8 Gone is the Witch (22 page)

“
Jerome no cry wolf. No like wolf.”

I snapped my fingers to get his attention. “Listen, you little peapod. I want to know why you were trying to steal my witch’s key.”

His eyes grew wide and animated. “Nooo! Jerome no steal. Jerome look. Key shiny.”

“You were trying to lift it over my head.”

“No. Chain have kink. Jerome straighten.”

Carlos
unsheathed his bolo and pumped it over his head “I say we kabob him. He’s gotta taste better than that old treklapod we ate last night.”

“Carlos!”

“Tony, come on. He’s a thief. We can’t trust him.”

“No, Tony’s right,” I said,
joining the good cop bad cop role-play, though for Carlos I wasn’t entirely sure it was a game. “We’ll give him another chance. I don’t think he’ll do that again. Will you, Jerome?”

I
knew from the look on Jerome’s face that he certainly believed Carlos would actually shish kebab him. He gazed up at me through spoon-shaped eyes, his crescent brows hooked in perpetual plea.

“
Jerome mind business, you see. Jerome be good––all the time good.”

“You better
,” I said, jabbing his bony chest with my finger. “Or I
will
let Carlos shish kebab you.”

He looked at the Incubus ring on my finger. “Ooh, pretty ring.
Jerome touch?”

“
No! you can’t touch. What did I just tell you?”

He put his hands up
in surrender. “Jerome no touch! No touch! Please.” He turned to Carlos. “You no shish kebab Jerome?”

Carlos
shrugged, shook his head and turned away. “Aww, probably couldn’t get any meat off his scrawny ass anyway. I’m going to go wash my face.”

“Aye,
” said Ursula. “Methinks that doth sound refreshing.” She turned and followed Carlos to the river.

I
began buttoning up my shirt. “What do we do now?” I asked Tony.

He looked around. What else could we do?
Huge cliffs blocked our travel in two directions, and the waterfall prevented backtracking in a third. He turned toward the river and pointed downstream. “Guess we go that way.”

Jerome
said, “Yes! That way cave. Much difermium. You see.”

“Uh-uh.
” Tony shook his head. “This journey has already taken too long. We don’t have time to look for it now. We need to find Leona before it’s too late.”

“
No! Cave on way! Take no time. You see.”

“
Tony.” I reached out and touched his arm. “Jerome’s right. If the cave is on our way, what could it hurt to stop in for a quick look around? We could collect some pellets, bag`em up and get right out.”

I could
tell that Tony didn’t like the idea, but he also couldn’t argue with reason. I watched his posture soften by degrees as he slowly gave in. “Well... I suppose if we hurried––”

“Hey guys! Look at this!”

Carlos and Ursula came running up from the riverbank. Both seemed unusually excited.

“What is it?”

He handed Tony a jagged crystal. “It’s a diamond. Look at the size of it. Gotta be what... fifty carats? And there’s lots more where that came from.”

“You got this from the river?”

“Yes! I’m telling you, there’s tons of it.”

Tony weighed the crystal in his hand. “I don’t know
. It feels a little light to be a diamond.”

“Let me see that
.” I took the crystal from Tony and licked it. “It’s salt.”

“Salt?” Carlos grabbed it from me and did the same. “Oh yeah. It is salt. How do you suppose salt found its way into a fresh water river?”

“Is ocean,” Jerome remarked.

“What
?”

“All this,”
Jerome cast a broad sweep of his hand across the landscape. “All this one time ocean.”

“This was all ocean?”

“All ocean. Ocean gone now.”

Tony
surveyed the alcove more keenly. “Yes, I see it now. These cliffs. Look, you can see the erosion from tidal forces.”

“I don’t
see it and I don’t care,” I said. I reached out and snatched the salt crystal back from Carlos. “But if this is sea salt, I’d like to keep it. I may have a use for it later.”

“Sure.
” Carlos hiked his thumb up over his shoulder. “Like I said, there’s a lot more where that came from.”

“
All right, listen up.” Clearly, Tony was getting antsy about getting back on the trail. “What do you say we head out? Everyone pack your gear and form a line.” He pointed to Jerome. “You’re leading.” He looked at Carlos. “You want to go second? You can keep an eye on your friend here.”

Carlos wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sheathed bolo. “Oh yeah. I’ll keep an eye on him all right.”

Considering that Jerome still had his spear, I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. I let it ride, though, reasoning it was better that Carlos, not Tony, follow him. If Jerome decided to pull some stupid stunt, then Carlos wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. I only hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Truth was, I kind of liked the little dweeb... Jerome that is, not Carlos, although I do like Carlos, too.

Chapter Twelve

We followed the river as far as we could
until heavy vegetation along its banks made it impassable. That’s when Jerome took us inland.

He seemed to know where he was going, most of the time. Then there were those moments when he had no idea.
A few times he started out down one trail, stopped, headed down another, but then returned to the first one and continued.

He did that several times before Tony, who had been pulling up the rear, yelled ahead, “What the hell,
Jerome! You’re taking us in circles!”

The line stopped
. We all gathered in close. Carlos asked, “What do you mean, Tony?”

“I mean that’s the third time we passed that rock formation back there. We’re going in circles.”

“Then we are making ends meet,” said Ursula.

“What?”

“Forget her.” I looked at Jerome. “What’s the deal, Kermit? Why are you jerking us around?”

“No!” He seemed more defensive than usual. “I no jerk. I show you way.”

“According to Tony, we’ve passed that rock formation three times.”

“No same rock. Only look same.
”

Carlos said, “I think he’s stalling. I don’t think he wants us to get to the cave.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe someone’s following us. He
’s letting them catch up.”

“No!”
Jerome insisted. “No one follow. We alone. I show you cave.”

“
Then where is it?”

He pointed. “Oh! Cave this way. Come. I show you now.”

He hurried off, as if he really knew where the cave was. I admit my suspicions tweaked then, but only mildly. I honestly started to think he was bullshitting about the cave, and that he originally told us about it just so we would let him follow us. But we headed out after him, and lo and behold. There it was.

“What do you know?”
I said. “The pointy-tailed toad was right.”

The trees were heaviest in that part of
the forest, taller, thicker and their canopies fuller than anywhere else we had been so far.

As we stood
at the cave’s entrance, its opening partially concealed by vines and overgrowth, it was easy to see why Jerome had a difficult time finding it. It’s likely we passed it several times without noticing before Tony finally spoke up.

I said to
Jerome, “That’s the cave with all the difermium pellets?”

He pointed with his tail. “See. I show you.
Jerome find cave.”

“It
’s kind of dark in there isn’t it?” asked Carlos.

“No dark. Difermium glow. Give much light. You see fine.”

“All right then.” Carlos stepped up and began hacking away at the hanging vines and branches with his bolo. He leaned into the opening and squinted. “It is lighter in there, and big.” He stepped back and turned to face us. “The ceiling is fifty, maybe sixty feet high, so if anyone’s claustrophobic, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“I’m not claustrophobic,” I said.

“Me neither,” said Tony.

We
turned to Ursula. The look in her eyes told us she was not on board. I took her hand. “What’s wrong, Urs? You’re not afraid of enclosed spaces, are you?”

She shook her head. “
Nay, I have not so much a fear of the space enclosed, but what lies within.”

“
But there’s nothing in there. Right, Jerome? Tell her. Tell her she has nothing to worry about.”

I waited for
Jerome’s reassurance. When it didn’t come, I looked back over my shoulder at him and scowled. “Right, Jerome?”

He
folded his hands behind his back and wrapped his tail around his body. I let go of Ursula’s hand and confronted him. He directed his gaze downward and began kicking lightly at the fallen leaves around his feet. Tony and Carlos witnessed his odd behavior and both closed in around him.

“What’s the deal
?” Carlos still had his bolo in hand. He pointed it at Jerome’s head. “Does she have anything to worry about?”

Jerome
looked up. “Saurocedus?”

“What
’s that?”

He
nodded into the cave. “Saurocedus is dragon. Live in cave.”

“A dragon?
You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“
No worry, friend. Saurocedus sleep. All the time sleep. Wake only for decussaday.”

“
Who’s Decussaday?”

That seemed to surprise
him. “Decussaday. Make all the where orange.”

Tony said,
“Orange? Lilith, do you know what he’s talking about?”

I shook my head.
“No, but as long as Decussaday isn’t here now, I guess we don’t have to worry about any dragons. Jerome, Decussaday isn’t here now, is he?”

“
No. Today no decussaday.”

“All right then. You see there, Ursula. The dragon sleeps tonight.”

Carlos sang, “Ee-uma-um-mum-a-wehhh.”

I
said to him, “Excuse me?”

“
The song.”

“
Yeah, well why don’t you go uma-mum-far-away yourself? Urs, listen. We can’t leave you out here alone. Either we all do this, or we all don’t.”

She back
ed away uneasily. “`Tis a fool what travels brave where wise men fear to go.”

“
Come again?”

Tony said, “I think she means fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.
”

“Angels,” said Carlos.

“Huh?”

“
Angels fear to tread, not wise men.”

“
Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s Poe
, from An Essay on Criticism.”

“Edgar Allen?”

“Alexander. 1711.”

“Wait,” I said. “1711? How can that be? The magistrate hanged Ursula in 1692. How would she know about that poem
nineteen years before Poe published it?”

“I know not of that poem,” said Ursula
, looking very much indignant. “That I sat for tea with Master Alexander that one time, I fear, was enough that he should mark my words and make them his own.”

Carlos said, “Those were your words?”

“Aye, that and those I uttered upon my hanging.”

“Which
were?”

“
Pale thee to thy wicked moon that thou shalt grant me liberty or grant me death.”

“
Wait,
you
said that?”

“Aye.”

“Wow.” Carlos shook his head. “And I thought this was a strange world.”

“Never mind that,”
Tony argued. “Let’s move on. Forget the cave.”

Carlos agreed. “Yeah, let’s go
. I don’t trust the little weasel.”

Jerome
recoiled as if zapped by an electric shock. “No! No forget! Must go cave!”

“Why?”

“We come far. Get difermium. Go home quick. TDT!”

I turned to Tony. “He
’s right. We’ll probably need those pellets to get home. Later might be too late. We shouldn’t squander the chance to get them now.”

“What about
Ursula?”

I looked back at her
. She appeared apprehensive. Clearly, she did not want to enter the cave. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to go in either. For one thing, damp musty caves wreak havoc on my hair. For another, I thought Jerome seemed just a bit too anxious for us to go in there.