The Book of Dares for Lost Friends (23 page)

But what were the right things? What good were words? She thought of all the things people said to her. Why did people say, “Feel better”? Why didn't they know the darkness was all around?

“Why?” she blurted out.

“Why? Why ask why? There is no why. There is no reason. There's rhyme. Not reason. Rhyme and time and crime.” He waved his pink wand as if he were conducting a symphony. Val tried to slip away. He tightened his grip and pressed the point of the pink star against Val's neck.

“Why do you want gold?” Lanora said.

“Got-got-got get-get-get go-go-gold,” the man stuttered.

“What will you do when you get some? What will you buy?” Lanora took another step.

“Buy? Nothing! Can't go in a store. Shut me out. Kick me out. That's why I have to have gold. Gold gives me peace. Gold fills my mind. Gold makes the light.”

“Did you used to have it?” Lanora was closer now. She could see the man's eyes.

He leaned toward her to whisper. “The vermin nibbled it away.”

“That happened to me, too,” Lanora said.

“What kind of vermin you got?” the man said.

“Mice,” Lanora said.

“Mice? That's nothing. I got devils. I got demons. They fly around my head. What can you do with demons?” the man said.

“We have a bowl,” Val said.

“A bowl hole troll stole,” the man chanted.

“An incantation bowl,” Val said.

The man stopped. He turned Val so that he could see her face. “Where is it?”

Val hesitated, unsure of what to say.

“I saw that bowl. It's over there. In the grove. You'd better go get it.” Lanora pointed in the direction from where the man had come.

The man took a step. Then he stopped. He couldn't be tricked. “I been there. I didn't see a bowl. Besides. Don't want the bowl. Want gold.”

Then from a different part of the darkness, they heard a halting voice trying to speak. Or was it just the wind?

“Shhh,” the man said. He put the wand to his ear to listen.

“You are bound and sealed, all you … demons and devils.… By that powerful bond.…”

The man dragged Val toward the voice. Tasman came out of the eastern grove. He held the bowl against his chest.

“Who's that? Who's there?”

Tasman stopped just at the edge of the darkness.

The man squinted at Tasman. “Why do you have a bowl?”

Tasman held the bowl so that the opening was pointed toward the man. As he extended his arms, they trembled so much he seemed about to drop the bowl. But he clung to it.

The man released Val. The wand clattered to the bricks. He came closer and closer. Tasman tensed, but he didn't back away. The man pointed at the drawing of the demon at the bottom of the bowl. Then he took several steps back and hid his finger inside his robe. He squinted at Tasman. “Where did you get it?”

“My grandfather found it in the desert, near Nippur, Iraq,” Tasman said.

“Your grandfather? No! Not your grandfather. My father. This is what my father found,” the man said.

“Your father. My grandfather,” Tasman said.

The man nodded. “Tasman.”

“Yes,” Tasman said.

“No,” the poets murmured.

The man stared into the bowl. He moved his head in a circle so that his eyes followed the spiral of words until they descended to the demon at the center.

Then he yelped. The poets gasped.

“Why do you have it?” the man said.

“To bind the demons,” Tasman said.

The man laughed. He spun around and around.

“Stop,” Lanora said.

The man stopped.

“We need to finish our ceremony,” Lanora said.

The man shook his head. “Why? Would it help? Nothing helps. Nothing except gold. Got-got-got get-get-get go-go-gold.” He tried to grab Val again.

Lanora rushed over to stand between them. She looked the man in the eyes. “Maybe you didn't do it right.”

“Right right, wrong or right,” the man sang.

“Maybe you didn't have enough people.” Val stood beside Lanora.

“Maybe you forgot some of the words,” Helena said.

“Maybe you were too loud,” Tina said.

“Maybe you were too clever,” Gillian said

“Maybe you didn't speak from the heart,” Olivia said.

When they had all formed a circle around the man, Lanora said, “You'd better try again. Come on, Tasman.”

“Tas man, has plan, raz fan, jazz can,” the man said.

As he spewed his nonsense, Tasman slowly walked toward them. He hugged the bowl to his chest. He placed his cheek against its smooth surface. Then he sighed deeply. He held out the bowl. One by one, they all put their hands on its rim. Together they lifted it above the man's head.

“You are bound and sealed.” Tasman's voice was hesitant at first. “All you demons and devils. By that powerful bond.”

“No,” Lanora said. “By
this
powerful bond.”

Tasman looked at the man. The man tilted his head so that his hair fell away from his eyes. They stared at each other. Then they said together, “By
this
powerful bond.”

“You evil one,” the man shouted, “who causes the hearts of men to go astray, and appears in the dream of the night, and in the vision of the day.”

“You are conquered and sealed,” Tasman shouted, too.

“You demons and devils are trapped by this incantation in this bowl.”

The wind swept away the words and brought back a whisper from the trees. Then the bowl slowly began to rotate on the tips of their outstretched fingers.

Mau circled around their legs in the opposite direction.

The bowl stopped moving.

Mau cried out once. The clouds parted. The girls all let go of the bowl. Tasman and the man slowly lowered it all the way to the ground.

It sat on the plaza, upside down. The demons trapped underneath.

“Vanquished are the black arts,” the man said quietly.

“Vanquished are the mighty spells,” Tasman said.

“Tasman,” the man said.

Tasman nodded.

“Son,” the man said.

“Yes,” Tasman said.

“I'm sorry. Sorry I can't be. Sorry I'm not.”

“It's okay,” Tasman said. “I'm okay.” Tasman picked up the bowl. He took a deep breath. Then he handed it to the man. “Take it.”

The man blinked.

“Take the bowl. Bury it by the place where you dwell.”

The man sniffed the bowl. Then he raised it up above his head. He walked slowly down the stairs at the western edge of the plaza and disappeared into the night.

 

Thirty-eight

No one moved. The powerful bond held them. No one spoke. Not even the poets had words to describe what had happened—or what could happen next.

Then, from somewhere in the darker part of the park, they heard barking. They assumed it was a dog—until Mau, who wasn't afraid of anything, dashed away from the obelisk.

The spell had been broken. They all ran after the streak of black cat. They didn't stop to pick up the backpacks or the bag of food. They hurried away from the obelisk and the shadows, through tangled bushes, toward a large building on the eastern edge of the park. None of them recognized the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the back. Just north of the building, they discovered a neatly mowed lawn. They flung themselves onto the carpet of grass. The girls all sprawled close to one another. Tasman sat off by himself, with his head down and his arms locked around his knees.

They breathed deeply, as if for the first time since the man had grabbed Val by the neck.

Val sat up and coughed a little.

“Are you all right?” Lanora said.

The girls raised their heads to look at Val. Tasman shifted his position so he could see beneath his arm.

“Yes. I was just wondering. How will we get home?” Val said.

Lanora fell back onto the grass. She wasn't ready to start thinking about any aspect of the future, however near or far.

“That is the question,” Helena said.

“How to return?” Gillian said.

“Can we return?” Olivia said.

“Go back in time?” Tina said.

“No,” Val said.

“She's right. We can't undo what has been done. We have seen what we have seen, heard what we heard. The neurons of our brains have been irrevocably altered. It's foolish to pretend that we can forget the unforgettable, to return to a safe place. Why even try?” Tasman said.

“I mean,” Val interrupted him, “are we walking or taking the bus?”

The poets laughed. Helena hugged Val. “What would we do without our practical Val?”

“Does anyone have any money they could lend me?” Val said. “My metro card is in my backpack.”

“We could go get it,” Lanora said.

They all looked toward the park and quickly turned away. No one wanted to go back into that tangle of darkness—no matter how powerful the incantation had been.

“I guess we're walking.” Val jumped to her feet.

The others were slower to rise. Tasman didn't move at all.

Mau walked over to the building and sat on a ledge. Just barely visible beyond a wall of glass were limestone bricks and columns. An entire temple had been reconstructed inside this special wing of the museum.

“The Temple of Dendur,” Helena said.

“Who's Dendur?” Olivia said.

“Did he endure?” Gillian said.

“Or did he donate a lot of money to the museum?” Tina said.

“Dendur is a place. Or
was
a place.” Tasman pulled up tufts of grass and let them fall away from his hands.

“What happened?” Olivia was saddened by even the loss of an ancient city.

“They built the Aswan Dam. Dendur was overwhelmed by the waters of the mighty Nile. The Egyptians gave us this temple to thank us for saving some other temples from that man-made flood,” Tasman said.

Lanora felt Val look at her, like there was something she wanted to say. Lanora didn't want a speech of gratitude. She wouldn't have known how to respond. She got up and walked toward the street.

Val followed. “Is it shorter if we go north or south?”

Val smiled. Lanora smiled back. Because of course Val knew that Lanora would know the answer to this question. That was what was good about an old friend.

“The top of the park is twenty-nine blocks from here. The bottom is twenty-two,” Lanora said.

“She has not only saved Val, she has saved us fourteen blocks,” Tina said.

The poets joined Val and Lanora at the edge of Fifth Avenue. Tasman hadn't moved. Lanora wondered why Val didn't go get him. But maybe Val couldn't. So many things had happened after that kiss.

“Aren't you coming, Tasman?” Helena called.

“It's going to be a long walk,” Gillian said.

“We'll need the distraction of your knowledge of arcane architecture,” Tina said.

Tasman jumped up and ran past Val to walk with the poets. “Are you only interested in arcane architecture? Or will any alliteration do? How about archaic architecture?” Tasman pointed to the massive stone steps leading up to the museum.

“But it isn't useless. When the museum is open, the stairs are a destination,” Helena said.

No one sat there now. The sidewalk was deserted. A city bus stopped and waited, but they had to wave it away.

“Forty-four blocks plus the ones across the bottom of the park,” Olivia said.

“An epic journey,” Helena said.

“An Odyssey,” Gillian said.

“With Sirens,” Tina said, as the sounds of a distant ambulance wailed.

“Lash me to the mast,” Helena said.

“Ulysses was wrong to want to hear the singing of the maidens. He risked too much, and for what? Hearing that music probably drove him crazy because he knew he could never actually enjoy it,” Tasman said.

“Why not?” Val said.

“The ship sails on by.” Tasman ran ahead of them all.

Lanora walked silently beside Val. They were passing one of the places in the park where they used to play when they were little. Just over the wall was the pond where Stuart Little had bravely steered the toy boat to victory. Next to the pond were two statues. One was of Alice sitting on the magic mushroom. The other was of Hans Christian Andersen reading to the ugly duckling to let her know she would be beautiful in the end.

“So how did you get a cigar from my father?” Lanora said.

Val shrugged. “I asked him for it.”

“You're kidding.” Lanora couldn't believe it was that simple.

“Well, it was hard to get in to see him. But once I got past the guards, he was pretty cool.”

“Wow.” Lanora thought about this as she looked up and up and up at the buildings that bordered the park. Their glitter defied the night sky.

“Did he talk to you?” Val said.

Lanora nodded. “He said I don't have to go to Greywacke Academy if I don't want to.”

“So you won't be going away tomorrow? That's great!” Val hugged her.

Lanora stopped walking. “I don't know. I can't just go back to M.S. 10. So much has happened.”

The poets returned to where Lanora and Val stood.

“I guess it would be hard to go back,” Val said.

“So don't,” Helena said.

“Don't?” Val said.

“Go forward.” Gillian pointed with her arm.

“Go sideways.” Tina sashayed toward the curb.

“Go up.” Olivia climbed on a park bench.

The rest of the poets joined her. They pulled Lanora up with them. They laughed. They clung together even after they jumped down. It felt good to be surrounded by their silky robes as they continued on their way.

“Hey, I've fallen a little behind in math,” Lanora said to Helena.

“You're still way ahead of the rest,” Helena said. “But you can count upon me for whatever help I can give.”

“
Count
on you?” Lanora said.