The Soulkeepers

by G. P. Ching

  Chapter 21

  Red Stones for Manioc

  With all of the preparations made, Jacob jogged across the street to Dr. Silva’s house the afternoon of June 10th. He’d barely slept the night before thinking about the journey. Tonight he would finally know for sure what happened to his mom.

  In his heart, he was sure she was still alive. He didn’t have the sort of peace or finality he did with his dad’s death. But as he crossed through the gate into Dr. Silva’s backyard, he wondered if that was because there hadn’t been a funeral or a body to see. There was no proof. If she were alive, what he learned in Peru would be the key to saving her. But he also knew that it was equally likely his greatest fear might be revealed. If his instincts were nothing more than wishful thinking, he might find out she was dead.

  As planned, Dr. Silva met him at the mouth of the maple orchard.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked with a quirky half smile, as if he couldn’t possibly be ready.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied.

  Dr. Silva handed him a safari helmet with mosquito netting and then coated him in a thick fog of bug repellant. From her shoulder, she removed a canteen on a long leather strap.

  “Put it around your neck and shoulder so that it travels with you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tea. Just in case.”

  “In case of what? Early Peruvian tea time?” he laughed.

  “It has medicinal properties,” she said.

  The pieces clicked together within Jacob’s mind just as they approached the privet. Dr. Silva had told him her specialty was horticulture, and John had said that her plants were used to make drugs. Now she was admitting that the tea had “medicinal properties.”

  “The first day I was here … that’s why I told you all of those things. You drugged me!”

  “Now, now, I merely gave you something to help you relax,” she said. “Anyway, it was for the best. I had to know enough about you to make sure you were ready.”

  Jacob wondered what other means she’d used without his permission to attain her goals. He crossed his arms over his chest as they entered the back garden. As he covered his nose to pass the corpse plants, he couldn’t help but think that Dr. Silva had been pulling his strings from the very beginning. She wasn’t human, that was for sure, and she’d never been honest with him about who or what she was. He’d trusted her because he’d had no choice.

  While he trotted over the stone path and walked the sandy meadow trail, he realized trusting Dr. Silva might not be an all-together wise thing to do. In fact, by the time he reached Oswald, Jacob was jumpy with suspicion about Dr. Silva’s motives and sure this trip was a bad idea. But there was no turning back now, not with the hope of finding his mother so near at hand.

  “Hey, where’s Gideon?” Jacob asked, noticing for the first time that the cat wasn’t in his usual place by Dr. Silva’s side.

  “Oh, he’s in the house. He doesn’t like to travel through the tree unless it’s absolutely necessary,” she replied. “Now, it’s important we hold hands as we do this so that we aren’t separated during the journey. We wouldn’t want to end up on different ends of Peru.”

  Jacob hadn’t thought of that scenario and wasn’t happy to have something else to worry about.

  Dr. Silva interlaced the fingers of her right hand with his. She looked him in the eye.

  “It’s time,” she said.

  Jacob nodded once, too nervous to speak.

  She touched the branch.

  Because he was not the person directly in contact with the tree, the experience was slightly different this time. Jacob could see the bark creep up Dr. Silva’s left arm, shingling her skin. It layered itself across her chest before covering her face and swallowing her whole. It spread down her right arm before reaching his fingertips. Then the familiar slowing happened; however, Dr. Silva remained the same. It was as if they were in a bubble together as they floated up to the sky and then became the sky. They rolled down a tube, the bubble blown down a straw. As they reached the bottom, he felt himself pop out of the ground and land clumsily at the roots of a massive tree. He was still holding Dr. Silva’s hand when his knees buckled. The sickness was evident but not as bad as the first time.

  “Welcome to Peru,” she said, opening his canteen and lifting it to his lips. “If I’ve calculated correctly, we should be near the border of Ecuador, deep in the Amazonian rainforest. I must warn you, this isn’t a schoolyard. Quite a few creatures exist in this forest that would view you as lunch.”

  “So, where do we go next?” he asked.

  “We don’t. We wait for a guide.” Dr. Silva removed a long, hollow piece of wood from her bag and raised it to her lips like a flute. She blew three long, deep notes. When the last tone ended, she raised her finger to her lips. He held very still and listened.

  The jungle was loud. Birds called from the canopy and monkeys leapt from tree to tree above him. There was a constant ruffling of leaves from things he was glad he couldn’t see.

  After several minutes, he turned to Dr. Silva to ask if she should call again. He didn’t say the words though, because standing between them was a small, mostly naked man with spikes through his nose and an intricate pattern of red tattoos on his face. He had arrived silently and Jacob got the impression that he’d been standing there longer than either Dr. Silva or he had noticed.

  Dr. Silva said something to the man in a language Jacob didn’t understand, then reached into her bag and produced two polished ruby red stones. She handed them to the man, who nodded in response and then pointed to his left.

  “This way, Jacob,” Dr. Silva said. “This is Pandu. He will be our guide to the village where the Healer lives. Why don’t you go first?”

  He lifted himself from his seat on the tree root and followed after the man.

  “Watch your step,” Dr. Silva said.

  “What was that you gave him?”

  “The red stones? They were payment. The Achuar believe any red stone is a link to their Earth mother. What I gave him was simply red quartz but here it is very valuable.”

  “Interesting.”

  Pandu carried blow darts that hung in a quiver from his shoulder. His dark hair and leathery skin blended well into the rainforest. Jacob lengthened his stride to keep up, fearful that he could lose the man in the jungle at the slightest lapse of attention. The man navigated the terrain as if it were a paved trail.

  In the thick foliage, Jacob concentrated on the placement of Pandu’s feet, hoping to avoid a twisted ankle. He was concentrating so hard he almost walked right into the guide’s outstretched hand. Pandu had stopped abruptly and was watching a patch of jungle to his right. From his back he pulled the blowgun and inserted a dart without making a sound. A forceful huff sent the dart toward a group of leaves up ahead. Pandu smiled. He motioned for Jacob to stay where he was and walked to the place he’d blown the dart. Reaching behind the leaves, he pulled the scaly body of a snake from the foliage.

  The reptile was easily eight feet long, which meant Jacob was enlisted to carry a portion of it, a task he wasn’t thrilled about performing. He’d never touched a snake before and the cool, muscular body was unsettling.

  Dr. Silva and Pandu spoke excitedly in the strange language. “We are fortunate today, Jacob! Our guide has caught dinner. He says we have good spirits with us!”

  “What luck,” he replied in a deadpan voice, as he readjusted the slippery weight of the snake in his arms.

  Pandu led them to where the rainforest opened into a clearing bordered by woven huts bustling with natives. Some women came and took the giant snake from his hands and began to skin it. They smiled and said some words he didn’t understand but supposed meant something like thank you. Hoping to appear polite, he smiled back and nodded. It was a smile-fest, a sea of awkward toothy grins and nods in lieu of actual communication.

  “I’ll be right back. I’m going to talk with the Healer,” Dr. Silva said. She dr
ifted off to a hut on the northeast side of the village.

  She left him in the center of a group of naked children. They were pointing at him and talking to each other. Once again, he was set apart, different from the others. He wondered if this was his fate. Would he always be the stranger?