He was lying. He looked her straight in the eye. His expression didn't change, his handsome face carved with worry lines, his jaw and mouth firm, but he was lying.
"Oh, yes, you do," she retorted. "And you're going to tell me what it is, right now."
Gary sighed. "Just tell her, Jubal. Worst case, she'll just think we're as crazy as the porter."
"Honestly, we don't know for certain what's going on, but we have our suspicions. We've seen things like this happen before in other parts of the world." Jubal hesitated. "Do you believe in the existence of evil?"
"You mean like Satan, the devil?"
"Sort of, but I'm not talking about God and the angels."
Riley forced down her first reaction. Strange things happened in the Amazon. And her mother certainly had gifts that couldn't be explained. There was the trip to the Andes every five years and the ritual performed on the mountain. There were also rumors, the legends and myths handed down of a great evil having destroyed the Cloud People and then the Incas. Of course, no one believed it, but what if it was the truth?
"Yes," she admitted, "I believe in evil."
Jubal hesitated again. " I-we-suspect that something ancient is out here, an evil being that has the power to command the insects and to prey on our minds, to trick us into believing things that aren't true."
Riley instantly recalled her mother's agitated rambling about the evil trapped in the mountain. The two of them were traveling to the mountain to reseal it, to keep the volcano from exploding, and Annabel was worried about being late. Riley knew generations of women had come to this mountain, and the trip had been even more rigorous and dangerous in the past, yet they'd continued to travel to that same spot and perform the same ritual.
So could it possibly be true? Was there really something evil trapped in that mountain? Something the women of her family had been keeping contained for hundreds-possibly even thousands-of years? Riley shivered, pressing a hand to her knotted stomach.
"Why would this evil thing target my mother?"
"Clearly it considers your mother a threat to it in some way," Gary said.
"Something is happening. The evil in the mountain is deliberately trying to slow me down. It is close to the surface and is orchestrating accidents and illness." Riley shivered, remembering her mother's fearful warnings. She'd brushed them off as shock-induced ramblings, but now Riley wasn't so sure. Could it possibly be true?
Jubal shifted closer to her mother's hammock. Riley nearly leapt at him, but his body language exuded protection. He faced the forest, his body alert. She became aware of the silence then. The constant, never-ending drone of the insects had disappeared, leaving behind an eerie silence.
Instinctively Riley stepped close to her mother. Annabel writhed. Moaned. Sweat beaded on her body. Her hands rose and she began a complicated pattern of movement, a mesmerizing twisting of her fingers and hands, a conductor of a symphony, yet each flowing motion was precise and beautiful. Riley had seen those movements several times. Her own hands automatically followed the pattern, as if the memory was pressed into her bones rather than her mind. She made the effort to keep her arms down, but she couldn't stop her fingers and wrists from twisting with her mother's, or the flutter of graceful motion.
Her mother's body turned toward the east and Riley found herself facing the same direction. She could feel the flow of earth rising from beneath the soles of her feet, moving through her like the sap through the trees. A heart hammered, deep beneath the soil. She could feel her pulse syncing to that steady drumming beat. She felt grounded, roots spreading beneath her to find that beckoning life force deep in the earth.
She felt the individual plants, each of them with their own character and personality. Some poison, some antidotes. She recognized them as sisters and brothers. She felt them take root inside of her, spreading through her veins, into her internal organs, and wrapping around her very bones until her veins sang with the lifeblood of the rain forest.
Awareness of every living tree, shrub and plant nearby rose until it was absolutely acute. Heart and soul reached out to them and they reached back, feeding her courage and resilience, the earth her mother, willing to aid her at any turn. She felt a stain of evil spreading through the ground itself, seeking a target. But something else was there as well-something strong and brave. Predatory. Protective. Hers. Abruptly she pulled herself back.
Apparently, Jubal and Gary weren't far off with their assessment of the situation after all. This was no mass hallucination, but a carefully orchestrated plot to attack her mother, to delay her trip to the mountain and prevent her from carrying out the centuries-old ritual. Riley couldn't tell why, or what was in the mountain. She could only discern that it was desperate to get out, to survive, and it would use any means available to do so-including killing her mother.
So this was why her mother was so in tune with plants. She felt them, was connected to them, and not in some small way. Riley had never felt that connection before, and it occurred to her that some form of awareness and power was being transferred to her. That possibility only alarmed her all the more. Was her mother inadvertently doing something in her sleep to pass her knowledge on to her daughter, as she'd said each generation of their ancestors did before their deaths?
"What is she doing?" Jubal asked, curiosity in his voice. Curiosity and something else. Recognition, maybe?
Riley actually started, so caught up and absorbed by the myriad plants around her and the feeling of being almost transformed, mesmerized by the existence of such intense life all around her that she'd nearly forgotten there were witnesses to the ritual movements her mother performed up on the mountain. Both Jubal and Gary looked at her with far too much knowledge.
Riley shrugged, reluctant to explain her mother to anyone, although she felt as if the two men had earned an explanation-she just didn't have an adequate one.
"Have you seen these movements before?" Jubal asked. "The way she's moving her hands is almost ritualistic."
"Yes." Riley had been as honest as possible and felt they had been as well. Both were skirting around each other, reluctant to say something they couldn't take back.
"I've seen similar gestures in the Carpathian Mountains," Jubal admitted. "When we've worked in the remote parts of the mountains. Has your mother been there before? Does she have any ties to Romania or any of the countries the range goes through?"
Riley shook her head adamantly. "We've traveled to Europe once, but nowhere near the Carpathian Mountains. We mostly stay in South America. Mom's come here many times. Most of the women in my family were born here, my mother included. We're descendents of both the Cloud People as well as the Incas so my family has always had a huge interest in this part of the world. My mother was raised here and only went to the States when she met and married my father. He was from there."