“It flat-out sucks.”
“Are you ready for me to take it back over? I don’t mind.”
“No way. I’m doing it.”
“I can’t believe you never learned how to deep clean.”
“My mom always did it, and by the time I was on my own, I had maids.”
“If your mom did all the cleaning, then how did you learn how to cook so well?”
“My dad was a chef.”
“You’re teasing?”
“Nope. He owned his own restaurant for a while, and then he got hired away to California by a big-time director who hired him to be his personal chef.”
“So that’s how you came to know Oliver? Were he and the director your father works for friends?”
“Sort of.”
“Does your father know that you’re hiding away here?”
“Yes.”
“Does he understand your situation?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” I swam over to the side of the pool, climbed out, threw two rafts into the water, and jumped back in.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
We climbed onto our rafts, she more gracefully than me, and made ourselves comfortable, she on her stomach, me on my back.
“It’s like you said the other day. I’m trying to figure myself out,” I said.
“It will happen. You just have to want it.”
“Want what?”
“The truth.”
“That sounds painful,” I said as I turned onto my stomach and looked over at her. “So tell me what you think. I know you have an opinion.”
“How about a small sermon instead?”
“Oh no.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
She dunked her hands into the water and started to paddle away, but I grabbed the raft and held on so that she stayed within arm’s reach.
“Go on,” I urged.
“You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
“Fine. Do you know what you do if you get bitten by a venomous snake?”
“I’d rather not find out.”
“Come on. Play along.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. You take an anti-venom?” I guessed.
“What if there isn’t any available?”
“You die?”
“Never mind. I’ll just tell you, or we could be here all day.”
I shrugged but kept my grasp on her raft.
“You get a knife and you cut a slit in the skin where the bite took place.”
“Why? Aren’t there already holes from the fangs?”
“Yes, but you want to get the venom out as fast as you can, so you make the wound larger in order to allow someone to get the venom out quickly.”
“I’m intrigued and disgusted. Go on.”
“In order to get the venom out, someone other than yourself sucks it out. Some people say you can taste the difference in the blood so you know when you’ve got it all.”
“And this is a sermon how?”
“You have some wounds. There’s some venom that’s causing you some doubt about who you really are and why you’re really here. To get the venom out, you’re going to have to trust someone enough to let them try to save you. In other words, you’re going to have to open those wounds up a little more so that all the venom can come out. There’s always more pain before the healing can begin.”
I let go of the raft long enough to clap a few times but then reached out and took the corners of the raft again.
“So well spoken for a mere twenty-year-old.”
“My father’s a preacher. I’ve heard thousands of sermons.”
“Do you believe them? His messages, I mean?”
“At first I just believed them because he told them. I trusted him enough to know that he wouldn’t lie. Eventually, the more I experienced things, the more I came to believe it because I lived it, saw it with my own eyes, or felt it in my spirit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with borrowing someone else’s faith to get you through until you get enough on your own. If it wouldn’t have been for the faith of my father, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Survived what?”
She rolled off the raft and swam to the ladder. “Like you say, we all have our secrets.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked as she climbed out of the pool and started to wring out the t-shirt she wore in the pool. “Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. Stay out here with me.”
“I can’t. I’ve got the rest of the house to clean, and I’m a carrot top, remember? I burn easily.” She picked up a towel and wrapped it around her waist.
“Give me a second, and I’ll get out and help you clean.”
“No. You relax. Please get me your grocery list when you have the opportunity. I’m ordering the groceries tonight so they’ll deliver them in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“Oriti.”
“Oriti.”
She went back inside and left me lying in the pool alone, and cold. I thought about relaxing by the pool all day. And I thought about going inside and looking over the script on my next project. And I thought about taking a nap. But what I ended up doing was changing into some shorts and a t-shirt and walking back into the main house.
When I finally found her, she was leaning over the toilet and scrubbing with all her might.
“Hey,” I said.
Frightened, she jumped and rammed her head into the stool. “Bugger!”
“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a woman? Good Lord. You scared the piss out of me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Very well, thank you.” She rubbed her forehead just above the eye and sat onto her bottom. “Did you need something?”
“I thought I’d help.”
“Help what?”
I pulled my arms out from behind my back and showed her my yellow plastic dish gloves covered hands.
“You’re volunteering to help me clean?”
“What else do I have to do?”
“Apparently nothing. You’re the most pitiful person I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.”
“I’m honored.”
“I’m sure you are.”
I walked into the room and sat on the side of the bathtub.
“Well, don’t fanny about. Why don’t you start with the mirrors?”
“My pleasure.”
She watched as I pulled a sheet of newspaper out of the pile and sprayed the mirror with the water and vinegar mixture. “You’re right,” I said, laughing. “This is sort of fun, but only when you have someone to do it with.”
“You’re odd, very, very odd.”
“Hold your horses, Kei. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“I don’t own any horses.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” I said with a laugh as I looked at her through the mirror.
She stood and rested her hands on her hips. “We confuse each other immensely, you and I.”
“Yep,” I said while pumping my eyebrows in amusement. “And that’s exactly what makes this so much fun.”
C H A P T E R
7
It was way past eleven by the time we made it out to the campsite and started unloading the car. We left the headlights on so we could set up camp without falling all over each other, and Kei still seemed unsure about spending the night alone in the woods with a guy she hardly knew.
“If I get killed by a bear, I’ll never forgive you,” she said while tugging on the end of a rope that kept her sleeping bag tied into a roll.
“Are there bears out here?”
“I have no clue.” Unable to untie it, she threw it onto the ground and looked over at me, her face full of disgust. “This was your brilliant idea. Did you not check into it?”
“Here.” I handed her my unrolled sleeping bag, which made her smile, and then I picked hers up off the grou
nd. “I checked the weather, didn’t I?”
“I’d much rather get rained on than mauled.”
“What’s the big deal? Nothing wrong with a few battle scars.”
“Glad to hear it.” She neatly unrolled her sleeping bag and smoothed out all the wrinkles before walking to the car. “And you’re certain it isn’t going to rain? It’s looking extremely cloudy.”
“The weatherman said it’s going to pass over. We should be just fine.”
She grabbed her pillow out of the backseat and shut the door.
“Hey, grab mine too, will ya?”
She opened the car door, grabbed my pillow and tucked it under her arm, and then closed the door back. “This isn’t a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and I’m not sure we can get it out of here if it gets stuck in the mud.”
“We’re going to be just fine. Hey, grab that backpack too while you’re at it.”
Her eyes rolled before she spun back around and headed back to the car. “For someone who didn’t want me cleaning up after him, you certainly don’t mind me doing other things for you. I should make you get your own bloody backpack and pillow.”
“You’re right. You should.”
“Is there anything else you need while I’m here, Your Highness?”
“No, but you can leave the sarcasm in there.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I speak proper English, botched Acholi, British slang, and fluent sarky, sarky being the language I speak most eloquently.”
“I’m impressed. And I’m still waiting to hear you cuss like a sailor.”
“Then you’ll be waiting a bit. I’m making an effort to stop all of that. If there’s one area of me that the devil’s got a hold of, it’s my tongue.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And his grip is tight. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What area does the devil have the strongest hold on you?”
“Maybe that isn’t any of your business.”
“Is anything my business? Because it sure doesn’t feel as if it is.”
She dropped my backpack onto my lap with a thud, and it did enough damage that I knew I wouldn’t be walking anytime soon. I hid my agony behind a groan when I lifted the bag off my lap and threw it on the ground beside me. She didn’t notice any of it. She was too busy talking.
“You’re living a big secret. I get it. But it’s hard to become someone’s pal when they won’t tell you anything about themselves.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll survive. I’ve survived much worse. That’s for certain. A little rejection from you isn’t going to do permanent damage.”
“It’s not rejection.”
She sat down on the sleeping bag and removed her shoes, tied the laces back, and set them right next to her bag.
I wondered if she might have a little OCD with all the straightening she did. I also realized that she had a point. She’d revealed a lot about herself, pretty much anything I’d asked. I, on the other hand, hadn’t told her anything.
“It’s drinking.”
“Pardon me?” she asked, flipping onto her stomach and resting her chin in her hands.
“That’s the hold the devil’s got over me. Or at least he’s trying, anyway. I barely touch the stuff anymore.”
“You’re only twenty-two. How did it get a grip on you so
young?”
“In my circles, it’s easy to get your hands on. Everyone’s doing it, and everyone’s shoving a drink in your hand. They never let your glass go dry.”
“So it’s everyone else’s fault that you drink too much? Spare me the sob story.”
“Nice bit of compassion there.”
“I’m a firm believer that you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. Unless people are pouring it down your throat, you can’t blame them.”
“That’s a little harsh from someone who doesn’t even know me. And a little judgmental.”
“Telling you that you’re responsible for your own actions is judgmental? Must be a thing in the States. Where I come from, it’s called the brutal truth. And trust me. You aren’t the only person who’s had to accept responsibility for something they’ve done that they wish they hadn’t. I’ve got three of them living in my house right now.”
“Three alcoholics?”
“Three murderers. Former LRA members. They killed hundreds. Like you, they didn’t feel they had a choice. They were told to kill or they’d be killed themselves.”
“Then you can’t blame them for what they did.”
“I don’t blame them. They blame themselves, and that’s what eats them up inside. And I’d like the record to reflect that I never said I blamed you for your drinking. I said you should take responsibility for your part. That’s not blame; that’s truth. And the truth is what sets you free. Denial and pointing blame only give the issue more power.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. If I had had her around to tell me that earlier, I could’ve saved a lot of time and money on therapy.
“Well, I haven’t become a full-blown addict or anything. I got pulled over, arrested for a DUI. It kind of set me straight.”
“And when was this?”
“A few months ago.”
“Are you going to prison?”
“No. Community service. Parole. That kind of thing.”
“You don’t have to tell anything more. It isn’t my business, but I’m glad something set you straight. Thank you for sharing.”
“Sure.”
I reached into the backpack and pulled out a bag of Sour Brite Crawlers.
“What are those?” Her voice was full of curiosity, and she easily changed the subject.
“A sweet-and-sour candy that you buy at movie theaters. They’re my snack obsession, and when nobody’s watching my diet, I always have a bag on hand.”
“You just sounded like a female.”
“I know, but they’re good.”
Her nose crinkled into a grimace.
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” I said, holding the bag out to her.
She grabbed one and held it between her thumb and pointer finger like it was a real worm and she was about to bait a hook with it.
She looked completely disgusted, so I urged her on. “Go ahead.”
“Is that sugar on the outside?”
“I think so, but I’ve never dissected the thing. Just put it in your mouth already.”
She looked closely at it, licked some of the white dusting off one end, and then stuck it in her mouth. Her eyes immediately enlarged, and her eyebrows arched high in delight.
“Told you.”
I held out the bag, and she reached in and pulled out a handful and laid them on the blanket in front of her.
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen when you were out in the different villages?”
“More about Africa, huh? You aren’t tired of hearing me babble on?”
“Not even close. Come on. Spit it out.”
“The weirdest? Hmm?” She divided the crawlers into piles according to color as she thought of a response. “It’s hard to say. What Americans would find as weird or scary might be commonplace over there.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” she said with a shrug and then sat up and crossed her legs. “There are a lot of different religions represented in Africa, not to mention all the villages that worship different gods or spirits. There’s a lot of witchcraft, a lot of voodoo-type occult. Most of the IDP camps have several medicine doctors.”
“Witchdoctors?”
“Yes. Although there is a law against the practice of witchcraft, it’s still performed often.”
“There’s an actual law against it?”
“Oh yes.”
“Have you met a witchdoctor?”
“Several, but just the ones in the camps. I’m not permitted to go on th
e trips that take you out into the farther villages. That’s where things can begin to get more odd and dangerous, sadistic, evil. Child sacrifice and so on.”
“That stuff really happens?”
“All the time. My parents came back telling me about one village they went to where if the oldest male child dies, they bury the youngest alive, in honor of their death.”
My body shivered in revulsion.
“They literally dig a hole and then begin filling it up with the baby or child screaming in terror. And all of it is to appease some spirit that they worship. They believe that their older child died because evil fell on the family and that only sacrificing another child will cause the evil to go away.
“Then there are witchdoctors who tell parents that they have a curse on them and in order to reverse the curse, they must sacrifice one of their children and bring him back the body. They do, and then he turns around and sells the body to a businessman who believes that if they bury that body under a business or home, it will bring it luck.”
I had nothing even remotely intelligent to say in response. I was horrified, shocked, and disgusted. All I could do was sit with my mouth hanging open and still watering from the sour candy I’d just swallowed.
She, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed and kept right on talking. Nothing new there.
“Then, of course, you have the babies who are sexually
assaulted—”
“I don’t think I want to hear this.”
She looked up at me with the end of a candy worm peeking out of the corner of her mouth. Giving a shrug, she chewed as she waited for me to say something more.
“Okay. I do.”
She swallowed before starting again. “Infant rape—”
“Hold on.”
My hands flew over my ears as I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself to hear the rest. I wanted to hear the truth, but I didn’t. I knew that once she told me, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the reality anymore. I knew that the information would change the way I saw the world forever.
My hands lowered to my still-in-pain lap region. “Okay. Go ahead and tell me.”
“You certain?”
I nodded slowly.
“Infant rape is rampant in some areas because witchdoctors have told men with HIV that if they have intercourse with an infant, it will cure them. Then, of course, not only does it not take away the man’s AIDS, but it infects the child. Some say that AIDS has killed more people in Northern Uganda than the twenty-year war has.”