Watcher's Web

by Patty Jansen

  Alla and Maire pushed off and the canoe glided into deeper water. They turned upstream, where the rainforest edged the river like silent walls of green. Dora splashed the stick with well-trained rhythm. Even from the back, her figure looked more feminine than that of the other Amazons. Earlier, Jessica had noticed her full breasts and a curved belly. She could be pregnant.

  Jessica looked over her shoulder. She wondered where Brian was and how far upriver these creatures were taking her. She could still hear Brian’s voice. We’ll be fine. She was angry for having lost him. Yes, it was his own stupid fault that he had been left behind. He had probably been caught by the other mob, the poachers, or whatever they were. He should have come with her, but still . . . it didn’t feel right, what had happened, and she should try to go back and find him. By now, the boat had gone so far upstream that the top of the cliff where she had left Brian was almost out of sight.

  The canoe entered a lagoon, where the river emerged from a deep gorge in a large pool of mirror-like water. Images of trees and vines reflected in the surface. The beach at the lagoon’s edge looked unnaturally white. A row of boats lay in the shadow of the trees. There were also racks made from sticks with something that looked like seaweed hanging on horizontal beams to dry. The dizzying smell of cooking hung over the water. Jessica’s stomach growled.

  As soon as the bow of the canoe hit the sand, a lone figure strode out of the forest, clad in a cloak of material that shimmered blue and purple in the dying rays of daylight. Coloured beads glittered in his greying hair. His protruding pot-belly hung over a jewelled belt around his waist, adorned with ornaments made from hair and seeds. His flaccid penis, the skin dark brown, left no doubt about his gender.

  His eyes met Jessica’s while he exchanged a few words with Ikay and the Amazons, during which Alla gestured towards the ridge, where the silhouettes of Jessica’s pursuers were no longer visible. The male’s voice sounded angry; his tail waved behind him, causing his dangling penis to swing from side to side. His pubic hair was white and straight, hanging down between his sinewy legs like a goatee. His balls protruded from it like black marbles, the skin shiny and stretched.

  Again, his eyes met hers and held them for a few seconds during which he turned aside, giving her a full view of his genitals, the penis no longer entirely limp.

  Jessica shivered. Oh, no, he had no doubt about her gender.

  The Amazons dragged the canoe up the beach, while Ikay beckoned Jessica into the forest.

  It was dark under the cover of the huge trees. The smell of decaying leaves brought back the first escape through the forest after the crash.

  And Brian. She shouldn’t have left him, she really shouldn’t have, mysterious and creepy as he was. She should have grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down that rock slide.

  The sound of many voices talking, children calling, whistling, came from somewhere between the trees.

  Ahead was a huge structure, as tall as the trees and blending in with them. Greenish light spilled from an archway entrance. Two sentries stood on either side, no more than shadows in the gloom. Ikay replied to the men and they let the group pass into a huge hall made up of living trees. These trees, in a rough circle, formed the pillars for a roof at least a couple of floors above.

  A second circle of tree trunks, ghostly green in the eerie light, supported wooden structures, like balconies surrounding a town square. Jessica counted at least four levels above ground. Specks of light dotted the delicately-carved balcony railings, the tree trunks and ceiling. It took her a while to realise that they were sparkly reflections from the opal-like floor, smooth as a floor in a suburban shopping centre.

  The greenish light originated from glowing bulbs suspended from ropes strung from one tree trunk to another.

  People spilled from every nook and cranny. Small, large-eyed, their shoulders and backs striped like zebras, or spotted like leopards, all of them waving and signalling with tails. Young males, old males, young females, mothers carrying babies, old females, children. In contrast to the adults, who only had pigment stripes on their shoulders and backs, the children were striped or spotted all over, like wild piglets. All stark naked, whispering, pointing at her. The smell of their musty bodies was so strong that Jessica felt sick.

  Ikay guided her across the floor, ushering curious onlookers aside. They went through another archway made from carved wood, where the smell of sulphur and the press of humidity hung thick in the air. This room held a large indoor pool.

  A few stone steps led to the edge of the water, dark and murky. Eerie light shone from balls similar to those in the main hall. The surface rippled from splashes on the other side of the room, where children yelled and laughed. Adults stood in the water, talking.

  Ikay tugged Jessica’s shirt up. Jessica grabbed the hem and pulled it back down.

  “I don’t want to bathe, I’m hungry.”

  Ikay shrank back, her tail curling before her. Children stopped splashing. Adults stopped talking. Everyone crowded around to watch her. Shoulders glistened with moisture. Breasts cast small, half-moon shadows on female chests.

  Jessica stared into Ikay’s huge eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  The tail lowered; Ikay mimicked eating.

  Jessica nodded, flooded with hope. “Yes, I’m starving.”

  Once more, Ikay tugged her shirt. Clearly, Ikay wanted her to bathe before eating. Jessica pulled the shirt over her shoulders and let it sink on the steps. Dora hastened to pick it up.

  Onlookers pointed, murmured and snorted. Yes, she had no breasts to speak of. Did they have a problem with that?

  She kicked off her shoes. Her right shoe bounced down the steps, the loose sole flapping, and fell in the water. Oh bugger.

  A boy dived under the surface and came up a moment later with the shoe in his hand. A few of his little friends mobbed him, and he swam off across the pool, holding the shoe above his head.

  “Hey, that’s mine. Give it back.”

  The boys paid her no heed.

  Jessica turned to Ikay. “I need my shoe. Make him give it back.”

  Ikay just stared.

  Jessica bent to pick up her other shoe, but dropped it just as quickly. God, it stank. But without shoes she could do nothing; her feet were much too soft to go barefoot. And where was her shirt?

  Dora was gone. No shirt.

  Ikay gestured at her jeans.

  Jessica bristled. What? Take them off, too? And then what? Would she get them back?

  A breeze carried the smell of roasting meat. Jessica’s stomach churned. What was more important? Her pride or her survival?

  Slowly, she undid the button on her jeans, and pulled down the zip. The fabric felt greasy and stiff under her hands, and when she pushed the waist band down, the stench made her gag. God, if these people had noses half as sensitive as hers, no wonder they wanted her to bathe first.

  Her jeans fell on the floor, followed by her underpants. She used her foot to scrunch them into a little heap, not daring to look at the crotch of her undies. Maybe she could give her things a wash before she put them back on. Surely no one was likely to run off with this lot of clothes.

  Ikay led Jessica into the water. It was quite warm and enfolded her tired body like a comforting blanket. The chatter of the Pengali faded into the background. Someone tipped water over her head, and hands rubbed her hair, lathering in a soap-like substance with a strong smell of mint.

  In between buckets of water upturned over her head, Jessica glanced at the steps. Her clothes had gone.

  9

  BATHED AND smelling of mint, Jessica followed Ikay and her Amazons back into the main hall. A mass of people gathered, talking and waiting around steaming pots. The white in their skin patterns showed up brightly, as if the light had a strong ultraviolet component. Large eyes glinted. Jessica felt vulnerable. After coming out of the water, Ikay had given her a thin belt to wear around her waist, so there was nowhere to hide. She was so tal
l, and her skin was so white it almost glowed. People stared—they always did. A seventeen year old girl in the body of an adolescent boy. No curves, no femininity.

  Hands, tails and other body parts slithered past her as she struggled to keep up with Ikay. Air stroked her skin in places normally well-covered. Drops of water ran from her still-wet hair down her spine into her bum-crack, leaving her with the uncomfortable feeling she had pissed herself.

  She scanned the ever-moving crowd for a sign of her clothes, but there were so many bodies and with their stripes and spots it was hard even to tell them apart.

  Under the first floor gallery, a group of older males sat amongst bowls of white and black paint, using fine brushes to accentuate skin patterns on the backs of those seated before them. Others threaded beads into each other’s hair.

  Ikay pushed Jessica down on pillows amongst the group. With a chatter of vowel-deprived words, two males crawled over to apply black paint to her shoulders, one using his tail, while the other passed her a bowl from which rose a rich spicy smell. Finally, food. Jessica was so hungry she gulped the fishy balls and gooey sauce without wondering if they might contain poisons her body couldn’t digest.

  She gave the empty bowl to a young boy who walked past collecting them. Ikay and her Amazons had disappeared.

  Jessica tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness came over her. She stumbled; the belch welling up from her stomach tasted of rancid fish and acid.

  Sweat broke out all over her body. God—she wasn’t going to spew, was she? What would she do? Over the heads of Pengali she identified two emergency exits: the main entrance, guarded by two sentries, and an archway into a dark room on the other side, where a steady stream of people came and went.

  In the middle of the hall, a couple of youths dragged out drums and an impromptu dance started. Males and females lined up to meet on the floor. Under loud cheering, each couple so formed danced together before moving aside for the next couple. Jessica was jostled to join in. Onlookers brayed laughter, pointing at her fake skin patterns.

  She shuffled in the heaving mass of bodies smelling of the gunk that came from the bottom of her mother’s outdoor fish pond. Thinking of what to do when her stomach would no longer obey her orders, of what to do when she got to the end of the line and was supposed to dance. And the line before her kept getting shorter.

  On the floor, a leopard-spotted male met a young giggling girl, took her by the hands in a whirling dance. The girl, eyes wide, laughed clear like crystal. Then the man stopped, put his hands on her hips and kissed her. The onlookers cheered.

  The grey-haired Amazon, Maire, who took the floor next, wasted no time in getting herself into the arms of the handsome young male fate dealt her. Sharing passionate kisses, they moved as one across the floor, rocking in time to the drumbeats, their tails intertwined, curling around their hips. When the onlookers cheered, the young male grabbed Maire’s hand and pulled her after him through the crowd.

  The next couple took the floor. Jessica panicked, felt bile rise in her throat. Hands pushed her forward. No, she would not throw up. At least not here.

  Between the mass of bodies, she glimpsed Maire on a pillow near a tree trunk, her unmistakable leopard spotted back undulating in slow rhythmic movements, her tail curling around hands that gripped her sides.

  Blood rushed to Jessica’s cheeks.

  Drumbeats roared in her ears, reverberated in her chest. She swallowed hard. Once, twice. Tried, driven by a mixture of revulsion and fascination, to catch another glimpse of Maire’s spotted back, the young male’s tail stroking it, in that same rocking movement.

  The crowd surged and Jessica found herself a few steps onto the dance floor. Looked up. There, facing her, stood the pot-bellied male from this afternoon. A wide grin splitting his face, he held his arms wide to welcome her onto the dance floor. But she saw only his swaying, no longer flaccid penis.

  No. She took a deep gulp of air. No way. Took a step back.

  He grinned, held out his hands, came closer.

  The crowd cheered.

  Drumbeats and cheering mingled in deafening, throbbing noise.

  Her mouth flooded with saliva.

  No!

  Clutching her stomach, she turned away, and pushed herself between the onlookers. She brushed past sweaty bodies; grasping and tails hands slid past her. They were all cheering and laughing and their voices rose in crescendo above the thumping of the drums.

  Away, away!

  A tail gripped her arm and a fierce-looking figure blocked her path. Alla. The pot-bellied male waited behind her, a grin on his face. Jessica hit at Alla’s tail. “Leave me alone! Let me go!”

  Somewhere behind her, a loud female voice shouted over the music, followed by a sharp whistle. The drums fell silent.

  Ikay walked slowly to the centre of the floor, where people shuffled back to form a circle around her. In the eerie light, her hair looked almost green. She gestured to Alla, who pushed Jessica forward. The pot-bellied male had retreated to the edge of the circle and glowered at Ikay. His tail swayed, brushing the males behind him in the face.

  Ikay spoke. In that tense silence, her voice sounded loud. Heads appeared in the voids behind the gallery railings: wide-eyed faces of young children. Four layers of tribespeople, all looking at Jessica, and listening to Ikay.

  The sound of Ikay’s old voice carried well in that space. She gestured with her hands like a politician giving a prepared speech. Jessica strained her ears for the meagre words she had picked up in their guttural language: okkik—food, enggit—the creatures that produced the incessant noise in the reeds or mohok—settlement or tribe. Ikay’s speech pattern flowed in a repetitive cadence, with short breaks after every three words. Vowels, if any, were only short. Nothing of what Ikay said made sense.

  And all those eyes glanced at her, especially those of the females. The pot-bellied male leaned against a tree trunk, his arms crossed over his chest. Every now and then, he would lash out his tail with a crack like a whip.

  Then Ikay mentioned the name she had given Jessica: Anmi. Others repeated it, until it travelled in a whisper around the hall. Anmi, Anmi, Anmi.

  Pengali around Jessica backed away from her, as if she had some sort of disease, or as if she was the subject of immense respect.

  Oh yeah, I’ll be like the Spaniards who were worshipped like gods by the South American tribes.

  But hadn’t some of those explorers been killed to prove they were not gods?

  Whatever these people thought about her, she didn’t want to deal with it. She’d almost rather have been captured with Brian by gun-toting aliens. Well—maybe not. Oh, Brian, why did you have to be such a stupid stubborn oaf?

  Ikay gestured for Jessica to come forward.

  There was no choice—what else could she do? Her legs felt like rubber, wobbly in the knees. The whisper in the crowd surged around her.

  Anmi, Anmi, Anmi.

  Ikay sat down, nimble and agile like a cat. Jessica remained standing on the edge of the circle. There was a pattern inlaid in the stone—a five-pointed star in black and cream mosaic, with symbols at each point, curled loops.

  “What is this?” Her voice sounded unnaturally loud.

  Ikay pointed to the stone and said something that sounded like, Akkar. Then she raised her finger to Jessica and said, “Avya.”

  She motioned for Jessica to sit down.

  Jessica hovered in indecision. Stared at the floor patterns. The symbolism of the star gave her the creeps.

  Her father’s voice sounded in her mind. Never sign a deal without reading the contract first. Well, it was not as if this setup came with a how-to manual.

  She didn’t want to do this because she didn’t understand, and she did want to do this because it looked like Ikay understood the web. But really, she wanted to make her own decision. What could Ikay do to her? Hypnotise her? Impose the tribe’s will on her with the web? There was only one of her, and so many of them.

&nbs
p; Jessica sat down. The stone felt smooth and cool under her naked skin.

  Ikay folded her legs under her, and pressed her hands together in front of her face in a kind of Buddhist monk position. She spoke a few words, and when Jessica didn’t react, her tail wriggled out and pushed Jessica’s hands up.

  Ikay’s mouth twitched into an expression that might or might not be a smile, if these people smiled at all. Large gaps showed between her yellow teeth, the two incisors much larger than the surrounding teeth, not unlike a rabbit’s.

  Ikay closed her eyes; her face relaxed.

  The air tingled.

  A rush of warmth floated past, tugging at Jessica’s senses.

  Ikay opened her eyes and moved her hands apart . . .

  Strands of light snaked into the space between her hands and were sucked up into a single bright spot of light.

  Jessica tried to fight the strand that curled around her, but she couldn’t. Her senses warped, the web tugged at her. Strands of sparks flowed from her unbidden, and flowed into that bright light. She sensed not just one person on the other end of those strands, but many. One of the focus points was much stronger than the others. It pulled her, stronger than she could resist. Her awareness slid and then she was in the mind of that man again.

  He sat in a room gloomy with artificial lighting. His elbows leaned on a metal surface. Another man sat at the table, and a solidly built woman stood behind him near something that looked like a stove. In a corner, a pot hovered over a patch of glowing mist. Lights blinked on a wall panel. The walls were shimmering purple.

  A kitchen, but not one like she had ever seen.

  The man, Daya, put his cup on the table with a clunk. He met the other man’s eyes. His uncle, Jessica knew.

  “By the way, I’m going to be away for the next few days.” Nerves tightened his voice, even though he tried to sound relaxed.

  His uncle raised heavy eyebrows. “You’ve just come back. There’s the year reports to be done. There’s a board meeting on tomorrow, and—”