I am afraid that now comes the part in the novel of foreign adventure that I really can’t stand. We have a lull in the action, so the characters get informative about local industries: weaving, pottery, major imports and exports, farming techniques, etc. They have idiotic conversations like “Now, how do the interesting people in this country make these colorful baskets?” or “So, what about smelting?”
They talk about the life cycle and running speed of some animal they drive past or about the unusual customs they see. The whole time, you just want the story to get back to all the chasing and the riddles and the cabin in the woods and the fighting, but no, all you get are three pages on the history of origami. It’s like seeing someone’s vacation slides but in a room half filled with cold water and a stingray.*
For several hours, they had driven through rice fields. Dover had dwindled to a speck on the horizon. They had passed through small towns, half-timbered houses built over irrigation ditches. Jasper had asked many intense questions about local vegetable farming and, later, about the pasta fields that waved in the welcome breezes beneath the hot sun. They stopped to pluck some ziti for lunch.
The last large town they passed in the plains was Smyrna, built upon a great peak of stone, a massive granite boulder that jutted up out of the grasslands, houses clinging to its sides. At its highest point stood the ruined fortress where, four centuries before, the last few men and women of Smyrna had withstood the ferocious attack of the Silent Butchers of Deakyneville.
By three o’clock, they had reached the foothills of the mountains. Forest grew upon the slopes. The jeep bumped and rattled through little village squares where people squatted in a few shops that sold lentils and spices or copper wire.
Bntno sang the old, wailing songs of Dover. At first Lily was thrilled to hear them, but after an hour or two, she had a headache. When he wouldn’t stop singing twenty or thirty verses per song, Katie tried to interrupt with questions, at first about what the words might mean (“That’s so interesting. So what do the—”; “Could you translate what you—”; “Um, could you just keep your hands on the wheel? And could you—”), and then, later, just questions of any kind that might make him stop singing. (“Now, how do the interesting people of this state make these colorful baskets?”; “So, what about -smelting?”)
The jeep juddered over hills where red clay houses stood among rich orchards and bridges swung over deep, leafy ravines.
They stayed that night in a village. They ate at a small tavern there, and sat outside on the porch, seeing the billion stars above them and hearing the wild dogs bark in the forest. There were lights far up in the mountains—lonely lights—lights from people who saw others only once every few months. Soon, the three friends would be up in those mountains. They would be far from any civilization, any help.
The night smelled of orchids and green.
In the morning, they left behind the last villages. They rambled down the far side of the foothills, and they were in a jungle valley. Moss grew on the trees, and the wide, waxen leaves of exotic plants hung low over the rutted dirt track. Monkeys watched the jeep from trees.
As they drove, Jasper scanned Lisa Buldene’s There and Back Again ™ for clues as to how to find the mountain monastery.
“It mentions the four mountains,” Jasper reported. “Their names are Drgsl, Minndfl, Bdreth, and Tlmp. Vbngoom lies atop Tlmp.”
“I thought they were supposed to have supersecret names that no mortals knew,” said Katie.
“Well,” said Jasper, somewhat bothered, “I guess some mortals now know them. The mortals who have looked them up in the index.”
Lily could tell that Jasper was a little hurt that his secret mountains were in the book’s index. She asked him gently, “What does the book say about the mountains?”
Jostled by the road, Jasper held the book up close to his eyes and, elbows bobbing, read out: “‘Though the Four Peaks look the same height, trekkers will find that Mount Minndfl is actually considerably shorter than the nearby peak covered with deceptively inviting pine woods. English explorer and adventurer Leslie Arbuckle-Smythe climbed both that forested peak—despite its imposing height—and Mount Bdreth because he was too superstitious to climb near the ancient, rune-inscribed pillar that stands on one of the other mountains.’”
“Too superstitious?” asked Lily. “What does it mean by that?”
“He was a fellow archaeologist and adventurer,” said Jasper. “After a few scrapes, we think twice about anything that might get us bitten by a mummified cat.”
“I mean, what was he worried about with the pillar?”
Jasper flipped a few pages. “Doesn’t say,” he said. “But it reminds us this is a carry-in, carry-out park.”
They drove through the jungle wastes. The heavy green foliage hung all around them. Wild boar scampered out of their way. Swamps gleamed through the trees.
They saw no sign of civilization. They now saw no house, no farm, no logging teams or goatherds. No one. Birds flew above them. Monkeys called from branches. The wilderness was complete.
That night, they pulled off the track and pitched their tents in the jungle. Lily was a little scared of sleeping outside when unknown things lurked in the woods. Jasper tried to reassure her, but she was not used to jungle adventures in the way that he was, and she found herself lying awake, listening as things shuffled and slid through the underbrush.
At last, exhausted by a day of being thrown around in the jeep, she fell asleep. She had not slept long, however, when Katie shook her awake.
“Lily,” whispered Katie. “There’s someone coming.”
Lily’s heart froze in her chest. She listened.
Yes, she too could hear a jeep engine, hear the quiet crunch of gravel under tires as someone drove slowly along the road. As if someone was looking for someone.
She could see the headlights through the fabric of the tent. They lay awake and panicked. They both hoped that Jasper was silently awake, too. They both thought about what to do.
The strange jeep stopped and the engine idled. There was a swoop of light—a flashlight being played across the tents—and then it was snapped off. There was a lot of crunching and snapping as the jeep turned around. The girls lay rigid, each balanced on an elbow, afraid to move.
Then they heard the mysterious jeep head back up the road the way it had come.
“It’s going,” said Lily. “Thank goodness.”
“Yeah, thank goodness,” said Katie. “Unless those sounds just after the flashlight switched off were someone quietly getting out of the jeep.”
Lily, in the pitch-black, could feel herself turning pale.