Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller (13 page)

“
You can’t get back,” Jake said, understanding bursting in his mind like a tiny bomb.

“
No. Not on my own. I need your help to get home.”

That was it
, then—the future plans Mawgis had for him, the thing Mawgis needed him to do.

Leverage
.

Jake shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”

Mawgis
’s eyes widened. “It’s true. I do need your help.”

“
I know you do,” he said. “But I’m not going to give it to you. You might as well get on your way.”

“
Jake,” Mawgis said, drawing the word out,
Jaaake
, disbelief in the extra vowels, the same way his father used to say his name when he’d dared defy him.

Jake
turned and walked toward the compound, teeth clenched, nervousness zinging through his stomach again. But he held his head high, his back straight, crossing the cane field almost to its border with the courtyard, dirt clods collapsing beneath his feet, him wondering if he’d made the right move. He heard Mawgis running—Mawgis, who’d moved so silently through the forest—the older man’s boots thumping against the dirt, coming closer, getting right up behind him. Rough hands on his shoulders, spinning Jake around.

Mawgis’s face was distorted, every muscle tensed, his eyes so wide Jake thought they might
fall out of their sockets. If Mawgis had drawn back his fist and hit him, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Wouldn’t have minded the excuse to hit him back.

But Mawgis needed him—Jake saw
the realization flood into the older man’s eyes, felt the other man’s hold on his shoulders loosen, and after a moment heard him exhale a held breath. His mind spun, wondering what Mawgis would do, what he’d say, how to use the other man’s desire. The smile on Mawgis’s face was thin and tight. His eyes narrowed and shining.

Jake
felt his jaw clench, nervous about what thoughts Mawgis might be growing behind those dark eyes. He forced his jaw to relax and bent his lips in a cold smile.

Mawgis
’s smile fell away. He leaned to the side of Jake’s head and said, “I know what you want.”

The words were breathy in his ear
, as warm as steam. Jake drew up his shoulders and waited.

“
I can make everyone see you as six feet tall for the rest of your life, Jake. Or taller. Any height you want to be. Just help me with this one small thing.”

Jake
thought of Pilar, of what he hoped for them.

“
It’s not the same as being tall, is it?” he said, his own voice low, not so breathy as Mawgis’s had been, but hushed. “I’d always know.”

“
You’d adjust,” Mawgis said—normal tone, straightening up. “And then you’d forget. And then it would be just the same as true.”

He couldn
’t let himself think about that, dream it—want it.

“
Tell me the truth about benesha. Is it poison?”

Mawgis flicked his hand.
“We went to the village. You know what benesha is.”

He saw the village again in his memory—the staring dead eyes, or black holes where eyes had been pecked away by vultures,
and the swollen bodies in the river. The stillness broken only by the buzz of flies. He wanted to turn his eyes away, but it would do no good. The vision would play whichever way he looked.

“
Has it been distributed?”

“
Everything has happened exactly the way I told you it would that day by the river.”

“
You have to stop it.”

Mawgis lifted his chin and opened his mouth—an oval like a singer mi
ght make—and let loose a wild sound, half grunt, half mad cackle. Jake staggered back as the sound seemed to fill up the forest, echoing off the trees. He caught himself on the second step and bent his back knee for balance, digging in his toes, making himself step forward again. Forcing himself to act like nothing had happened even while his ears rang and his heart thudded fast in his chest.

It seemed to go on for days, that sound, until Mawgis snapped his mouth shut and a
sudden
silence fell, as though every bird, beast, and insect, even the leaves and the wind were cowed by Mawgis’s voice.

“
Is that why you came here?” Jake asked, his words loud in the silent forest. “To poison half the population?”

The noise around them
rose again—a loud chattering of monkeys, heard before they could be seen. Jake, wondering if it was the same troop they’d seen earlier, kept his gaze locked on Mawgis this time.

The older man shifted his eyes, seeming to track the animals through the trees, then moved his focus back to Jake and said, “No, mostly. I fell through and couldn’t get back. The benesha. The deaths. That’s because of you, dear friend. All because of you.”

Jake
’s stomach rocked. Leaves rattled in a tree off to his left, on the far side of the cane field, but he wouldn’t look. He pushed the queasiness down. Nothing was his fault. This was just one more game Mawgis was running, one more try at getting up on him. He saw the other man’s eyes flick to the side, but he wasn’t falling for that, either. Mawgis’s eyes widened and his jaw tensed. If the other man was faking it, he was better at this game than Jake had credited him. Jake turned his gaze toward the trees.

The leaves
rattled again, harder. A cluster of small hard, brown fruits thudded to the ground.

“
Jaguar,” Mawgis said, low.

Jake strained his eyes but couldn
’t be sure what he saw—a flash of yellow and brown among the green.

“
Run,” Mawgis said, and grabbed him above the wrist, pulling him into the forest.

Jake yanked and twisted his arm to wrest it free, but Mawgis held tight.
Jake ran as fast as he could, bumping against rough-barked trunks, slipping on half-decayed leaves, afraid that if he didn’t keep up, Mawgis would drag him behind. Twigs snapped under their feet. It was crazy, Jake thought. Running would only make them look more like prey. Mawgis should have known that.

“
Is the cat another of your illusions?” he called, stumbling, breaking a small branch alongside the trail. Remembering that Pilar had said the jaguar was Naheyo’s familiar, and thinking maybe she was chasing them. He shook off the thought. Naheyo couldn’t turn into a jaguar. But Mawgis could change size, or make Jake think he had, and if Mawgis could do that, why couldn’t he make it seem as though a big cat was chasing them? The truths of this world were crazy—or not true at all—and they’d make him crazy too, if he thought about them too much.

Was the jaguar following them? How would they know? He
reached up and tore the leaves off a curling fern as they ran together, their legs pumping in matched rhythm, then slowing bit by bit, until finally Mawgis quit running a mile or more from the compound and Jake, not expecting the stop, kept on a few steps until Mawgis’s grip on his wrist pulled him short. He looked around wildly for any sign of the jaguar, but saw nothing.

The older man grinned.
“And here we are. No jaguar. No worries.”

Jake
didn’t know why Mawgis had chosen this place. It wasn’t much of a clearing, just a break in the forest, and it wasn’t any better cover than a hundred places they’d passed—moss-covered trees, thick and green, the thin posts of saplings jutting up into the dim sunlight, tall ferns, and thick-leaved bushes where predators could hide. He felt Mawgis’s hand come off his wrist like cuffs being unlocked. The older man stepped away and sat on a wide stump, one leg crossed over the other, not even breathing hard. Jake leaned forward, his hands on his knees, his breath coming in hard gasps.

“
You won’t figure it out,” Mawgis said. “You could think and think for a thousand years and be no closer to the truth than a speck of dirt is close to the sun. Sit down and I’ll tell you more. It’s the only way you’ll learn anything.”

Jake straightened up by inches, still sucking in deep
drafts of air. He was tired of the game, weary and worn out—and terrified of what would happen if he stopped playing.

“
You’re such a do-gooder,” Mawgis said. “Working so hard to save the poor starving masses. Did you never think that benesha might be the better savior for your world? All those billions and billions of people. Why not let benesha do its work,
cull the herd a bit? Everyone left gets more. What’s wrong with that?”

Jake
made himself breathe deeply until his heart slowed and he could no longer feel it banging in his chest.

“
We don’t do things that way,” he said, his voice calm, but his mind dull as a butter knife, words coming automatically—words he believed without thinking.

Mawgis laughed.
“
You
don’t do things that way. But ask that annoying shaman—she’d tell you different. You think the world is like you, all the same ethics and morals, but you’re wrong.” His eyes flickered over Jake. “No. You understand that others have different ways of seeing, but you think only your way is right. Naheyo would have killed you if I hadn’t saved you at the exorcism. She would have done what was best for her people. Why will you do less than that, Jake? Why leave the hungry to suffer? Why are you so cruel?”

It was a word
trap, and Jake knew it. There was no answer he could give that Mawgis wouldn’t turn to his advantage.

“
Because life is precious, Mawgis. Your life. My life. Each one of us.”

The
other man waggled his fingers dismissively. “Such a tender heart you have. So follow that heart—help me get my precious life home.”

Slowly Jake walked to the stump and sat as far from Mawgis as possible. Another time he might
have laughed at himself, a different situation—he’d taken the bait so easily. At least it’d snapped his mind back into clarity, that fall—a little late, but better than nothing.

“
Why me, Mawgis? Why not someone local, or Father Canas, or another of the Salesians? You could’ve been gone long ago.”

Mawgis bent his arms at the elbows and turned his palms up.
“I wouldn’t have worked so hard to bring you to me if just anyone would do,” he said. “Benesha is not only a poison. It truly is a travel facilitator, as you know. I’ve been here awhile. Long enough to have looked all over for a suitable helper. When I spotted you, I saw you were more than a little man who’d done well with his life. I could smell your resolve. When you told me the story of why you were small, I knew I was right to have brought you.”

The wording threw him. Mawgis hadn
’t brought him; he’d been sent.

Mawgis leaned toward him.
“You think you were chosen to negotiate because you are small, as I am. But the truth is, once I’d found you, I made myself look small so that you, and none other, would be sent.” He grinned. “I’m good at illusion, and it helped to pass the time.”

The cold frizz shot through
Jake again. He’d gotten it all backward. The people who’d died from benesha, all who would die, it was on him, as Mawgis had said—a scheme cooked up because he was a negotiator, the deaths to make him desperate,
to make him keep going until he came to the compound—to be near where the shadowline was. The threat of more deaths to make him desperate enough to help Mawgis, whatever it took. Because Mawgis was desperate, too—why had he not seen that before? Desperate to get out of this world and back to his own.

If Mawgis was telling the truth. Was he even capable of that?
Were Mawgis’s truth and his the same? Jake didn’t know.

“
My waking up in the compound twice after I’d left it. Was that your doing, too?”

Mawgis looked disappointed.
“Really, Jake. Is there no room for mystery in you at all? For you, it’s all facts or fantasy. Black or white. Right or wrong. Why not leave it at magic? Very dull your way.” He shrugged. “Of course it was me. I need you here.” He arced his arm, indicating the tiny clearing. “You kept leaving. We were at cross-purposes. I could have left the woman in the woods last night, you know. I brought her back for you. So you wouldn’t worry. You seem fond of each other.”

Jake raked his fingers through his hair. Mawgis expected his gratitude. He
was grateful Mawgis hadn’t left Pilar in the forest. But that was the point—to make him more willing to do whatever Mawgis wanted.

“
How could you bring us back and I didn’t know it?”

“
You disappoint me, Jake. Can’t you reason it out? I can disrupt a person’s time sense. I can be
any size or shape I choose. I picked you up and carried you back. Simple.”

“
Because you need me here.”