Enthralled

_{ENTHRALLED
by Ann Cristy}

Teel lay face-down
on the hot, moist earth. Ants and other insects began to
crawl over her cheeks, stinging her, and she knew she had to move, though her
body screamed in protest. Sweat dribbled into her burning eyes. The buzz of
flies was loud in the fetid heat. Groaning, she pushed herself to a sitting
position. Cross-legged, swiping at the flies that swarmed over her the moment
she was still, she tried to take stock of her situation. She refused to accept
the thought that she could, indeed, be utterly lost.

Somehow she had to
retrace her steps to the mission and Aunt Tessa. For the hundredth time she
cursed the folly of having given in to her aunt's pleas and journeyed with her
to the mission outpost in Central America that was run by Aunt Tessa's friend,
Sister Mary Mark. When the formidable sister had informed them that they should
don nuns' habits as a safety precaution against the unwanted advances of
patrolling soldiers, she should have insisted that they leave at once.

Teel's forehead burned with
fever. Her lips were cracked and sore from lack of water. Still, she was
determined to get herself out of this—this stupid situation.

She had only gone a short
distance outside the mission area, in order to give Aunt Tessa a chance to talk
alone with her old school friend. She had not meant to wander beyond the
perimeter. Now she cursed her stupidity and the density of the jungle that had
made her take a wrong turn, away from the mission instead of back toward it.

She stood up slowly, swaying
in the heat. "You're going to get out of here, Teel Barrett," she
said aloud, the sound of her hoarse voice startling some birds into flight. She
blinked at an orange and blue parrot and wished she had its vantage point. She
slapped at a mosquito on her cheek. "I never thought I would find a nun's
habit useful" she muttered, "but it sure is a buffer against
you." She blinked at the dead mosquito in her hand, then took her bearings
as best she could and began walking.

An hour later she knew she was
weakening from the effects of the stifling heat. She no longer spoke out loud
to herself. It took too much energy.

She squinted up through the
thick curtain of trees to the cloudless blue sky, listened to the cawing and
squalling of the jungle creatures, and wondered if she had really heard the
sound of the surf or if it was just another jungle noise.

Barely able to
push the light branches aside, Teel staggered through the underbrush toward the
sound, then stared mouth agape at the sand and sea in front of her. The Pacific Ocean! It had to be the Pacific. She knew that the beaches on the Pacific side of Central America often consisted of black sand like this one. She felt a shaky sense of
triumph. She didn't know exactly where she was, but she did know she was facing
the Pacific Ocean. She reeled out onto the beach, trying to shade her eyes from
the blinding sun, seeing nothing but beach and ocean shimmering under its
flaming disc. Then, suddenly overcome by heat and fatigue, she fell forward on
her face and slept.

When she awoke it
was dark and she was cold, the cold that comes to anyone who has had too much
exposure to the sun. She shivered and looked around her, hungry and frightened.

Sometime later she
saw lights moving on the water and stared at them in disbelief. "You're
hallucinating, Teel," she told herself through cracked lips. But a small,
g motorized dinghy came ashore. She watched two men I and a woman beach the
craft and shine a flashlight across the sand in a great arc. "You're
seeing things, Teel," she : said firmly, not bothering to lower her voice
because she knew figments of her own imagination would pay no attention to her.

But the man
holding the flashlight jerked his head up and said, "Hey, I heard a voice.
We better get out of here. Chazz will be madder than hell because we took the
dinghy. He said the repairs would be finished in an hour and we were to stay on
board." He swung the flashlight across the beach again, but the beam of
light kept missing Teel.

"Come on, stop it,
Zack," the woman said in a high, wheedling tone to the other man, who was
nuzzling her. ' "I don't want Chazz mad at me. You know how he gets."

"Damn you, Elise, I
thought you wanted a little beach party: a fire, a little wine..." The man
called Zack lowered his voice to a seductive hiss as he moved closer, to the
woman.

Teel watched them, her arms
and legs like lead, her voice a dry croak in her parched throat. She had to get
their attention. They were her only hope.

"I don't want to stay
now," Elise continued. "Jim said he heard someone talking. What if we
run into revolutionaries?" She shuddered, her exaggerated shadow quivering
in the beam of the flashlight.

"He didn't hear
anything," Zack protested.

Just then a shout
reached them from the direction of the lights on the water. Teel couldn't
understand the words, but the tone was angry. She watched the three people
scramble toward the dinghy. They were leaving her! Desperate, she forced
herself up from her knees. Her body trembled with the effort. Slowly,
erratically, using every last vestige of strength and will she had left, she
shambled forward, watching in mute horror as they pushed the dinghy into the
water. The woman was already in the boat. Then one of the men jumped aboard. As
the second man prepared to follow, Teel's feet splashed into the water. The
last man let out a startled shout, but she didn't stop. She headed straight for
the dinghy.

"Who the hell are
you?" the man called Zack demanded from his vantage point at the motor.
"Where did you come from?"

Without answering, Teel just
fell forward, clutching the gunwales. She heard a woman's shriek, a shouted
oath, and then blackness closed over her head.

Teel awoke to turquoise. She
wasn't surprised, but she hadn't expected the afterlife to be turquoise. Long
ago she had stopped practicing the religion that was so sustaining to her aunt
and her friends, but Teel had retained the idea of an afterlife. She had just
never thought it would be turquoise.

"So you're awake." A
man's face loomed over hers, with strong planes and amber eyes. Lion's eyes,
Teel mused, thinking he looked rather stern for an angel. Did angels have firm
mouths that appeared to have been whittled and cheeks faintly shadowed with a
beard? Angels didn't have coal black hair, did they? Perhaps this was a devil,
Teel thought, too tired to really care.

"Aren't you going to
speak?" the voice asked.

"No." The one word
made her dry lips feel as if they'd been split. She had no idea where her voice
had come from, but it was like sandpaper on raw wood.

"Who are you?" the
man asked her, leaning closer.

Teel flinched and
tried to pull the sheet over her head, but her hands wouldn't do her bidding.

Irritation flashed
across the man's austere features. "Listen, I have to know who you
are."

Teel closed her eyes to make
him disappear. Sleep came as a welcome gift.

She woke again to the same
turquoise, but this time she was able to turn her head and see that she was in
a bedroom. It hurt to move, but she forced herself to look as far as she was
able. She was incapable of lifting herself but realized she was on a boat of
some kind. A large window revealed a patch of blue sky, and she felt the motion
of the ship under her body even though she could not see the water from where
she lay.

The door opened, and she turned
her eyes to see the man who'd spoken to her earlier—the one she thought of as
the devil—and another man, who looked like a leprechaun and carried a tray with
covered dishes. They stared down at her for a long time.

Every instinct told Teel to
run, but she was thoroughly immobile. Every nerve ending stood at full alert.
The hair on her arms prickled like tiny antennae receiving danger signals.

The larger man
bent toward her and lifted her easily. All at once Teel realized that she was
naked under the silk sheets. Her fingers moved futilely, unable to grasp the
slipping material. The devil held the sheet around her and lowered her to a
cluster of pillows the other man had provided. "Darby, get her that robe
from Clare's cabin, the short one with the long sleeves." He grinned at
the smaller man, making ' dimples form on either side of his mouth.

The devil has dimples, Teel
thought as she lay back against the pillows, completely exhausted. Her skin
felt on fire from insect bites and the burning sun. Her face , felt swollen and
dry. She wanted to immerse herself in j cold, cold milk.

"She'll have my eyes if I
touch her precious clothes," I the smaller man protested, frowning at
Satan, his bushy brows bobbing up and down.

Satan's smile disappeared into
granite. His teeth snapped together. "Tell her I want that jacket, and I
don't want to have to come after it." He turned to Teel, then back to the
older man, who was crossing to the cabin door. "And bring some lotion. I
want good stuff. These dames spend enough of my money for the best, so I know
there's some on board. I want it."

Teel struggled to shout that
she didn't want the little man to leave, but all that came out was a groan.

"All right, darling,
let's see if you can take some of this cold soup." Satan lifted her, his
arm cradling her, but still she moaned. "This is cold cucumber soup, and I
my chef tells me it's just the thing for someone suffering from heat exposure
such as yours."

Teel kept her eyes on him as
he edged the spoon into her mouth and let the creamy mixture slide down her
throat. The cooling sensation was immediate. So was hunger. She was eager for
the second spoonful and the . next and the next. Then she was tired. She closed
her eyes and let sleep take her.

Teel realized vaguely that she
slept off and on for a long time. In brief moments of lucidity she was aware
that her swollen body was gradually returning to normal, the itching was
disappearing, her appetite had increased, and her general soreness was
beginning to fade. Strength returned slowly to her limbs, and she took more
note of her surroundings.

The devil didn't
return. After a doctor had examined her, she'd been left in the able care of
the man called Darby. At last she felt strong enough to talk to him.
"Darby, what happened to the other man?"

His mouth agape,
Darby stared at her. "So you can talk, can you? For days all you've said
is 'no'." He smiled at her, his sandy hair quivering on his head like
tufts of wild grass. "That other man, as you call him, is gambling with
his guests on the island of Alidad, where we've dropped anchor for a time. It
was lucky for you we had engine trouble. What were you doing on that beach,
anyway?"

Teel told him of losing her
way in the jungle while on a visit to the mission in the jungle.

Darby shook his head
and again commented on her good luck. "We didn't originally intend to land
off the coast. Too much trouble in those banana republics. Chazz usually gives
them a wide berth. But,"—he shrugged his thin shoulders—"bilge pumps
aren't usually temperamental; so we put in for repairs."

His elfin grin
made Teel smile. "You scared the be- jabbers out o' those low-class
friends of Chazz's," he went on. "It's a wonder they didn't throw you
into the ocean. You should have heard them excusing themselves for bringin'
you. I don't know why Chazz keeps them around—them and the rest of his
'guests'. They're not the kind of people he has business dealings with, I tell
you." He pursed his thin lips as he set a tray on her knees with the
ritual tonic and tea he usually gave her in the evening. The biscuits were
light and flaky and running with butter.

"I often
think he hangs with that bunch to somehow make up for his success. Ya see,
Chazz was very poor when he was growing up. He worked his way through college,
then began his own parcel service. From that he went to shipping, and now he
has a fleet of planes, and—"

Teel smiled,
feeling both mentally and physically comfortable for the first time. She was
getting better. "I know about Chazz Herman," she said. "I read
that article in
World
magazine about how he flew the flood relief plane into a
remote area of the jungle after a volcano erupted. He plays polo with European
royalty"—Teel ticked the facts off on her fingers—"he's a self-made
millionaire, who rose from the slums of New York to become a member of the jet
set... "