“Except the boots, and the University of Arkansas class ring, and the double-stitched seams of your shirt.”
“Better than most. Tim here sees me. I figure that’s somethin’ about him we could all discuss. His memory’s a fine thing.”
“Please.” She rubbed her forehead. “Explain. I’d like to take the… take the edge off this.”
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“Well, you were invited here so I figure it’s fine. Who invited you?”
“Mikael. Or Michael, couldn’t tell. Tall spidery guy who looked like Jack Skellington.”
“Mikael’s more right but folks call him Michael. He don’t mind. I work for him. Like you said, I go out and find folks for the Grupo. They study em, help ‘em if they can, keep ‘em connected to each other.”
“Why?”
“The world’s a changin’, Doc. Every day. You know what an atavism is?”
The scientific term sounded alien in his thick Ozark accent.
“Yeah. A leftover from some previous evolution. Like a tailbone from when people had tails.”
She focused on her hands. That helped, too. She wanted solid land, or even just a firm anchor and thick rope, to hold onto. The van clipped a watermelon-sized rock and lurched. Five people shouted. Emma opened her eyes but looked at nothing. The van settled and she closed them again.
Eliza realized she had grabbed Tim’s arm. The boy was solid muscle. She pried her hand free and patted his arm where she must have hurt it. He hadn’t noticed because he had dove in to stop Lorelai from bouncing around the cabin. Jim Finch continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted by a near miss with a thousand-foot drop. So he’s been up this way plenty of times, Eliza thought.
“Right you are. Except here’s the thing about atavisms, and other traits, really. Sometimes they come back into vogue. Or things that we thought was useful become not so useful.”
“I don’t understand. Being… beautiful, that’s always been a good thing.”
“Has it, though?” He nodded at Lorelai. “Her kind of beautiful, all curvy and full, or his kind, all carved up like a slab of marble? I’d reckon it depends on when and where you was livin’.”
“I still don’t understand. Give me another example.”
It was a puzzle now. She didn’t have to think about not thinking about Alejandro. This was more interesting.
“A’ight then. Do you know what the Collective Pronoun Problem is?”
“Like the Royal We?”
“Somethin’ like it. We say homo sapiens this and people that and act like we’re all a great big white sheet of paper, all the same, every one of us fittin’ inside a magic mold. But that ain’t what people are. It ain’t what life is. Life is a ramblin’ wreck movin’ ahead at its own speed. Life, hell, it ain’t even a thing. It’s a collection of things. Of all the things, each actin’ and interactin’ with each other and themselves and the world. Enough monkeys begin to look enough alike and we call ‘em human and act like they’re one species. But we ain’t.”
“Oh. I… I think I… yeah, that does make sense.”
Her face burned. How had she not seen this yet? It wasn’t because of Alejandro. He was a new, wondrous beacon of… no. He had only been around for an hour. But this way of thinking, of integrating, this was her profession. Or was supposed to be, when she wasn’t wallowing.
“That does make sense,” she said. “People keep evolving. That’s what you’re saying, really. An atavism is only that until it becomes useful again. Then it’s a beneficial trait. Helena… someone told me once that a woolly mammoth only looks silly until it snows.”
“Now we’re cookin’! Now take your guess at all this.”
He propped his elbow on his knees and leaned in so that only they could hear each other. She saw a tinge of color and realized she could actually focus on his eyes. There was, in fact, a face there. Talking with him helped.
“Well. Lorelai is easy. She’s fertile. Super fertile. Fertility goddess, little carved statue fertile. And Alejandro, well, that’s more of the same except he’s… the… the, well, he’s the other side of the equation. Because he’s male and she’s female. The sex has to be worth the pregnancy, doesn’t it?”
“You picked them low hangin’ apples. Climb up in that tree.”
Eliza leaned in with him. The distractions, even Alejandro, faded.
“Then there’s you. You’re charismatic but vague. I want to talk with you and I don’t like talking with anyone. You have a face, obviously. So it’s my reaction to you, not something you’re doing. Just like with them. My mind isn’t connecting to your face because… well… because… but we’re social creatures. Shouldn’t we all want to connect?”
“There’s that Royal We again.”
He placed his hand on her knee. The class ring thumped the kneecap. She felt his fingertips push into her muscle and then she looked back at him. Yes, his eyes were a murky blue and his face was smooth shaven.
“You’re, uh, well, we’re social creatures. And a society is like life, not really a single thing. It’s made of lots of little things that all interact and need each other. You’re the kind of person who makes things happen in that society, aren’t you? Not everyone in a society is about making babies.”
“I reckon that’s close enough. Now climb on up to the top.”
“Who else? There’s just you four. Michael, I guess. But Tim already answered that one. He’s a predator. Like a hyena. Paralyzes you with fear when you look at it.”
She shivered.
“I ain’t talkin’ bout the boss man and we ain’t the only folks in the van.”
Eliza looked around. Full night fell while they talked. The distant mist had rolled in, now oppressive, against the windows. How could the driver even see? She refused to let herself think about that. It was only the four of them: Lorelai, Emma, Alejandro, and Jim Finch. Her back bumped against Tim. There was Tim, too. And her.
She turned back to Jim Finch. He was still nondescript, a placeholder face in a room full of movie stars, but there he was. She wasn’t sure she could pick him from a lineup if asked tomorrow, but she could see him right now.
“Us… it’s us? But Michael came for Helena’s help, not mine. Behema is the one who sent me.”
“And how is Old Phil these days? Ain’t seen him in a good long while. That’s the apple at the top of the whole dang tree, Eliza Reyes.” He brushed two fingers across the low ceiling. “Just how routine do you think you are? Or do you think anyone is? You ever looked real hard at the cells inside you?”
The van lurched again. Jim Finch reached to steady himself and then her, but she had grabbed Tim’s shirt while he held both women against their bench with one hand and caught Alejandro with another. The swarthy man lost some luster, she noticed, when he needed saving by a 20-year-old kid. They all wore masks of some kind or another. She would have to remember that.
“What were you…” she climbed past Jim Finch to see through the windshield.
The total darkness vanished as they rounded the final bend. A sprawling box of seamless concrete and glass grew from the mountainside. Atop it, light exploded, filling the mists with synthetic color.
“Is that…?”
“Yes’m. We’re home.”
◆◆◆
The van parked beneath the building. The narrow path continued through the open-air garage out and around the mountain’s other side. Vehicles filled every open space. Eliza saw a Jeep parked with an entire wheel hanging in thin air. How badly did these people want to be at this party?
DidntEvenAskWhatThePartysForShouldveAskedNotThinkingNeedToThink
She climbed out of the van prepared for wind. The air was still, damp, and chilly. It felt fresh after a day in transit. Had the university only been 16 hours ago? Tim and her traveling companions climbed out. Emma stumbled, holding tight between Lorelai and the Adonic Alejandro, but managed to stand. Her eyes found the entrancing lights. T
hey moved across the garage to a staircase. Eliza pulled Jim Finch aside.
“Listen, I should’ve asked this before. What’s this party for? Mikael said he needed help right away. He didn’t say anything about a party.”
He paused but his eyes followed the rest of the group as they wandered between a silver Porsche Cayenne and a rusted Ford Pinto. Neither looked like they fared well on the long drive up the mountain.
“Goodness, Michael ain’t in charge of everything. It’s a different world up here, Doc.”
“So Mika… Michael didn’t arrange this? I thought he was the boss.”
He shook his head, eyes still locked on the staircase.
“Even bosses got bosses. Someone pays for all this.”
“Who?”
He finally faced her. With her hand on his and his full focus on her, she saw him and knew she would remember him now. Was he choosing to do this? Thunder rattled her bones. She leapt, stumbling a few inches and backing into a battered pickup truck. Jim Finch laughed.
“Sounds like he’s here now. Come up top and see. You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya.”
He darted through the cars. She followed him up the stairs. Another thunderbolt rattled her teeth. Another. Another. A twanging rhythm blasted. They entered a rave.
People danced, swirling around each other with their arms raised in the air or lowered to another person’s hips, as the music blasted so loud that she couldn’t hear the song. Pulses of indigo splashed on the ceiling. Tufted feathers rose above the crowd. She followed them to a kid wearing a gold knight’s helmet, visor down, who somehow worked two laptops and a turntable in sync with the throbbing sound. His hands whipped over a vinyl record. The light and sound shifted beneath his fingertips, careening from crimson to bass to scalding white to a staccato whoop. Light cascaded through the dark space, reflecting off a wall she realized was actually a single immense window the length of the long room.
Jim Finch’s head bobbed through the crowd and she tried to follow. A muscular woman, painted to hide her nakedness, shoved past. Eliza shoved her back but bounced off. The woman smiled and vanished into a sea of people. Jim Finch was headed out of the room into the only hallway she could see. She would find him. Someone tall and slender darted past in a loincloth. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Someone was wearing a full suit that included cufflinks, tie, and vest, with tattoos that covered a shaved head. Who the hell were these people?
She reached the hall. The rave’s sounds rapidly faded. Several doors lined each side. The first was locked. She tried the second and found more people writhing to an electric flute. She opened the third door and found Lorelai and Emma sprawled on the bed. They were quiet as they stared at the luminous golds and teals and reds that ricocheted from rooftop to mist to window wall and back. What worlds did they visit? It didn’t matter. She closed the door. Where was Tim?
She started to open a fourth door when she saw the ladder at the end of the hall. More sound blasted from the unseen opening at its top in a rhythm she thought she knew. She climbed it.
Brilliant orange flames blasted her nascent night vision. They crackled in a race to the night sky. Sparks lingered in that space above. More people danced. Up top was a different song, deeper, smoother, with none of the violent hairpin changes of the rave below. It echoed in her chest and off the amphitheater created by the mountain’s curved walls. It sounded like the speakers themselves were chanting electric.
Their dancing seemed chaotic until she realized they orbited the pyre. It has grown in a few minutes to an enormous scorching blaze that cooked the air around them. Only the brisk Andean air kept it at bay. The mists, she saw, could only swirl and watch from afar. Women and men danced in and out among the flames. Their breaths rose together as sweat glistened on their moving bodies. The distinctive scent of humanity filled her breath and the entire night.
Opposite the fire stood a totem pole. Fire and darkness obscured its carvings. She moved to the guardrail. The world waited below. Alight at night and finally free of its misty shawl, the swarm of fireflies that was Lima sparkled beside the ocean. She tried not to think about how a single raver, stacked high out of his mind, might send her careening to the ocean with an errant bump.
The totem pole had vanished while she approached. No, it was there where she had been minutes before. She feared it might topple into the crowd until two dancers, a man and a woman with intentions of pleasure and no concern for privacy, stumbled into the railing. The totem pole’s eagle wings and bear claws caught them before they collided with the rail. The pair hugged it and vanished for safer accommodations.
It was a man. A cold wind forced the flames towards the amphitheater. She could see him for a moment. He stood three feet above the crowd. She squinted through the swirl of heat, wind, light, and darkness. Yes, a man. He stared back but did not move.
Eliza rode the railing around to him but again, as she made progress, he moved. This time he rolled into the crowd that roared with delight as its totemic guardian danced with them. Their voices merged with the chanting electric song. He parted sweating dancers to stand in intimate orbit with the inferno. It licked his skin, breaking like waves against proud rocks, regathering its strength to flare and flare again. He leaned in to each surging flame. White lights twinkled from the cliffs that surrounded half the sky. People, she thought. Watchers. They watched him dance. This was all for him.
The titanic man began spinning around the fire with his arms raised to the heavens. He swayed forward at his waist before leaning back and around in a gymnast’s impossible arc that threatened to, but never did, topple his companions. He swung his knees high and stomped his feet against the quaking rooftop. The fire burned. The music shifted. Its synthetic beat smoothed again into a rapid chanting better suited for Mongolia.
A digital horn rumbled. Her skin crawled. The crowd evolved. They expanded from a wave into a ring that respected their dancing lord’s frantic joy while running alongside him. Flashes of a billowing shirt, ragged pants cut high above the calves, sharp darkness breaking against carved features. The music dropped into raw bass that became a rolling thunder. It rippled through the air. The fire surged with fresh oxygen as each wave of sound collided.
The dancers stopped. The man stopped dancing and swung a knee so high into the air that his foot was above the crowd’s heads. He stomped. He swung the other leg and stomped again. He timed each hammering step with the bass. As the sound hit the fire, a foot hit the roof. The bonfire trembled. Embers fell and the dancers scrambled.
Boom. Slam. Boom. Slam. Boom. Slam.
The music faded.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
He slammed both feet down, sucked his chest into his spine, curled his arms to his ribs, and shamed the mighty speakers with his own roar as he thrust both hands into the pile of fire and coals. The speakers silenced. The dancers stopped.
Then the man swung both arms high into the sky. Fire arced from his burning fists. Coals, trailing ghostly smoke like meteors, tumbled through the cold night air. They flew over the railing, out into the crowd, high into the sky. The dancers laughed as they stepped around the miniature fires.
◆◆◆
Eliza could not find him. The crowd had descended into the stairwell all at once. Headlights flickered in the garage and around the mountain road. How many people would die on the winding road? She guessed none. These were not, exactly, people. Hundreds lingered, filling the beds and open spaces until they lay in human heaps. Some curled down in the mountain’s crevices. She did not envy their evening’s sleep.
But the man was gone. How had a giant disappeared? She spotted movement along the mountain’s northern ridge. He loped on all four limbs along the rocky path with a child’s audacity. Eliza ran to the platform where it best reached the mountain and climbed after him.
It was nearly vertical. This world was steep. She paused to catch her breath. The skin on hands unused to rough rock shredded. They would be pink and tender
in the morning. But the crescent moon cast enough light to see by. She climbed.
She stopped counting her steps. Low walls shielded the worst wind and provided natural handrails. It was an actual path. He or someone else climbed here often enough to bother with its construction. Each step was seamless, somehow more organic now that she knew they had been built. Another grueling minute. She summitted.
The peak stretched just eight or ten feet across. It looked like oil speculators had fracked the tip into a perfect platform. There was nowhere to stand except at the top of the stairs or right beside the gigantic man. He sat with his knees bent close to his chest and his arms wrapped so that his fingertips almost touched behind his back. He stared out across a world of peaks and valleys that sprawled as far east towards the Atlantic, north to Mexico, and south to the frozen base of the world as either of them could see.
Only to the west could they see anything except mountains. The mist was gone and the rippling Pacific consumed the sparkling western horizon. The cliffs ended with an overwhelming sheerness. They simply stopped. Their stony sides swept down into a flat plane that claimed a few meager miles before succumbing to the ocean. From here, Eliza could easily believe all the world was mountains and they had found its end.
“How are your hands?” she asked.
The man released his long arms to look at his upturned palms. He shrugged. She rallied her voice again.
“Who are you?”
He patted the ground beside him. Eliza’s legs ached worse than she thought they ever had. Fourteen miles through the Allegheny Mountains during summer camp hadn’t hurt them like this. A broken ankle hadn’t hurt like this. Her calf was cramping again. Her throat screamed for water. Descending, she knew, would be even worse as she stared at the mile-long fall awaiting anyone who missed a step.
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The Sin Eaters Page 6