Meadowview Acres (18 page)

The moment Bug had mentioned the box Professor Monroe’s mouth had opened in shock. Then he bowed his head and slowly shook it from side to side. Bug thought he was crying. She was about to apologize again when he said, “No. I had prayed that this would never happen. How? How did it get discovered?”

Shasta moved slowly forward into the room as she spoke. “Our friends were in the woods around a construction site. A developer is building a new subdivision and some bulldozers had been clearing the site. One of the bulldozers unearthed the box. The man driving that rig died from a brain hemorrhage. Or else, that’s what they’re calling it. Anyway, our friends had found the box and brought it home. We don’t know the details, but one of the guy’s sister died, and then Bug here watched another boy on the street choke to death while he was holding the rock.”

“Holding the rock!” The professor was stunned. “What do you mean “holding the rock”? No one should ever be in contact with the artifact! Where is it now?” As upset as he was, not once did he rise out of his chair or look at them directly. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair.

“We know our friends still have it, but we’re not sure what their plan is. They know that there’s something about it, but we don’t think they know the full story. That’s why we’re here. As soon as you tell us what we can do, we’re going straight over to see them.”

The professor seemed to weaken. He motioned them over to the sofa under the lush painting. “Have a seat, please. I’m going to tell you everything I know from the beginning. It may take a while. Then maybe you can help solve this catastrophe that I created.”

Bug and Shasta settled in on the comfy couch and listened to the professor recall how it had begun.

He had been teaching his Histories, Legends and Myths class at the college when he had come across a book about a tiny island called Shaali and a tribe of people who inhabited that island. They were known as the Varuupi. The Varuupi had one of the most intricate practices of dark magic and curses that he had ever encountered. One legend in particular had impressed him so much that he had decided to take a few years off from teaching and go to the island in search of material for a book.

Getting to Tahiti was easy. Going from Tahiti to a smaller island called Banno was a little more difficult, but manageable. Getting from Banno to Shaali proved to be almost impossible. The natives who chartered planes or boats between the islands wouldn’t touch the island of Shaali. They believed the island itself to be cursed. Finally, Monroe had found one captain who would take him. It helped that the captain was not a native, and Monroe had plenty of cash to persuade him. They set off the next day.

Monroe had asked the captain to wait for six hours, so he could explore the tiny island and take pictures. The captain had agreed, and Monroe had set off. There was nothing remarkable at first, just overgrown vegetation and a few odd animals in the trees, but then he had come across what looked to be the site of an ancient people. He could still make out the dwellings arranged in a circle around a large pit that could only have been for fire. On the outskirts of the settlement was a graveyard. Rocks had been placed in rectangles, row upon row. In the middle of each rectangle was a different totem. Some carved from wood; some etched in stone. Monroe had felt a little uneasy being alone there bearing witness to an extinct people. He was getting ready to leave, when he saw what he had been looking for all along. A tomb made of a large slab of rock was at the very end of the gravesite.

Professor Monroe took hundreds of pictures chronicling every detail of the site and the dwellings. When he was leaving, he returned to the tomb. A small chunk of the slab had broken off and lay on the ground beside the tomb. Professor Monroe picked it up and stowed it away in his backpack. He remembered feeling as if the earth had shifted a little under his feet.

“I chalked it up to not eating and the intense heat of the island. That wasn’t what it turned out to be.”

The girls had been breathlessly listening to his story. They knew what was to come. They had seen a picture of this man in nineteen sixty-eight, before he left for the island. The man sitting before them was a shell. His white cotton shirt was barely concealing the bony frame underneath. His hair was snow white and sparse. He was in his mid-seventies but looked much older. They listened as he continued.

He took a big breath and said, “I made it back to the boat after only four hours. The captain was glad to see me but acting very strangely. Just minutes after we set off for Banno, it happened. The captain started screaming. He was clawing at his eyes and screaming in some language I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what to do to help. I tried to talk to him, to comfort him in some way. I kept asking what I could do, but he just kept speaking in that same strange language. I was looking for a rope. I thought, if I could restrain him, I could get us back to Banno and get help there. I had just found the rope and turned back to him when I heard the splash. I was frantic. I looked over the side of the boat and couldn’t see him. He wasn’t anywhere. Looking for him, I went from side to side, but he just wasn’t there. Not knowing what to do, I cut the boat’s engine. I just sat there waiting for him, looking for him. But there was nothing. He never resurfaced. Finally, about three hours later it was getting dark. I knew I’d never find my way back to Banno in the dark, so I started the boat and followed the coordinates back. It was dark when I made it to port. I shored up the vessel and left the keys in the engine. I was exhausted, but I was able to find a native to try to explain what had happened. I thought someone should know. I recognized the guy from that morning; he had helped us to shove off. I remember walking toward him, and his expression changed as I got closer. I was about to speak to him when he started to yell. I recognized the word he was yelling at me. It was the native word for “Demon”. He ran away from me. I barely made it back to my room and collapsed on the bed. The next morning, when I woke and went into the bathroom, I saw myself in the reflection. My hair had turned completely white. I didn’t recognize myself.”

He stopped and took some deep breaths. Shasta could tell that this was tiring him out, mentally as well as physically. She felt sorry for him, but they needed to know the rest. “Is that when you found the
Tritoria
to bring you here?” she asked.

His head came up suddenly as if he had forgotten the girls were there. “Yes, I went back to Tahiti the next day and was able to book passage on the
Tritoria
. I wish to God I hadn’t, though. At that point I still hadn’t thought that the captain from Banno’s death was anything but coincidence. And my appearance? Well, stress maybe. I didn’t really start to believe in the curse until we had almost made it back to the states. The ship was hell. Men were dying every day. And I, not knowing it was my fault. I thought it was some type of jungle fever like everyone else. But then something just clicked and I knew. It was the curse of Varuupi. I thought I had found the answer when I found the metal box on board and put the rock in there. I wrote a letter, even put in instructions and money in case something happened to me. Then I chained it with as many chains as I could find and kept it under the bed in my cabin. There were no deaths for three days. I thought that had solved it, until the day we docked in Glovercroft.”

Bug chimed in. “That’s how we found you. We followed the string of deaths from the docks to outside Hallston. We followed your path.”

“I remember how glad the crew was to be rid of me. They were almost pushing me off of the ship. They knew. They knew I had been cursed somehow. Then, that nice boy at the docks. I had put my luggage down along with the metal box and was turning to give the deck hand some money. It was all I could do for them. When I turned back, that young man had picked up my luggage, the box too, and was headed down the plank. I ran after him and grabbed my things. I thought he was alright. He was alive when I left him. I was still under the impression that the box was containing the curse. My plan was to go all the way through Hallston and bury it deep in the woods. There were so many miles of woods between Hallston and Chester back then. I never would have imagined that it could have been uncovered. Then, at the bus stop, I put my suitcase down beside me but held onto the box. I remember it was down at my side and a lady was standing very close to me. I switched hands to get it further away from her. When the bus came I got on and went to the very back. I put my luggage in the seat in front of me, so, I could put more distance in between myself and the other passengers. We were about to pull away from the bus stop when the commotion started with Ms. Littrell. She was the lady standing so close to me. I knew. I knew at that point that I had to get as far away from people as I could. I was beside myself that whole bus ride. Everyone on the bus was fine, though, which gave me another false sense of confidence.”

Bug shifted in her seat and Professor Monroe cocked his head in their direction. Shasta thought that Monroe was very peculiar, but she couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

“Getting off the bus in Hallston gave me hope. From there I just needed to find a car and drive as far away from town as possible. I was starting to feel pretty weak at that point. Having been cursed for that long was taking its toll. It was a wonder I was still alive at all. The curse seemed to affect people differently, and I had some kind of tolerance.”

“How did you get Mr. Bell’s car?” asked Shasta.

“He was too close to all of us getting off the bus. You know the kind? Always wanting to be first to get on? Crowding up too close to the people who haven’t even gotten off yet? He was one of those. I suppose his tolerance to the curse was very little. All the box did was graze his arm as I went past. I could hear the reaction to him falling to the ground. I didn’t even need to turn around. My focus was clear – get away from people. It was just coincidence that his was the only car in the lot with the keys under the mat. People did that all the time in those days, especially in small towns. I didn’t even think to look at how much gas the car had. I just drove as fast as I could toward the town limit. I didn’t make it, though.

“When the car ran out of gas, my head was pounding. I was exhausted. My legs would barely carry me. I grabbed the box and got a spade that I had taken from the ship out of my suitcase. I left the luggage in the trunk and started walking. I had made it pretty far when I saw someone ahead. At that point, I could barely see, my head hurt so badly. It didn’t take much for him to overtake me. He was looking for my wallet, but took the box instead. I guess he thought that it was valuable since it was chained up. I must’ve passed out for a few minutes because the next thing I remember, I was on the ground. The box was a few feet away from me and he was on the ground a few feet away from it. I picked it up and ran. I ran until I thought I’d die. When I was as deep in the woods as my body would let me go, I started to dig. That was a chore, let me tell you. I’m still not sure where the energy came from.”

“Adrenaline,” Bug said. “Adrenaline is caused by fear.”

He replied with a small, weak grin. “I was afraid alright. But I got that thing buried. Not deep enough, it turns out. After that, I sat back and cried a good long cry. When I felt that I could stand, I got up and slowly made my way back out of the woods. I made it all the way back to the car and got my luggage, left the key under the mat. I had a bit of luck then when a stranger offered me a ride back to the bus stop. You can’t take rides from strangers nowadays, however. I jumped on the first bus to Shale and came back here, to my home. I fell into bed and cried some more. I still felt very ill. I was probably traumatized as well. And that’s it, the whole story. Well, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Shasta asked.

“The next morning I woke up blind.” He looked in the girl’s direction. They could see the vacant stare coming from his pale blue eyes. “I’ve been blind ever since.”

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER 22

The Rock of Varuupi