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All I could hear was her breathing and then my own. It seemed she began to whisper something in a foreign tongue, though I didn't know what tongue it was.
"Merrick?" I asked gently. In the abrupt and welcome stillness, the air of the cave felt moist and sweetly cool. "Merrick," I said again, but I could not rouse her. She stood with the mask over her face, peering ahead of us, and then, with a surprising gesture, she ripped the thing away and gave it over to me.
"Take it, look through it," she whispered.
I shoved my flashlight through my belt loop, gave hers back to her, and took the mask in both hands. I remember those little gestures because they were so ordinary, and I didn't know yet what I thought about the stillness around us or the dimness in which we stood.
Far, far away was the greenery of the jungle, and everywhere above us and around us the coarse but beautiful mosaics glittered with their tiny bits of stone.
I lifted the mask as she had directed me. A swimming sensation overcame me. I took several steps backwards, but whatever else I did, I don't know. The mask remained in place and my hands remained on it, and all else had subtly changed.
The cave was full of flaring torches, there was the sound of someone chanting in a low and repetitive manner, and before me in the dimness there stood a figure, wavering as if he were not entirely solid, but rather made of silk, and left to the mercy of the scant draught from the entrance of the cave.
I could see his expression clearly, though not define it entirely or say what feature conspired in his young male face to evince what emotion or how. He was begging me in dumb eloquence to get out of the cave and to leave the mask behind.
"We can't take it," I said. Or rather I heard myself say this. The chanting grew louder. More shapes closed in around the one wavering but determined figure. It seemed he stretched out his arms to beseech me.
"We can't take it," I said again. His arms were a golden brown and covered with gorgeous stone bracelets. His face was oval and his eyes dark and quick. I saw tears on his cheeks.
"We can't take it," I said, and then I felt myself failing. "We must leave it. We must bring back the things that were taken before!"
An overwhelming sadness and grief swallowed me; I wanted to lie on the ground; so great was this emotion and so right was it that I felt it and expressed it with my entire form.
Yet no sooner had I hit the ground¡ªat least I think I did¡ªthan I was jerked upright, and the mask was ripped away. One moment I felt it in my fingers and against my face, and the next I felt nothing and saw nothing but the distant light flickering in the green leaves.
The figure was gone, the chanting had stopped, the grief was broken. Merrick was pulling me with all her strength:
"David, come on!" she said. "Come on!" She would not be denied.
And I myself felt an overwhelming desire to get out of the cave with her, and to take the mask; to steal this magic, this indescribable magic which had enabled me to see the spirits of the place with my own eyes. Boldly, wretchedly, without any excuse whatsoever, I reached down, without losing a pace, and caught up a handful of brilliant glinting stone artifacts from the thick moldering floor, stuffing them into my pockets as I went on.
We were in the open jungle in a matter of moments. We ignored the unseen hands that assailed us, the volleys of leaves, and the urgent cries of the howler monkeys, as though they'd joined in the assault. A slender banana tree crashed down into our path, and we moved over it, hacking the others that seemed to be bowing to strike us in the face.
We made remarkable time, moving through the hallway of the temple. We were almost running when we found the remnants of the trail. The spirits sent more of the banana trees flapping towards us. There was a rain of coconuts, which did not strike us. From time to time small pebbles came in a little gale.
But as we continued, the assault gradually fell away. At last there was nothing but a soundless howling. I was crazed. I was a perfect devil. I didn't care. She had the mask. She had the mask which enabled a person to see spirits. She had it. Oncle
Vervain hadn't been strong enough to get it, I knew it. And neither had been Cold Sandra nor Honey nor Matthew. The spirits had driven them out.
Silently, Merrick clutched the mask to her chest and kept going. Neither of us stopped, no matter how bad the ground under us, no matter how bad the heat, until we reached the jeep.
Only then did she open her backpack and put the mask inside of it. She threw the jeep into reverse, backed up into the jungles, turned the car around, and headed for Santa Cruz del Flores at a boisterous and furious speed.
I remained silent until we were alone together in our tent.
Chapter 15
15
MERRICK FLOPPED DOWN on her cot and for a moment did and said nothing. Then she reached for the bottle of Flor de Ca?a rum and drank a deep gulp.
I preferred water for the moment, and though we'd been driving for a considerable time, my heart was still pounding, and I felt my age miserably as I sat there trying to catch my breath.
Finally, when I started to say something about what we'd done and how we'd done it, when I raised my voice in an attempt to put things in some sort of perspective, Merrick gestured for me to be quiet.
Her face was flushed. She sat as if her heart too were giving her the worst, though I knew better, and then she took another sizable drink of her rum.
Her cheeks were blazing as she looked across at me as I sat on my cot facing her. Her face was wet with sweat.
