Read Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller Online
Authors: Alexes Razevich
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Metaphysical, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Suspense, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Science Fiction
Shadowline Drift: A Metaphysical Thriller (8 page)
“
How long were you with the Tabna?” she asked.
While he
’d been talking, she’d leaned toward him, concentrating, interested. Now she pulled back.
“
Three years ago,” she said, “there were no Tabna in the forest.”
He waved
off the notion with his hand. “They were here. They stayed hidden.”
“People don’t appear out of thin air.”
Pilar stood and paced the small room
, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. “The Lalunta have a whole array of spirits both good and bad, but the Tabna—they regard the Tabna as evil beyond evil.
If Naheyo knew you’d been staying with them, I doubt she’d do the exorcism.” She rubbed her hand across her mouth. “In any event, Naheyo and the Helpers aren’t going to let you leave until your demon is driven out. Their beliefs are real to them, and as I said, it’s their world, not ours. They set the rules.” She stopped and turned toward him. Her voice dropped low. “Jake, this is bad.”
His mouth felt like he
’d been chewing dirt.
“
Maybe,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t believe it. He was beginning to wonder if he did.
“
How do you know so much about all this?” he asked. She was standing in front of the cot, and he was seated. He hardly had to look up at all to see
her face. It was confusing still, this vantage point, but he wouldn’t want to give it up.
He nodded. It wasn
’t only the forest where that was true.
“
I don’t think she can stop me.”
Her gaze came back to him.
“This is the Amazon,” she said, her voice so low he could
barely hear her, “not Eden, and not America. The rules you live by don’t apply. Infanticide is common here. Indians and Anglos murder each other all the time, and neither side thinks much about it. I told you, the Lalunta don’t consider you human. You try to leave before Naheyo is willing to let you go, and she’ll kill you like she would any other dangerous beast. I wouldn’t be able to stop her.”
“
If I let her do what she wants, can you guarantee I’ll be helped to reach a phone?”
She sat down next to him again, the sides of their legs almost touching.
“Naheyo will give you some drugs. She’ll call the good spirits to you and ask for their help in driving out the demon. You’ll
do the same. You’ll get a sign about what to do next, how to get rid of the demon.”
“
And if it can’t be driven off?”
“
Naheyo rarely fails at anything.”
“
Lucky for me.” Sweat pooled under his armpits. “When does she want to do this?”
Jake sighed, nervous and resigned.
“What do I have to do? Eat ritual food? Be scourged with nettles?”
“
Try it,” she said. “It’s good.”
Outside the compound, in what Jake guessed was the courtyard beyond the door at the end of the hallway, the women were singing, their voices
low
pitched and sweet, every voice holding the same note. He realized that what he’d thought drumming was in fact the sound of many feet slapping the ground in unison.
“
Do you believe in this”—Jake turned up his palms, at a loss for a polite word—“hocus-pocus?”
“
You’re human,” he said. “So you have an opinion anyway.”
“
There are spirits here,” she said. “And magic is real.”
He opened his mouth to answer, then shut it. He
’d been afraid to tell her all that had happened in
the Tabna camp, afraid she wouldn’t believe him, and here she was talking about magic like it was one of the physical laws of nature. Then again, with Pilar beside him, the women singing outside, the wood-and-flower night scents of the forest floating in the room, and the brew providing its own peace—magic seemed as good an answer as anything else.
“
How’d you wind up here?” he asked, unwilling to let sleep have him just yet.
“
Two years ago,” she said, “I came on a research mission with another anthropologist, a man. We stayed a year with the Lalunta. I learned their language. I seem to have a facility for languages. And the women appreciated that I’d eat monkey brains and grubs without flinching—a good trick for a middle-class, all-American, white-bread
girl like me. Mike—Dr. Samuelson—was more squeamish.”
“I chose my work because I felt I’d lost my heritage,” she said. “If I couldn’t have it myself, at least I could try to help others preserve their cultures for themselves.” She took another swallow of the oily brew. “Naheyo took a liking to me and asked me to come back alone. She said if I came again, I could come to the compound—we’d been in the main village before—and she would teach me to be human. For a researcher, the opportunity was too precious to turn down. It meant the women would share their entire culture with me, not just the parts they wanted the outside world to see. I was
able to get a grant based on the uniqueness of the research, and here I am.”
“
It is a betrayal, then,” Jake said.
The voices of the women grew louder, coming toward the window.
They weren
’t what he would have called lullabies—more like spirituals, with intricate, soaring tunes. Still, they did their job. Pilar slid down next to him, drowsy, as he was, her back
against him. The cot was narrow. He lifted his arm to put it around her and drew it back, unsure. And then did drape his arm over her, his hand gently resting on her belly. She leaned into him, a soft comfort on a hard night.
Naheyo sat apart, her back to them, waiting while Pilar and Jake crossed the open ground between the compound and the field. Naheyo had
insisted he not use the cane. He leaned lightly against Pilar’s shoulder, still favoring his ankle, though he thought maybe it was from habit now more than need. The calm the brew had provided had fled, and his stomach knotted from nerves and hunger. The shaman had been adamant that he not eat. Probably to help the drugs work quickly, but she might have had other ideas—notions of providing an empty vessel for the good spirits to enter for the fight, or maybe of starving out the demon.
Pilar froze in her step.
“She promised me.” Her voice was low and tight. “Naheyo’s never lied to me before. Now she’s lied twice.” She leaned close to Jake, whispering in his ear even though the women wouldn’t have understood what she said. “You have
to know. Naheyo promised this would be easy—a quick ritual to drive away the evil spirit and you’d be on your way. This rite, it’s a healing, the black on her face, it’s . . .” She clamped her jaws shut and shook her head.
One of the Helpers tilted back her head and screamed. He flinched at the wild, piercing sound
—a call, he thought, to the spirits, or the signal to
begin. The women began singing, moving their feet in place, lifting them only inches from the moist ground, left, right, left, right, going nowhere.
“It’s okay,” he said, his nerves strung tight.
Naheyo
pulled herself to her feet and walked toward Jake and Pilar, the coconut bowl in her hands. Jake’s heart galloped. He was keenly aware of being much taller than the shaman, of the top of her head not reaching halfway up his chest—an odd
and pleasant feeling, to look down at her. A quick smile bent his mouth.
