Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [61]
When darkness fell, we were carried out and laid in the clearing. Flaming torches were lit and the drumming began; slow at first, a single drum with a beat like a pounding heart. Then the rhythm quickened, other drums joined and the circle of drummers closed in around us, hands and sticks beating faster, whipping the air until it throbbed with a pulse that deafened our ears and convulsed our bodies.
Suddenly there was silence and the circle broke. There stood the Edura, his back to us, his face hidden. The old man’s body was transformed: bronze and silver bracelets encircled his arms and legs; muscles swelled where the skin had once sagged; his back was straight as a rod of iron; from our position on the ground, he seemed twice his previous height. Then, quick as a cat, as all the drums roared into life, he spun round and leapt towards us, his face hideously disfigured by the Yakka mask. As we watched, terrified, the mask was no longer a thing carved in wood, but alive and moving, a devil incarnate. The Edura had become the Yakka and he was about to devour us!
Shaking and screaming, we clung to each other on the ground as the monster descended. Saliva poured from its jaws. Its eyes flashed and flamed. Clawed hands plunged through our flesh and tore dark, smoking forms from each of our bodies. We lay twitching in the dirt, emptied like gutted fish, as the drums pounded and the battle of the demons raged above us in the resin-filled, smoky torchlight. Then it was over. The demons fled. The drummers vanished. All was silent except for the sputtering of the dying torches.
We sat up and looked at each other. The fever had gone. The warm night air enfolded us. The smoke cleared and the stars glittered. A little breeze sprang up and rattled the palm fronds. And then our mother was helping us to our feet, supporting us, guiding us home and repeating over and over, ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God,’ as the tears streamed down her face.
Of course, after that, my father’s mission could not continue – the local gods and demons had triumphed. All knew that the missionary’s wife had begged the help of the Edura. All could see that the Edura had succeeded where my father had failed. What could my father do but pack up his family and return to Wales?
In the days before we left, my sister and I were forbidden to visit the Edura, but we could think of doing nothing else; it was as if an invisible cord tugged at something deep within us, drawing us towards his hut. We fidgeted through our morning lessons, sulked on the veranda in the sweltering heat of the afternoons or plucked peevishly at the luxuriant plants that grew in the garden. But when we were certain no one was observing us we scuttled to that forbidden place. Furtively, we crept to the rear of the building, where a hole in the thatched wall afforded us a view of the Edura bent over his crucible, into which he was dropping small fragments of copper and other metals. He turned and lifted something small, wrapped in a piece of cloth, from the low table by the wall. He carefully unwrapped the little parcel and lifted up a fine silver chain from which dangled the simple silver cross that always hung around our mother’s neck. We both gasped and then, fearful that he would detect us, held our breaths. What was he doing with our mother’s precious cross? Had he stolen it? Had she given it to him? If she had, what could this possibly mean? Gently, he lowered the cross and then the chain into the molten metal in the crucible. We pressed our faces closer to the hole, eager to see what would happen next, but we were suddenly seized from behind by two strong hands that dragged us from the wall. We found ourselves, in the next instant, confronting