Chapter Eight #3
He looked over at where Angélica and her father were arguing about something on the fancy tablet, which was now in Juan’s hands.
He pointed at something off to the right in the trees.
Angélica shook her head, frowned at the tablet screen, and then back at the forest. Meanwhile, Fernel had his hat off, his copper-colored hair glinting in the sunlight as he swatted at something flying around his head.
Angélica glanced toward their visitor right as Fernel swung again, more wildly, and tripped over something in the grass—probably a damned tree root hidden by the jungle litter.
Fernel’s hat went flying as he helicoptered drunkenly for several seconds, which was just enough time for Angélica to race over and catch him by the arm before he hit the dirt.
She steadied him, stuck his hat back on his head, and then returned to her father.
“Okay, I have one,” Quint said, his gaze still on Angélica, who now had her hands planted on her hips as she stared in the direction her father was pointing once again.
He guessed that there was something deeper in the trees Juan wanted to see, but Angélica had another location she’d rather check out first.
“Will we run into trouble here at Site 5?” he asked Daisy.
“Better not tell you now,” she said after a few hum-filled beats. Her voice sounded a bit croaky, like she had a cold.
“Oh, nice and cryptic, Daisy 8-Ball.”
Quint focused back on his rock companion. Her smile was gone, replaced by a vertically lined upper lip. She had her eyes squeezed tight, too. Her whole face appeared to be frozen in the midst of slight pain. She must really be getting into her fortune teller role now.
“Will anyone get hurt?” he asked Madame 8-Ball.
“Without a doubt,” she answered immediately without a single hum of thought.
“That doesn’t sound good.” He looked over at Angélica again and started to ask Daisy who, but then remembered the questions needed to be of the yes or no sort. “Will we—”
“There are too many whispers here, keyme,” Daisy interrupted.
He did a double-take. What had Daisy just called him? It had sounded like key-me.
“Can you hear them?” she asked. Her head tipped jerkily one way and then the other, looking like a bird, especially with the way her short silver hair tufted up here and there around her head.
Quint paused, listening, playing along. He heard the murmurs in Spanish from Fernando and Raul, the machete swish-swish coming from Bronko and KuTu, and Fernel’s somewhat nasally voice as he talked about the data points used on his LIDAR map.
Beyond the people sounds, Quint noticed the buzzes of many bugs and tweets of birds all around them.
Plus his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
“I hear many things, Daisy 8-Ball, but none of them are whispers.”
“The ancestors speak to their guardian. They talk of death.” Daisy lifted her face to the sun, her eyes visibly roving behind her closed lids. She drew in a slow breath, her nostrils flaring. “Can you smell that?”
Quint sniffed. “Smell what? All I smell is a jungle—dirt, decay, and the sickly sweet odor of something flowering nearby.” He couldn’t see any flowers on this side of the wall, though. The scent of the jungle always sort of reminded him of the inside of a greenhouse on a hot summer day.
“Death.” She leaned closer. “Smeared all over you.”
Quint raised his brow. “Say what now?”
She fell against his shoulder, her cheek sliding down his upper arm. “He must not be left,” she mumbled.
He grabbed her, holding her steady so she didn’t fall any further. “Daisy, are you okay?”
“Never alone,” she said.
“Daisy, open your eyes.”
She did as told, recoiling in the bright light as she stared at him, her gaze clear. “What happened? Did I faint again?”
“Maybe.” He still held her by the arms. “What do you mean ‘again’? Did you faint recently? Is there something going on with you physically that we should know about?”
“No, I’m fine, according to my doctor. I had a quick checkup done before coming back down here.” She pulled away slowly, sitting upright on her own. “And I haven’t experienced a blackout since …” She frowned. “Not since the last dig site, when …”
When Marianne channeled through her, he finished in his thoughts. Or rather, Marianne’s ghost.
He glanced around at the others, but nobody seemed to be paying attention to them.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m sorry to worry you, Quint.”
“Don’t be sorry. Are you feeling dizzy right now? Maybe you need to drink more water.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been very careful about hydrating enough since arriving.
” Clearing her throat, she gave him a wry smile.
“I was having fun with our little game and … I don’t know, it was like I started seeing colors of the rainbow in my head.
They were so vivid. So beautiful. I sort of got lost in the colors and forgot what we were doing. Does that make any sense?”
No, none at all. But he didn’t want to make Daisy uneasy, so he smiled and answered, “Rainbows are a sign of hope, so yeah, I guess. I mean, you were just telling me during our game that we would figure out the role of this site and maybe find a king or shaman in the process. It makes sense you meditated a rainbow of hope while thinking these things.”
She hit him with a one-eyed squint. “Did you just pull that out of your ass, Junior Mint?”
He laughed. Juan was certainly making that nickname known. “Maybe, but it sounded good, right?”
“You are a sign of hope, dear boy.” She stood and stretched. “Now, how about you and I go look for some goodies hidden away in the rocks while the head honchos finish their argument about a course for our immediate future.” Her smile was back as she held out her hand to help him up.
“You go on ahead, but be careful.”
“I’m fine, Quint, I promise.”
“Good. I’ll be right behind you. I just want to add one more thing in my notes about the site.”
She left with a smile on her face, back to her old happy self.
He watched Daisy step carefully through the rubble, stopping to bend over and talk to a bright green lizard sunning itself on a large chunk of limestone. “Well, aren’t you just adorable,” he heard her say.
Grabbing his notebook, he flipped to where he’d left off.
So, was that Marianne talking to him through Daisy again? Angélica was wearing her mother’s locket every day, just as Marianne’s ghost had instructed her to do at the last dig site.
He brushed a gnat off the page of his notebook, leaving a small streak behind.
If it was Angélica’s mom doing the channeling, what was that business about the ancestors whispering to a guardian? And what in the hell was a guardian? A shaman? A king?
Taking up his pencil, he jotted down a question to ask Angélica later when they were alone:
Who in the hell is Key-me?