Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller Read online

  She rested one hand on her hip, thinking. “There’s one at the trading post in Catalous, ten miles or so from here. There are phones in Manaus, but that’s a long way.”

  Ten miles to the nearest phone—maybe further. He thought through the words again before speaking, half-afraid he’d open his mouth and gibberish would come out. A little afraid, too, that he was still out in the forest somewhere, dreaming this rescue. “Can I get a boat to Catalous from here?” He didn’t have any money but figured he could beg or cajole passage one way or another.

  Pilar shook her head. “There’s a trading boat that stops if there are supplies for us, but it came by a week ago. It won’t be back for another three, and then it’ll be going the wrong way.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair and tried to think of an alternative. His fingers caught on a snarl. His mind came up empty of ideas. He touched his left wrist. There was nothing there.

  “My watch.” He knew he sounded panicky.

  Pilar gave him a quick, puzzled look. “I have it.” She pulled the watch from her pocket and handed it to him.

  “It was a gift,” he said, fumbling in his attempt to strap it on.

  “From someone with an eye for quality,” she said. “Wife? Girlfriend?”

  “Parents.”

  He couldn’t get the clasp to close.

  “Here, let me help.”

  Pilar draped the silver band over his wrist, gauging the fit. She smelled like spring—new leaves and lemon buds. Jake knew he smelled like roadkill.

  “How are you feeling?” She adjusted a couple of links. “Other than the leg cramps. In general.”

  Mush-brained. Anxious. Confined. He wished she wouldn’t fiddle with the links. He had it set just right for his wrist.

  “Hungry,” he said.

  “I’ll bet. The rain forest steals most of your body fat even when you’re eating every day, and you don’t look like you’ve been doing that. You did manage to eat some soup. Do you remember?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t remember much of anything between meeting her in the cane field and waking up today—bits and pieces, nothing whole.

  “No matter,” she said, fitting the watchband on his wrist and fastening the clasp. “I’ll bring you something with salt, to help the cramps.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and thought how silly it was that he felt better with his watch on.

  He had to reach a phone. How long until he’d have enough strength to walk? Ten miles was a long ways, though he’d probably walked further than that already. He tried pushing himself up to a sitting position again and made it this time. The effort was exhausting. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw Pilar coming back into the room with a pile of something in her arms.

  “I brought you some clothes,” she said, and set the pile on the cot—once-white muslin pants colored the same river-water shade as her shirt and a yellowish T-shirt, both of which looked too big to him.

  “I hope they fit,” she said. “We don’t have a lot here to choose from.”

  Jake looked away, uncomfortable with the memory of standing naked at the edge of the cane field, of practically falling on her when he fainted, though it didn’t seem to embarrass her now. It was worse, somehow, that she was pulse-quickening pretty and about his age.

  “You were a quite a mess,” she said cheerfully, as if they were old friends. “Filthy, and the gnats must have found you tasty. I sponged you down as best I could and cleaned the bites up with alcohol. You had a couple dozen thorns embedded in your skin. Naheyo cut them out with a razor blade.”

  She was talking for him, he knew—giving him words as a focus, a reason for his mind to work. He was grateful. If not for her, he happily would have slipped back into unconsciousness. He felt the tug, the desire not to know, to float again in the dark, unaware. He let his eyelids close.

  “Naheyo used rain forest remedies on your wounds,” Pilar was saying. “Brazilian pepper tree, bitter melon, andiroba, mango—different things. Last I checked, the infection had cleared up.”

  He forced his eyes open. “Naheyo?”

  “The shaman, a sort of combination doctor and priest. You saw her in the cane field. She was the young one. She takes care of the physical and spiritual well-being of the Lalunta village—a hour’s walk from here.”

  “Tell her I thank her.”

  Pilar stood a moment, a raw curiosity on her face. Jake turned away, too tired to answer any question that came with a look like that. Of course she had questions. He could see already that she had a quick mind. His own mind needed to be working better before he dealt with that. He didn’t turn back until he heard the shuffle of her steps as she left.

  When she’d gone, he slowly pulled on the shirt and pants—each movement an effort. The clothes more or less fit, surprisingly. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, then levered himself up with his arms until he was standing. Pain ripped through his left ankle and shot up his leg. His eyes watered and his ears rang. He collapsed back onto the cot and pulled up the pant legs. The fading but still-raised welts of the mosquito and pium bites covered his legs. The Ace bandage looked pale against his sun-browned skin. He touched his ankle gingerly and winced at how tender the bone felt.

  There were voices outside again, speaking in the women’s musical language. Jake picked out Pilar’s voice. She seemed to know the language but not fluently, hesitating sometimes, as though she was looking for the exact word she wanted. He wondered if they were talking about him, Pilar filling them in. They’d be curious about a stranger. He would be, in their spot. The voices moved away. He folded up the scratchy blanket and rested his ankle on top, elevating it, wondering how soon he’d be able to walk.

  Pilar returned, shouldering aside the red-striped black blanket that hung in the doorway. She was carrying a tray with a bowl of something that smelled wonderful and a mug that steamed. Jake recognized the musty scent of yerba maté. The smell reminded him of Mawgis, and the light in the man’s eyes when he’d served Jake the drink he’d been thinking of, sugared just the way he liked it—as if it was a joke made more hilarious because Jake wasn’t in on it.

  “How did I get hurt?” he asked.

  Pilar set the tray on the cot. “You fainted. The day we found you. I tried to catch you, but you went down so hard and fast, I couldn’t hold on. You must have fallen wrong. Your ankle twisted badly.”

  He remembered passing out. He remembered why, too, and had an urge to stand up next to her now, to measure himself against her to see if he was nearly as tall, held back only by a terrible fear that he wouldn’t be. Fear that his shirt had felt binding under his arms and his shorts had seemed to grow tight while he walked through the forest only because they had shrunk in the hot, moist air. That when he had stood, his legs weren’t really longer—but the cot lower to the ground.

  “You should eat,” Pilar said. “It looks a little ugly, but it tastes good.”

  Jake looked in the bowl at the lumpy, vaguely yellowish mash. “What is it?”

  She stood by the foot of the cot. “Manioc and Brazil nuts. There’s mango in it too, for intestinal parasites. There’s no telling what you picked up out there in the forest.”

  He took a spoonful of the warm mash. It slid into his stomach like a balm. The spoon fit comfortably in his hand, a child’s spoon. He tried not to let that bother him. He took another bite, eating slowly, savoring the flavors, the soft, comforting textures, the exquisite warmth. It was the most wonderful dish he’d ever tasted.

  How long until he could walk out of there to Catalous and a phone? If his ankle was fractured or broken, not just sprained, it would need four or five more weeks to heal. Too long. Much too long.

  “I’d better let you get some rest,” Pilar said.

  Food had restored his confidence. He didn’t want her to leave. She was pretty, and he was starved for company and conversation. He figured he could deflect any questions she might ask that he didn’t want to answer.
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  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you a missionary?”

  She laughed low, under her breath. “No, I’m not even religious, much to my very Catholic mother’s eternal shame. I’m an anthropologist, studying the women of the Lalunta tribe. This is my second trip. I’ve been here three months. I’ll be another six, then back to Boston.”

  That explained the American accent. Not really Bostonian, though. Jake guessed that she was from somewhere else originally, probably one of the western states.

  “What about you?” she asked. “What are you doing lost in Lalunta territory?”

  The obvious question. Of course it would be the first thing she’d ask. He wanted to blurt out everything—the Tabna, Mawgis, and the truth about benesha—to make her a witness so that if anything happened to him, there would be someone else to spread the warning. But how could he? The story would sound crazy to a stranger hearing it. Even telling her he was here for negotiations would open more questions that could only lead to things he wasn’t ready to talk about. His ankle and the lack of transportation meant he’d be here awhile. Maybe later, when they knew each other better, if the feeling of trust he instinctively felt held up, he could tell her and she would believe him.

  “Seeing the rain forest up close,” he said.

  Her eyes flickered over his face, giving him a look that said she knew bullshit when she heard it. “Right,” she said. “Get some rest. Keep that ankle elevated. I’ll check in on you later.”

  She started to leave, then paused in the doorway.

  “I need to warn you, the Lalunta women here don’t regard you as entirely human. It’d be a good idea to stay out of their way.” She pressed her lips together a moment. “Especially Naheyo. She treated your wounds, but she grumbled about it. She doesn’t like you and won’t tell me why.”

  Jake wasn’t surprised. Most cultures considered outsiders inferior. Usually he didn’t let it bother him. This time, something in Pilar’s voice and the memory of the cold-eyed girl with the machete made him shiver.

  Seven

  Outside, someone walked past the window of the room—a glimpse of form, dark hair. Moments later, Jake sat up on the green cot, his back straight, listening to the sound of harsh footsteps padding in the space beyond, coming toward him. He finger-combed his hair and smoothed his sprouting beard, hoping Pilar had returned, a spare battery found perhaps, a working phone in her hand.

  The heavy blanket that served as a door was pulled aside. The machete girl stood between the jambs—long black hair streaming past her shoulders, a blue-and-yellow-striped T-shirt over her skinny chest, a plaid skirt that skimmed her knees. Her bare feet were tucked into an old pair of silver tennis shoes with the tongues pulled out. Only her eyes moved as she looked him over, her gaze as cold and bland as a cat’s.

  “Hello,” Jake said, thinking she probably didn’t speak English, but might know the greeting or guess the meaning from the tone. He tried to remember her name. Pilar had told him, but it hadn’t stuck.

  She stared at him a moment, then bolted forward as though hurled by an angry hand. Her arms were behind her back, a branch as thick as the grip on a child’s baseball bat showing above her head. Jake flung up his own arms to protect himself. She stopped just shy of him, bent down, and put her face up next to his, their noses nearly touching. Her breath smelled of chicory and felt hot on his skin. His eyes fastened on the branch. His heart beat hard against his ribs.

  Slowly, keeping the same bent-over position, she backed halfway across the room. Her attention never wavered from his face, or his from hers. He dropped his arms down by degrees, ready to fling them up again. The girl’s lips parted and she hissed—as clear a warning as any animal might give. She straightened her back slowly, still regarding him as though he were some unknown creature she’d chanced upon in the forest.

  “Naheyo,” she said.

  “Naheyo,” he repeated, remembering now that it was the shaman’s name, and feeling pleased that his voice stayed steady. He touched his chest. “Jake.”

  “Jake,” she said, and followed it with a string of angry-sounding words in her own language.

  “Naheyo,” he said softly, trying to make peace. His gaze darted between her face and the club she still held behind her back. He held one hand out to her.

  Her eyes narrowed and she sprang forward again. He squeezed against the wall, his injured ankle binding him to the cot like a goat fettered for slaughter. She skimmed his face with the fingers of her left hand, then jerked her hand away as though afraid of what contact with his skin might do to her.

  “Lish gorum.” She threw the words at him as if they were stones, then turned and stalked toward the hanging blanket, trailing the stick in the dirt floor.

  Jake stared after her. Sweat poured down his sides.

  At the doorway she twisted and bolted toward him again, shrieking, furious, the club held in both hands over her head. Jake thought suddenly of a film he’d seen of Amazonian tribes on the hunt, killing a monkey with a single blow. He tensed, ready to grab the stick if he could, to protect his head if he couldn’t.

  She stopped, the club held poised in midair.

  “Lish gorum,” she said again. And lay the stick at his feet. They stared at each other for a long, breathless moment. She turned and strode from the room, her retreating steps as light as a panther’s.

  The thudding of his heart marked the long minutes until he trusted that she wouldn’t return. His gaze darted from the stick to the door and back again. He expected her to appear again any second—maybe with more women, maybe with a knife. When his pulse finally calmed, he realized what Naheyo had brought—not a club to bash in his skull, but a cane.

  A gift.

  He slid off the bed, picked up the stick, and gingerly tried it out, hobbling around the room hesitantly, afraid to put any weight on his injured foot. Bit by bit, he tried more weight on the ankle, and found that he needn’t hobble like an old man, only take his steps slowly and let the cane support the burden of his hurt leg. He let out a deep sigh. Liberated.

  He stood near the doorway and looked across the room at the place he slept—a standard cot at standard bed height, about twenty inches high. He hobbled back over and stood next to it, his heart pounding. A month ago the top edge would have hit above his waist. Now it touched at least a foot lower than that. And the spoon that Pilar had brought had fit his hand. Maybe not a child’s spoon after all. The bowl hadn’t seemed huge, the way plates and bowls usually did, and clothes that looked too large fit him fine. He leaned on the cane, afraid to breathe, afraid to believe what seemed to be true—that he was growing.

  But it was impossible. Flesh and bone and organs and nerves and blood vessels and muscles and the rest of the human body couldn’t stretch what he guessed was about two feet in two weeks. Not without him feeling it. The stress on his body would have been incredible. There would have been pain. He’d felt some stiffness in his joints, some tenderness all over, the leg cramps of that morning, but nothing like what he imagined that sudden sort of growing would cause his body to feel.

  He’d been asleep, though, most of six full days in the compound.

  A twisted ankle, even a broken one, couldn’t explain needing that much sleep. The five-day trek in the forest shouldn’t have knocked him flat for more than a day and night, maybe two, once he’d stopped. He stared at the place where the cot touched his legs, just below his knees. Was it over? Was this his new height or would he keep growing? If he kept growing—

  Pilar’s voice startled him from his thoughts. “You’re standing.”

  He whipped around, almost losing his balance in the effort. Pilar leaned in the doorway, one hand propped against the dried-mud jamb, a camera in the other. She’d tied her long hair up in a ponytail high on her head.

  “Standing and thinking pretty seriously about something, to judge by the look on your face,” she said.

  “Getting to a phone,” he said, struck again at how the sight
of her made his breath catch in his throat. He pushed the thought away. Women weren’t interested in him that way. Except—he was taller now. Normal. Short for an American, but normal.

  “Why?” She took one step into the room and stopped, her eyes on his face.

  She stood shorter than him now—not by much, but she was—and that threw him. Her question threw him. He had known she would ask. He should have had an answer ready. All he could do now was skip over it and plow ahead, hoping she wouldn’t press him.

  “Do you have a boat I could use, or could you arrange for one to get me to Catalous?”

  Something flickered in her eyes—amusement? Interest?

  Pilar shook her head. “We’re strictly female at the compound, and Lalunta women don’t go out on the water without a man. There’s a village with men about a day’s walk from here. They have canoes. Someone would probably be willing to take you to Catalous.”

  She wanted to ask why getting to a phone was so important—she wanted to ask about a lot of things, Jake could see it in her eyes and the set of her mouth—but she didn’t.

  “I’d appreciate it if you could make the arrangements,” he said.

  Pilar laughed softly. “Not me personally. Naheyo wouldn’t allow it. But I’m sure one of the Helpers wouldn’t mind walking over tomorrow. You’d have an answer in a couple of days. It’s the best I can offer.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They’d stood the whole time they talked, and his ankle had begun throbbing. He set the cane on the cot and sat down, relieved to get the weight off his feet.

  “You found a cane,” she said, eyeing the stick. “Does it help?”

  He nodded. “I think that by tomorrow, with some practice, I should be able to get around pretty well.” He looked down at the cane, rolled it away on the cot—gently with three fingers, as though it might turn into a snake—and rolled it back. “Naheyo brought it.”

  Pilar took that in. “Did she? She said you were ready for the next step in your healing. I hadn’t thought she meant it so literally.”