Priestess of Paracas

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Anlon has earned a point in his favor by introducing me to Malinyah, thereby proving the possibility of storing a person’s mind on a stone tablet. I have to say I am still shaken by the experience. It was as real to me as if I had been standing in my own home talking to her. The most remarkable part of the experience was the range of emotions that flowed through my body when Malinyah squeezed my hands and pleaded with me to help Pebbles. I not only felt the weight of her words in the tone of her voice, but also in the sincerity of her soul and the depth of her concern. When I say that, I mean I felt as if her emotions became my emotions, like they were literally passed from her brain to mine.

  So, I ask myself, is it that crazy to consider the possibility that the residue of someone else’s mind was on the same stone Pebbles’ mind had been stored on? The scientist in me says no way. The Malinyah in me says otherwise.

  The first sign of Anlon’s imminent arrival was a ping on her phone that Pebbles ignored. Then she heard the sound of scurrying footsteps outside the master bedroom cabin as the crew took their positions for the boarding. This was followed shortly thereafter by a high-pitched whistle signaling the shore party was coming aboard.

  Pebbles closed the sketchbook she had been leafing through and rose from the bed. On her way out of the cabin, she sighed. The next week was going to be miserable but the sooner it started, the sooner it would end.

  When she entered the living room cabin, Pebbles spied Happy on top of one of the sofas, barking at a seagull cleaning its wings on the deck railing outside. His owner sat on the couch near the dog and tried to settle the dog by petting him while he listened to Griffin.

  Happy was the first to notice Pebbles’ entrance. He whirled his panting head around, slinging a rope of slobber at Sanjay’s face. The psychologist grimaced as he wiped away the goo with his hand. I like this dog already, Pebbles thought.

  The feeling must have been mutual, for Happy leapt off the couch and dashed toward Pebbles, his haunches whacking Sanjay in the back of the head on his descent. As she knelt to greet the oncoming dog, the others looked her way. Pebbles heard Anlon call out, “Careful, he’s pretty powerful.”

  So am I, thought Pebbles.

  Happy stopped short of toppling her. Instead, he opted to raise up on his hind legs and plant his front legs on her shoulders. He sniffed at her face and then slathered her chin with licks. Pebbles rubbed his head and neck. She looked up at Sanjay and smiled. “Cute dog.”

  Sanjay bowed slightly. “Namaste, Pebbles.”

  She returned her eyes to Happy while she continued to pet the dog. “You got the wrong person with the namaste stuff. Jen, there, is the yogi, not me.”

  “I see,” said Sanjay. “Well, then, hello.”

  “Hi ya,” she said, standing up and wiping her saliva-streaked hands on her yoga pants. “Wasn’t really intending to entertain visitors, so sorry for my appearance. I know I must look like shit.”

  Before Sanjay could reply, Pebbles looked toward Griffin. “Traitor.”

  As Griffin darted a look across the room at Jennifer, Pebbles turned toward Sanjay. “So, what do you know about woodpeckers?”

  The question seemed to startle the psychologist. He backed up a step and adjusted his glasses. Good, thought Pebbles, you came to ruffle my feathers, how’s it feel to have yours ruffled first?

  “I am afraid I know nothing at all about woodpeckers.”

  “You mean to tell me there’s no namaste psycho-babble meaning about woodpeckers in dreams? Who would have guessed?”

  Pebbles felt a hand on her shoulder as Anlon spoke, “Hey, take it easy.”

  “No, I won’t.” She tugged her shoulder away from Anlon’s hand while maintaining her gaze at Sanjay. “If you don’t know squat about woodpeckers, you can’t help me. Like I said, cute dog, though.”

  She spun around and stomped away.

  “Do you hear them or see them in your dreams?” Sanjay asked.

  “Neither.” Pebbles slammed open the living room door. Without looking back, she raised a hand and waved. “Hasta la vista.”

  Anlon rubbed the back of his neck and apologized to Sanjay. “I’m sorry. I thought she would be more cordial.”

  “Do not apologize, Anlon. It is all right. She is just testing me.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t a test,” Anlon said. “Trust me. That was a definite ‘get the eff out of here’ kiss-off.”

  “Maybe,” said Sanjay. “How quickly can you take us out on the ocean?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you need to file some kind of ‘flight plan’ with the marina operators for a ship this big or can you just unmoor and go out to sea?”

  “Uh…pretty sure we can just go, but the captain’s not aboard right now. I don’t think he’d be happy stranding him ashore.”

  “Pity.” Sanjay knelt down to pet Happy. “Guess we’re not going to get to swim in the ocean after all, buddy.”

  The door to the living room slammed again. Anlon wheeled to see a red-faced Pebbles heading straight for Sanjay. In her hands, she carried her journals and sketch pads. By the time she reached the therapist, he was standing. With jaw clenched, she glared at Sanjay. For a brief second, Anlon thought she was about to wallop him in the face. Instead, she reached out for his hand and said, “Follow me. You too, Happy.”

  “Lead the way,” said Sanjay, taking hold of Pebbles’ hand.

  Anlon watched them exit the far end of the living room cabin and emerge onto the covered, outdoor bar. Through the living room’s window, he saw Pebbles slap down the books on the round table in the center of the bar and point Sanjay toward a chair. She then pointed to another chair and Happy hopped up from out of view.

  “What’s she doing?” Jennifer asked as she sidled up beside Anlon.

  “Beats me.”

  They watched her flip open one of the sketchbooks. Standing over Sanjay, she pointed at the page, then flipped to another. Then, a third. As Sanjay leaned forward to study the page more closely, Pebbles turned around and glared at Anlon, Jennifer and Griffin. In a swooping motion, she whipped her arm through the air several times with a “get your asses out here” look on her face.

  “Guess we’re being summoned,” Griffin said.

  “Looks that way,” said Anlon. “Tell you what, you guys go ahead. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes. I’m gonna go to the bridge and convince Popeye to take us out into the bay.”

  Popeye, the ship’s first officer whose real name was Matthew Ellis, was so nicknamed by the crew for his stocky build, his weather-beaten face and his penchant for mumbling dissatisfaction with many of the captain’s orders when out of earshot.

  Griffin laughed. “Oh, he’ll lap that up!”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.”

  With one hand petting Happy, Pebbles tapped her other hand on the second sketchbook and spoke to Sanjay. “Look in this one. You’ll see more of them.”

  The creak of the forward living room door caused her to look around. As Jennifer and Griffin stepped through the opening, Pebbles said, “Took you long enough. Pull up some chairs.”

  “What are you up to, Pebbles?” asked Jennifer.

  “I’m starting a bird-watching club. What do you think I’m doing? I’m showing Sanjay, here, all the woodpeckers I’ve drawn.”

  Jennifer came up on Sanjay’s righthand side. “What are you talking about? What woodpeckers?”

  Pebbles pointed at the bird on the upper right quadrant of the page of drawings. In the picture, it was sitting on a tree branch, minding its own business. “Okay…they don’t exactly look like woodpeckers, but they are. They’re called flickers. Same bird family, just look different, behave different. I looked them up online. That one right there is a northern flicker.”

  Griffin, leaning over Sanjay’s left side, gazed at the picture. “That’s a woodpecker?”

  Sanjay removed his glasses and turned to look up at Pebbles. “And you say you have never seen one of these before?”

 
“Nope. Never. Nada. Wouldn’t know one if it walked across the table.”

  “The detail is exquisite,” he said. “You are quite sure it is a northern flicker?”

  “I am. I can show you one on my tablet later.” She tapped the drawing. “What I want to know is — why do I keep drawing them? Different flickers. Like, go back two pages…yeah…there, right there. See that one? That’s an Andean flicker.

  “There are other ones in both books. Some in the journals, too. Campo flickers, gilded flickers. None of these birds are in my dreams, and like I said, I’ve never seen one in real life that I know of, but somehow I know exactly what they look—”

  Pebbles stopped in midsentence as one of the ship’s crew came hustling down the forward stairway to the right side of the bar. It was Cindy Tanner. She entered the bar area and announced the ship was imminently shoving off. Pebbles thanked her for the heads-up and turned back to the sketch pad. “Now, where were we…?”

  The choppy water was barely noticeable as Sol Seaker moved out of the harbor and into the bay. The same was not true of the wind. Gusts curled into the outdoor bar and whipped the pages of the journals and sketchbooks to and fro, so the group retreated back into the living room where they were joined by Anlon.

  With Happy stretched out next to Pebbles on the sofa beneath the cabin’s portside picture windows, Sanjay sat in a catty-cornered easy chair and continued his review of the second of the dream journals. On the opposing starboard-side sofa, Griffin examined Pebbles’ most recent entry in journal number three while Jennifer sat beside him and compared images of flickers on her smart tablet with those in Pebbles’ sketchbook. There was a frown on her face.

  As Anlon approached Pebbles, she looked up and smiled. Arriving at her side, he leaned over and kissed her. She patted the small sliver of couch next to her. Anlon slid on it while aiming a fisheye at the sleeping Happy occupying the majority of the sofa on the other side of Pebbles.

  “Looks like I missed a lot,” Anlon whispered.

  “No, not that much.”

  “Catch me up. What did you mean about woodpeckers?”

  Pebbles held a finger to her lips. “Shh…let’s wait ’til Sanjay finishes reading.”

  “Okay,” he mouthed. Leaning close to Pebbles’ ear, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Better.”

  “Good. That’s the goal.”

  Pebbles smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Sorry I was such a bitch.”

  A gasp from Jennifer caused everyone to look up. She slammed her fist on the sofa. “That’s it! Son of a gun, that’s it!”

  She put down the sketchbook and tablet, hopped off the couch and headed for the living room’s aft door. The sudden exclamation and activity woke Happy. He rolled onto his feet and barked at Jennifer.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Griffin asked.

  “Be back in a few. I need to make a phone call.”

  Pebbles rose to her feet. “What’s going on, Jen?”

  Jennifer stopped and turned around. She pushed her blond hair back into a long tail behind her neck and twisted a hairband around it. “I don’t know why it didn’t hit me earlier. I’ve looked at your sketches at least a hundred times. I should have made the connection right away.”

  “Connection to what?” Pebbles asked. She looked at Jennifer’s tablet. “You noticed something about the flickers.”

  Jennifer nodded and smiled, then turned around to continue toward the door.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Get back here. Tell us what you found,” Pebbles demanded.

  “Just hold your horses, I’ll be back in a jiff.”

  She pushed through the door. Pebbles started after her. “At least tell us who you’re calling.”

  As the door slid closed, Jennifer spun around and called back. “Cesar Perez.”

  With Pebbles standing dumbfounded in the middle of the room, Griffin picked up the sketchbook Jennifer had been looking at and compared the page to the image on her tablet. “Well, I’ll be damned. Would you look at that!”

  He held up both for the others to see. On the tablet was a stone-carved image of a bird on a branch. The sculpture had at one time been painted, for flecks of color still adhered to crannies here and there. On the sketch pad, a fully painted version of the exact same bird and branch occupied the upper right-hand side of the page.

  Pebbles squinted at the tablet image as she approached Griffin. “What website is that?”

  Griffin pulled down the tablet and examined the web page. “Archaeology site.”

  When Pebbles came alongside him, he handed her the tablet. As her eyes rapidly scanned the web page, her face reddened. “Oh, my God.”

  Then her pupils rolled back behind her eyelids and she collapsed on the couch next to Griffin. Anlon and Sanjay were up in a flash. Griffin looked to them and said, “Uh oh. Here we go again.”

  CHAPTER 6: BONFIRE OF THE MEMORIES

  Aboard Sol Seaker

  Cruising in San Diego Bay

  September 18

  All is lost. There is no escape.

  She turned from the roaring bonfire and looked at the villagers standing before her. There were hundreds of them, both men and women. Bare-chested, they raised spears and chanted. Their faces and torsos were painted with gold designs that glittered in the firelight.

  A loud explosion quieted the chanting as she and the others turned to see flaming shards whistle above the forest canopy. She darted her eyes to the villagers.

  It is too late. There are not enough. It will end here. I have failed.

  Among the villagers was a commotion. A burly male warrior barked out commands and a slew of the villagers took off toward the forest. Within seconds, they disappeared beyond the glow of the bonfire, but she could hear their whoops and hollers for several seconds before they, too, faded away.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the male warrior grab hold of a teenaged girl and lead her toward the bonfire. He called for others to surround the teen, while he dispatched others back to their huts. Another explosion in the forest was followed by the sounds of screams.

  “Run!” she implored the villagers. “Save yourselves! Flee!”

  She watched in horror as the burly man shouted down her command.

  “They will die!” she yelled to him.

  He did not answer. Instead, he turned and stripped off the teen’s loincloth and ordered others to bathe the girl’s face and torso. While the teen pleaded with the man, he turned away and pointed a group of other villagers toward the bonfire…and then he leveled his finger at her and barked out more commands.

  As the villagers advanced toward her, she looked at the sobbing teen behind the mob and called out to the burly man, “No! It will never work! I forbid it!”

  Before she could protest further, hands were upon her. She fought them as they relieved her of her headdress while other hands wrestled her tunic up and over her head. They tried to take her necklace too, but she declared it forbidden to touch.

  The bonfire’s flames licked at her bare backside as she continued to struggle against the hands disrobing her. An elderly man stepped forward and dipped two fingers in a small pot of gold liquid. He murmured incantations as he pulled the fingers out and began to paint designs on her body. She began to cry, begging the villagers to let her go. Looking past the elderly man, she saw the burly warrior order the teen to don the tunic and headdress. “No! She does not deserve this! I am the one who has failed!”

  Two more explosions echoed through the night air. They were closer, and this time there were no screams that followed. The burly man ordered another small group of villagers toward the forest and yelled at the others to hasten their ministrations to the two women. The crack of splintering wood at the tree line signaled time was up. He commanded the elderly man to finish his painting and ordered the remaining villagers to make for the river.

  She fought them as they dragged her away with them. Over her sho
ulder, she watched the burly man march the teen to the bonfire. He ordered the teen to kneel, then kissed her forehead.

  Savages broke through gaps in the foliage and advanced. The teen bowed her head and sobbed. The man stood with his back to her and raised his spear toward the savages.

  Pebbles awoke with a scream. Pinned to the floor by Anlon, Griffin and Sanjay, she looked around at them, her eyes as wild as a trapped animal’s. She yelled at them in a foreign tongue and struggled for release. Happy began to bark. Pebbles’ head snapped in his direction and her eyes fluttered. She darted her eyes back to the men holding her down and her body went limp. Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes and mumbled, “She forgot the bag.”

  Jennifer reentered the living room with her phone pressed to her ear. She froze in place when she saw Pebbles laid out on the sofa with a washcloth layered on her forehead. Anlon and Griffin were across the room, huddled in conversation. Sanjay, sitting beside Pebbles, was listening to her speak.

  Covering the phone with her other hand, Jennifer caught Griffin’s attention and whispered, “What happened?”

  “Another daymare.”

  As she was about to ask another question, she heard a click on her phone. “Miss Stevens, are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “I am a colleague of Señor Perez. He is on an expedition in Guatemala. Have you tried his cell phone?”

  “I have. Several times. I left a voicemail.”

  “The cell reception at the dig site is not very good but he usually checks his phone messages when he gets back to the hotel in the evening. I can leave a message for him at the hotel if you’d like.”

  “Um…yeah, sure. That would be great. Thanks. It’s pretty important.”

  After the archaeology professor on the other end of the line rang off, Jennifer pocketed her phone and joined Anlon and Griffin.

  “Is she okay?” Jennifer asked Anlon.