He whistled.

Kanani stepped his way but stopped herself from going any farther.

Jock turned sideways and squeezed through. They heard more creaking, whistling. He stepped back out with something behind his back. He clicked the flashlight off, which should have rattled him to no end.

He clicked the flashlight back on. Kanani started. Jock held a bright golden flash on the upright palm of his other hand. She stepped forward holding a hand to her eyes, squinting. Jock was grinning, his teeth reflecting golden light.

She first felt a warmth down low, then in her chest, and it spread throughout her in waves, so that she had to shift her feet in place to keep the feeling moving around, it was so intense in one spot. Too intense.

Jock kept grinning, his teeth illuminating as if plated with the gold and then greased as if the gold lacquered his fangs. He seemed to have gained half a foot yet shrunk at the same time, such was his obsequious stance, like the proudest butler there ever was.

Wendell meanwhile seemed to be looking at nothing at all. His face had slackened, and his eyes went dim despite twinkling too, and he released a couple sighs from deep within him, like a man exhaling the finest cigar available on this earth to go with that award-winning aureate cognac he was now licking his lips wet with. Wendell whistled.

Wendell, too? Kanani glared at him. The warmth inside her had retreated to just her gut and to her head, where it burned itself out behind her eyes, leaving her legs and limbs so cold. This chill scared her. If her head went cold too, she was done for. What was happening to her? She felt such deep sadness, the kind that made locals leap to their deaths into canyons.

“We take what we can carry,” Jock said.

She shook her head.

“You earned it,” Jock said, “here, just touch it.”

She stepped back to avoid him. She pushed at his chest.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jock said.

She shook Wendell, who blinked and blinked until his eyes were his own once more.

“We don’t got all day,” Jock was saying, “there must be fifty boxes to choose from, there must be other caves of them, ooh, sure, I can just taste it—”

“No,” Kanani snapped. “We can’t move them. Not one.”

“What?” Jock said.

“They’re tainted—they could be marked, I mean,” she tried, “and who’s gonna move goods that are marked?”

“Goods? This ain’t just goods. Well, if you don’t then I sure will.”

“No!”

Kanani hadn’t yelled it this time. It was Wendell again.

“She’s right,” he told Jock. “In a manner of speaking. She touches that, takes it, then she’s marked, too. Cursed. We’re all cursed.”