“Stupid people believe that bear cures everything,” Mother put in. “Diabetes, stomach pain, weak heart, limp penis …”
“A black bear gallbladder goes for about forty-five thousand dollars on the black market,” I said.
Jim repeated, “Forty-five grand?”
I nodded. “When your family is sick or your equipment stops working, people get desperate. Especially ignorant white people—they think mystical ‘Oriental’ medicine will cure all their ills.”
I refilled our cups. “A black bear’s gallbladder is expensive. A bear shapeshifter’s gallbladder is worth even more. Williams shot Jarod on purpose. He wanted his organs. They found silver bullets hidden in his campsite.”
“Poachers think that if the bear dies in pain, his gallbladder will get bigger.” My mother grimaced.
Jim’s eyes sparked with green. “They shot the boy with regular bullets to torture him before they killed him.”
“Yes. Once all this stuff came out on the stand, everybody got involved.” I waved my arms. “The marshals, the FBI, the GBI. Williams even got in trouble with the post office because the idiot used the mail to ship some animal parts down to Atlanta. He went down in flames.”
“And our family got blacklisted with the poachers forever and ever and ever,” my mother said. “That’s why Dali can’t go into the Underground. A black bear is a valuable animal, but you know what’s better?”
My mother got up, went to the cabinet, and pulled a folded paper out. Oh no. Not again.
“A tiger!” My mother slapped the paper in front of Jim. On it a stylized tiger curved his back in a garishly bright watercolor. Arrows pointed to different parts of the tiger’s body, each marked with a label: brain to cure laziness and acne, blood to cure weak constitution and gain power, teeth for breathing problems and venereal diseases, whiskers to help with the toothache …
Jim stared at it. His eyes went completely green, glowing with barely restrained violence.
“They will kill her,” he growled.
“If she’s lucky, they will kill her.” Mother crossed her arms.
Jim looked at her.
“White tiger, powerful magic. She heals very fast. They’ll put her in a cage and harvest her parts over and over. She’ll be their organ factory. We’ve heard of such things happening. She can’t go.”
Jim’s face was terrible. When Curran was angry, he roared. Jim never roared. Jim did this … this horrible stone-faced thing, where the only indication of life on his face were his eyes. They were hard and furious and full of icy calculation. He scared me when he looked like that. My throat closed up, and I just wanted to sit in the corner and be small.
Today I didn’t have that luxury. The anxiety sat in my chest. I swallowed. Come on, blind girl. You can do it. “We need the snail, Mother. He will die without it.”
“There has to be another way,” Jim said.
I shook my head.
“Then I’ll get it myself,” Jim said.
“Ha! Keong Emas is not some black bear. It’s very rare. They won’t sell it to you,” Mother said.
I met Jim’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. You can’t show up there with an entourage of shapeshifters and force them to sell you the snail. You can’t buy the snail yourself, because they won’t sell to you.”
Jim opened his mouth.
“No, you can’t get a different shapeshifter to go get it, because the snail looks ordinary, until someone with enough magic touches it, and I’m the only one I can think of with that much magic, besides Kate, and Kate is hobbling around with a cane at the moment, so she can’t go either. And no, you have no choice, Jim, because there is no other way.”
Jim’s eyes sparked.
“That won’t work either. Even if you put me under guard, I will still get out,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter how many people you attach to me, I will curse my way out if I have to. I won’t sit here and watch you die.”
He snarled. I showed him my teeth.
A rolled-up newspaper landed on my head and then on Jim’s. “None of that in my house!”
Oh my gods. The alpha of Clan Cat just got smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. “Mom!”
She pointed at me with the newspaper. “Do not shame me.”
I clamped my mouth shut. When she pulled out the shame card, it was all over.
My mother stared at Jim. “You will go with her tomorrow, when the market opens. You will bring my daughter back to me, unharmed, do you hear? And you better be worth it.”
Jim held her gaze.
If he struck at my mother, I’d strike him back.
Jim opened his mouth.
I tensed until it hurt.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Oh phew. Dodged the bullet. Not that I thought he would really strike at my mother, but you just never know.
“Take him outside, to the tree,” my mother said. “And keep him awake until morning. He falls asleep, he dies.”
*
THE TREE GREW in the inner yard formed by the backs of two houses on one side and a sturdy stone wall on the others. A long twisty pond took up half of the yard. Pink lotus blossoms and yellow lilies thrust from the dark water, flanked by the round leaves. In the middle of the pound, a statue of Lakshmi rose, surrounded by shrinking violets in orange glazed pots and linked to the shore by dark stepping-stones. Philodendrons bordered the pond, fighting for space with bamboo and ferns. Gold bird of paradise plants bloomed here and there. To the left a bunut tree rose with a small teak bench beside it. A bucket and ladle waited by the trunk.
I led Jim to the bench. “Sit here.”
He sat.
I dipped the bucket into the pond, set it between us, and sat on the low stone wall of a flower bed.
He looked around. “It’s a nice garden.”
I nodded. “I like it. It quiet and beautiful. Most Indonesians are Muslim, but we’re Hindu. A place for meditation is important to us. The tree you’re sitting under came from the seed of a very special holy tree in Bali, the Bunut Bolog tree. It’s a type of fig. The Bunut Bolog tree is so large and so powerful that it is like a forest by itself. It has a hole at its base, and the hole is so wide, there is a two-lane road running through it.”
“Why did they build a road through the sacred tree?” Jim asked.
“It was too dangerous to go around it because of the cliffs. They thought about cutting the tree down, but the spirits of the tree’s guardians refused to allow it, so they just had to make the best of it. It’s not wise to piss off the tree’s guardians. They are ferocious.”