“What we care about you or your troublesome brother? You go up there, you don’t come back and we’ll be all the happier for it.”
Not too long ago smart words like that would’ve been enough to set Marina off to fighting. Back then she’d been all too willing to gnash her teeth and get a few swollen, bloody knuckles for the sake of preserving her dignity. Perhaps if she’d been more timid she would’ve come home to Lolo waiting for her.
A half a mile into Teki Khab she stood before the twisted arch of interlocked branches Mama Earth had seeded and birthed some thousand years ago. On the way up light had cut through the canopies undeterred by the greenery overhead up until reaching Mama’s Gate. The last time she’d been here Marina had been eight with not an ounce of protection upon her person. Things were different now though one thing remained unchanged.
Despite it only being twenty past nine beyond the archway most of the morning light was obfuscated. It was as if someone had layered black mosquito nets upon one another then hung them up high where only the birds could reach. The world beyond the gate stood in gauzy light appearing hazy. This was the real Teki Khab where the trees congregated in dense clusters with trunks thicker than the ones Marina had passed by on her way here. From where she stood she didn’t see a single tree dressed in bright hanging papers looped around bases and branches unlike the ones she currently stood amongst each rectangle bearing the surnames of families. Talismans and wards. There was a cluster of them that caught her attention however all dressed up with orange and yellow sheets with ivory and copper beads swinging from the tail-ends like ineffectual wind chimes. Marina read the names, recited the familial name of Zupayo then chewed into her cheek just enough to draw blood and spat on the one closest to her face. A talisman. She ripped free an orange ward and stored it inside her heavy pack.
“Oh you think them gods and ancestors that bless that family ain’t think about you? This your reckoning for all the evil you put up in this world and your brother wanted none of you. He gone to the city for good.”
They’d been chomping at the teeth to tell her that lie when she came back home and started asking about Lolo’s whereabouts, the mean spirits they were. She’d been treated like some devil that came into the town shaking its mischief in the face of good. Even with her temperament, not fit for a girl they said, Marina knew love and loved without conditions. Her mama was a healer after all and healing hands didn’t let the nasty fester in their house. In return Marina didn’t let it fester anywhere near Lolo no matter how ugly she had to be to keep that so. No amount of money, pretty estates or notable surnames would cull that instinct. Besides, why should any man get a sweet smile from her when he openly did wrong? As her mama had always said, turn your face from a problem and it will be up in your face the next time you blink.
On the right side of Mama’s Gate Marina laid out a large square of printed wax cloth, just one of many she made during her time at the woman’s detention center. Upon the wax cloth she set a clay vessel full of cooked rice atop of it uncovered. On the left she dug out a shallow hole with the end of a fallen branch and filled it with day-old chicken’s blood from the butcher. She might have had an impulsive streak but she wasn’t reckless especially after a hard lesson learned. You didn’t go traipsing up into Teki Khab with only a hope and a prayer if you knew what was good for you. And Marina did. With fistfuls of coarse salt she dusted her shoulders and knees before tying embroidered sachets filled with rosemary and rue around the necklace of cowrie shells Lolo had made her five years ago gifting it to her right before she boarded the bus that would take her to the detention center. She turned her back to the archway looking towards the path she’d come by then stepped backwards crossing over where the canopy grew thick overhead forming an insulating dome of leaves.
Just like the first time she’d gone into the real Teki Khab, Marina’s flesh broke out in a prickling sweat. Every bead burned like dry ice, micro cuts that had her gritting her teeth as the fuller shade from up above threatened to give her a head cold. But the worst part was the sensation of something getting lodged in her throat. First it was that stuck feeling when swallowing a pill dry but in a matter of seconds it grew into a fist. Marina was on her knees in an instant choking while fumbling for one of the bags on her necklace to inhale its contents. After a few more shuddering coughs she wiped her mouth and climbed back to her feet.
Lolo wasn’t a city boy, not with how sensitive he got about certain sounds so Marina never believed the insistence. She knew they weren’t going to tell her anything but what truly got to her were the ones who kept silent altogether while giving her knowing looks. That type of silence kept her up at night.
With every step further in Marina’s toes curled reflexively ready to bolt at any moment as the ground seemed to pulse against her arches, jumping into her nerve endings to travel along the nest of her nervous system until those pulses arrived and exploded in her brain. It sounded like a thunderclap or perhaps it was the snapping of a branch. Either way white spots danced in her vision and under a canopy that seemed intent on keeping out sunlight those spots blinded her. She stumbled across the ground, nearly rolling her ankle. She took a second, shut her eyes then opened them again to see the trees shift and lean in towards her before righting themselves once more. Neighbors trying to get a glimpse of the interloper so they could gossip through their roots to the ones that laid further ahead. It was almost as if she never stepped a foot outside the town.
As a child Marina had been taught to love nature and find peace in it yet Teki Khab brought her anything but. Forward on she minded her steps avoiding thick roots that broke up through the ground to spider out and then burrow back into the earth. She kept a lookout for the crawlies too. Lizards and snakes that could camouflage among the grass and trees. Intermittently the sun managed to break through the treetops sending light scattering and Marina would catch glimpses of something coiled up just on the edge of daylight. She felt as if she’d been thrown into a variation of red light, green light as she continued on. The coiled thing wasn’t always coiled though when she looked. It wasn’t just one either. When Marina looked over shoulder during another break of sunlight she distinctly saw the outlines of things too large to be a snake or lizard. Too large to be Lolo. Quickening her pace she decided to not look back anymore.
Somewhere overhead a bird whooped, the first bird call to pass through the trees since she stepped through Mama’s Gate. Marina froze on the spot, trembling fingers lifted and tightened around one of the sachets as she counted the seconds. On six another bird answered, a little shrilly thing but a bird nevertheless who soon broke out into a chatter of communication with the whooping one. She exhaled.
While Marina couldn’t track her progress largely due to the fact that one, she didn’t truly know where she was going and two, there wasn’t a single living soul who knew exactly how large Teki Khab was; she could at least take stock of time. She’d made an educated guess that she was only thirty minutes into her search but her watch told her otherwise. After looking then looking again it read an astounding 1:13pm.
That wasn’t right. It should have been ten o’clock, maybe 10:15am at the latest but this? Belatedly she remembered how the sun had started cutting through the leaves, beaming down directly as it would at noon. Had she truly lost over two hours and didn’t even realize it? She knew that beyond Mama’s Gate Teki Khan did as it pleased but her waking nonstop was nonsensical. Aside from the initial excitement caused by the bird calls she was hardly winded, never mind the fact that she had yet to feel the beginning signs of ache in her legs.
Another look at her watch showed that it was now 1:14pm. Time seemed to flow properly once again as the second hand made its slow trip around the circular face. Out of caution Marina slipped her bag from her shoulders to retrieve the jug of chicken’s blood. She dug out another shallow hole sparing furtive glances behind her every now and again. Under the shade the blood shone black bubbling along the surface before she covered it with dirt urging herself to not think about the implications of such a reaction. A cursory glance around had her spying a branch low enough to reach and so with one loop and then another around the branch she secured a string of aluminum chimes tacking extra sachets to both ends of the knots. Afterwards she repeated her ritual with the salt before throwing a fistful towards her left and right then behind her. Her watch read 1:26pm when she finished.
Marina had gone on for another thirty minutes before a terrible pain lanced up her side. A bad stitch that shouldn’t have come with her leisured pace but it did and knocked the wind out of her. With no other choice she stopped her trek to rest, settling at the foot of a solid tree that she could lean back into comfortably. It should have been a moment to relax. A chance to take in the beauty of Mama Earth’s splendor yet all she could think about was how Teki Khab was silent. Dead silent. For a moment she’d thought she’d gone deaf until the snapping of a branch echoed out from the direction she’d come from followed by chimes. Scrambling around the other side of the tree Marina started counting.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
A horrific shrieking tore through the silence. And then another. Each becoming louder than the first. Marina bolted, feet pounding frantically across the dirt reverberating up into her skull until she realized it wasn’t her footsteps she was hearing.
“Little gazelle, what you doin’ runnin’ straight like that?” her mama’s voice chided her, cutting through the noise of the blood rushing in her ears. “Mr. Crocodile will have you in his belly with all them other babies he done gobbled up all in a row.”
With a sharp veer to the right Marina dove in and out between trees praying that the bit of sun that still managed to illuminate the forest enough would hold lest she go crashing headfirst into a tree. The shriek rang out again and she shifted, zigged and zagged then burst through a mess of boxthorn. In her haste she never saw the drop. Not until it was too late and by then she was already pitching forward, pain bursting across the whole of her ankle as gravity did its work and pulled her down.
The world was dark when Marina came to, her body aching but not broken as she laid sprawled face fist in fertile soil. Above her, all around her, things shuffled and grunted, wild beasts waking up and likely sniffing her out down in the pit she’d fallen into. Thankfully her bag was still with her and with blind groping she found her lantern still intact.
Click.
White artificial light burned her eyes as they adjusted for her to take full stock of her surroundings. Near pitch black earth, all manners of root systems running through the dirt wall of the pit and beneath her as well. She started when she saw the bones though. Nothing completely whole but bones all the same, big enough that she couldn’t be too sure if they were animal or human. She thought of the note that had been slipped beneath her door just a few weeks after she’d come back to town.
It was supposed to be you but they got too fearful so took your brother into Teki Khab to give him over to the Duwak instead. I saw them chase him out there through Mama’s Gate with no blessings or wards on him.
The thought that these bones could be Lolo’s had her retching, emptying her guts of that morning’s breakfast. Her body quaked as she heaved. This was her fault all because she’d been vengeful. But after what the mayor’s son had done to her brother she’d be a fool to do nothing. She didn’t even smile when word reached her that he’d left town in shame after he healed from the beating she gave him. To her he’d gotten off lightly if only because she couldn’t bring herself to do what he’d done to Lolo. She hadn’t regretted anything aside from not being released sooner.
Outside of the pit the whooping birds bellowed their call almost violently though Marina was certain it wasn’t birds at all. The call sounded like a man with phlegm in the throat in its efforts of mimicry. Holding her lantern up she saw the shadows undulating around the pit’s edge as if they were trying to get a good look at her. In return Marina hurled salt in their direction making them yip in pain before the stench of burnt flesh came downwind and made her retreat. With an educated guess of her current location and what direction she needed to be heading in she shuffled over bones and thick roots, navigating to the opposite side of the pit on a swollen ankle and negotiated her way upwards with the help of sturdy vines. Her hands were raw by the time she pulled herself up and over the edge panting. Righting herself she caught a glimpse of a monstrous tree in the near distance.
The Duwak’s Tree.
Another scream cut through the night but this time it came ahead of her. A familiar voice, the wailing of her brother begging for help.
Re-energized, Marina lurched forward biting back the urge to cry as she put weight upon her ankle. There definitely had been a break and not a sprain as she’d initially thought but with her brother crying like that she had to keep going.
“Lolo, I’m coming,” she shouted, hoping her voice would calm him.
Sweeping light across her path Marina got a good view of the tree. The thing was massive, ash colored with way too many branches to be possible. Each one bore strange white hanging sacs, like overgrown, human sized fruits. No. Not fruit. Marina could see the impression of a hand distending the side of one of them. They had probably been chased out here too. Made to run until the Duwak snatched them up for supper.
Lolo was against the trunk, curled into a fetal position with thick strands of silk blanketing his half-clothed bruised body but not encasing him. A sob tore from Marina’s throat at the state of him. He laid in the dirt bawling, his hands pink and fleshy from burns he’d have for the rest of his life pressed to his face so that he didn’t see her approach even as she called his name. She was about to bend down and touch him when a mass of black tendrils fell from overhead hovering above her and her brother. Lifting the lantern revealed it was hair before what it was connected to.
A giant black head no smaller than an elephant’s skull broke through the cluster of white branches and red leaves. With as many eyes as it had teeth, each eye blinking in slow intervals closing one after the other and opening in the same manner it peered down at her. A clawed hand the size of a toddler attached to a gangly arm came down the trunk of the tree on one side then another on the other until both wide palms settled in the dirt on either side of Lolo’s quivering body. Instinctively Marina threw herself over him.
“Don’t you touch him,” she hissed, though it came out more as a dry croak. Hardly threatening.
The Duwak’s laugh shook the leaves, hot breath cascaded down bathing both Marina and her brother until her face became damp.
“What I look like hurting and biting into him, huh? He no do me wrong and the stink he got don’t come from him. You should already be knowin’ that,” the Duwak spoke in a soft rumble, all honey and sticky. Its head pushed closer as two more arms came down but remained hugging the tree. The rest of it stayed out of view where the light of Marina’s lantern couldn’t reach. The pupils dilated not unlike a cat as it grinned. “Oh I see, you don’t be rememberin’ me but I be rememberin’ you, Marina.”
The voice did something to her head, made it funny like she was floating. She hugged Lolo tighter, rubbing his back and head to soothe the tremors that continued to run through him as his sobs subsided into sniffling.
“I know what you are, Beast of Teki Khab. You sup on the bodies of those unfortunate to come across you and put their souls in your belly until you good and ready to use them,” she said through an emerging stutter.
The grin remained on the Duwak’s face. “Then why you pity me all that time ago? Brought me sustenance off the trees and bushes to throw them down that hole I saved you from falling into.” The Duwak shook its head black hair swinging back and forth as it leaned in closer until its face hung just above hers. “I never supped on you, child. So tell me, you don’t remember me?’
Out of all the lessons that Marina had been taught to learn growing up her mama made sure knew the rules for when it came to dealing with devils, spirits and anything else that was decidedly not human. You told them no lies.
“I ain’t know it was you,” she said. “I only heard your voice though you do speak true. You helped me out of Teki Khab, taught me what to do if I ever came back here. But you lie, you did eat from me.” She took her right hand away from where it laid upon her brother and held it up to show the remaining nub of her ring finger.
“Ah but you gave me that, cut it from your hand with a sharp rock and threw it down to me,” the Duwak argued. “I showed you my thanks the same way I show it to you now.” One of the hands on the ground lifted to point a bony digit at Lolo. “I kept him safe from the mukmuks that would eat him.”
Marina looked to her brother, checked over him then grabbed his scarred hands to peer into his face. He was delirious but otherwise unharmed.
“Me for him,” she said without thinking. She’d gladly lop off her arm if it meant getting Lolo home safely. Out of town and somewhere he could live free.
The Duwak for its part looked insulted as it huffed, its breath steamed into the air obscuring the world around them like fog before slowly dissipating.
“What I done say, hm? He no do me wrong and you no do me wrong. I don’t want you. Give me something else,” it demanded.
Marina nearly yelled at it that she had nothing else to give until she remembered the tree just outside of Mama’s Gate. The orange paper with the ivory and copper beads. Sliding her pack off her shoulders Marina retrieved the crumpled ward. She smoothed out the wrinkles across her thigh until the name ‘Zupayo’ was once more legible.
“My mama told me stories about you, how you were born when a trickster man cheated Mama Earth into being his wife for a full year. He made her make his soils rich and fertile and his fruits fat and prosperous,” Marina said. “Then when she gave birth to you he threw you into Teki Khab under an ash tree and wrapped the woods outside of Mama’s Gate with wards so you couldn’t get out and put your vengeance upon he while he took more wives and sowed human sons and daughters who he taught his ugly trickster ways. Zupayo.” She thrust the orange paper upwards under the many eyes of the Duwak. “A Zupayo burned my brother for fun and so I beat him with all the anger I had. And when I was locked away his family tried to do me harm again by chasing Lolo out here for you to eat. You want something then I’ll give you the Zupayos. I’ve already cursed one of their talismans before I crossed over with Mama Earth’s blessing. You let my brother go and I’ll tear down the rest of them and set you free.”
Silently the Duwak hung there staring down into Marina’s face before it reached its hand out towards the orange paper only to recoil with a snarl as if burned. In the many eyes she saw outright contempt though in the lantern light she thought she saw the faint flickering of hope as it spoke again, this time in a child’s voice.
“Show me you mean true,” it said.
Marina did. She bit the inside of her cheek once more then coated the surface of the ward with pink saliva before folding it over itself once then twice and for a third time. She held it up again and when the Duwak reached forward nothing happened. Whatever aegis had been there was no more, struck null and void by the fury in Marina’s heart.
A joyous laughter burst from the Duwak before it rapidly descended from the tree. The bulbous head with its curtain of dark locks swayed as the Beast of Teki Khab dismounted, four of its hands slapped onto the ground while the other two plucked the neutralized ward from Marina’s hand and tore it to pieces, swallowing them after. Its naked torso shuddered with excited exhalations that shook down to the spider-like abdomen that sat fat bottomed and proud boasting two large spinnerets.
The Duwak lowered itself as if it might pounce and met Marina at eye level.
“When the sun rises I will take you both upon my back and together we will leave Teki Khab,” it declared before it spun her a blanket of silk then climbed back up the tree disappearing among the red leaves and ashen limbs.
In the morning the Duwak kept its word, it trundled across the forest floor carrying Marina and Lolo until they stood at Mama’s Gate. Lolo, for all his fright, had recovered enough where he had no trouble following Marina’s lead in dismantling the Zupayo wards. He didn’t have the hate in him unlike his sister and so she did all the cursing of the talismans on her own. When orange and yellow papers littered the ground the Duwak with a tune on its lips stepped beneath the archway and made its way to town.
