The Soulkeepers (18 page)

"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. Men, women, and
children bustled in and out of the huts, each going about their own
task. 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 drifted 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 always be the stranger?

The Healer

Jacob tried not to mind when the Achuar
children poked at him experimentally. Not wanting to provoke any
additional attention, he looked away, toward the painted brown skin
of the Achuar women as they worked over a pot nearby. They mashed
and chewed something and then spit it into a large caldron. Near
them, men with painted faces worked to bind the snake meat to a
stake. Others stoked a massive pit fire. Soon, the stake was over
the flames and the cooking snake meat filled the village with an
aroma he could only compare to grilled fish.

Dr. Silva emerged from the hut and motioned
for him to join her. She eyed the children who were, by this time,
swinging from Jacob's non-participating arms. "Jacob stop playing
around. The medicine woman is ready to see you now."

"Let go," Jacob said, jerking his hands away
from his giggling tormentors. He stepped to Dr. Silva's side.

"It's because you're tall," she whispered in
his ear. "We are the tallest here plus our skin is different of
course. They think we are a novelty. It's entertaining to them."
She put her arm around his shoulders and guided him into the dimly
lit hut.

He didn't respond to Dr. Silva's comment
because he was too busy mentally digesting the scene within the
hut. An old woman sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, drinking from
a carved cup. Dr. Silva motioned for him to sit on the floor in
front of her. Jacob slid down to his knees then positioned himself
to mirror the woman's cross-legged form. She handed him a
hollowed-out gourd containing a thick yellowish liquid.

"It's fermented manioc root. It's perfectly
safe. Please drink it," Dr. Silva whispered from the corner of the
hut.

He did. The thick, sour substance found its
way down his throat with some effort. His head began to swim a
little by the time he finished it and he couldn't tell if he was
slightly intoxicated by the stuff or just had indigestion.

From a clay pot at her side, the medicine
woman pulled a thick piece of braided rope. She lit the end and a
swirl of blue smoke wafted up to a hole in the roof. Around his
body, she circled the smoke, the heady perfume filling the hut. The
smell was sweet and musty; not unlike oak leaves burning. After
three times outlining him in fire and smoke, she stopped and placed
the burning rope in the pot.

With a tip of her head, she motioned for
Jacob to lie down on a mat of woven palms. He hadn't noticed it
before but it was just to his left. When he was positioned flat on
his back, she placed a rolled up animal skin beneath his head. Her
hands hovered above him, moving in a random series of quick bursts
and achingly slow pulls through the air. In a dance of ancient
movements she surrounded him until, after some time, she brought
her hands down within an inch of his face. The calloused brown skin
of her palms reminded him of dirt. Those earth hands passed over
him, close to his skin, once and again, never touching him but
skimming every inch of his body. They hovered over his shoulders,
his stomach, and down each leg. Finally, her fingertips settled
over his heart.

Through the smoke within the dimly lit hut,
he could see the lines in the old woman's face. They were like a
map of time. Her entire history and the history of her people were
carved into her skin. Her dark eyes shone like stars from within
leather folds: landmarks on the map of her life.

Her fingers began to pull air over his
chest. While he could clearly see that there was nothing in her
hands, she pretended to scoop some invisible substance, cupping it
in her palm before throwing it in the smoking pot near her knees.
After she had done this several times, the strangest thing
happened. He could feel something rising from his body. It came
from his toes, flowed through his fingertips and emerged through
his chest. She was pulling something out of him, something he
didn't want or need. He felt lighter than before, as if his body
might follow the smoke and float up from the mat toward the hole in
the roof.

When the medicine woman had finished, she
circled her hand over the bucket and dumped its contents out the
back door of the hut. She sat Jacob up, supporting his shoulders
and said something to him in her strange language.

"She says you are ready," Dr. Silva
translated. She took his hand and helped him up from the mat. When
he emerged from the hut, he was surprised to find night had settled
over the village and all the Achuar people were gathered for the
meal. He sat at the edge of a grand circle to the sound of monkeys
chattering and dogs barking. He had to remind himself he wasn't
dreaming as a woman brought him a carved bowl of snake meat and
something that looked like mashed potatoes.

"How long was I in there?" Jacob asked.

"A couple of hours," Dr. Silva
responded.

"Hours! It felt like minutes."

"She had to purify you for the ceremony.
Tonight you are Achuar. Notice how the children aren't bothering
you anymore. It's because they know what she's done. She has
blessed you as their own."

A shiver went down Jacob's back. "This is
easily the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."

"Hmph. Well, I suppose you're young."

Jacob cast a dark look in her direction.

"Did you like the Manioc beer?" Dr. Silva
asked, digging into her bowl.

"Not really," he replied, honestly.

"They boil the manioc root. The women chew
it and spit it into a cauldron. It ferments for several days before
they serve it. The people here drink gallons of it a day." Dr.
Silva smiled.

"That's completely disgusting…and probably
alcoholic. I'm a minor you know."

"Relax. It was boiled down. Perfectly
harmless to you or any other child."

Jacob's stomach twisted as he remembered the
drink. "Do me a favor and don't tell me what this is," he said,
pursing his lips and pointing at the pile of mush on the side of
his plate.

Dr. Silva laughed.

When the meal was complete, the medicine
woman positioned herself at the center of the circle. All of the
villagers, Dr. Silva and Jacob stood in a ring around her. She
drank from a brightly painted gourd and began to dance and spin. A
man began to play an instrument that sounded like a cross between a
harp and a tambourine. The other villagers began to dance, as did
Dr. Silva. Jacob followed along as best he could. The rhythm of the
music carried him, faster and faster, circling around the healer's
form. Abruptly, the dance stopped and Jacob plowed into Dr. Silva's
back.

The medicine woman fell to the ground,
twitching in the dirt.

The urge to run to her was overwhelming; it
looked like she was having a seizure or something. Jacob didn't
know how to help her but he took a step forward anyway. Before he
could break the circle, Dr. Silva grabbed his shoulder and pushed
him back into position. He shot her a dirty look but when he turned
back toward the center of the circle, the shaking had stopped. The
medicine woman sat bolt upright, her eyes forward, unseeing. Her
arm shot out and pointed at Jacob.

"This is it, Jacob," Dr. Silva whispered.
She moved toward the medicine woman.

Jacob wasn't sure if he should follow or
not. At her held up hand, he stayed where he was.

She crossed to the center of the circle and
squatted next to the old woman. Lowering her arm, the medicine
woman began to jabber words in the Achuar language. Dr. Silva's
expression warped. Her skin became an even whiter shade of ghostly
pale and she frowned at Jacob through a curtain of her white-blonde
hair. The flow of words ended abruptly and the medicine woman's
body fell limp to the dirt. Dr. Silva stood and returned to her
spot in the circle. Another Achuar woman ran to the healer's side
with a glass of manioc beer.

"What did she say?" Jacob asked, pulling at
Dr. Silva's arm.

Her eyes bore into him, that winter sky
stare colder than usual. Something about her face hardened, became
statuesque. "She said it is best that you consider your mother
dead."

"What does that mean? Is she dead?"