by Lin Oliver
“Do you think the mask is hidden there?” he whispered back.
I nodded. “You heard the chief. That was Doh Tenangan’s realm.”
“And he was the other half of the conjoined twin.” He grinned. Crane’s eyes glowed with excitement. “It stands to reason they would hide his mask in his realm where it could safeguard his kingdom.”
“I’ll bet you something else, too, Crane. I bet when we find the Land of the Dead, we’ll find underground tunnels there.”
“I agree, Leo. Myth and truth have a way of intersecting. I can’t wait to see those tunnels. Some of the more open-minded scientists believe that underground tunnels lead to the hollow center of the Earth.”
“Oh yeah, where those alien guys lived, the ones your mom wrote about.”
I didn’t mean to make him angry, but apparently I did. His lips got really tight and his left eye twitched.
“For your information, nephew, my beloved mother, Marie, did not write about ‘guys,’ as you so clumsily call them,” he snapped. “She was a scientist conducting advanced research.”
Dr. Reed groaned as another intense wave of nausea attacked her. Diana helped her crawl to her feet and get to the window. Crane didn’t flinch.
“Poor, poor Margaret,” he said. “However, her unexpected illness does give us a rare opportunity to leave here and take a midnight stroll. Do you think you can lead us there, Leo?”
I nodded again. “We cross over another mountain ridge and then cross a small river.”
Of course, I didn’t mention to him that I had read the directions to the Land of the Dead in my father’s journal.
“The mountain ridge you refer to —” Crane was musing. “That has to be the one that towers above the village. I have formed an alliance with several of the villagers who can escort us.”
Wow, Crane was good. I hadn’t even noticed him talking to anyone. He certainly was a person who knew how to get what he wanted.
“Now I just have to get us out of here,” he whispered. “At my sign, Leo, you must play along and convince Hollis to come without incident.”
“But what about Dr. Reed? We can’t leave her. She seems really sick.”
“Don’t worry about her,” Crane said much too quickly. “I have a feeling these stomach events have a way of passing quickly.”
Dr. Reed was still hunched over the window, retching and barfing, with Diana at her side trying to comfort her. The whole longhouse was deadly silent except for her groans. Many of the children had awakened and were peering at the commotion. When Dr. Reed finally picked her head up, her face was ashen and sweaty and covered with red splotches. Two of the villagers gasped.
“Why isn’t anyone helping?” Diana cried. “Why are they all just staring?”
“Kavi says they believe she is cursed,” Dr. Haga explained. “The chief believes that the foreigners have attracted the attention of an evil toh who is inhabiting Dr. Reed and causing her illness. He has asked the medicine woman to cleanse her demons, but wishes the other foreigners to leave at once.”
“No way. I’m not leaving her,” Diana said.
Kavi conferred with the chief then whispered in Dr. Haga’s ear.
“The chief says the daughter may stay,” he translated. “The others must leave immediately.”
The medicine woman entered carrying a basket filled with small eggs and gray stones. She wore her bamboo tube on a cord around her neck, and when she caught sight of me, she pointed it at me and screeched. The chief shooed her away, guiding her over to Dr. Reed. Then on his signal, five of his men raised their weapons and took a step toward us.
“Tell the chief we’re leaving at once,” Crane said to Dr. Haga. “Diana, we’ll send one of our party back with proper medicine.”
“Can you hurry?” she asked.
“Margaret,” Crane said, bending down so Dr. Reed could hear him. “Klevko has my ditty case. Fortunately, I always carry something for nausea and vomiting, plus nutrient pouches. I’ll fetch it now and send someone back with it right away.”
Dr. Reed nodded weakly. “Thank you,” she mouthed, holding the medicine woman’s hand as she laid her down on a mat on the floor.
“She doesn’t have malaria, does she?” Hollis asked as our group was hurriedly shown out of the longhouse.
“No doubt it was something she ate,” Crane said.
“But none of us got sick,” I said.
“That’s enough, Leo,” he snapped. “You’re not helping.”
We left the village and walked down to the bamboo bridge, all six of us — Dr. Haga, Cyril, Kavi, Crane, Hollis, and me. It was hot and sticky out. The frogs were croaking and the mosquitoes biting.
“Klevko,” Crane muttered into the night.
“I’m here, boss,” Klevko echoed, and at once, he and Dmitri seemed to emerge from the vines.
“And Mr. Singh?”
Klevko pointed to a large dark tree. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I saw a tall charcoal figure standing perfectly still and silent by the trunk.
“And the villagers?” Crane asked.
“This way, boss. There are five waiting.”
“Excellent, Klevko. I hope we brought enough knives.”
We followed Klevko, who led us into a thicket where five male villagers from Byong Ku were waiting. All of them were teenagers — one even appeared no older than me.
“Ask them if they were able to recover it,” Crane snapped at Dr. Haga. One of the boys nodded and produced a wicker basket. He reached in and pulled out Crane’s mask.
“There you are, my sweet,” he murmured, taking the mask in his hands. “I think it’s time to go find your other half.” He carefully wrapped the mask in a banana leaf before putting it into his backpack. Klevko was smiling.
“What are grinning at, you donkey?” Crane barked at him. “Give them their pay.”
I was expecting Klevko to reach into his pocket and pull out a roll of rupiahs, but instead, he unzipped a pouch in his backpack and took out five small blades. He gave each of the villagers one, and they received them with great joy. The boy my age seemed especially delighted and waved his new prized possession in the air with glee. Dr. Reed’s faraway wails echoed through the night as another wave of nausea started.
Crane hurried about, rearranging his pack and making the final preparations for our expedition. I looked up at the cloudless sky. The stars were out and glimmering. Just over the mountain ridge, I could see a sliver of a crescent moon. I thought about Diana. I’d been so awful to her. And now I was leaving her again, with no good-bye, no explanation. I wondered if I’d ever be able to look at the moon again without feeling terrible.
“Be right back, Hollis,” I said. “Tell Crane I had to take a pee.”
I dashed off and found a sheltered spot a hundred yards away from the group. I reached into my pocket and took out my dad’s mini-cassette player and pushed record.
“Diana. It’s Leo,” I whispered into the little speaker. “I know you won’t forgive me, but I have to at least try to explain myself. Please listen. I came here with Crane to help him find something, a mask that he said was worth a fortune. But I didn’t come for the money. I came here because … because … Crane promised to fund a mission to investigate my parents’ deaths. I think it’s possible that my parents might still be alive. Crane was my only hope to help me find them.”
I paused. I hadn’t expected to tell her all that, but now that the truth was out, it felt right.
“I made a deal with him because he’s all I have, except for Hollis,” I went on. “But then I met you, and I know this sounds corny … but I didn’t feel quite so alone. Now all I can think about is how I treated you and how I’d give anything to take it all back. Things are out of my control, Diana. I … I don’t know who to trust. And I don’t know who I am anymore. Maybe one day I can become the person you thought I was. But as I stand alone and look at the moon, I just feel so lost.”
I pushed stop
.
“Leo, are you a camel?” Crane shouted. “How long can it possibly take to urinate?”
“Coming, Uncle Crane!”
I stuffed the recorder back in my pocket and ran back. Crane was impatiently tapping his toe. When he saw me, he picked up his gear and started to walk in the direction of the mountains.
“Wait a minute,” Hollis said. “Aren’t we going to send back some medicine to Dr. Reed? She’s really sick.”
Crane stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, of course, I almost forgot. Klevko, bring my ditty case.”
Klevko brought out a ditty case filled with about twenty different pill bottles. Crane searched them all, found one, dumped out the pills, and quickly placed two new ones in the empty bottle. I could barely see his hands, but I noticed the pills looked a lot like Tic Tacs.
“Dmitri,” Crane said, “Run up to the longhouse and deliver these pills to Dr. Reed. Make it snappy.”
“Right away, boss,” Dmitri said, and took off. I jogged after him.
“Wait up, Dmitri,” I called. When I caught up to him, I slipped the mini-cassette recorder into his hands.
“Give this to Diana,” I told him, “and tell her it’s from the lion. I’d consider it a personal favor, Dmitri.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“I’d hate to have to tell Crane about what’s in that special duffel you keep hiding from him,” I answered. “You know how annoyed he gets when people double-cross him.”
Dmitri nodded. Like all crooks, he knew when to fold.
“No problem, Leo,” he said. “I’ll see that she gets it. You can trust me.”
Dmitri took off for the longhouse, and I returned to our rendezvous point where Crane was giving Hollis a pep talk on our midnight stroll.
“We’re going to use this opportunity to do some real archeology, Hollis. Leo, how long do you suppose the hike will be?”
“Close to seven hours,” I said, remembering that in my dad’s travel journal, the villagers had started their death ceremony at 8:45, and didn’t finish till nearly four in the morning.
“Seven hours?! We’re going to the Land of the Dead, aren’t we? That underground place the chief talked about? Well, I don’t want to go there. I’m not going.”
“Hollis, we are no longer wanted back in the longhouse,” Crane said. “And you cannot stay here alone. There’s no choice but to come with us, Hollis, with your family.”
“It’ll be okay, Hollis,” I said. “We’re just trying to find a cave, that’s all. A regular, normal underground cave.”
“I heard the chief describing those underground tunnels. They didn’t seem normal to me.”
“This is going to be fine, chief.”
“Stop calling me that, Leo! I’m sick of it. Just call me Hollis. I’m sick of all your dumb nicknames, trying to calm me down so you can drag me around on this pointless trip. Just call me Hollis.”
“Keep it down, boys,” Crane said. “I see Dmitri on the way back. As soon as he returns, we set off. While we walk, Hollis, I’ll tell you all about this mask and the precious jewels that were hidden inside it.”
“Jewels?” Hollis raised his eyebrows.
“Diamonds. And more. Now, I’ve gotten two of the villagers to come with us and serve as guides, while the other three stay behind us and cover our trail. Dr. Haga, introduce them, if you will.”
“This is Aru and Dosa.”
Both of them had their new knives tucked in their belts. Aru was the kid, probably about my age, though up close, I saw how muscular he was.
“Leo, would you take the lead?” Crane asked. “Perhaps you’d like to just hold the mask before we set out? Do you think that’s a good idea, Mr. Singh?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Mr. Singh said. “I believe Leo knows the way.”
When Dmitri returned, we began our expedition. I turned to the craggy mountain ridge above us and put one foot in front of the other. I really had no clue where I was going. I just knew that we needed to get over the steep mountain ridge ahead of us, which was at least four thousand feet high, and find the river on the other side. And maybe once we crossed that river, the Land of the Dead’s location would seem obvious to me. I could always sound bend the mask to see if it would provide me any clues, but now that I knew its history, I was afraid of messing with its power.
I was surprised that Mr. Singh was able to keep up with us as we started the uphill climb. The terrain was gray and bleak, and steam rose off the rocky ground. The stars overhead were bright and pristine, but I didn’t feel like looking at them. We kept an easy pace, though Hollis trailed toward the back with his head down, and I noticed that he’d found some black soot to rub on his forehead. I felt good walking. It was hard to believe that I had made it all the way across the world, and that we were finally on our way. The path narrowed ahead of us.
We entered a faint zigzagging path through towering boulders. The trail was steep. I fell in step next to Mr. Singh.
“So can you see ahead?” I asked him.
“A dim picture, perhaps,” he said. “Though I seek the mask, I am less entangled with it than you. For you, it is personal. For me, well, I have my reasons. Your display of blind sight powers on the river was impressive, Leo. But my eyes are old. I no longer have the vision of a young person.”
“What kind of special powers do you have?”
“You would not believe me if I told you.”
“Maybe not, but you can tell me anyway.”
He nodded. “No doubt you noticed I have developed an injury to my leg while we have been on the river. And yet if you were to examine my leg, you would find nothing wrong with it.”
“So that’s your power. You can heal yourself?”
“No. I received the injury in Mumbai, more than two thousand miles away. My mother is quite ill, and I paid her a visit the other night.”
“Are you saying you can be in two places at once?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I can bilocate.”
“Unbelievable! Why don’t you bilocate over the mountain and wait for us there?”
“As I said before,” his voice barely audible and weak, “I am not personally entangled with the mask. Further, I am expending all of my mental energy on keeping up. Now, no more questions. I must preserve my strength for later.”
I couldn’t wait to tell Trevor all about Mr. Singh. He would have a million questions for him. I had a million more questions as well. He was a real master of psychic powers. If there was a whole universe outside of our five senses, then I would have no better guide. As I gazed at the cloud-covered summit above us, I knew we were going the right way. I knew that on the other side, we’d find the Land of the Dead and the lost half of the twin mask. I felt it in my bones: I’d been there before.
After several hours, we made it to the summit and looked down into the bleak moonlit valley on the other side. From our ridge, I could see the small river ahead of us running horizontally across the gorge, but I didn’t hear any moving water.
“There’s the river, Leo,” Crane said, gripping my shoulder. “You’ve led us right to it. And on the other side, the object of our obsession. A truly remarkable gift. And it’s all mine.”
“Huh?”
“The mask, Leo, the mask. Soon it will be mine.”
We started downhill, making steady progress. On the walk up, Hollis had befriended Aru — the villager just older than me — and I heard him trying to teach Aru to sing as they sidestepped down the loose rocks. He was having no luck. I remembered how my dad had written that the villagers of Byong Ku never sang, their only music was the grisly death dance, which they claimed not even to remember. Hollis was trying to teach Aru to sing “You Are My Sunshine.” He’d sing a line, then wait for Aru to mimic it, but he couldn’t do it.
Eventually Hollis switched to just the melody, humming it. I heard my mom in his voice. She had sung us that song every night, but she never sang the lyrics to the second verse, the one whe
re the guy wakes up to find his sunshine is gone so he hangs his head and cries. She always just hummed that verse. It was funny — both she and Hollis were born with the same amazing musical gift, but neither of them could sing on key. As I listened to Hollis humming the notes exactly as my mom had, I wished that she had taught us the lyrics to that second verse. It might have prepared us better for the challenges we had to face.
We reached the river within an hour. It appeared stagnant, muddy, and sickly green in the dim moonlight. Mr. Singh stuck his cane into it, claiming it to be rather shallow, but when he pulled the cane out, the bottom two feet were caked in gooey mustard-colored ooze. There was no bamboo bridge crossing this river, no signs of human life at all. Crane sent Aru and Dosa to try to find a passable stretch. We waited, breathing in its putrid rotten-egg smell.
“Once we cross the river, Hollis,” Crane said to him, “I’ll tell you more about the mask and why it might very well change our whole view of history.”
Hollis was more concerned about the immediate future.
“We’re walking through that mung?” he said. “Count me out.”
“I’ve sent who’s-it and what’s-his-name to locate a suitable shallow spot to wade across,” Crane answered. “But trust me, Hollis. If you truly understood what awaits us on the other side, you’d put your head under and swim across this instant.”
“No way. The mud on Mr. Singh’s cane looked like baby poop, and the water smells like a hospital Dumpster. And what if there’re snakes in there or blood-sucking leeches or some sort of jungle parasite no one even knows about?”
“You are going to have to work on your negativity, Hollis,” Crane sighed. “Your brother will go first.”
“Me?” I didn’t like the look of that foul water any more than Hollis did.
“Who else, Leo? I believe you signed a contract saying you would ‘prove instrumental in recovering the missing half of the mask.’ Wasn’t that the phrase?”
Man, Crane knew the contract by heart.
Aru and Dosa returned and reported to have found one spot that they predicted would only rise to the knees. We followed them to the shallow part of the river where billows of steam were belching up from the stinking, foamy water. The river smelled absolutely putrid — it didn’t seem like the water had moved for years. I secured my gear in my backpack, tightening the straps all the way until it was hugging my shoulders, stuffed two shreds of old napkin up my nostrils, and wrapped my bandana around my face, skintight. Then I picked up a walking stick, dipped it into the water until it reached the mushy ground, and limped like Mr. Singh into the river.
