Mists of the Serengeti(15)

"I think they just brought the hot water," he said. "You want to take that shower now?"

"That would be nice."

But neither of us moved. We lay there for a few beats, while the water turned cold outside, wisps of steam rising in the chilly morning. We had found a pocket of quiet, where all the ghosts in our minds had gone to sleep, and we were the only two people awake.

Then Jack blinked, and the moment drifted away. I watched as he brought the buckets in and carried them to the bathroom. I went first, making sure I left enough hot water for him. Then again, maybe not. There was a hell of a lot more of him to cover.

I stepped out of the tent while he showered. A hazy sun was just peeking over the horizon. Wisps of pink clouds were saying goodbye to a pearlescent moon. The watchmen were gone so I figured it was safe to walk around in the daytime. The camp was perched on the rim of the crater, with sweeping views of the landscape below. Keeping a respectful distance from the edge, I peered over and saw patchwork colors in the grassy plains. As I watched, they changed and moved. Then I realized they were herds of wildebeests and zebras, grazing on the floor of the caldera. They were barely discernible from this height, like blocks of little marching ants.

It was a beautiful, surreal sight. I crept closer, but thick clouds that were sweeping down from the rim and covering the crater obscured my view. The air was noticeably colder, and there was a fine drizzle on my face. I zipped up Jack's hoodie and headed back to the tent.

I didn't get too far. Everything had turned thick and gray. The mist rolled around me in smoky swirls, giving me a tiny peek before shrouding it again. I walked one way, saw something, and started walking in that direction instead. After a few minutes, I was completely lost, completely disoriented. I didn't know if I was walking toward the crater or away from it.



       
         
       
        

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" My hair clung dankly to my head as I held my hands out, trying to steer my way out of the heavy, silver labyrinth.

Something shifted in front of me.

"Jack? Is that you? Anyone there?" I turned to follow the movement.

A gigantic, dark figure rose ahead of me. It had the ghostly outline of a person but with arms and legs elongated way beyond proportion. Its head was sheathed in a shimmering ring, like a hazy, rainbow halo. I blinked, pretty sure I was imagining the unnerving apparition, but it stood there, as real and chilling as the droplets of water clinging to my skin. I took a step back, and it moved with me.

Motherfucker.

I turned and sprinted blindly, stumbling over the uneven ground. I thought I heard my name, and then the fall of heavy footsteps behind me. I picked up my pace, high on the fumes of adrenaline, but it was no use. A strong grip clamped around my wrist and spun me around.

"What the hell, Rodel? Didn't you hear me? Why are you running?"

"Jack!" I let out a soft gasp. "Thank God. That thing." I looked over his shoulder, my chest heaving. "Did you see?" I broke away from him, searching for it.

"Listen to me." He pulled me back with such force that I crashed into him. "Stop moving. You hear me? Stop. Fucking. Moving."

The urgency in his voice shackled my floundering footsteps.

"You were this close to the edge." He left an inch between his thumb and forefinger. "This close. What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He was furious, his face a glowering mask of rage.

"Listen to me!" I yanked my hand away, my heart still black with fright. "I saw something. A ghost. A dark figure. I don't know what it was, but it was following me."

Jack ran his hand through his hair. It was damp from the mist. Or maybe his shower. His hair was darker when wet, the ends curled up to an almost decent length.

"Was it big?" he asked. "Long arms, long legs?"

"Yes."

"Rainbow colors around the silhouette?"

"Around its head. Yes."

He let out a deep breath. "Rodel?"

"What?"

"Don't go wandering off without me, okay?" He started walking away from me. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"Wait." I wasn't about to lose sight of him. "Are you going to tell me what it was?"

"We'll talk inside."

I followed him into the dining room and waited until we were seated.

"How did you do that?" I asked, after the waiter brought our food.

"Do what?" 

"Find me. And then find the dining room in the mist."

"When you spend a lot of time in the wild with no markers, no buildings, no road signs, you learn to keep track up here." He tapped his temple. "How many paces, which way. As far as you're concerned, I just followed your voice and footsteps. It's not hard once you know what you're tracking. I just didn't expect you to start running toward the cliff."

"It was that thing." A shiver went through me that had nothing to do with the cold. "What the hell is out there, Jack?"

"Nothing." He buttered a piece of toast and handed it to me. "You just witnessed an optical illusion called the Brocken Spectre."

"The broken what?"

"Brocken Spectre. B-R-O-C-K-E-N. It was your own shadow projected in front of you through the mist." He took a bite of his toast and washed it down with a swig of Coca-Cola.

"That was no shadow, Jack. It was huge, and there were these colored lights around it."

"I've seen it." Jack nodded. "Once. While climbing Kili-Mount Kilimanjaro. It doesn't happen too often. Only under specific conditions. The sun must be behind you, low in the horizon, to cast that kind of shadow. The rainbow-colored halo is produced by light backscattered through a cloud of water droplets. Depth perception is altered by the mist, so it appears distant and larger than expected."

"But it moved. I don't just mean with me. It did that too, but it was . . . it wasn't just dull and flat like a shadow. It was changing."

"That's because the mist is thicker in some parts and thinner in others, so there's a play of light involved." Jack finished his plate and signaled to mine. "Are you going to eat your breakfast?"

"I'm just . . . it's fascinating." It made sense when I thought about it. "I wish I'd known. I'd have taken the time to study it instead of freaking the hell out."

"What we don't understand always scares us."

"Yes, but now that I know, I find it rather beautiful. I mean, I was something much bigger for a moment. With the longest arms and legs, everything within my reach. And let's not forget my spectacular rainbow halo. I may look ordinary, but I am freaking magical!"

Jack smiled and regarded me over the steeple of his fingers.

"What?" I asked, digging into my plate.

"There is nothing ordinary about you. I thought we established that last night."

I flushed as I recalled his words. Insanely beautiful. In spite of the haze of last night, that one moment still sparkled through. And the crazy thing, the thing that made it matter, was that he meant it about all of me-not just the way I looked.

"I have to admit," he continued. "I'm kind of glad you had the living daylights scared out of you."

"That's awful. Why would you enjoy something like that?"

"Sometimes we need to be jarred out of our own reality. We base so much of ourselves on other people's perceptions of us. We live for the compliments, the approval, the applause. But what we really need is a grand, spine-chilling encounter with ourselves to believe we're freaking magical. And that's the best kind of believing, because no one can unsay it or take it away from you."

I nodded and sipped my tea. "And what about you, Jack? Do you believe in your own magic?"

"I stopped believing," he said. "After Lily." He stared out into the gray vastness of the crater. "All the Brocken Spectre means to me now is a dark projection of myself. Grotesque. Eerie. Contorted. It's what the world does, you know? It distorts you until you can't recognize yourself."



       
         
       
        

My heart squeezed at the pain that flickered in his eyes. "You're a good man, Jack," I said. "You saved my life today. I might have ended up at the bottom of that crater if you hadn't shown up when you did."

His eyes came back to me, like he'd been far away and I had just pulled him back. "What were you doing so close to the edge?"

"I was looking down over the rim. It was beautiful. The animals, the lake, the forest. That was before the mist rolled in and blanketed everything."

"You should see it up close before we leave. Do it now. You never know if we'll be passing this way again."

I nodded. A few weeks ago, I had no idea what this trip would bring. New faces, new places. A few weeks from now, they would all be left behind. A twinge of sadness hit me, but this time it had nothing to do with Mo.

"Have you heard from Goma?" I asked.

Jack had asked Bahati to stay with Goma and Scholastica while we were away. After what had happened to Juma, I understood why. I thought of the walled perimeter of Gabriel's house in Rutema, the broken glass on top, the hastily abandoned swing.