by F. E. Arliss
She slit through both bite marks and began to massage the poison from the wound, applying pressure from above and below the bite to bring any of the venom welling to the top. Wiping the blood and venom away with small wads of dried moss, she eventually gave up and cleaned the wounds with a sterilizing cleaner made of distilled corn liquor. Then globbing on a muddy sludge-like ointment that the old woman who helped her with the herbs called a ‘drawing salve’, she dusted the top of and bottom of the foot with a clotting agent made from cobwebs, and bound the wound closed. Hopefully, the ‘drawing salve’ would bring the rest of the poison out of the wound and it would be absorbed into the cobwebs.
Now would be the time for energy magic if the priestess was going to use it. Glancing up at the dark-visaged woman, Emery gave her a questioning look. The group had been silent while she’d been working and her quick efficiency had calmed them. Now, when the wound was closed, the entire group knew the only medicine that could be useful at this point was energy magic. They all looked to the priestess for her skills as an energy healer.
A stunned silence reigned when the priestess gestured towards Emery and said, “Call on your current healer.” Then turned and walked away. A wail of protest rippled across the crowd. Emery gaped in dismay and called out, “Priestess, please!” Only an outstretched palm that slapped her again with a wave of dark energy, buffeted across her face.
Shrugging helplessly at the remaining bystanders, she turned back to the groggy young man. One of the things Dorothea had done for her last year was to take her to a Reiki practitioner to learn about the ancient art of Japanese energy healing. Over the course of the six sessions she’d had with the woman, Emery had been “gifted” Reiki symbols for healing and other purposes. It was the only energy magic she had at her disposal, so she’d use it.
Pushing away dark thoughts of the priestess, Emery focused on the symbol Cho Ku Rei, a spiral-type symbol that could be used in physical healing as a kind of purification catalyst. Taking the young man’s foot in her hands, she folded into a cross-legged meditation position and began to focus intently on the symbol she’d chosen and the purpose that she wanted it to help her create - purification of the young man’s system.
An hour passed. Then two. Emery didn’t move except to urge the bystanders to give the young man water and some broth. Though they wanted to wrap him in a skin to keep him warm, she urged them not to. Keeping him cool might be best if a fever was trying to take hold. Though to be honest, she didn’t know if that was right or wrong. He was awake, so that was good.
Finally, after the moon had risen high in the sky and everyone but the young man’s father and uncle had left, Emery felt instinctively that she’d done all she could. She was exhausted and needed to rest. Pulling her hands away from the foot she’d been cradling, she tried to stand. The action sent her sprawling weakly onto her side.
Quickly, one of the men helped her to her feet and steadied her shaking form, thanking her repeatedly. Laying the young man onto the makeshift carrier they’d brought him on, the two men hoisted him up and disappeared into the night.
Emery trudged to her cell, shut the door and fell onto her bunk. She didn’t even bother to pull up the scratchy wool blanket or remove her sandals. Exhaustion had overtaken her.
Chapter Thirteen
Envy Envelopes
The next few days were long and arduous. The priestess smirked at Emery every time she faced her and the other acolytes gave her a wide berth, as though associating with her would contaminate them.
Emery was stunned. The priestess apparently had allowed a young man to die in order to teach Emery a lesson in humility or at least to make the point that Emery had no power here. Rage simmered in Emery’s gut. This was not the creed that Dorothea and Bertha had taught her of “harm none”. This was playing with life and death as though the priestess was a god, not a woman. It was wrong.
Emery almost used the cellphone she had hidden to call Dorothea, but managed to restrain herself after the aged acolyte who helped her with the tinctures had hissed, “Good for you. You scare her with your power.” The old woman had gone back about their work chuckling under her breath. So, not everyone admired the priestess completely. That was interesting.
Not that Emery was even sure she had much power. She did have some, she knew. Her shell worked, keeping her from bruises and cuts and the effects of poison. She could scry in smoke and water, and she had Reiki, though many scoffed at that ancient science. The National Institutes of Health had done a study that showed Reiki reduced pain quantitatively. So it did work.. Whether she’d saved the young man or not seemed doubtful, though he had been alive when they’d carried him away and that was very unusual. Coral snake venom usually killed quickly.
Over that week, the priestess’s antipathy towards Emery worsened. On the jungle walks, Emery was often ordered to fetch specimens that were on dangerous overhangs or wedged into narrow crevices in the walls above the river. Each harvesting was like a feat of vine swinging or rock climbing. The other girls became even more subdued. Emery lived. So there was that.
About ten days after the snake bite incident with the young man, he limped onto the stone terrace of the fortress, aided by his father and uncle. He’d lived. Emery ran to him and hugged him, so glad to see he was alive. The arrival raised a commotion when it was realized that the young man had survived his snake bite. The priestess appeared briefly in the doorway of the fortress and was ignored as the young man, father and uncle offered gifts to Emery and endless thanks were pressed upon her.
After seeing the small group off, Emery hid the small turtle-shell rattle they’d given her into the shallow depression on the wall of her cell and walked buoyantly back towards the herb shelter. She still had quite a number of bundles of wild basil to wrap and hang. Rounding the corner of the entrance, she saw the priestess standing alone looking down the dirt path towards the figures of the rapidly disappearing family of the snake bite victim. Sensing Emery’s presence, she whirled.
Emery gasped. The priestess’s face was wrinkled into a grimace of sheer hatred. Having become accustomed to the total lack of emotion usually visible on the woman’s face, Emery was stunned at this display of raw mal-intent. The woman hated her. The look on her face said it all. Emery put her head down and hurried on down the terrace.
Within a few days, the entire situation became unbearable and Emery knew something had to give. She’d call Dorothea that evening. That day the group took a hike to one of the ancient “ball courts” where the ancestors had feasts, played games, and according to the priestess, also partook of human sacrifice on the steeply pitched stair-like sides.
Whether the acolyte’s questions about human sacrifice gave the priestess the idea for their return-trip addition, Emery would never know. However, as they traversed a large opening in the jungle to one side of the ball court, the priestess halted at a large circular opening. Glancing down, Emery could see it was a type of limestone “sinkhole”, where water had created a deep well with heavily pitted and crevassed sides.
“Here our ancestors made living sacrifices to the gods. Often they gave their children or slaves to the gods. They would come here, pray and then hurl their children into the waters. If they were able to save themselves, somehow, they became venerated members of the community. If not, they were food for the gods,” the priestess said, her piercing amber eyes drilling into Emery. “Are there any here who believe they have the strength to save themselves from the pit of sacrifice?”
Emery shook her head. Nope, it was a long-ass way down and even though she’d been practically killing herself the last few weeks harvesting specimens out of dangerous places, she wasn’t up for a ridiculous “show and tell” of trying to prove herself to the priestess. Hastily, she took a step back from the lip of the well.
To her astonishment she came up against a wall of bodies. Her fellow students stood behind her, some of them trembling in fear. It took only a few seconds for Emery to understand what
was going on. Someone was going in the well. They all knew it. The priestess was losing her gourd and they’d decided that it was better Emery than them. Emery turned, looked into the faces of her fellow students and her blood ran cold. They would murder her to save themselves.
Turning, she looked to the priestess. A fierce glare of hatred burned from her amber eyes. In a split second, Emery felt the heave of the bodies behind her and flew through the air, smacking hard into the green waters at the bottom of the well. As she came up gasping for air, she heard the priestess’s laughter echo off the walls. “Help me!” Emery cried, repeatedly. Soon it was clear no one remained above. Help was not coming.
Dog paddling the circumference of the well, Emery soon found that there were actually a few shelf-like places where the limestone projected several inches out under the water. She found them by whacking a leg into them or brushing them with flailing fingers as she paddled.
Finding one of them and clambering onto it, she found she was only shin deep in the emerald waters. Better than neck deep or under, was all she could think. Taking a few minutes to calm her breathing, she sank back against the uneven wall of the well. Slowly, Emery began to concentrate and take a good, close look at the walls around her. Its wrinkled surface was made from layers of limestone and pitted with holes where water had eroded the porous rock. After a few minutes she managed to see that there might be a way to escape. If she climbed.
The real question was if she had the strength to do it. It would take fierce concentration and an amazing amount of luck. Or power, she thought. If she really had power, she would have to use it.
Fifteen minutes later, Emery was ready. She’d focused her mind, called all her spirit guides to her and knew she’d better begin before the cold of the water sapped more of her strength. Eating a few of the semi-melted cacao nibs she’d shoved into the pocket of her shorts, she prayed for strength, shuffled to the place she’d marked as the best route to the top, and took her first hand-hold on the cliff face. Hauling herself up, she searched for a foothold and found it. The rugged treads of her sandals became an invaluable aid as she worked her way laboriously up the jagged layers.
Twice her hand slipped as moss tore loose from the crumbling limestone layers. She didn’t fall, and thanked the Earth Mother for that. At one point she came to an impasse and couldn’t see a handhold. Finally, her frantic gaze settled on the bright blue head of a dart frog as he crept out to bob his head at her. “Thank you!” Emery breathed gratefully and swung her hand up to his perch even as he leapt away. After that she followed his lead as he made his way up the crevissed wall.
At the top, she almost despaired, as the limestone edge jutted out over the lip of the well, making an almost impenetrable rim that she would somehow have to clamber over. The frog had disappeared and she clung breathing in low rasping, painful breaths as she scoured the rim of the well trying desperately to find some way to breach the jagged edge.
This time it was bats that saved her. A small flurry of the fuzzy little creatures burst from a crack in the rock a few yards to her left. Slowly, she traversed the thin ledge that jutted out towards the opening they’d flown from. A drape of thick vines, most covered in dried bat guano, lined the crack. Grabbing onto the vines with trembling hands, she hoisted herself upwards towards the basketball-sized opening she could see above.
First her head came out above the tangle of vegetation at the side of the well. Then, finally one shoulder and then the other slid painfully through the narrow opening. One hip edged up, followed by the steeply canted opposite leg. Flopping onto the ground, she finally managed to wriggle forward enough to pull her calves up out of the hole. Sprawling on her back, she stayed prone a long while, meditating and thanking the guides who had saved her.
Cramming the last of the cacao nibs in her mouth, she crawled a few yards to one of the African Tulip bushes that held cup-like blooms and sipped the precious water settled in the bottom of the flowers. Thus fortified, she stood, and began a shambling return to the fortress.
Arriving well after dark, Emery stumbled into her cell, quickly ran her hand along the left wall near the roof. She hoped they hadn’t found the cellphone she’d secreted away. Both the turtle rattle and the cellphone were still hidden in the small lipped depression near the ceiling of the chamber. Her antler hat lay crumpled on the narrow shelf. Jamming it on her head and stealthily creeping from her room, Emery clambered to the small platform at the top of the building. Inserting the battery and chip into the small slots was almost all she could do as her hands were shaking so badly.
Within minutes she was talking to Dorothea, the words tumbling over each other in her hurry to get them out. Help would be to her by morning. Now she had to live until then. She dare not go back to her cell, though to her benefit, they believed her dead. That left few places where she would truly be safe. And only one where she had power.
In the dark, without a torch, she crept inch by inch along the trail under the waterfall and finally, slipping and sliding, made her way to the bat crevasse entrance. Halting to pray that they aid her and not fly, she moved as quietly as possible into the central passage and crumpled to the ground on the far side of the opening over which the wooden plank floated. She’d had enough of wells, thank you very much.
Her back dug into the cold side of the cave and it was then she realized how cold she was. Sinking onto her side, she wished for the silver emergency blanket that Dorothea had sent with her. A few tears slipped out onto the bat guano-covered floor. No sooner had she thought about the warmth of the blanket, than the first fuzzy little bat lit gently onto her shoulder. Within a few minutes, she had a living, breathing covering of warm little bats clinging to her skin, clothes and hair. Rather than find the small claws disquieting, Emery breathed a sigh of relief at the warmth and thanked them gently with wave after wave of loving feeling. The small claws tightened slightly, and contracting their bodies together, the bats covered her in a warm, gently-moving blanket of security. She slept.
Chapter Fourteen
Bats and Frogs, No Eye of Newt
The next morning when Emery finally woke, she was stiff and sore, but wonderfully warm. The bats still clung to her like a living net of protection. Sitting up slowly, she took one finger and gently pried loose any that were in danger of getting squashed in her laborious rise to her feet. Letting the rest of them remain hanging on her clothes and skin, she shuffled quietly to the opening of the crevasse.
It looked like it was almost noon, given the placement of the sun. She wondered how she’d find out if her ride was here without alerting the priestess and getting herself killed in the process. The woman was bad juju, as Letty would say.
It turned out she didn’t have to do anything. Something that sounded like a helicopter, then turned out to be an actual helicopter, flew in, buzzed the fortress and then alit on the broad main terrace. Two armed Navajo men climbed from the back of the chopper and waited, faces stony. Dorothea King clambered creakily from the helicopter just as Emery emerged into view in her robe of living bats.
Dorothea stopped, stared, then broke into an evil cackle. “Looks like you’ve had quite the night, girl!” Her cackle continued and only grew in volume as the priestess appeared, her acolytes appearing behind her mouths agape at the sight of Emery alive and coated in a mottled coat of living bats.
“I’ve come to get my girl,” Dorothea said, waving one finger at Emery to get into the helicopter. Both Navajo men snapped their weapons into place and aimed them at the feet of the priestess.
The black-face paint on the priestess’s face wrinkled hideously for a moment then smoothed. “You have no power here,” she snapped at Dorothea.
“I’ve enough to take my girl and go. Plus, I’d say my girl has got enough power for both of us,” the old crone said, cackling so hard now that her yellow teeth gleamed like gold in the bright sunlight. “Tried to kill her and failed. Her spirit animals are loyal. You have no power against that,” Dorothea stated, h
er cackle halting abruptly as the priestess raised a hand, clearly intent on harm.
Dorothea raised both her hands, clearly shielding herself and the men. The men prepared to fire, but Emery shouted, “No, stop!” Wishing something would happen to dissuade the priestess from her actions of rage.
To the astonishment of everyone, including Emery, the last of her living cloak of bats released their grip on her and dived into an upward spiral, making a beeline for the priestess. Converging with another cloud of bats, they swirled in front of the priestess as though appearing from nowhere. Whatever attempt she’d been making was gone in a disrupting swirl of wings and sonar. Two more times she attempted to hurl energy toward the new arrivals. Two more times the hurricane of flying bodies dipped and swooped, disrupting her efforts.
When the air had cleared, Emery and Dorothea, accompanied by the two Navajo guards were in the helicopter. An army of small, bright-blue dots wriggled and hopped towards the priestess and her acolytes. To one side, the old woman who had helped Emery endlessly with the herbal tinctures raised one hand in farewell and looked on with something akin to glee as the army of poisonous dart frogs herded the fleeing priestess and her acolytes back into the stone fortress.
