The Shadow Mask Page 17

  It was a plant of some sort, at least ten inches tall, shaped like a cylinder with an opening at its top. It looked like a jug — except for the spikes running along its back. Inside it was filled with a reddish liquid.

  “A Venus flytrap!” I said.

  “Not quite. It eats bugs like a Venus flytrap, but it’s a pitcher plant. A Nepenthes. If we’re really lucky …”

  She trailed off and picked up a long leaf from the ground, carefully lowering it into the mouth of the Nepenthes, her mouth open in concentration. Her eyes lit up. “Yes,” she whispered, and brought the leaf out, slowly raising it to her face. “Look, Leo. Come closer.”

  I leaned over to her, almost cheek to cheek, so close I could feel the warmth of her skin. I looked down into the leaf, and there I saw a tiny shape, a green speck no bigger than a pencil tip. I looked even closer, and I saw an eye.

  “You see it? It’s a tiny frog,” she whispered. “They spend their lives inside the pitcher plants — from eggs to tadpoles to full-grown, like this little guy.”

  I put out my finger and hovered it over the frog, unsure of what to do.

  “Here,” she said, and grabbed my hand, guiding my finger to the leaf. I let my finger slide down toward the tiny green speck with eyes. When it was within an inch or so, the little guy jumped, seemed to disappear for a moment, then I saw it just below my fingernail.

  It croaked.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, feeling my heart beat fast after I said it. She smiled at me, a full fantastic smile, and when she looked at me, I felt myself drift dreamily into her eyes.

  We put the tiny frog back, watched him settle down into the safety of the Nepenthes flower, and felt the warmth of the sun breaking through the clouds. I felt like I could stay in that spot forever, but I knew I couldn’t.

  “We better get back to camp,” I said after a while, and she nodded.

  Hollis was lying in bed in our tent, with Dr. Reed watching him. She explained that he might be reacting to the malaria tablets, or have a minor flu bug. Diana gave him wildflowers, and I offered to stay with him so the girls could get ready for dinner.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said to Hollis after they’d left. “They say you’re A-OK.”

  He stared at me with his dead animal eyes, all wrapped in blankets. “I feel hot.”

  “Keep the covers off if you’re hot.”

  “Then the mosquitoes will bite me.”

  I knew what he was feeling. When you get stuck in a worry mode, everything seems bleak. To distract him, I told him about the tiny frog Diana and I had seen. Just describing it made me smile. But not Hollis.

  At dinnertime, I brought him some sticky rice and river fish, but he didn’t touch it.

  “Try to sleep,” I said to him, but his eyes remained open. I thought about singing him Brahms’s Lullaby, but I can’t sing a lick. Poor Hollis, he just tossed and turned and scratched at his bite. It took hours, but eventually he fell asleep, and I guess, so did I.

  I woke up on my own just before sunrise, yawned, and rolled over to check on him.

  “Hey, chief,” I whispered. “You feeling better?”

  But there was nothing in his bed except a pile of sheets. My brother was gone.

  I bolted from our tent. The minute I stepped outside everything felt wrong. The camp was entirely silent. The porters were gone — no one going about their morning chores or cooking breakfast or loading up the longboats like usual. The campsite felt abandoned. Even Diana was gone — her sleeping bag was all rolled up like she’d never slept in it. It was just like that morning back in Brooklyn when Crane had split us up, that eerie feeling that I’d just chucked my wallet down a storm drain and lost something important. And what was more important than Hollis?

  “Hollis,” I called out. “Where are you?”

  I made for Dr. Reed’s hammock, breaking into a run halfway there.

  “Oh, you’re up early, Leo.” She yawned and fumbled for her glasses.

  “Have you seen Hollis?” I asked, trying to control the panic in my voice.

  “No, Leo,” she said. “He’s not with you?”

  “No. Where are all the porters?”

  “I assume at the Pomantong Cave. It’s about a mile inland. It’s a small cave that houses the bones and relics from many of their ancestors and legendary chiefs. They likely went to pay their respects.”

  “I bet Hollis went there.”

  “Oh no, Leo, they would never allow that. It’s a very sacred tribal place. No outsiders would ever be allowed.” She sat up and rested her bare feet on the ground. “So Hollis really isn’t with you?”

  “Maybe he’s with Diana, then.”

  “I don’t think so. She just left to take a bath and wash her hair in the river. Give me a second and I’ll —”

  “Is she up this way?” I said, pointing upriver and starting to run.

  “No, no, no, Leo. I’ll check on Diana. Let me get my shoes on and I’ll help you.”

  But I couldn’t wait any longer. The panic had set in. I dashed around camp like a crazy man, calling Hollis’s name louder and louder. Crane stuck his head out of his tent, his eyes bloodshot and his expression furious.

  “Modulate your voice, Leo.”

  “Hollis is missing.”

  “I’m well aware of that now,” he said bitterly. “He may be a child, but he’s not deaf. You boys cannot seem to follow directions. You were both told not to leave the campsite for any reason. Now I’ll have to organize the porters into a search party. That should set us back several hours.”

  “They’re all gone,” I shrieked. “They’re visiting some cave.”

  “I’ll send Klevko, then. And Dmitri. Really, Leo, you must lower your voice.”

  “They’re also gone,” a voice said from inside a nearby tent. It was Mr. Singh.

  “Somebody has to do something,” I said, stomping my foot. “For all we know, Hollis could be lost in the jungle. Or attacked by an orangutan. Or collapsed somewhere, burning up with malaria.”

  “Such drama, Leo,” Crane sighed, stepping outside, somehow fully dressed. “Someone wake that lazy ox, Haga. It’s time he stopped spouting off about shrews and did something useful.”

  “He is gone as well, Mr. Rathbone,” Mr. Singh said, stepping out of his tent with a yellowed book he’d obviously been studying tucked under his arm. He leaned on his knobby old cane.

  “Now where the devil has he disappeared to?” Crane was bright red with frustration.

  “He told me last night he was going to the sacred cave with the others,” Dr. Reed said, rushing over in her hiking boots and rain poncho. “It’s bad luck to pass here and not bring gifts to the spirits of the elders.”

  “Superstitious nonsense,” Crane fumed. “I pay these fools to work for me, not to run off to caves for voodoo rituals.”

  Dr. Reed waved her finger at Crane.

  “You have no right to make fun of their traditions,” she yelled at him. “They believe their gifts will help a beloved ancestor live more happily in the afterlife. And who are you to mock that?”

  “Dr. Reed,” I interrupted. “Does Hollis know about the cave, the traditions?”

  “Why, yes,” she answered. “I told him all about the Pomantong Cave while you were chasing frogs with Diana. He seemed especially interested in the sacred jars.”

  “Sacred jars?” Crane snorted. “I believe I’ve heard more than enough.”

  “Yes, Leo,” she said, ignoring Crane. “People in Borneo have special jars, family heirlooms passed down for centuries. Some legends say that if you put your ear right next to one of those jars, you can hear the dead ancestors talking in soft, low voices.”

  “How do I get to the cave?” I asked her, my feet burning to take off running.

  “That trail leads to it,” she said, pointing to a small trail that snaked into the jungle canopy. “But as I told you, Leo, you shouldn’t —”

  I didn’t wait for the rest of her answer, just grabbed her by the s
leeve and pulled her onto the path leading from camp.

  “Leo, I forbid you to go there,” Crane said. “I can’t risk you —”

  But by the time he’d finished his sentence, I was too far away to hear it.

  After our parents’ deaths, Hollis had asked a lot of questions about what happens to you after you die. Jeremy tried to suggest answers. The counselors at school gave him pamphlets to read. But the questions persisted — and why wouldn’t they? Our parents had never been found. Where were they? It was a haunting, horrible thought. I knew if Hollis thought there was even a remote chance that a visit to Pomantong Cave might give our parents a happier time in the afterlife, he’d give it a try.

  Dr. Reed trailed after me as I raced down the path, pushing away spiky branches and leaves. I had no idea where it led, only that I was moving deeper and deeper into the rain forest. The fear I felt for Hollis pumped me full of so much adrenaline, I was practically flying. My breath came short and shallow. My calves burned. I let my hands touch everything I passed, hoping to sound bend Hollis’s voice. But I heard nothing, just my blood pumping in my ears.

  After I had run for about ten minutes, I heard footsteps coming my way. It was Dr. Haga, accompanied by Tamon Dong and four other porters. Each of them had a patch of black soot on their foreheads. One had tears streaming down his face, and the others looked visibly shaken. My heart skipped a beat. Had something horrible happened to Hollis?

  “Dr. Haga, where’s Hollis?” I panted. “Is he with you?

  He shook his head. “We have come from Pomantong, Leo. A terrible thing has happened there. The cave has been looted and the sacred jars are broken. Only shards are left … and bones.”

  Dr. Reed had caught up to us, and I looked to her for an explanation of those black sooty marks.

  Dr. Haga spoke in a trembling voice, his usual detached teacherlike manner all but gone. “With the disruption of the funeral site, the ghosts of the dead have scattered. They are now toh, free-floating nature spirits. The toh care little for humans. The porters wear the black marks to disguise themselves from the toh.”

  “When was the cave broken into?” Dr. Reed asked.

  “Within the last two months, but we did not stay to examine it,” Dr. Haga answered. “It is a very bad omen. We must hurry away.”

  “Can you show us the way?” I asked Dr. Haga. “I think Hollis may be there.”

  “We did not see him, Leo. And I suggest you keep away. But if you must go, follow the path until you dead-end at the giant stone ridge, then go right. The cave is not far from there.”

  Dr. Reed and I raced down the path for another five minutes, the longest five minutes of my life. The jungle was thick around me, but I could see the stone cliff just ahead of us.

  “Leo, stop,” Dr. Reed whispered sharply. “Listen.”

  From deep inside the thicket, I heard a wailing that sounded like a human baby.

  “Orangutan,” Dr. Reed whispered. “Sounds like a juvenile. We have to be very careful, Leo. You don’t ever want to get between a baby and its mother.”

  “But what if Hollis did? What if …”

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence or wait any longer. In a panic, I tore away from Dr. Reed toward the stone wall ahead, with no other thought than to find my brother. How I wished I could hear his voice. What good did it do to have a power if I couldn’t use it to protect Hollis?

  I reached the stone wall towering above me, trees overhanging and clinging to the cliffs, and ran along it until I saw two rows of poles stuck into the ground. Each pole was topped with a carved wooden head. Some were painted, others decorated in feathers. The two rows framed the entrance to the cave, a small dark opening about fifteen feet up the rock face. I climbed, my hands scraping and tearing until I could poke my head into the darkness.

  “Hollis,” I called in a loud whisper. “Are you in there?”

  There was no answer and my heart sank.

  “Bro?” My voice trembled.

  “Leo? Is that you?” His voice sounded so small coming from inside the cavern.

  I pulled myself all the way up and into the opening, just in time to see Hollis step out of the shadows, his face streaked with tears. On his forehead, he wore a patch of soot, just like the porters, and in his hand, he held a shard of one of the old sacred jars. Inside the cave, I could just barely make out scattered bones.

  “I brought them instruments,” he said, running to me and bursting into tears. “I brought Dad a drum and Mom a flute. I thought they’d like that.”

  I held on to him as he cried on my shoulder. I didn’t say anything, just held on to him while his body shook with tight little sobs.

  “I wanted to talk with Mom,” he said between gasps. “But the jars were already broken. And there were bones all over. The porters were screaming and crying.”

  “That sounds really scary,” I said. “But you’re safe now.”

  “I thought maybe I could hear her voice,” he sobbed. “One last time.”

  I held him tight. Dr. Reed joined us and tried to comfort Hollis, but she sensed we needed to be alone, the two of us, so she left to wait for us on the path. I don’t know how long we stood there at the entrance to the cave. After a while, Hollis’s sobs subsided, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out a slightly used tissue. It was all I had.

  “No thanks,” he said, half laughing and half crying. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and as he did, the shard of pottery dropped to the ground. I bent down to pick it up. As soon as I touched it, a shock ran through my body and my powers activated with full force. I went into a sound trance — not the peaceful kind with the lapping waves, but the black, inky wormhole one, dark and threatening. My ears filled with sound — wailing cries of mourners followed by shattering sounds of objects being smashed to smithereens. Then came the voices.

  “No, don’t bother with the beads, Dmitri. They are worth nothing.”

  “Look, Ojciec. A gold one!”

  “Yes, take that one.”

  “Are we going to tell the boss?” I heard Dmitri’s voice say.

  “No! This is for us. Tell no one. Not even Matka.”

  I think I screamed and dropped the shard in the dirt, and as I did, the voices disappeared.

  “What was it, Leo?” Hollis asked. “What did you hear?”

  “Grave robbers,” I said, coming to my senses.

  “Were they evil spirits, Leo?”

  “No, just people,” I said. “Regular, selfish people.”

  When we got back to camp, I wasn’t surprised to see Klevko and Dmitri already there, seamlessly blending in with everyone else — but I knew better. I didn’t have to wonder why Dmitri always kept two hands on his duffel bag, guarding it closely until his boat had pushed off into the water. From what I could tell, Klevko and Dmitri hadn’t been the first ones to loot the grave site, but they’d felt no shame in scavenging for scraps. Maybe if they’d heard what I heard, they might have felt differently.

  Hollis had heard it all. He’d woken up early and followed the porters to the site, desperate for some sort of closure, hoping to hear any sort of message, any sort of scrap of Mom and Dad. And when the porters entered the cave, Hollis heard them screaming and sobbing in pain — he just thought they were mourning, so he went up afterward. That’s when he saw the smashed jars, the overturned coffins, the bones.

  As he boarded the boat for our day on the river, he still wore that black sooty mark on his forehead, and kept that awful squinty look on his face all day. The porters were morose and silent. The mood was dark — Hollis didn’t even play his drums. I felt terrible for him. The worst thing about grief is that any little thing can trigger it, anything at all, and once it’s back in the open, it’s like you have to go through the whole thing all over again — the disbelief, the anger, the loss, until you’re left with an empty feeling so immense that you can’t imagine how you’d kept all that grief inside you.

  As we motored rapidly up the
Kayan, I tried to cheer Hollis up by pointing out the amazing natural sights we were seeing. Old trees that looked like bent human forms. River snakes that slithered in the muddy ooze. Birds of all sizes and shapes, in every vivid color of the rainbow. And every now and then, I’d catch a glance of Diana and remember the little frog and how I said, “It’s beautiful,” and stared dreamily into her eyes. My brain told me to feel really embarrassed about feeling all mushy inside, but I wasn’t embarrassed.

  The fork was only a day and a half away — Crane hoped to reach it by noon the next day. That’s when Diana would go her way, and I’d go mine. And who knew when we’d see each other next, if ever?

  All day long, we motored up the river until the sun began to set to the west of us. As we pulled to the embankment and climbed off the boat, Tamon Dong stopped us and held up a thin silver necklace with a tiny heart-shaped locket. I recognized it was Diana’s and said I’d give it back to her. As I took it, my hands felt drawn to the locket and I heard the pre-echoes of a deep sound-bender trance. But before I succumbed to its spell, I was able to slip the necklace into my pocket. After all, it’s not nice to pry open someone’s locket.

  Diana and Dr. Reed stayed by the fire with Hollis as the porters fished out our dinner and set up camp. We had camped near a giant cave, and at twilight, about a million bats flew over the campsite, so many of them the sky went completely dark. They were fruit bats, Dr. Haga explained, and it was dinnertime for them, too.

  Dr. Reed felt Hollis’s forehead and said she thought his fever was gone, but he still wasn’t hungry. Before he got in bed, he fished around in his duffel and pulled out the watermelon crystal necklace that had belonged to our mom. Holding it in his hand, he flopped down on the bed and stayed silent for a long time. I just lay on my bed next to him.

  “Today sucked,” he said after about an hour of silence.

  “At least you’re not feeling sick anymore, right? It must help to know that you don’t have malaria.”

  “Guess so,” he muttered, opening his hand to look at the crystal. “They say some crystals have healing powers. Do you believe that, Leo?”