The Fifth Harmonic (19 page)

The seaside village of perhaps a hundred people was similar in appearance to the first village we'd visited, but more upbeat in spirit. The whitewash on the walls of the thatched huts seemed fresher, the colors of the people's clothing seemed more vibrant. Maybe it was because of all the welcoming smiles when they recognized Maya.

I spotted the Jeep parked under some palms, and seconds later
Ambrosio appeared.

“You are burned, señor,” he said, staring at my face as we shook hands.

“Could have been worse.”

“But you got what you went for?”

I nodded. “Just barely.”

“Bueno. Ambrosio is glad for you. Tomorrow will be much better when we go to
La Mano Hundiendo
.”

I knew
Mano
meant hand . . . we were going to some sort of hand. “What's that?”

Maya said, “An island of sorts.” She pointed northwest. “That group of big rocks out there.”

About three-quarters of a mile offshore, a cluster of five cinnamon spires varying from fifty to a hundred feet high had punched up from the ocean floor. They huddled in a loose arc.

“What's it called again?

“La Mano Hundiendo . . . the Drowning Hand.”

I looked again, and damn—with the tallest spire standing in the middle and the shortest and thickest sticking up on the near end, just like a thumb, it did look like the last desperate gesture of a drowning man, reaching for air.

The Drowning Hand.

Swell.

Dinner was rice and beans, with a little grilled chicken for Ambrosio and me. The three of us ate sitting around a fire outside one of the huts the villagers had lent us. I tried, but I couldn't get the chicken past my constricting throat. Only by mashing the beans and rice into a paste was I able to get anything into my stomach. So I drank lots of milk.

I excused myself from the fire and wandered down to the water. The sun had drowned but the sky was still alive with salmon and violet hues that surely had names. I just didn't know them. Venus was a brilliant point of fire, low over the horizon, rising in search of the moon.

I ran my fingers over the lumpy masses in my neck and worried. The Captain was running wild in there.

How long before I'd be restricted to a liquid diet? One day? Two? I'd be in real trouble then, because after that it wouldn't be too much longer before I'd be unable to handle even liquids.

And then it would be time to pull out the Kevorkian kit.

I had maybe a week to live. Most likely less.

The cold dark shock of that realization nearly knocked me to my knees.

Less than a week! And if I suffered a carotid blowout I could go in an instant at any time.

I felt so helpless and small standing there in the fading light. I hadn't wanted to die at home. I'd thought it would be much easier on all concerned—myself included—if I died where no one had to watch me, where I couldn't be hooked up to IVs and parenteral nutrients if I became delirious. And I was fairly sure I could arrange it with Maya and Ambrosio to deep six my Kevorkian kit after I'd used it so Annie and Kelly wouldn't have to deal with the fact that I'd picked the lock on the exit door and stepped through on my own.

The downside was I'd be dying among strangers, far away from home, and robbing Annie and Kelly of the closure they might need.

I kept asking myself: Am I being selfish? Am I only thinking of me?

But it's
my
life, dammit. Don't I have the right to choose where and how I end it?

I had no answers, and the questions were too burdensome to carry. I shook them off and returned to my hut—I'd have my own tonight. I focused on dealing with the more practical and mundane matter of sending e-mail to Kelly.

I lit up the computer and established a link on the first try. I smiled when I saw a “kellburl” return address; but something from Terziski also was waiting, and with an attached file no less. I downloaded both. Terziski's attachment—labeled “mug.jpg”—was a big one and took a while. After the download I checked the battery level. I'd used up only half its power; still a while to go before I had to pull out a spare.

I stayed online and read Kelly's letter. Her concern for my safety and health warmed me, so I pulled out her picture and kept glancing at it as I typed a reply. I told her about the lava, about the dugout trip to the Pacific, but said nothing of my purpose. I made it seem as if I were doing all these things merely for the sake of doing them. I told her I was fine. And then I came clean: I told her I missed her and I loved her, and that she was the best thing I'd ever done in my life.
All so true, and I wanted Kelly to know it, to have the words in black and white to keep.

A heaviness built in my chest as I typed. I didn't tell her that she'd never see me alive again, but I hoped this would let her know that I was thinking of her, right up to the end.

I uploaded the letter, then broke the link. I stared at her picture a moment longer before tucking it away. But the inner warmth fired by Kelly's letter vanished in the cold wind from Terziski's note.

Doc—

Something weird's going on with your psychic friend. Checked with the Oregon State Police on the Maya Quennell arrested at the logging camp protest in 1972. Just for the hell of it I sent over those latents I lifted from the business card you gave me. Believe it or not, they match.

Yeah. My sentiments exactly. What the hell's going on?

Your Maya Quennell is in her mid-thirties. I know because I saw her. Spent a whole day watching her. But according to the OR arrest sheet, so was this other Maya Quennell—age 34 back in 1972. That means she'd be in her sixties now. But we've got a thirty-something wandering around with her fingerprints. I know they can do wonders with plastic surgery these days, but hey, let's get real here.

The only explanation I can think of is that was her mother in OR and the old lady maybe handled the business card before our girl gave it to you. But then we should have three sets of prints on the card—yours, young Maya's, and old Maya's. I only found two.

And take a look at the attached mug shot. It's from the other Maya Quennell's arrest record. It's not too clear, being a scan of a Xerox of an old photo, but get back to me and let me know what you think. Must be a logical explanation, but I've got to tell you, we've got some majorly mysterious shit going down here, Doc, and it's starting to give me a case of the creeps.

—Terziski

Disturbed and puzzled, I opened the “mug.jpg” file and a blackand-white photo of a woman's face filled the screen. Terziski had been right about the quality—it was terrible. And yet . . . despite the graininess of the heightened contrast and the muddied half-tones, something eerily familiar seeped through and raised the fine hairs at the back of my neck.

A dark-skinned woman in her thirties with lank black hair cut in an almost boyish bob stared back at me with dark, dark eyes.

Except for those eyes, and the length of the hair, it was Maya.

Or her brown-eyed mother.

Or a much-older sister.

Someone with Maya's face and fingerprints, but not her eyes.

Fingerprints couldn't be changed, but a simple set of contacts can change eye color.

I grabbed the flashlight and brought it and the laptop out to the fire. I wasn't going to play any games. I dropped down next to Maya where she knelt and held up the flashlight.

“Do you mind if I check your eyes?”

She looked puzzled but not suspicious. “Why?”

“Can I? Only take about ten seconds.”

“Very well.”

“Just stare at the fire.”

I leaned close and aimed the flash beam at her corneas from different angles. No sign of contacts. The jade color radiated from her irises.

I leaned back, not sure whether I was disappointed or relieved.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

I held up the laptop and showed her the screen. “Who is this woman?”

I was watching her eyes. I know I saw her pupils dilate in shock. Her mouth compressed to a tight line as she shifted her gaze to me.

“Where did you get that?” she said.

“It was just sent to me. It's—”

“You have been investigating me?”

“Well, yes. I mean, I started to before I sold off everything and followed you here. Just as a precaution. I mean, wouldn't you if—?”

“That was then. When did you get this?”

“Tonight. I wasn't looking for it but, you see, the investigator I hired keeps finding—”

Her eyes flashed as she shot to her feet, but in her voice I heard as much dismay as anger.

“You are impossible!”

She started to walk away so I chased after her.

“Maya, you've got to explain this.”

She said nothing, just kept walking toward the surf. I followed. I had to have an answer.

“Maya, there's a woman here from 1972 who's got your fingerprints and could be your twin except she'd be sixty-something now. I just want to know what's going on.”

She whirled on me and jabbed a finger at my face. The fading light flashed off her bared teeth.

“I explain nothing! My
fingerprints?
It is
you
who must explain, and I do not care to listen!”

“Maya—”

“No! No more from you! You came here to learn to see. I told you how the past taints your vision and so you must cut yourself off from your material burdens and from your old life. You told me you brought your little contraption to keep a record, and to reassure your family of your safety, but you use it to pry into my life!”

Somehow this had gotten turned around. Why was
I
on the defensive?

“Listen—”

“No!
You
listen! You do not trust! The Mother wants you healed, wants me to guide you to the light, but I cannot do it if you do not trust me!” Her anger faded as hurt crept into her voice. “After what we have been through together in the past two days, how can you still mistrust me?”

The question was a knife in my heart. Suddenly I felt like a heel.

“It's not that. It's just . . .” I pointed lamely to the laptop. “I have so many questions . . .”

“Questions about the wrong things. Questions that I do not answer now.”

“This picture . . .”

“Forget pictures, forget fingerprints. Do not look at me through
your computer. Put all that aside and look at me through your heart, search for me with your spirit, force a ray of light into that blind eye—look at me that way and see if you do not trust me.”

“I do trust you, but—”

“There can be no ‘buts’ to trust!” She turned and resumed her flight. “If there is no trust, then I can do no more for you and we will end your journey here.”

“Maya, please!” I started after her again.

“Do not follow me. I have no more to say to you.”

Maya was leaving me. Icy spicules of fear rattled through my veins as I watched her retreating figure fade into the twilight. I was losing her. And I realized in that instant how much I did trust her . . . deeply and truly. Yes, I had bothersome unanswered questions, but I had let them overrule the testimony of the time we'd spent together, all the hours and minutes that told me she was here on a mission, and the mission was me. Why had I allowed that? What the hell was wrong with me?

I tried to call after her retreating figure but my voice cracked and crumbled. “Maya! What can I do to convince you?”

A shadow among the shadows now, she didn't speak, didn't turn.

With desperation clawing at my back, I ran down to the surf line and hurled my laptop into the ocean.

“There!” I called, my voice little more than a harsh rasp. “It's gone! I've cut the last tether to the old me. I'm completely cut off now. It's just me here. Me and you.”

I waited for a reply, or to see her emerge from the shadows.

“Maya?”

Where was she? I'd made my grand gesture. Wasn't that enough?

“
Maya!
”

But she was gone.

“Drink some of this,” Ambrosio said.

I'd returned to the fire to wait for Maya, but the hours dragged on and she didn't show. I was vaguely aware of a nearly full moon drifting through the sky and lighting a path across the water, but I was feeling too miserable to appreciate it.

I'd blown this, but good.

Ambrosio had been chattering away and I'd been answering him with monosyllables, so when he'd upped and left, I figured he didn't see much point in hanging with me either. But he returned with an old wine bottle. He popped the crumbling cork and offered me a taste.

I held it out to the fire and peered through the unlabeled green glass. Half full, but the dark, cloudy liquid inside didn't look like any wine I'd ever seen.

“What is it?”

“A special mixture. Ambrosio make it himself.”

Mayan moonshine, I thought. Okay. I could use a drink.

I took a swig, swallowed, and gagged.

“What
is
that?” I said after I stopped coughing. If I'd been hoarse before, I was really hoarse now.

Ambrosio took a swig of the foul-tasting stuff and passed the bottle back.

“Drink more. It will be good for you.”

I was about to refuse, then figured, why not? Besides, the aftertaste wasn't so bad. Something familiar in the mixture. I took another pull, and this time I didn't cough.