by Karen Swan
She felt far away, almost below the earth, as the insect came into view. It hovered high above her in the sky, silhouetted black against the haze. It stared down at her as she stared back at it, then began to descend, growing ever larger and throwing out a wind that made the trees bend and her hair blow against her face. She squinted as her brain stirred from its torpor . . . Still, she couldn’t move. Her body no longer obeyed instructions. She could no sooner get herself up from the ground than could a stick.
The helicopter lowered quickly, landing somewhere down the slope, out of her frame of vision again. Perhaps she hadn’t been seen after all? It didn’t really matter. She was happy to lie here. The mud had begun to feel like an embrace, the earth holding her, and she took comfort from the way it moulded around her body. It had been so long since she had felt truly held . . .
She closed her eyes, remembering just that spark of it down by the river . . . Alex’s embrace as he had found her. A small smile ticked up the corners of her mouth as she felt herself moved, then lifted; the earth’s suckered release of her was followed by a cold chill along her back. She opened her eyes to see two faces bearing down on her. They were wearing helmets and moving quickly. Efficiently.
‘Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ve got you now,’ one of them said, seeing her distant gaze fasten upon him.
‘How . . .?’ But the word was as shaky and thin as a puff of smoke and in the next instant, she felt herself rise up several feet in the air. She realized she was being stretchered. She was being rescued . . . It was all over.
She stared at the sight immediately above her and as she was carried beneath the empty patch of brightening sky, she had a sudden longing for the shaded embrace of the trees again. She wanted to catch just one more ray of light heroically winkling its way through the leaves to a small patch of earth; she wanted to see a macaw preening its feathers on a branch, to watch a sloth hang in blissful sleep.
Instead, the return to her world had already begun. She watched the bobbing of her rescuers’ perfectly round helmets as they navigated the slope, saw ahead the precision engineering of the helicopter’s blades, spinning at speeds faster than her eye could see, ready to whisk her from here—
William.
He was there, suddenly. From her prone position, she saw for the first time a tattoo on his neck, the deep wrinkles in his skin that paradoxically appeared fleshy and youthful.
‘Exhaustion. She must eat a little, and rest a lot,’ she heard him say to one of the men.
‘Will—’ she faltered as they began to move her. Tears suddenly slid from the outer corners of her eyes. She felt desolate, terrified to be leaving him. This was it, yes, the rescue she had yearned for, the escape she had craved – but she wasn’t ready to go. What she had thought she wanted and what she actually wanted were worlds apart. She was a queen at lying to herself. ‘William!’
He looked down at her and smiled one of his gap-toothed smiles. He just nodded as he placed his hand on her forehead and said something she couldn’t understand in his native tongue, his eyes closed, the other palm raised to the sky. When he had finished, he looked back at her again. ‘It’s all going to be okay now.’
‘I don’t want to go—’
‘Then come again soon,’ he said, giving her a wink before stepping back, out of her line of sight.
No! Didn’t he understand? She wanted to stay here, near Alex! She wanted to be there, with him, in the earth . . . But her body was inert and as empty as a husk. It wouldn’t move. Even without the straps binding her down, she felt paralysed and powerless.
She felt the wind beat upon her as they moved into the downdraft. It was like lying beneath the wings of a phoenix and she was forced to close her eyes, feeling herself lifted into the body of the aircraft.
The sounds inside immediately changed, the battery of wind ceasing like a hairdryer being switched off. She felt whatever tension, whatever fight remained in her body slacken. How many helicopters had she flown in, in her lifetime? And yet none like this – no stitched leather, no fridge with a bottle of Bollinger chilling inside. This was an alien landscape, sterile, medical. The walls were lined with lifesaving equipment – an IV drip, a defib machine, oxygen masks . . . She didn’t care! She didn’t want to be saved, why couldn’t they see that?
Tears streamed down her cheeks, over her temples, into her hair as the doors were shut and she felt the first tentative hops of take-off. She thought of William watching from the trees, of Alex somewhere under the mud, broken, destroyed, lost . . . and she began to sob, unable to bear it, the pain coming in sharp vicious waves that she had managed to hold off as she numbed herself in the mud. She had lost him for good and she would never even be able to make her way back here, she would never find this place again and be able to sit by the spot where she had last seen him, checking for her, before he was spirited away.
She felt hysterical with grief, she wanted to rip the skin from her body, pull her hair from her scalp, anything that would hurt less than this. The paramedic said something over her to his colleague, coming back into her field of vision as he observed her distress. She couldn’t hear his words but she caught the shape of his mouth and one word: sedative.
‘Take me back!’ she cried, shaking her head from side to side. ‘Take me back!’
She felt the other paramedic on her far side reach for her hand.
‘No!’ But she couldn’t pull her arm away, she was strapped down.
‘It’s okay, ma’am,’ the first paramedic said, leaning closer so she could hear him better. ‘You’re safe now. We’ve got you.’
The other paramedic was still stroking her hand, trying to calm her.
Oddly, it was working. Had he injected her already? She felt something deep inside her begin to settle as his fingers clasped hers, brushing over them with his thumb. There was a gentleness to the gesture that touched her, like he was soothing her troubled soul. It only made her tears come faster; kindness was more than she could bear.
He couldn’t understand that she didn’t want to feel, that she didn’t want to be.
The grip tightened fractionally around her fingers, a small squeeze equivalent to a parent saying ‘there, there’, and as her thumb slid against the side of his hand, it felt the raised edges of . . . a small moon-shaped scar.
She felt the breath leave her body.
She turned her head as far as she could and took in the sight beside her. Completely caked in mud so that only his eyes were visible, an oxygen mask on and an arm and leg both splinted, Alex blinked back at her. She felt a sonic pulse jolt her world back to life. If her thumb wasn’t feeling for itself the ridges of that little scar, she wouldn’t have believed what her eyes were showing her.
He was weak, the other paramedic administering morphine in the very arm whose hand she was holding. She couldn’t imagine the pain he must be in. She gripped his hand harder now, as hard as she could as they stared at one another, unable to speak over the noise; but steadily his grip weakened, the drugs taking over. His eyes flickered, as though he didn’t want to lose sight of her again, until finally he slipped into unconsciousness.
Tara kept on holding his limp hand.
The pilot radioed ahead as they cut through the clouds, the forest at their feet. She felt its vastness and fragility all at once, its beauty and horrors. It was a land of rainbows, where even as the rain fell the sun still shone. Only by being lost there had she found herself.
Found him.
For the second time.
Epilogue
Two months later
‘A good speech is a short speech, I’ve always said it,’ Holly said, clapping enthusiastically as Tara’s father folded up the sheet of paper in his hand and invited the President to join him at the podium.
‘You have always said that,’ Tara agreed, her eyes upon the stage.
They were sitting in the front row – along with her mother, Miles and Zac – of a small but illustrious crowd in which formally attired dig
nitaries sat with the park rangers and staff. Most of the Alto Uren tribe had come down the mountain too and were looking on with pride as William took his place beside Alex, beside her father.
Holly glanced at her, seeing how Tara’s eyes never left the players on the stage. ‘He looks well,’ she whispered slyly, feeling no need to elucidate which ‘he’ she was referring to. He was on crutches now, his arm seemingly healed.
‘Yes.’
‘Good suit.’
‘Yes.’
‘Always was a good colour on him.’
Tara didn’t respond.
‘. . . They’ve obviously been looking after him well,’ Holly persevered.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re obviously nuts about him.’
Tara wasn’t falling for her friend’s tricks – she knew them all too well. She gave Holly a look. ‘Behave,’ she hissed.
‘What? What’d I say?’ Holly asked with mock surprise.
Tara straightened up. ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to him in seven weeks, you know that.’ She kept her voice low, not wanting her mother, to her left, to overhear.
‘Oh, I know it. I sure know it, but I don’t frickin’ understand it!’ Holly hissed back. ‘They concluded the investigation weeks ago. Total exoneration.’
Tara nodded sadly. ‘I know.’ It still didn’t make her feel any better.
‘So? You could have come back out.’
‘I know I could, but I also knew I’d be coming out for this anyway.’ Tara shrugged lightly, but in truth she had needed every last minute before getting on the plane. No matter what her heart said, she couldn’t just run into the sunset with Alex when she had a whole life in London, with Rory. It was simplistic to think she and Alex could step straight into a happy ending after everything that had happened between them – and to them.
She saw Alex’s gaze cast up and settle upon her again. She was easy to find in this crowd, of course, front and centre, but she sensed he would find her anywhere: a crowd, a jungle. Twice. His eyes kept coming back to her, like a bee to a favourite flower, and each time it happened she felt that electric jolt . . . If she had tried to talk herself into doubting her feelings in London, they melted away here. She could feel the connection shimmer between them, the gravitational pull between his sun and her moon.
A riot of flashbulbs went off as her father and the President shook hands, sealing the deal that had been ten years and two months in the making. So many sacrifices had been made to make this happen – had it been worth it? A wave of cheers rose up and the applause lifted again as, with the formal ceremony over, people got up and began to mingle.
Miles and Zac went straight off to congratulate her father, leaving the three women happy to stay where they were, well away from the international press photographers.
‘Well, wasn’t that marvellous?’ her mother asked, turning to them both. ‘He’s finally done it. Maybe now we’ll get a little more peace.’ She was holding a small handheld fan and Miles had a tiny canister of mineral water in his jacket pocket to mist her on her cue; she didn’t take well to non-air-conditioned environments.
‘Congratulations, you’re almost poor, Mrs T,’ Holly grinned.
Samantha Tremain laughed. ‘Well, relatively speaking.’
‘Hey!’ Holly smiled suddenly as she saw someone approach them and Tara turned to find Jed making his way over.
‘Jed!’ she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him. ‘How are you?’
He knocked his head playfully. ‘Well, it hasn’t fallen off yet.’
She grinned. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ Miguel D’Arrosto and five members of his team had been arrested the week of her rescue. Thanks to testimony from some of the other rangers – and film footage from some nature-watch cameras in certain trees – the charges against them had ranged from arson to theft, criminal damage and grievous bodily harm. No one had held out much hope for substantial prison sentences – in most cases, the evidence was purely circumstantial – but Tara hoped the severe fines issued might hurt more anyway. This had always been about money for them, as they came after anyone they believed to be getting in the way of their profits.
‘You?’ He looked down at her feet, in soft backless mules.
‘Raw feet, but make it fashion, am I right?’
He laughed at the sight of her red heels. She had been in bandages for three weeks in the end. The wheelchair had felt dramatic when they’d first brought it over to her, but even she had been stunned when she’d seen the state of her feet. Infected blisters and a cluster of leeches from where she’d lain in the mud had not made for a pretty sight.
‘T-t, I’ve got someone who’d like to say hello to you,’ Jed said, turning slightly so that she could see past him. Sarita was standing there, and holding her hand . . .
Tara fell to her knees, feeling overcome. ‘It’s lovely to meet you properly, Paco,’ she said quietly, in Spanish.
The boy smiled, dark-haired, big-eyed, pale as milk. He was still short for his age, and very thin – but not of the skin-and-bones quality she’d seen a few months earlier.
‘You look better. You are eating, I can see.’ Softly, she reached out and, with the crook of her finger, pushed against a plumping-up cheek.
Sarita gave a proud laugh and said something to Jed.
‘He is always eating!’ he translated. ‘Now he has started, he won’t stop.’
‘Well that’s wonderful! As it should be. He will grow into a strong, handsome man like his papa.’
‘Gracias, Senorita Tara,’ Paco said, and he held out a small plant, its roots carefully wrapped in a muslin cloth.
‘What is this?’ she asked in amazement.
‘For your heart vibrations,’ Jed said for him. ‘The Awa says this will make them strong again. When the sadness comes, take two leaves and rub them fast between your hand. When they are warm, place them on the chest, over your heart.’
Tara reached forward and kissed Paco on the cheek. ‘You see? I helped you and now you are helping me. Thank you.’
Sarita put a hand on her son’s shoulder and Tara understood it was a sign they had to go.
‘He must rest,’ Jed said by way of explanation. ‘He is still building his strength.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll come and see you before you go,’ Jed said.
‘Great . . . Thank you, Paco,’ she said again, as the child was led away.
Her mother was watching closely. ‘I take it he’s the child I almost lost my child for?’ It had taken days for them all to calm her mother down. The talk of kidnappers and ransoms, curses and then hospitals had left her nerves in a friable state.
‘Yes. He’s Jed’s eldest son. He’ll be seven soon.’
‘Well,’ her mother nodded, watching his dark head move through the crowd. ‘. . . I can see why you went to the effort.’
Tara smiled. If her mother couldn’t understand the impetus to work, she could certainly understand the need to help.
‘What was the diagnosis in the end?’ Holly asked, curiosity glinting in her voice.
Tara turned back to her. ‘Cholestatic hepatitis, but presenting as myeloid leukaemia.’
‘Really?’ Holly’s eyes sparkled. ‘So then you and the voodoo guy were both right.’
‘Yeah,’ Tara grinned.
‘And you got all this confirmed how?’
‘Once he started responding to the leaves we brought back – enough to build his strength – Jed got Sarita to agree to some blood tests at the clinic.’
‘So then your madcap scheme actually worked,’ Holly chuckled, shaking her head. ‘You brought them over to the dark side.’
‘Not really. As soon as leukaemia was conclusively ruled out, he went back to the village and he’s been treated entirely by the black star leaves ever since. Not an antibiotic in sight.’
‘Shut the fuck up!’
Her mother looked surprised by the foul language, but she had always had a soft s
pot for Holly. She patted Holly’s arm consolingly. ‘I’m going to go and check on your father,’ she said to Tara. ‘Make sure he’s not hatching any more deals to give away the rest of our money. I’m planning on spending what’s left.’
‘Go, Mrs T!’ Holly cheered.
Tara looked around at the assorted guests. Her father was still talking to the President, each of them holding a glass, and their body language infinitely more relaxed now the official duties were completed. William appeared to be talking to someone with medals.
A hand suddenly closed around her bicep. ‘Oh my God. Do not move. Incoming,’ Holly breathed, stepping in closer to her. ‘Total fucking hottie, six o’clock.’
Tara fell still, unable to see but knowing exactly to whom her friend was referring. The moment she had lived and breathed for during the past two months was almost here – as she had known it would be. Like a satellite in space, it had been spinning towards her for years. Nothing could throw it off course now.
‘He’s not too hot on those crutches though,’ Holly murmured, watching on Tara’s behalf.
‘Is he in pain?’ She could hear the concern in her own voice.
‘No. I’d say he looks more . . . pissed off. People keep stopping him to talk . . . Oh. Oh. He keeps looking over. Don’t move.’
‘I’m not moving.’ Tara felt his gaze upon her back. She could still remember the feeling of his scar beneath her thumb, the shock and euphoria of discovering he was alive . . .
‘Honestly, just look at him—’ Holly whispered. ‘No! I said don’t move.’
‘You just said to look at him!’ Tara pouted.
Holly’s eyes narrowed, watching his slow progress. ‘He always was far too handsome for your own good. And cocky as fuck, using you to get to your dad so he could talk him into buying a national park. You know, as you do. Everyday stuff.’