Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green

by Helen Phillips

  I stop trying to get Kyle’s attention and just zone out and stare up at the volcano. Which is now spewing some bluish smoke. It’s probably fine, I tell myself. And even if it isn’t, what can I do about it?

  I rest my head on my arms and time passes. It’s boring, lying there while the others work on their impossible task, and I can’t stop feeling sad about Dad being crazy. Next thing I know I must’ve fallen asleep, because the sound of La Lluvia starting with a slam jerks me awake.

  As soon as I realize it’s just the rain, I relax and sink back down. I’m lying there, groggy, listening to the rain, when the thought crosses my mind: Right where I’m lying right now, right where I just took a nap, this is where Kyle sleeps every night! I can’t help it, the thought makes me blush, and I get up off the bed before the blush turns into a giggle, and I flop down alongside Kyle and Roo, who are making all sorts of complicated charts on pieces of scrap paper. I prop my chin in my hands and do one of my least favorite things, in hopes that it will make me stop blushing about Kyle’s bed: I look at The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter. I’ve never really stared at it before, and now that I am, it hits me what a totally, seriously, unbelievably terrible drawer Dad is.

  “Jeez, his flowers don’t even look like flowers,” I say. “That one just looks like a W.”

  Roo and Kyle keep scribbling away.

  Then, suddenly, Kyle stops.

  “Wait a sec,” he says, snatching Dad’s letter up off the floor. “W …”

  “W…,” Roo repeats, tracing it with her finger.

  “Hey!” Kyle exclaims, pointing. “An M!”

  “THEY’RE LETTERS!” Roo shrieks, dropping her pencil. “THE FLOWERS ARE LETTERS!”

  We work our way around Dad’s flowery border, finding letters disguised as flowers and vines and leaves, and writing them down. Once you know they’re there, it’s not so hard to see them—the bars of an F stretching up into a leaf, and Bs and Ds forming blossoms, and S as part of the main vine, and L a vine that curlicues off the main vine, and M and N and H composing the bases of flowers, et cetera.

  “Oh my gosh,” Roo mutters, “I am so stupid. Why did I not figure this out forever ago?” She groans. “And there’s even huge hints in the letter! I love you left right up down! Plus that being smart is being silly. The goofy flowers are the silly part! He was basically shouting at me to look at the border!”

  Sometimes we wonder, wait, is that supposed to be a K? Is that a V? But every time we wonder, we assume it is, because Dad’s careful that way. This is what we end up with, going around the four sides:

  It’s thrilling to find letter after letter when all I saw before was scary craziness and bad drawing.

  This is obviously what Dad wanted us to figure out.

  Happiness gushes through me, because now I know he’s not insane! No insane person could be this clever.

  But as I gaze at the letters my heart gets heavy all over again. They still don’t mean anything. There are no vowels to help us along.

  “The left-hand side …,” Kyle murmurs.

  “Something repeated three times!” Roo says. “An abbreviation, like LOL!”

  “Something important, I guess,” I add. “Maybe—stop him, stop him, stop him?”

  “It’s a Y,” Roo tells me quietly. “Not a P.”

  Embarrassed, I shut up.

  “Stay!” Kyle says. “Stay, stay, stay! It’s got to be S-T-A-Y! Stay him?”

  “Isn’t that an old-fashioned way of saying Stop him?” I ask.

  “STAY HOME!” Roo yelps.

  Oh yeah. Duh. Stay home. Stay home. Stay home. Of course. Dad didn’t want us to come. That’s been obvious from the first day, when he was so cold to us. When he said to Mom, Why are you here?

  Stay home, stay home, stay home. Well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it.

  But why did Dad want us to stay home? If he were having problems, wouldn’t he have wanted us to come help? Wouldn’t it have made him happy to see us again?

  Anyway, okay. Stay home. But what about the rest? We’re all staring so hard at the letters that we jump when the door creaks open.

  It’s the witch, standing there at the top of the spiral staircase with a plateful of black muffins and three glasses of emerald-colored liquid on a tray.

  “Black muffins?” I say suspiciously. Boy, you don’t get much witchier than that.

  “From black corn, querida,” the witch replies. “A local specialty.”

  “What’s that green stuff?” Roo says. “It looks too healthy. Does it have seaweed in it?”

  But still she grabs and chugs from the glass the witch hands her, and Kyle swoops out to seize two muffins. Then the witch shoves the tray toward me, insistent.

  I look at Kyle and Roo, devouring the muffins and gulping the drink, not keeling over from being poisoned or anything. And I don’t want to be paranoid the way Mom got during The Weirdness. And it’s not as though I actually, truly, one hundred percent believe the witch is a witch or the green stuff a potion.

  So I reach out for a muffin and a glass.

  Only after Roo and Kyle have thanked the witch about a hundred times for the incredible snack, only after she’s smiled secretively behind her veil and trundled off down the spiral stairs, only then do I take a sip of the liquid and eat a crumb of the muffin.

  And I have to admit: The emerald substance is amazing, as rich and sweet as jungle flowers. And the black corn muffin melts like butter on my tongue.

  When I look back at our rectangle of letters, the top line suddenly flashes into words before me, as though I’m seeing it through a whole new set of eyes.

  “L-L,” I say, “La Lava! La Lava W-I-L-L H-A-R-M M-M-R.”

  Roo and Kyle stare at me, surprised. And impressed. We all crouch over the paper.

  “M-M-R,” Roo whispers. “Mom-Mad-Roo. Or Mad-Mom-Roo.”

  “F-D doesn’t kill—” Kyle says, moving his finger very slowly down the right-hand side.

  “L-T-V-Ts!” we all say at the same time.

  “Okay,” Kyle says, “but F-D?”

  “If Dad …,” I murmur with a strange certainty.

  “Yeah!” Roo says. “Left, right, up, down. Stay home, stay home, stay home. If Dad doesn’t kill LTVTs, La Lava will harm Mom, Mad, Roo. But what about the bottom? L-T-V-T, easy-peasy, but what about B-N-K?”

  “Bank?” I suggest, feeling like I’m on a roll.

  “Bank,” Roo mutters. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “P-P-L,” Kyle says. “That’s easy too.”

  “People!” Roo yelps.

  “People,” I echo. “But … B-N-K-P-S?”

  “Let’s try for Y-N-G first,” Kyle suggests.

  “B-N-K-P-S …,” I say, ignoring him, totally stumped.

  “Young!” Roo cries out. “LTVT blank people young!”

  “B-N-K-P-S,” I repeat. B-N-K-P-S. B-N-K P-S? B-N K-P-S? B N-K-P-S?

  “K-P-S—” Roo says. “Keeps! Keeps, keeps, keeps!”

  “But what’s the B-N?” I wonder. “LTVT blank keeps people young … ban? Bin?”

  “Bone!” Roo says victoriously. “Bone, right? It’s got to be! That’s why the Villaloboses saw those carcasses up there without any bones!”

  “LTVT bone keeps people young,” I whisper.

  “Wait,” Roo is muttering, “wait, wait, wait, oh my gosh, it’s like that thing about the volcano! About how it makes you young!”

  “THE VOLCANO CAN RESTORE LOST YOUTH,” Kyle quotes.

  It’s so miraculous to see the words taking shape before our eyes that I’ve forgotten to be upset about what we’re learning. But now my crouching legs give out and I fall back against the bed.

  LTVT bone keeps people young.

  So. That’s it. There you have it.

  That’s why Taller was putting pressure on Dad yesterday. That’s why La Lava is holding the best bird-tracker in the world hostage.

  And La Lava will harm us. If Dad doesn’t provide LT
VTs. Which they need for Vivi and everyone else’s crazy-expensive miracle youth treatments. Which he’s having trouble finding. Which he better find by the time of the gala or else. Which is in four days. Or, now, three days.

  Roo and I were wrong when we said the Bird Guy would never kill a member of a Lazarus species. Of course he would, if that was the only way he could protect us.

  “Well,” Roo says matter-of-factly, “we have to help him find a bird so La Lava won’t hurt us.”

  “Yeah,” Kyle agrees. “We’ll go into the jungle early tomorrow morning and tell him we’ll help.” Then he adds, sounding almost happy, “I knew he had a reason.”

  Excuse me, but how can they be discussing this in such a calm way?

  “Um, what if La Lava hurts us while we’re wandering around the jungle?” I ask. We have our eyes all over them. The sentence flashes back to me out of nowhere. I didn’t even realize I remembered it. Taller’s sneering voice, talking down to Dad yesterday. So we’re the “them.”

  Kyle and Roo barely look at me. “They won’t,” Roo says flatly. “If they hurt us before the gala, Dad will stop having a reason to find a bird.”

  “Okay, well, shouldn’t we tell someone about this? Like, an adult?” I say.

  “Who?” Kyle says, almost mockingly. “Ken? Your mom?”

  I shiver, thinking of Ken/Neth’s ridiculousness and Mom’s yogafication.

  “Great idea!” Roo says sarcastically. “Let’s talk to Ken, who works for La Lava!”

  “I—I don’t know who,” I stammer. I hate it when Roo is sarcastic. But she’s right—it is pretty creepy that Ken/Neth works for La Lava. I wonder how much he knows about everything. All that aside, though, I really do think we need to get a grown-up involved. “Like … the police or something.”

  “The only police out here are on La Lava’s payroll,” Kyle says with a short laugh.

  “I guess it’s up to us, then,” Roo says perkily.

  Up to us? Up to us to do what, exactly? I wonder silently, not wanting to ask the question aloud because I don’t want to hear Roo’s answer.

  “So he has been trying to kill a bird all this time,” Kyle says, more to himself than to us. “My abuelos knew it. But then why …,” he says, trailing off.

  “Why what?” Roo demands.

  “A few weeks back, I was in the jungle, tracking your dad, and he released one.”

  I can picture it like a movie in my head, Dad spreading his arms, freeing a bird.

  “You saw Dad release a Lava—” Roo stops herself before saying the name.

  “He caught it in a net,” Kyle says, “and looked at it for a few minutes, and then opened the net and let it fly away.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” I say, happy that Dad isn’t a total bird murderer but also freaked out that he let a bird go when he should’ve turned it in.

  “It never came up,” Kyle says coolly.

  I feel betrayed. Kyle, who’s practically our best friend now—correction: who is our best friend now—never mentioned that he’d seen Dad, in the jungle, releasing a bird! Instead, all we heard was the horrible thing the witch said about how they’d seen Dad capturing birds to kill. I hope Kyle at least told his grandparents this one redeeming thing about Dad, but if he did, it clearly didn’t make as much of an impression on them as Dad’s bird-capturing.

  “Why would he have let it go, though?” I ask irritably. As much as Dad would want to release a Lazarus bird, it’s hard for me to imagine him doing so if it would put us in danger.

  “Well, he knew what was going to happen to the poor thing if he kept it, duh!” Roo says.

  “Yeah, and he also knew what was going to happen to us if he didn’t keep it!” I retort.

  “So probably he had plenty of time,” she says. “Probably they had enough bird bone back then, so he didn’t have, have, have, have to give them another bird right that second, and he thought he’d just wait until it was really necessary, because killing a bird is the worst for him!”

  “That’s pretty darn risky,” I say, my voice going all high and out of control.

  “Dad is risky,” Roo replies.

  “That’s being risky with us, though,” I tell her.

  “Maybe he was seeing enough LTVTs around,” Roo says. “Maybe he was sure that when the time came he could find one. Or maybe he thought he’d be able to make a plan to get out of all this before he had to kill another. Maybe he was trying to do both—save the birds and us.”

  “Okay, fine,” I say angrily. “Fine. Maybe Dad was gambling with our safety. So, what now? He can’t find a bird so La Lava is just going to …?” But it’s too scary to finish that thought.

  Roo sighs impatiently. “Well, he’s obviously having a bit of trouble finding a bird right now, so we’re going to help him find one. As I said.”

  “Three kids? Are going to help the best bird-tracker in the world? Find the rarest bird in the world? Before Saturday?” My voice rises even higher with panic.

  “I’ve seen two of them this month,” Kyle says casually.

  We both turn to stare at him.

  “You what?” Roo says.

  “I’ve seen two of the birds this month. The one I saw your dad release, plus another.”

  “Or maybe it was the same one twice,” Roo points out.

  “You think you’re a better bird-tracker than Dad?” I ask Kyle with a mean grin.

  “No,” Kyle says, “but I’m as good as he is. And so is Roo.”

  I harrumph.

  “We have it,” Kyle says. “Your dad and Roo and I, we all have it.”

  I’m not going to give him the pleasure of hearing me ask what “it” is. Instead, I sit there feeling like chopped liver (Dad’s phrase), since I obviously don’t have “it.”

  Then I feel Kyle looking at me, and I meet his gaze, and it’s as though we’re looking at each other for the first time ever. I mean, sure, we’ve seen each other before, but we’ve never really looked at each other. At least, Kyle has never really looked at me. His eyes are golden, truly golden, no question about it, golden and golden and golden. He looks at me in this silent, serious, solemn way. The way adults must look at each other. You can’t wiggle out of this gaze by acting cute or girly. I try to look back at him with the same even stare but it makes me want to giggle. Not a pleasant, funny giggle. A stupid, terrified giggle.

  “We have to do this, Mad,” he murmurs.

  “I know,” I murmur back. Because I do know. They have to do it. Roo and Kyle. They’re the ones who can do great things. They’re the ones with powers. It’s not like I haven’t known all along that they can do things I can’t. That they know things I don’t. “You do.”

  “We do,” Kyle corrects me. “We need you too.”

  It’s a very nice thing for him to say, even though it’s not true at all.

  It’s pretty much impossible to act normal that night at dinner, but thankfully Mom is so yogafied that she just grins absentmindedly at us when we say we had “a very fun day,” and her grin only widens when we tell her that Kyle is going to take us into the jungle super early tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise over the volcano. If things were different, I’d rush to tell Mom everything. I’d want her to know that Dad is a prisoner of La Lava, that they’re forcing him to kill Lava-Throated Volcano trogons, that they’re using us to hold him hostage, that La Lava grinds up the bones of an almost-extinct bird to make people look young. I’d want her to help us figure out what to do. I’d want her to say we’re imagining things. But somehow I don’t think it would help to talk to her about any of this, and somehow I can’t shake the feeling that La Lava is doing something to Mom, because she’s sitting there seeming not at all like herself, looking totally spacey in her tulip dress as she laughs at Ken/Neth’s stupid jokes.

  And Ken/Neth. Now I’m not only annoyed by him, I’m scared of him (the guy who put Dad in touch with La Lava! the guy who encouraged Mom to bring us down here!). He’s been so foolish and f
riendly all the way along I’ve never really believed he could be anything more than a silly, pesky guy with an unusual job and a crush on Mom. But who knows—maybe he’s known this whole time what’s going on with Dad. Maybe he’s well aware that Mom and Roo and I are in danger. Maybe he’s spying on us.

  Looking across the table at him, though, I decide it’s impossible that he’s in on La Lava’s plot. The way he tries so hard to entertain Mom and me and Roo. The way he accidentally knocks over his piña colada. The way he fails to speak Spanish. He is just a goofy guy with a huge crush. He’s annoying as heck, but he’s not evil. There’s no way anyone with all the resources of La Lava would choose to give a guy like Ken/Neth any real power. Besides, everyone I’ve seen Ken/Neth interact with at La Lava always seems irritated by everything he says. As much as I dislike him, I know that when it comes to what’s really going on with Dad, Ken/Neth is as innocent as Mom. A pawn of La Lava, just like the rest of us.

  “Dessert?” Ken/Neth proposes when the plates are cleared.

  The thought of dessert on top of everything we’ve learned today makes me feel extra ill, but Roo says, “Yes, please!” as though she’s not in the least bit of danger.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next morning, when Kyle wakes us up before dawn with three quick knocks at our door, Roo discovers an even larger batch of the little yellow flowers on her toes. “She’s got roses on her toeses, roses on her toeses, roses on her toeses,” she sings to herself as she pulls on her shorts and sneakers. I’m too tired to remind her that what she’s got on her toeses is fungus.

  Outside, it’s absolutely dark except for the pinkish light of the fluorescent SELV L DGE sign. Kyle leads us toward the blackness of the jungle and opens the gate.

  “Do you have a flashlight?” I whisper.

  But Kyle just steps onto the dark path.

  Who does he think he is? The guy who doesn’t have to answer questions? The guy who doesn’t need a flashlight?

  “It’s sooo dark!” Roo says.

  “No it’s not,” he says.

  And, in a way, he’s right. Once my eyes adjust to the jungle, there’s a sort of grayness to the blackness. Almost enough light to see by. So I keep my mouth shut and we stumble along for a while.