chapter 9
The Boy in the Wooden Mask
The voodoo dolls are gathering – see!
‘They seem pretty mad, don’t they? I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.’
I’m not my shoes – they belong to someone else.
‘That cat who bit the head off their chieftain belongs to the visitors. Now the voodoo dolls want revenge.’
They’re after the humans, not me.
‘They’re after all of you.’
The board-comber is scurrying across the attic in the wake of Chloe and Alex with the bat hanging from his earlobe, his Cocalino mask slightly askew. His collection of soapstone carvings bounce painfully on his back. It’s hot and stuffy inside the layers of clothing. He raises dust clouds as he runs, looking for hiding places, knowing that just falling down and pretending to be a pile of rags won’t work with the voodoo dolls. The whole nest of wax effigies has been roused by the lingering smell of humans and they have swarmed out of the mouths of the giant masks. The board-comber is almost surrounded, but he manages to outrun the voodoo dolls.
‘They know a live pile of old clothes when they see it. And we can’t go back. The mannequins are waiting for you. They know you got the boy away from them.’
You’re a great help.
The voodoo dolls have knife-long needles stuck in their soft little wax forms. Each doll has about twenty of these weapons, which it pulls from its own body and plunges into the bodies of its enemies. The board-comber knows that these dolls bear so much hatred for humans they won’t hesitate to drive their needles into flesh. In the attic they call it ‘the death of a thousand points’ and the victim bleeds to death slowly. The board-comber, who was once human and is still flesh and blood, is terrified. He has seen victims of the voodoo dolls staggering around, covered in needles. Living pin-cushions, helpless, blind and bleeding from a thousand tiny piercings.
Are they still coming?
‘As relentless as a disturbed nest of hornets.’
Their legs are short.
‘But they move faster than yours.’
The voodoo dolls of the attic might well be likened to a nest of furious wild hornets, carrying multiple stings in their vicious little fingers. They bear a horrible but often only passing likeness to members of the human race: some very pale, some very dark, some the shades between. They have been made by voodoo priests out of raggle-taggle materials and the resemblance to the humans they represent is purely superficial. They are loose-limbed and mostly ugly, though one or two have features which make them appear benign. The mild-looking ones are the worst: they carry the dreadful curse of not being quite what they ought to be.
How did voodoo dolls get up here? Did the one who collected the masks collect voodoo dolls?
‘Who knows? He’s gone now. Dead or back to the world he came from. How’s a bat supposed to know? Like will find like up here, won’t it? Now they’re on our tail and won’t give up. We have to find some way of slowing them down.’
Think of something then, I’m losing my breath. My legs are going all shaky. I don’t think I can run much further.
‘Oh, that’s right, leave the thinking up to me.’
You’re a passenger. That’s what you do.
‘I suppose.’
Over the boxes and old furniture to the rear of them the voodoo dolls come scuttling like crabs over seashore rocks. The needles in their small hands flash ominously as they cross areas of sharp light. The expressions on their tiny faces are intent. They were made purely to carry pain and pass it to another. Their hatred for humans surpasses even that of the mannequins.
‘They’re gaining on us.’
You’re supposed to be thinking of something – I’ll keep tabs on where they are.
‘No need to get upset.’
Yes, yes, there is a need. A great need.
‘There, up ahead! Low rafters.’
Indeed, there is a canopy of low rafters ahead, one of those areas where the roof needs extra support and the timbers criss-cross in a network of beams. The board-comber runs for this area, his oversized boots slopping on its feet, his Venetian carnival mask bouncing up and down on his face. He leaps upwards, a supreme effort fuelled by terror, and grasps the lowest rafter. His broad-brimmed floppy hat is askew and his musty old clothes hang from his body like curtains from a rail. Splinters in his fingers are the least of his worries. He hauls itself up and climbs. One boot falls, dropping to the ground like a bomb from an aeroplane, to bounce on the boards below. However, his precious bag of Inuit carvings is safely strapped to his back. Nothing must happen to that or the board-comber would have no reason to save himself. The bat dangles outwards, his sensors tuned to the oncoming hordes. He is aware of hundreds of voodoo effigies swarming over the boards, looking up at the figure of the board-comber as he lodges himself in the sharp-angled crook of two rafters.
‘They’re trying to think of a way of getting up to us.’
I can see that. No step-ladders around, are there? I hope not. I wish I had fire. I’d melt them voodoos to a puddle of wax.
‘Well, you haven’t and a good job too. You’d burn the place down, you would. Uh-oh, they’re going to make a totem pole – they’re standing on each other’s shoulders.’
After looking about for something to use as a ladder and finding nothing, the voodoo dolls are indeed hopping on each other’s shoulders. Poles of dolls begin forming and growing upwards. The voodoo dolls do not have enough knowledge of shapes to know to form a pyramid or some other more stable figure. They simply go one on top of the other until they are several figures high, swaying precariously, some of the towers falling and sending the voodoo dolls shooting across the boards.
Serve you right, says the board-comber. Hope you break your nasty little backs.
One or two of the fallers lie stuck to the floor by their own needles and thrash furiously until they release themselves. Once back on their feet they gather themselves and try again. Those towers which have not fallen come within range of the board-comber’s boot. He kicks out, toppling them, sending them flying. The towers hit the floor and explode into their separate parts, the voodoo dolls scattering everywhere. One or two dolls jump for the rafter, scramble up and manage to keep their footing. The board-comber kicks out at these, catches one and sends it hurtling downwards. The second doll stabs him viciously several times in the foot with no boot on it.
Ow! Ow! Ow!
‘I’ll get him.’
The bat flies into the face of the voodoo effigy, unbalancing it. The doll drops backwards off the rafter. Its snarling face is visible all the way down. It hits the boards and breaks into several bits, an arm going one way, its head going another, a foot flying into the face of a fellow doll. The other dolls kick the bits away into a dark area. The victim was only a warrior: no one of any importance. They now stand at the bottom staring up. Their faces are twisted in fury but they do not seem to be able to reason how to get up there. One or two of them try to launch their needles like spears, but the needles fall short and drop down among them again.
That hurts.
The board-comber pulls two needles out of its foot, left there by the last doll to attack him.
‘Don’t I get any thanks?’
What for? Oh, that last doll. All right, thanks.
‘I should think so. Hey, they’re going away.’
The voodoo dolls are indeed leaving. The whole swarm of them, some in tattered little dresses or smocks, others with nothing on at all, move in a wave across the attic floor. They’re going in the same direction taken by the human children. Several of the waxy figures are now hunched: those who hit the floor with force and dislocated themselves. They look even more sinister than they did when they were straight-backed. Many needles are bent. The board-comber feels he has come off best in the attack, but he knows if he ever runs into the voodoo dolls again it will be his last encounter. He adjusts his mask with its jolly puffed cheeks and bulbous nose.
‘We must warn the visitors.’
Why? They should look out for themselves.
‘You know they can’t. They’ve got no idea how to survive up here.’
They’ve survived so far.
‘By luck only.’
Well, they tricked me with that list thing – they told me it was a map. I don’t owe them anything. I don’t want any more to do with them.
‘Then why leave the traction engine for the boy to find? Why send me out with messages for the older boy? You still think they might lead you to some carvings, don’t you? Newcomers often discover old hoards, don’t they? Why? Because they’re not looking as hard as you old timers do. They stumble across ’em without realising it. You want them on your side if they come across a trove, don’t you? A box full of stuff you’ve never noticed before – maybe with a carving among the junk?’
The board-comber acknowledges this fact. But climbing down from his safe perch is not an easy thing to do. As he attempts it he hears a sniggering from above. Alarmed, he looks up to see a pair of bright blue eyes with long eyelashes. One of the eyes winks at him. It belongs to a pink-faced china doll moving like a monkey through the canopy, her chubby little arms swinging her from spar to spar. Blonde-haired, baby-faced china dolls in rose-and-violet dresses with frilly lace hems are almost as vicious as voodoo dolls. Some of them are wearing mob caps with colourful ribbons. Others are bare-headed, with painted curls. All wear terrible smiles.
The bat says, ‘This just isn’t your day.’
The board-comber gives a yell and leaps through space to the floor. Fortunately he lands square on his feet. Above him the china doll calls to her clan and a whole nurseryful of even-toothed dolls with chubby-cheeked smiles come chattering through the canopy of rafters in their pretty dresses, white socks and button-strapped shoes. These are roof dwellers and never come down to the attic floor, so the board-comber knows he is safe.
You bugger off, he says, shaking his fist at them.
‘Hurry, hurry, hurry,’ says the bat.
I’m going as fast as I can. Is that my boot? Oh no, that broken voodoo doll’s head is hanging from it – it’s buried its teeth in the tongue. How am I going to get that off, without losing a finger? I’ll have to prise the mouth open with a knife or something.
‘Leave it there. A ghastly head decoration. You’ll start a new fashion among board-combers.’
You really think so?
‘No.’
‘It’s all green and tangled,’ said Alex. ‘Lots of vines and ferns. Oh, look at that tall tree! Soaring like a cathedral spire. Over there’s a pool with reddish water in – iron oxide in the soil does that. I learned that in science. Oh, and here’s a cave, all mossy and covered in plants and stuff …’
‘Don’t go in!’ ordered Chloe. ‘You don’t know what’s in there.’
The pair were on a bare-boards plain. There was an Attican village not far away, similar to those they had already encountered. This one had sewing-machine cars and wardrobes, so they were probably kin to the first village they had stayed at. The people were much the same: short in stature, lumpy, with plaster dust on their heads and shoulders. They seemed a busy lot, collecting clothes which they kept in a warehouse made of book-bricks. That is, they used books like bricks to build it. It was quite a sight and full of old clothes, folded neatly, kept in rows. There were also shoes in there, those too in neat rows. These villagers were obviously traders.
This time the children didn’t stay in the village or try to steal any food. They had learned their lesson. Instead they camped well away from it, behind one of those thickets of fishing rods with dozens of vicious hooks like thorns, and tangled nets of lines. Once or twice a villager in a sewing-machine car had surprised them, but they had skilfully avoided being caught. Chloe could tell by the expression on the faces of those Atticans that she and Alex scared as well as angered them.
Above the children – high, high above – was a small skylight which sent down a sunbeam shaft to illuminate them. They both sat cross-legged in the ray, enjoying its brightness. Chloe was stroking Nelson’s tummy and he was purring. Nelson had joined them a short time ago, bringing with him a large freshly dead rat which to the amazement and horror of his sister Alex skinned and cooked. He ate the meat, feeding himself through the hole in the mask. Chloe refused to touch it and was most damning in her criticism of her younger brother, who said he couldn’t care less.
‘If you could see this jungle, you’d be excited too,’ Alex told her. ‘Have a go now, if you want,’ he added generously, removing the mask. ‘You simply have to put it on and look hard. You have to think about jungles though. If you just sit there and don’t try, you end up seeing only the attic.’
Chloe recoiled from the offer, shuddering. ‘You don’t know who’s had that thing on,’ she said.
The mask said: ‘Who are you calling a thing?’
‘You,’ said Chloe emphatically. ‘I bet there’ve been all sorts of people slobbering inside you.’
The mask declined to argue further, having made its point.
Alex returned the mask to his face. He was having great fun, having crossed the world through the mask’s eyes. All around him was lush jungle with tall buttress-rooted trees covered in parasitic creepers and ferns. Below the level of the first canopy there was a second canopy composed of smaller trees, though in Alex’s eyes these too were quite tall. Then came the undergrowth, steamy, with moist, slick or hairy leaves, some of them large and thick enough to make a sunbed. There was wildlife there too, in the form of monkeys and birds and lots of insects. The smell, through the mask’s nostrils, was of damp vegetation and animal droppings.
A beautiful swallowtail butterfly flew past Alex’s head.
‘Clo, you don’t know what you’re missing.’
‘I’ll do without it, thank you,’ she replied primly. ‘Just don’t go inside that cave, you don’t know what’s in there.’
Alex of course ignored her and went inside. It was dark so he delved into his pack for the matches. He struck one and held it up, right in front of his sister’s face. She tightened her mouth.
‘You’re in there, aren’t you?’ accused Chloe. ‘Don’t you ever listen to anything I say?’
‘Pictures,’ murmured Alex in a disappointed tone. ‘In charcoal I think. A little rhino. And a fish. And some birds. Just Stone Age people’s drawings on the walls. I could do better than them.’
‘I should think so. Art has developed since they were drawn.’
‘Oh, Clo – there’s a snake. White one.’
‘Drawing or real?’
‘Real.’
Chloe said, ‘Cave racer. They’re blind. They catch bats and eat them.’
‘Yup – I just saw it get one. Talk about fast. Bats look nice and crunchy. Oh, it’s not a bat, it’s a bird. There are thousands of them in here, Clo. There are nests on the ceiling and all up the walls. Yuk, what am I treading in?’
‘I can guess. Alex, come out of that cave. How do you know there’s not something dangerous in the back? Caves are full of scorpions, you know.’
‘I’m only looking, sis.’
Alex took off the mask. His face was sweaty and he wiped it on his sleeve. ‘I don’t know why you’re so awkward, Clo.’
‘I just am, that’s all.’
Nelson had had enough of being stroked. He went up on his three legs and trotted away with that peculiar gait of his.
‘Good old Nelson,’ said Alex, picking up a cold drumstick of rat’s leg. ‘He’s a great hunter, isn’t he?’
Chloe stared at her brother. ‘You don’t have to eat that, you know. I found some boxes of apples, and some bottled plums. The people below must have stored them up here. Would you like some?’
‘Nope,’ replied Alex, tossing away the bone. ‘I like rat meat. I was going to keep it from you, ’cause I knew you’d be upset. I like pigeons too. I like them better than rats.’
‘Pigeons?’
‘Nelson brought me a pigeon. It was delicious.’
‘Oh, Alex.’
At that moment there was a sound, out on the fringes of the attic. Both children peered into the gloom, but could see nothing. What was it, an Attican villager? Something else? There were always small noises present: the attic woodwork creaking its joints like a galleon under sail; the birds in the eaves, especially the pigeons cooing in their boring fashion; mice and rats scuttling around, looking for water and food, and each other; the draughts lifting the edges of plastic bags; the steady drip of water in water tanks. Noises of all kinds, some identifiable, others more puzzling. This noise came under the puzzling heading. Soon it stopped, however, and the two children were able to relax again. If there was anything out there, it had halted.
‘I’ll get some water,’ said Alex, standing up. ‘We passed a tank a little way back.’
‘No – no, don’t, Alex.’
‘We need water, Clo. I’ll be all right.’
‘You always disappear.’
Alex said, ‘I won’t this time. I promise.’
He took some bottles and marched back to the water tank he’d seen earlier. When he inspected the surface of the tank it was much as he’d expected, a bit insecty and with a film of scum. But he dunked the bottles deep under the water and allowed them to fill, watching the bubbles come up to pop on the surface. Once both bottles had been filled, he turned to go back.
‘Oh, good grief!’ he cried. ‘Another one.’
It was a single treasure. It stood there as if patiently waiting to be seized. A model steam car. Not quite as magical and entrancing as his showman’s engine, but at one time Alex would have sold his soul for such an engine. And here it was, for the taking. How many more were there in the attic? It was a land of treasures.
He rolled it around for a while with his hand, again wishing he had some methylated spirit handy, but eventually put it carefully under his shirt. For some reason he didn’t want Chloe to see it. He didn’t know why, because there was no reason why she should disapprove of him gathering steam engines to his bosom. But he decided to hide it. On the way back he came across an old army overcoat, man-sized, and put it on. He found it hid the bump under his shirt very well in its many folds.
Chloe was waiting anxiously for his return.
Predictably she cried, ‘What are you wearing that thing for?’
‘I just feel like it.’
‘Take it off, Alex, it’s dirty.’
‘No.’
‘But look at it. It’s filthy. And it doesn’t fit anyway. Get something that fits if you feel cold. You look lost in that musty old coat.’
‘I like it,’ he replied stubbornly. ‘I’m keeping this one.’
‘Honestly, you make me so mad.’
‘I don’t care, Clo. I like it. I like the coat, I like the mask and I’m keeping them both, whatever you say. They’re me.’
She looked weary and gave up on him.
‘Oh, have it your own way. Who cares? Let’s stay here for a while,’ suggested Chloe. ‘I’m tired. There’s nothing to hurry for. We don’t know where Jordy is and we might be heading in completely the wrong direction. We might be going in circles for all I know.’
Alex looked at his compass. They were heading directly west.
‘Nope – we’re still going in a straight line,’ he said. ‘I’ve been checking my compass every so often.’
Chloe was impressed. ‘That’s clever of you. At least we’re going somewhere then, and not just where we’ve been.’
‘Exactly.’ Alex put down the compass and went to pick up his mask, but Chloe said, ‘Would you mind not putting that on?’
‘Why?’
‘Because he scares me.’ She whispered, ‘I think he wants to take you over.’
‘I heard that.’
‘What, you mean like aliens invading the earth?’ said Alex. ‘Nah, he’s not going to harm me.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I can feel it when I put him on.’
Chloe said, ‘How do you know that’s not him making you feel safe and secure, so that it’s all the easier to control you?’
‘I wouldn’t do that. I am Makishi, Most Sacred, Most Feared, but those who tremble before me are my enemies, not my friends. Alex is my wearer and he I would never hurt. Do you not understand the laws of becoming? When Alex puts me on he becomes me. Therefore he is me and I would never hurt myself. That would be foolish.’
Chloe didn’t know what to say to this, but she still couldn’t trust the mask.
‘I’d still rather you didn’t put it on, Alex.’
Alex, bundled up in his thick overcoat, looked at the object in his hand.
The object looked back at him.
‘I guess you’re right. But I’m not giving him up. We’re brothers of the jungle, him and me.’
Alex slung the mask over his shoulder on a piece of cord and Makishi didn’t argue with the decision. He knew he had conquered Alex and that he would be carried wherever the boy went now.
‘What do you look like?’ she asked her brother, sighing, sounding very like Dipa. ‘Have you seen yourself?’
Alex ignored the criticism.
‘Time we were moving on, sis,’ he said, taking out his binoculars. ‘Heck, look at those villagers, scurrying around. You’d think that in a place like this there’d be nothing to do, wouldn’t you … Hello, hello!’
Chloe, who’d been packing her bag, stopped and looked at her brother.
‘What is it?’
‘Looks like a – I dunno – a swarm of ants or something – no, wait – they’re bigger than ants. They’re dolls of some kind. Heading towards the village by the look. They’ve got— you should see their faces. Talk about—hey,’ he removed the binoculars from his eyes, ‘I bet they’re coming to attack this village. Yeah, that’ll be it. We’ve got to warn them.’
Alex pulled on his pack quickly and began running towards the village of wardrobes.
‘Wait, Alex. You know we scare them.’
‘We’ve still got to warn them, Clo.’
Alex raced all the way, then ran through the village.
‘Alarm! Alarm!’ he yelled, not knowing what else to say. ‘Enemy on the horizon. Enemy approaching.’
Atticans came running out of their wardrobes and out of the book-built warehouse. One or two of them shrieked and hid their faces in their hands. Others came forward and waved Alex away with both hands, as if he were an escaped animal.
Alex pointed to the oncoming dolls. ‘Enemy on the way!’ he cried. ‘Arm yourselves.’
Chloe caught up to him now and added her own entreaties to those of her younger brother.
Now the Atticans saw the danger and indeed became alarmed. They ran back into their clothes storehouse. Chloe and Alex thought they had gone to hide, but they came running out again with shields and clubs. The shields were old fireguards made of bronze or iron mesh: perfect for protecting the bearers against a small oncoming enemy. The clubs were broom handles which they tested by swishing them through the air.
Alex and Chloe decided to leave the villagers to their battle and make their way on, deeper into the attic.
When Alex looked back, the villagers were doing extremely well. Their skill with the broom handles was almost the stuff of legend. That great Ancient Greek Achilles could have been among them, or the Trojan Hector, such was their talent for this type of fighting. Horrible, ugly dolls ran at them in dozens but the Atticans warded them off with their shields and swatted them, this way and that, with their staves. The villagers had formed a kind of fireguard tortoiseshell, which looked unbreachable. On a single command they took the initiative, moving forward. They forced the waves of barbarian dolls backwards, out on to the plain of boards. The villagers were obviously used to these raids and knew exactly how to cope with them.
Alex and Chloe hurried on, happy to leave the fight in capable hands.