself, what’s the point of living? Some weird bird is the only thing keeping me alive. Why, I don’t know. I’m a useless lump. You might as well put me out of my misery.”

  I let my body go slack. With a voice that sounded like two rocks rubbing together, I muttered, “I give up.”

  After a brief silence, the twigs of the nest began to creak again. I just lay there, staring up into the blackness. The bird was moving around again, and I waited for it to fly away.

  Then I felt something sting my eyes.

  “Ow!” I yelled. Then I blinked. A burst of light filled my whole being. Like a black scarf lifted off my face, the darkness was gone. Oh, glorious light! I could see!

  I looked up in wonder. There, standing right over me, was a magnificent creature. It’s head was an iridescent purple with a feathery crown of yellow mixed with blue and its beak, at least two feet long, shone like real gold. The bird’s piercing gaze was riveted on my face. And the stare– the stare was intense.

  “Can you see me now, Barry?” the bird asked. Incredible! The beak is moving. I’m face to face with a talking bird. I managed a nod.

  I sat up and looked around. My calculations had been pretty close. The bird’s nest was sitting on a ledge high up on a mountain top. When I looked out over the edge of the nest, I swallowed hard. Below was a deep ravine with canyons veering off in several directions. From there, a sloping plain stretched out to the horizon. The nest itself was perched up so high that the rivers down on the plain looked like silvery ribbons on jade-colored velvet.

  The bird spoke again.

  “I wonder now if you would remove your jacket and let me look at your arm,” it said. Without a word, I unzipped my jacket and slipped it off.

  “Now take off your shirt and those dirty bandages,” it instructed me. I complied, again in silence.

  “Good. Now put your coat down on the floor of the nest and lie back on it,” the bird said. I did as I was told and then stretched myself out still staring up at it.

  “Barry, I won’t lie to you,” said the bird. “This is going to be painful, but it has to be done. Hold out your arm.”

  When I held out my swollen arm, I could see that not only was it swollen and turning purple, but . . . but . . .

  “Aw-w!” I shrieked. “There’s . . . there’s something crawling under my skin!”

  I started to go berserk again, but, in an instant, the bird had forced my arm down with one massive talon. It wasted no time. Using its razor-sharp beak, it made an incision the full length of my arm. I screamed and ground my teeth together. Then it went digging inside the wound. I nearly blacked out.

  But in a matter of seconds, the bird found what it was looking for and started tugging. I could feel something coil inside my muscles. When the bird jerked hard a couple of times, a strange worm appeared above the incision clenched tight in the bird’s beak. The creature was yellowish green, long and wiry, with purple blotches all over its back. It’s mouth, crammed with rows of razor sharp teeth, gaped open. Hundreds of legs with crab-like pincers clawed the air.

  I stared in horror. “What isthat!” I yelled. “Get it away! Get it out of my arm!”

  Then I made a decision. I rolled over sideways and, using my other hand, I grabbed onto the upper part of my lacerated arm. Every second felt like an hour.

  “Quick!” I shrieked.“Take it out!”

  The bird proceeded to play tugo’-war with the creature. At first, the thing fought back, snagging the sinews of my arm like a night crawler holding onto a dirt clod. The bird continued to wrestle with it. Then, without warning, the worm let go with the snap of a live rubber band and latched onto the golden beak. Instantly, the bird lowered its head and tore the disgusting thing off with its talons, ripped it into chunks, and swallowed each piece one at a time.

  It was the grossest thing I’d ever seen.

  I looked down at my arm. Blood everywhere. Uh-oh. I don’t do blood. Pain shot through my whole body and I suddenly felt woozy.

  “That was very brave of you, Barry,” said the bird. “Now, do you think you have enough strengthto climb onto my back?”

  Strength? I could barely talk.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Lie still then. I’ll be back in a moment.” The bird launched out over the canyon. True to its word, it soon returned with a sponge in its beak.

  “Here, drink this, and drip some of it onto your arm,” it said.

  I took the sponge and drank my fill. The liquid was sweet. Then, as instructed, I squeezed the rest over my arm. Within seconds, the pain in my arm began to subside and I began to feel very sleepy. As I was drifting off, I felt the bird tucking the piles of downy feathers around me like Mom used to pull the bed covers up under my chin back home. I slept hard.

  CHAPTER 25: SHOMARA

  “Comparing death and life is like comparing black to white.” ~Martin Moonglow I woke to bright light and a blue sky. Though I had been sleeping without my shirt or my jacket, I wasn’t cold. In fact, I was toasty warm. I turned my head. Next to me, with a wing stretched over me, sat the bird. It stirred and looked down at me.

  “Good morning, Barry. How’s the arm feeling?” he asked. I stared again at the golden beak. That beak really moves when the bird talks. It even makes a clicking sound at the end of every word.

  I brushed away the feathery down and checked out my arm. I couldn’t believe it. The incision had closed up while I slept. Still, the arm was twice the size of the other.

  “Um, my arm’s okay, I guess. It doesn’t hurt. Just looks funny,” I answered. Criminy. I’m turning into Popeye, one arm at a time.

  “Can you get your shirt and jacket back on?” asked the bird. “I think so,” I said.

  “I’m hungry. Are you ready to get off this mountain?” it

  asked.

  “Totally,” I said, sitting up. I grabbed for my clothes. Out of

  the corner of my eye I studied the great creature. If ever a thing

  embodied the theme of “living color,” it was this bird, from the purple and gold feathers that crowned his head down to the fluorescent blue-green plumes that cloaked his huge talons. Reds, oranges, purples, and greens all shimmered and rippled in the light whenever the bird moved. It stood a
t least twelve feet high with a wing span of around thirty feet. But its tail! The tail drifted out behind it like an elegant, folded fan. Okay, yeah. The giant bird was

  spectacular.

  I finished dressing while a dozen questions bubbled up inside

  me. At last my curiosity got the better of me. “So, do you have a

  name?” I blurted out, “Like something other than ‘Bird of Paradise,’

  I mean. That’s kind of a mouthful.”

  “Yes, Barry,” replied the giant bird. “My name is Ayshwa.

  Now, are you ready for some roast chicken?”

  “Ay—what?” I didn’t think I’d heard right.

  “Ay—sh—wah.”

  “Funky. But what’s that you said about chicken?” I asked. “Oh, chicken,” said the bird. “I just wondered if you were

  ready for some chicken.”

  “Cooked? ” I asked.

  “Yes, barbequed no less,” he answered. “Do you think you

  would be able to ride on my back? It’s about the only way we’re

  going to get you down, unless I claw you like I did the first time.” I looked up into the bird’s piercing gaze. “I’d like to ride if

  you don’t mind,” I said. Just the thought of being a mouse again

  made me shudder.

  He lowered a wing so I could climb up onto his back. But no

  sooner did I try to seat myself than . . . “Ah-h-h!” I slid off the other

  side and landed in the middle of the nest again.

  The bird began a screech-caw. Now, if I hadn’t known better,

  I’d have thought it was laughing.

  “There’s nothing to hold on to up there, uh . . . Ayshwa,” I

  said as I unhooked myself from several twigs.

  “Yes, I know,” said Ayshwa. “I just love to watch kids try

  anyway. It’s so funny when you slide off.” At that, he started into

  more screech-cawing. So I was right. The bird was laughing! When he settled down he said, “Now that I’ve had my fun,

  young Barry, climb onto my back and I’ll show you a few things.” I