Pandora Gets Vain (Pandora (Hardback)) (14 page)
And forty-seven mouths opened in unison to let out the most terrifying scream.
6:47 p.m.
Only one person actually threw something, as far as Pandy could tell in all the confusion and noise. A candied orange rind, aimed with no precision whatsoever, caught Pandy on the left side of her face, right on the spot where the golden shrapnel teardrop was embedded under her eye, causing it to bleed again for a few seconds.
But the ancient Chinese woman who threw it was now fleeing off the terrace and down onto the desert, along with almost everybody else.
Seconds later, the terrace of the temple was empty.
Pandy, Alcie, Iole, and Homer ran to the edge and stared down.
“Wait! Please,” cried Pandy, stepping forward, listening to the panicked cries and whispers below.
In a split second, Pandy took in the entire scene: men, women, youths, maidens, a few children, and one woman clutching an infant. None of them bore any resemblance to each other, or to any people Pandy had ever seen in her life, dressed in clothing of bizarre cuts and mismatched colors.
“Who are they?” asked Alcie, quietly.
“They’re the people you said wouldn’t be around to mess with us,” said Iole.
“Hello. My name is . . . ,” Pandy began, but her voice trailed off.
A soft jangling sound began from somewhere in the crowd. Pandy could see nothing for a second, then people began to make way for a solitary figure moving steadily through the group. Something about the gait was masculine, yet the person was dressed in a long, dark robe a woman would use when visiting the baths, and a single braid of black hair looped over both shoulders. The face was impossible to read through the wrinkles. In each hand the figure held a ribbon with coins or small metal discs sewn onto it, softly shaking them with every step. Dido gave one short bark then promptly hid behind Pandy’s legs.
“What sort of spirit are you?” the figure asked in high-pitched Cantonese, slowly ascending the steps to the terrace.
“I’m not a spirit,” she immediately replied, pausing in her mind to roll around the short, sharp sounds of the Chinese language she’d just uttered. “Gods,” Pandy thought. Drinking the ashes of Calchas not only allowed her to speak any language, but also since Calchas knew
what
each language was, that information must now be passed on to her!
“It’s Chinese,” Pandy heard Iole say to Alcie.
“Duh!”
The sun, hanging very low in the sky, had begun to create shadows all over the terrace and the desert below.
“Then which among you is the spirit?”
“What do you mean?” Pandy replied, now certain that the figure was an incredibly old man.
“I will banish the spirit you brought forth from the tomb, but it’s been some time since I have been troubled by such foolishness and I do not want to choose the wrong one. Tell me, which is the spirit and what sort?”
As he spoke, he moved into the fading sunlight. Pandy had never seen such a face: hundreds of fine wrinkles covered every centimeter. The nose was so small as to almost not be there and the mouth had somehow been pinched so tight that the lips had disappeared. Pandy couldn’t see the mouth move when he spoke.
“Tell me quickly, before the spirit jumps into one of my people.”
Then Pandy realized his mouth wasn’t moving at all.
As she hesitated, thinking her brain was extremely tired, the man began to jangle the coins much louder.
“I see you will not tell me. Selfish, selfish. Very well, little fish, I will banish you all to the Yangtze River and all souls will share in the exile of the evil one!”
The man opened his mouth, revealing teeth that had been filed into sharp points, and inhaled a huge breath.
Alcie stepped forward, standing directly in front of the old man.
“You’re not banishing anyone, anywhere—especially Pandy! If you try it, you’re gonna have to go through me!” she cried in Cantonese.
“Wait!” shouted Pandy. “None of us are evil. I just told you, we’re not spirits!”
The man ceased his jangling, turning his head to look at each of the group.
“You came from beneath the temple,” he thought-said.
“How’s he doing that?” Alcie asked over her shoulder, still confronting the man.
“No idea,” Iole said.
Pandy instantly realized the problem.
“Okay, okay, I know we came out of there,” Pandy said, pointing to the entrance to the burial chamber. “But I was only in there because I fell through a trap in the desert. And they”—she gestured to Alcie, Iole, and Homer—“were only there because they came in to find me. We are not part of the curse of this temple. We’re just trying to get to Alexandria, sir. And we got a little . . . lost.”
“Sir,” said Alcie, backing away.
“That’s correct, sir,” said Iole.
“Sir,” said Alcie again.
The man simply looked at them for several minutes. Then he looked at the entrance to the burial chamber, then out toward the Nile, then back to his people, who had remained silent the entire time.
“Our animals are tired,” he began, his mouth not moving at all. “And I’m tired. And my mother is very tired. You’re lucky we stopped. We shall find you sleeping quarters and you are welcome to eat with us in the main tent, but don’t go poking your noses into anything else, little fishes.”
He turned and descended the steps leading down to the desert. Suddenly, the ancient Chinese woman raced past him, her voice raised in a yell, ready to hurl handfuls of candied orange rinds.
“Mother!” the man looked at the old woman. “Calm yourself. Put the oranges back into the reading jar.”
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Tell Ng to prepare something out of the ordinary. We’re having little fishes for our evening meal.”
His laughter could be heard as he walked into the desert, followed by the old woman who, craning her neck, never took her eyes off of Pandy, Homer, Alcie, Iole, and Dido.
7:00 p.m. (exactly)
“Alcie,” Iole said, “that’s a couple of times now you’ve put yourself between one of us and something dangerous.”
“Right,” Alcie replied, moving toward the terrace steps. “And your point would be? Pom-OH-granates! Great Apollo!”
Pandy, Iole, and Homer joined Alcie standing on the top step, transfixed by the sight below.
In the shadow of the temple, a dozen or so large tents had been erected in what could only have been a few hours. They were arranged in a circle around several large black wagons and a very crude makeshift corral holding many odd-looking animals: abnormally large horses, goats with horns twice their own body length, beasts that resembled both horses and dogs at once with big humps on their backs, several cages full of enormous cats of varying bright colors, one cage holding a red snake, two cages full of hummingbirds, and one empty cage of ornately carved ivory.
Now that any danger had obviously passed, people ran, strolled, and sat between the tents; many gazed warily at the group still on the temple terrace.
But it was the tents themselves that were most intriguing, and even though night was swiftly falling, Pandy could see everything clearly because lamps were being lit, illuminating everything from within.
Each tent was a different color and shape, but nothing so common as red or yellow, square or round. One tent looked just like a pistachio nut, another had all the intricate shadings of a fresh peach and resembled a floor pillow, including gigantic tassels at each corner; still another, shaped like a staircase, was the color of a blue sky at sunrise: clouds, rays of sun, and all. One tent, in the form and coloring of a mountain, had smoke, ash, and sparks—and a delicious aroma—billowing up and out of a hole in its top. Pandy saw tents shaped like a jar, a human foot, a head of garlic, and a pink and white seashell. And one, almost invisible in the growing dark, was in the shape and color of . . . a slug. She also thought this last one might actually be moving.
Pandy could tell immediately which tent belonged to the old man, not only because she saw him enter it, but because it was by far the largest and brightest; a giant tangerine tent with several crimson and lemon-colored banners fluttering high above each, bearing the initials WCL in beautiful Chinese calligraphy.
As they descended to the desert, a young girl, perhaps three or four years older than Pandy, wearing a headdress of brilliant feathery plumes approached the group.
“Why do they have to stay in
my
tent?” Pandy heard the girl mutter as she drew closer.
She stared at Pandy with her brown almond-shaped eyes.
“I know you little girls can’t understand me . . . ,” she began haughtily in her native Mayan.
“Every word,” said Pandy.
The girl stopped short, her mouth open. A full five seconds later, during which Alcie just grinned at her, she began again in a slightly softer tone.
“I am called Usumacinta, for the great river of my people, and I descend directly from the Wizard of the Fatal Laugh, first of the created and formed men. You will all share my tent tonight . . . except for you,” she said, looking to Homer. “You will sleep at the opening to protect your women.”
She turned her back and strode across the campsite toward the blue, purple, and white tent shaped like the head of garlic.
Pandy was looking at Alcie.
“Nope,” Alcie said. “I’m too tired to have anything to say to that. But I’m thinking a few things.”
“Doesn’t she want to know who we are?” asked Pandy, following in Usumacinta’s footsteps.
“We’re not dangerous. I don’t think she or her people could care in the slightest,” Iole said.
“Everyone seems to have ‘people,’ ” Homer mused.
“We have ‘people,’ ” said Iole.
“Right now, we have us,” said Pandy.
As they passed groups of people all talking at once about them, so many different languages came rushing in upon Pandy’s head that it began to throb. As they reached the entrance to Usumacinta’s tent, they each were slightly glassy-eyed from processing so many new sounds.
“Homer, could you keep Dido out here?” Pandy said. “We’ll stow our stuff and then we’ll go to the main tent for evening meal.”
“Like . . . take your time.”
He dropped to the ground, resting against one of the tent’s support poles. No one noticed his eyelids slamming shut or heard the beginnings of a soft snore.
“By the way, there’s one group of people speaking Abyssinian that think we’re gods,” said Iole, stepping into the tent.
“Yeah, well two hairy guys speaking a Norse dialect want us hung by our toes,” said Pandy.
“So it evens out,” said Alcie.
The tent was much roomier inside than it had appeared. It was filled with ornate, blocky wooden carvings, simple brass oil lamps, a metal rack from which hung several heavy-looking feathered dresses, and about ten large green birds perched on a carved wooden tree. A huge hammock had been strung from one support pole to another, heavily laden with silk and cotton cushions. Three sleeping pallets were being hastily made up by two of the most grotesque creatures Pandy had ever seen. One had a mouth that covered the entire bottom half of her face and was making a sort of sucking sound, and the other had two extra bumps on her shoulders, almost like two extra necks, and a mouth full of three separate rows of teeth.
“Thank you, Scylla. Thank you, Charybdis,” said Usumacinta, in halting, broken Greek. The two women finished and stood up, nodding their heads furiously, but as neither of them spoke Mayan, Scylla started making wide, scrubbing gestures, sending Alcie into hysterics, and Charybdis began a little dance, uttering a few words.
“Wait!” Pandy cried. “We’re Greek!”
The conversation that followed (they decided to escort the girls to the bathing tent the following morning) took only a few seconds and left Usumacinta completely bewildered. Scylla and Charybdis left, chattering away about “such nice Greek girls.” Pandy chose a sleeping pallet and stowed her pouch and water-skin underneath. She hesitated a moment before unlacing her sandals and removing her mother’s silver girdle, pausing as she undid the clasps. How much older she felt with the girdle on! Now looking at it lying on the pallet, Pandy felt just a twinge of her own inadequate thirteen-year-old self again. All at once, her heart gave an involuntary shudder—she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to see her mother again. Because, she realized, taking in a sharp breath of fear, she couldn’t exactly recall her mother’s face. Then, suddenly, she felt nothing but tired.
“Hey, guys, I’m just gonna lie down and shut my eyes for a sec . . . ,” she began, turning around to the others. Usumacinta was standing in the middle of her tent, looking back and forth between Alcie and Iole, both passed out cold on their pallets.
Smiling, Pandy told herself she would wake them in a few moments when she roused herself, then she lay down, closing her eyes.