Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except she was miles from home and walking toward a big tangerine.
A large shadow suddenly obscured the little remaining sun and she heard a soft dragging noise directly behind her. Turning around, she saw a wall of sweating gray matter about ten meters long and almost four meters high moving slowly in a circle from the left. At the front, she saw two small protrusions, bulbous and twisting gently, like soft feelers sticking up, ready to sense any danger. It was the slug tent. Standing transfixed at the wide slime trail it was leaving behind, a sudden movement caught her eye. Cries and shouts erupted from within, and the wet slug “skin” seemed as if it was being poked with something sharp within its belly. Suddenly, it was as if a lamp had been lit inside, and the “skin” became translucent. Pandy saw several people silhouetted inside, jumping over tables, pallets, and chairs and grabbing curved items hanging on the inner walls, all headed toward the back end. Pandy could see a rickety spiral staircase loaded with everyone trying to get up and out. A small flap opened on top of the slug and five older youths, their heads wrapped in large cloth turbans and wearing flowing robes, leaped out into the darkening night air. Each of them had a bluish glow, as if they were covered head to toe in a glittery blue powder.
“Shahriyar, front! You’re the main lookout tonight,” shouted one man in Arabic, waving an enormous curved sword.
“Sir!”
The man called Shahriyar, brandishing his own curved weapon, ran toward the head of the slug, settling himself between the two soft horns.
“Haifz, left. Wakim, right,” said the first man, obviously in charge. “Musa and I are rear.”
“Wise is Abdul-Rashid al Ahmed!” shouted the men as they took their places.
“Praise be, there will be no disturbances this night,” Musa said to Abdul-Rashid, seating themselves on the back end of the slug tent. “The performers are still a little . . . disturbed . . . by yesterday’s arrival of our ‘guests.’”
“If Wang Chun Lo is to be believed, and he always is,” began Abdul-Rashid, squinting in the last of the sunlight, “they are indeed simply three girls, a boy, and a white dog. Flesh and blood, nothing more. He announced this morning that he would hear their tale tonight. But he assures us all that there is absolutely nothing to fear.”
“Hello!” Pandy shouted up in flawless Arabic.
Musa screamed and Abdul-Rashid fell off the slug.
“Stay back!” cried Abdul-Rashid, leaping to his feet, then crashing backward on his bottom as his feet slipped on the shiny slime trail. “Back, I say!”
“I’m sorry,” said Pandy, instinctively moving forward to help and trying not to giggle.
“No!” cried Abdul-Rashid, “do not cross the trail! It is fully charged. A very strong current. You would be killed instantly! Even though you are a woman and therefore unimportant, you are still the guest of Wang Chun Lo.”
Pandy stopped laughing. Had she heard him clearly—unimportant?
“Then how can you stand . . . ?” Pandy pointed to his feet, covered in slime.
“We are the renowned Caliphs! ‘Channels of Earthly Displeasure.’ Night sentry for Wang Chun Lo. The slime is our creation,” Musa shouted. “You’ve heard of us, certainly!”
“No,” Pandy replied, “I haven’t.”
“Well, surely you have heard of Wang Chun Lo’s Caravan of Wonders in whatever mud hut village you live in,” scoffed Abdul-Rashid.
Pandy bristled slightly.
“I live in Athens,” she replied coolly. “It’s the center of the known world, and no, I’ve never heard of it.”
“Oh, Athens. Haifz?” cried Musa over his shoulder. “When do we play Athens?”
“Five weeks,” came the answer.
“Perhaps you’ll see a performance then?” said Musa.
“Somehow, I don’t think so,” said Pandy.
Suddenly, at Abdul-Rashid’s feet, there was a blue flash and a split-second buzzing ending with a tiny pop. He picked up a large blackened beetle that had crawled into the slime trail, now quite dead, smoke curling gently off its body. He examined the bug in the growing moonlight and, after inhaling deeply, took a serious bite off of one end.
“Ah, well,” sneered Abdul-Rashid, walking toward the rear end of the slug, chomping on the beetle. “The great ones where you come from obviously don’t think much of you to have kept our glory a secret. I would tell you all about us, but you’re only a woman and we’re on duty.”
“Look,” Pandy said, backing away from the slime trail. “I just wanted to say that we’re not—my friends and I—we’re not anything bad . . . we’re mortal. You know, just in case you were worried.”
Abdul-Rashid was attempting mad dashes up the slug’s slippery tail with Musa trying to pull his captain up.
“Worried?” he panted. “I laugh at you and what you say!”
“The feast is that way!” Musa shouted, finally pulling Abdul-Rashid on top but also accidentally plucking the turban off his captain’s head.
“Thank you. Um, sorry . . . again,” Pandy called. She turned around, but not before hearing Abdul-Rashid ranting that, now that a female other than his wife had seen his hair, he would naturally have to shave his head.
Passing several tents, Pandy realized that the tangerine tent was silent; the earlier chatter and laughter had ceased while she had been talking to the strange sentry. In a far corner of the tent there was a loud crash, then much shushing in many languages. Then silence again. But it was the kind of silence that occurs when hearts are beating, mouths are breathing, and ears are listening—very hard.
Pandy lifted the flap of the tangerine tent and crossed over the threshold.
The interior of the tent was a riotous jumble of intricate rugs, huge floor pillows, and silk swaths crisscrossing from one tent pole to another—all in every shade of orange imaginable. Everything was either completely or mostly orange, except for some of the wilder animal-skin pillows, the bronze oil lamps, and the low-slung wooden tables dotting the room.
People were sitting on single cushions or had stacked large bolsters to form long, low couches. The little tables were heavy with foods the likes of which Pandy had never seen.
But no one turned to look at her. Not Scylla or Charybdis, sitting together. Not even Usumacinta, who sat with a green parrot on one shoulder. No one even noticed she was there. Some people, their mouths full of food, had simply stopped chewing. Those who looked like they might be servants were standing with their arms full of steaming platters or dirty plates. Someone was in midpour of a tall teapot. Every so often a person in the crowd whispered a few words, but every eye was fixed on someone at the far end of the tent.
Someone with curly brown hair, two left feet, and a big, big mouth.
7:26 p.m.
“So that brings us up to . . . where? Figs. Oh, yeah. Okay, so we get off the dolphins and walk out into the desert. Of course, I wanted to head right to Alexandria, but Pandy needed to get her bearings and she was a little tired.”
Alcie had complete command of the room, speaking in perfect Cantonese, and she was talking fast. Seated like a sultana around a wooden table, she had Iole and Homer to her right and the old man and his ancient mother on her left. Homer was gaping at Alcie, his eyebrows knit together to form one long blond line across his forehead. Iole was sitting cross-legged on what looked like a large persimmon, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, staring out over the crowd with a look of abject mortification.
“And then . . . like . . . all of a sudden Pandy was gone. Just disappeared. Right, Iole?”
“Oh, Alcie, you’re doing such a wonderful job of telling this, you just go right ahead.” Then Iole lowered her voice. “You realize you’ve gone nuts, right?”
“Okay, anyway . . . Pandy is just
gone
. And naturally I’m thinking how do I—we—save her?”
Suddenly, Iole sat straight up.
“And
I’m
thinking,” Iole cried, “that we should let Pandy take it from here! Hey, Pandy!”
And all eyes turned toward Pandy standing at the entrance. No one moved for a long moment. Then, very slowly, someone began to clap. And someone else joined in. Soon the room was full of the sound of a rhythmic applause; not wild, but measured and enthusiastic.
“Well . . . sure,” said Alcie, realizing that she had totally lost her audience. “Now that she’s here. Of course. Pandy! Whoo-hoo!”
“Why were they clapping for me?” Pandy asked Iole in a low voice as she approached the table, the applause dying out.
“Because, believe it or not,” Iole whispered, “Alcie did a magnificent job of telling everyone how you undertook the quest all alone and how brave you’ve been. She recounted the whole story of the box and Zeus and Jealousy just as it happened. Then she started talking about the black whirlwind and the sea and the dolphins and suddenly it became all about her. I think she’s got river water on the brain. But that’s when you came in.”
“Why Cantonese?” Pandy asked.
“You were sleeping when Scylla and Charybdis gave Alcie and me a tour of the camp,” Iole answered. “It was a tour of the world. This is kind of a traveling circus and everyone in the troupe comes from someplace completely different. And we understood everyone! But Wang Chun Lo finally explained that most of these people have been with his caravan so long that his native Cantonese is the language almost everybody knows.”
“Ah! The last of our little fishes has jumped out of the river of sleep.”
Pandora turned and saw the old man standing before her, his hands thrust deep into the opposing sleeves of his deep orange robe, his black braid gathered in many loops at the back of his neck. He regarded her intently for a moment and she felt he was going to say something using only his mind as before.
“No, not tonight.” He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, his polished, jagged teeth catching the light of the lamps, his actual voice just as high and gravelly as she’d heard it in her head. “That tool is only used when I am suspicious and wish to probe the recesses of someone’s mind. For example, four young companions walking out of a cursed burial tomb. That’s a cause for suspicion, don’t you think? Now that I know who you are, it is unnecessary. However, that ability pales compared with what your friend says
you
are capable of, my dear Pandora.”
“Oh, well . . . Alcie probably just meant . . . ,” Pandy began.
A candied orange rind flew out of nowhere and hit the old man on his wrinkled cheek.
He did not turn around, but merely closed his eyes and sighed softly.
“Pandora,” he began, extending his left hand out toward the old woman, who was dressed in bright red and glaring from her perch on a high yellow pillow. “Allow me to present my most honored mother, Mai Fung Tan, second dynasty, ruler of the Hunan provinces, consort to Ang Li Fat—He Who Was Truth Bringer, Fire Breather, and Collector of Ladies’ Fans—first wife to Lee Hung Lee, third dynasty, He of the Small Ears, and fourth wife to Chan Kwong Lo, eighth dynasty, He Who Sleeps Much.”
“Bow,” whispered Iole.
“Bow!” Alcie repeated urgently. “We learned the hard way.”
The old woman clutched a handful of orange rinds menacingly. Pandy put on her most solemn face and bowed very low to the old woman, who remained motionless except for her twitching fingers.
“She is also an excellent fortune-teller and our biggest money maker,” the old man whispered. “I am Wang Chun Lo. You are most welcome. I trust you slept well?”
“Yes, thank you,” Pandy said.
“Splendid. And now, as your companions have done, you will eat and refresh yourself further and then perhaps you will finish your tale.”
He beckoned her toward a large, fluffy apricot-colored cushion. The subtlest flick of his forefinger called to a host of servants hovering nearby and seconds later the table was crowded with silver bowls, each holding something delectable. Large prawns and blackened walnuts glazed with honey. Asparagus tips and flat brown mushroom heads, steamed with a sauce that was slightly bitter but delicious—what she imagined salted cream would taste like. A whole fish was encrusted with a coarse seasoned salt that made the taste zing all over her tongue. Little light brown rolls, like tiny pillows—crunchy on the outside, yet warm and soft inside—were filled with many vegetables, some familiar, others unknown. Certain flavors were light and delicate, others very rich. Some dishes had odd textures, and others had one scent but a completely different taste. To drink, there was hot, sweet jasmine tea.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Wang Chun Lo said, observing Pandy silently devouring everything. “Since you make no sound, I assume that you are only eating to be polite.”
Pandy looked up, not realizing that she might be being rude.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It is customary in China to show pleasure with one’s food. Perhaps you do not like it? Shall I take it away and . . .”
“No!” Pandy said, throwing her arms out over the table. “I mean no, thank you . . . this is delicious. This is wonderful!”
“Then I am glad. I apologize that these are only the second-best dishes of my country,” Wang Chun Lo said. “My cook refuses to repeat himself from one night to the next, and as we expected you last night, naturally he prepared his specialties for you then. Water beetles in oyster sauce, caterpillars in dry mustard, shark fin and quail egg porridge. Ah, well . . . perhaps you shall have another opportunity to taste them.”