collected them for bait, although the fish were sparse. Down below, the children told us, were fish big enough to feed a family of ten for a week. They liked human bait, so men would dangle their toes in. I guessed they were teasing us about this.
The path to the second waterfall was well-trodden. The bridge had been built with good, treated timber and seemed sturdy.
The waterfall fell quietly here. It was a gentler place. Only the fisherman sat by the water’s edge; children and women not welcome. The fish were so thick in the water they could barely move. The fishermen didn’t bother with lines; they reached in and grabbed what they wanted.
Gina breathed heavily.
“Do you want to slow down a bit? I don’t think we should dawdle, but we can slow down,” I said.
“It’s not that. It’s the fish. I don’t usually get anything from fish, but I guess there’s so many of them. I’m finding it hard to breathe.”
The men stood up to let us past.
“There are a lot of fish,” I said. Sometimes the obvious is the only thing to say. “Where do they come from?” I asked one of the men. “There are so few up there.” I pointed up to the first waterfall.
“They come from underground. The center of the earth. They are already cooked when we catch them, from the heat inside.”
He cut one open to demonstrate and it was true; inside was white, fluffy, warm flesh. He gestured it at me and I took a piece. Gina refused. The meat was delicate and sweet and I knew I would seek without finding it wherever else I went in the world.
“American?” the man said.
“New Zealand,” Gina lied.
“Ah, Kiwi!” he said. “Sister!” They liked the New Zealanders better than Australians and Americans because of closer distance, and because they shared a migratory path. Gina could put on any accent; it was like she absorbed the vowel sounds.
I could have stayed at the second waterfall but we had a job to do, and Gina found the place claustrophobic.
“It’s only going to get worse,” I said. “The trees will close in on us and the sky will vanish.”
She grunted. Sometimes, I think, she found me very stupid and shallow. She liked me better than almost anyelse did, but sometimes even she rolled her eyes at me.
The third waterfall was small. There was a thick buzz of insects over it. I hoped not mosquitoes; I’d had dengue fever once before and did not want hemorrhagic fever. I stopped to slather repellent on, strong stuff which repelled people as well.
The ground was covered with small, green shelled cockroaches. They were not bothered by us and I could ignore them. The ones on the tree trunks, though; at first I thought they were bark, but then one moved. It was as big as my head and I couldn’t tell how many legs. It had a jaw which seemed to click and a tail like a scorpion which it kept coiled.
“I wouldn’t touch one,” Gina said.
“Really? Is that a vision you had?”
“No, they just look nasty,” and we shared a small laugh. We often shared moments like that, even at Joe’s bedside.
Gina stumbled on a tree root the size of a man’s thigh.
“You need to keep your eyes down,” I said. “Downcast. Modest. Can you do that?”
“Can you?”
“Not really.”
“Joe always liked ’em feisty.”
Gina’s breath came heavy now and her cheeks reddened.
“It’s going to be tough walking back up.”
“It always is. I don’t even know why you’re dragging me along. You could manage this alone.”
“You know I need you to gauge the mood. That’s why.”
“Still. I’d rather not be here.”
“I’ll pay you well. You know that.”
“It’s not the money, Rosie. It’s what we’re doing. Every time I come out with you it feels like we’re going against nature. Like we’re siding with the wrong people.”
“You didn’t meet the client. He’s a nice guy. Wants to save his kid.”
“Of course he does, Rosie. You keep telling yourself that.”
I didn’t like that; I’ve been able to read people since I was twelve and it became necessary. Gina’s sarcasm always confused me, though.
At the fourth waterfall, we found huge, stinking mushrooms, which seemed to turn to face us.
Vines hung from the trees, thick enough we had to push them aside to walk through. They were covered with a sticky substance. I’d seen this stuff before, used as rope, to tie bundles. You needed a bush knife to cut it. I’d realized within a day of being here you should never be without a bush knife and I’d bought one at the local shop. I cut a dozen vines, then coiled them around my waist.
Gina nodded. “Very practical.” She was over her moment, which was good. Hard to work as a team with someone who didn’t want to be there.
What did we see at the fifth waterfall? The path here was very narrow. We had to walk one foot in front of the other, fashion models showing off.
There were no vines here. The water was taken by one huge fish, the size of a Shetland pony. The surface of the water was covered with roe and I wondered where the mate was. Another underground channel? It would have to be a big one. It would be big but confining. My husband is confined. I’m happy with him that way. He can’t interfere with my business. Tell me how to do things.
At the sixth waterfall, we saw our first dog. It was very small and had no legs. Born that way? It lay in the pathway unmoving, and when I nudged it, I realized it was dead.
Gina clutched my arm. Her icy fingers hurt and I could feel the cold through my layers of clothing.
“Graveyard,” she said. “This is their graveyard.”
The surface of the sixth pool was thick with belly-up fish. At the base of the trees, dead insects like autumn leaves raked into a pile.
And one dead dog. I wondered why there weren’t more.
“He has passed through the veil,” Gina said, as if she were saying a prayer. “We should bury him.”
“We could take him home to the client. He already has a hole dug in his backyard. He’s kind of excited at the idea of keeping dogs there.”
Is there a name for a person who takes pleasure in the confinement of others?
We reached the seventh waterfall.
We heard yapping, and I stiffened. I opened my bag and put my hand on a dog collar, ready. Gina stopped, closed her eyes.
“Puppies,” she said. “Hungry.”
“What sort?”
Gina shook her head. We walked on, through a dense short tunnel of wet leaves.
At the edge of the seventh waterfall there was a cluster of small brown dogs. Their tongues lapped the water (small fish, I thought) and when we approached, the dogs lifted their heads, widened their eyes, and stared.
“Gaze dogs,” I said.
These were gaze dogs like I’d never seen before. Huge eyes. Reminded me of the spaniel with the brain too big.
“Let’s rest here, let them get used to us,” Gina said.
I glanced at my watch. We were making good time; assuming we caught a vampire dog with little trouble, we could easily make it back up by the sunfall.
“Five minutes.”
We leaned against a moss-covered rock. Very soft, damp, with a smell of underground.
The gaze dogs came over and sniffled at us. One of the puppies had deep red furrows on its back; dragging
