Free She Walks in Shadows by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paula R. Stiles Page B

and granite, limestone and chalk, while we walked, and he showed us where it seemed as if the stones covering holes in the ground were also basalt, like the gate. I climbed the great tower and took rubbings for him.
    “The men who built the ruins did not know just what they were doing, Olumbi explained — only that they must do it. And when it was done, the old gods came through freely, in silence. The men had built a door — as if all the world, Mr. Greene, was a hut, yet it had been built with no way in, and the men had chopped a door into the hut. When the men realized that this had been done, they cried out in regret and tried to destroy what they had made, but the old gods sent forth their servants, called shoggoths, and killed some men, and enslaved some, and went breaking and eating and burning all over the wide world, for the shoggoths could not be seen by man. They were terrible — like things from bad dreams. Then some wise men from a different land made the necessary magicks to hurl the old gods back to their unholy realm, and everyone began to rebuild our world, and soon this door was forgotten. It is a wonderful story.
    “Henley was mad for it — what were the old gods? What were these magicks? But Olumbi did not answer him. These were not part of the story that he knew. Near sundown, the guides left the ruins to get wood for torches. Henley pried loose a small stone with a carving on it of a thing with snakes for a face, and slipped it into his bag. He jumped when he saw that I was watching him, for we both knew he had been told to never take anything from the ruins, never, never.
    “‘Say nothing, Sima,’ he whispered to me. I worried about it, what he had done, but ... it was one little stone, just the size of his hand and as thick. There were hundreds of the snake-faced creature carvings all over the ruins. What calamity, I thought, could come from just one of so many going missing? And yet ... as we walked to the village, I felt a cold wind at our backs, and no birds sang.
    “He left a few days later, promising extravagant gifts and tales the next time he returned. But his doom was already upon him. We all saw it. He was pale as the moon; he could not sleep. In the night, he walked and wandered instead, and talked to himself. During the day he seemed his normal self, and laughed and ate with us, and boasted of his adventures. But he was restless. He could not meet the eye. He avoided the fire. It was another three years before he rode back and he was so ill I wondered how he had made the trip. He was half his weight; he looked like a drought-stricken animal about to die. At first, I did not even recognize him. I thought how surprising it was that another white man had come to us. The chief sent for the best healers he knew. Where before, Henley would have waved them away like flies, he lay in the chief’s hut without moving except to weep.
    “Of myself, he asked for news of the area. Nothing, I said. The hunts are well, our gardens grow. Many babies have been born. There have been dust storms, stripping away the vegetation at Sun Stones. But the old women say there have been storms like that before. ‘There have been no noises? Earthquakes? No cries in the night? No blood on your sand?’ ‘ No, no ,’ I promised him.
    “He had come at midday. When night fell, I thought he would surely die while we slept, but he did not; in fact, he rose and dressed, and woke me. ‘Sima, my only friend,’ he whispered. ‘Help me. You must. I am cursed; I carried home a curse with me.’ I did not know what a curse was, but I knew what ‘help’ meant and I could not say no. By the time we reached the ruins, I was nearly carrying him. It was so frightening, Mr. Greene — he weighed nothing; it was like carrying a child. We came in through one of the small side gates, moving quickly, for the trees and brush had all been blown down and killed by the wind. He directed me to the center of the ruins — it took