‘Look, do you see what a hurry they’re in?’ She pointed at the small sand-splotched bodies tilting as fast as their tiny legs could carry them towards the sea.
Just then a pelican swooped above, throwing a shadow on the sand. The girl squawked, waving her arms like a palm tree in a hurricane.
‘Now you can yell – flap your arms and curse like a pirate!’ she cried.
Will found his voice, and with it came such a volume of fear and worry and hurt that his cries of ‘Ahhrrr, ahrrrrhhh!’ startled the pelican and caused the girl to slap her hands over her ears.
‘You’ve got a lusty pair of lungs on you, and that’s a fact.’
Will felt a warm glow just under his ribs, right next to where his fear lay. He nodded at the creatures still tumbling out of the sand. ‘What are they?’
‘Are you pulling my leg?’
Will shook his head. He felt the heat creeping up his cheeks.
‘Oh, you must be a stranger here,’ the girl said. ‘Have you travelled far? I want to travel the world one day, and see all the other humans and creatures I’ve read about. These are sea turtles, who are also great travellers.’
‘Did you build their little house?’
The girl nodded. ‘The mother laid her eggs too far from the sea. What she was thinking I can’t imagine! So I built some protection. See, they need to reach water quickly to avoid being eaten by birds. But you know what? Only about half of them ever survive. That’s why they need me around.’
They stood watching the parade of little turtles lumbering towards the water. As a flock of gulls appeared Will and the girl yelled and stomped together, chasing them off.
The girl clapped her hands. ‘Isn’t that good? We didn’t lose one —’ She stopped and looked around darkly. ‘Not yet, anyway. As long as other humans don’t snatch them and sell them at market. Some folk have awful habits. Have you ever tasted turtle soup? Me, never. Do you know turtles can live until they’re eighty? Can you imagine how many sisters and brothers and grandmas and cousins they must have?’
Will tried to imagine. He couldn’t quite, given that he’d only ever known one relative, but he thought that what the girl described sounded mighty precious, and he decided right then and there never to eat a turtle either, even if he was starving. Sure as sunrise, it would be somebody’s sister or brother.
The girl pulled a pencil and small notebook out of her pocket.
‘What are you writing?’
‘I’m about to ask you some questions and I’d like to jot down your answers. We don’t see many folk from foreign parts, so this is my chance. I’m making a study of different customs and one day I’d like to write a book about it so all the people in the world can get introduced to each other. Which island do you come from? Or do you hail from the Mainland?’
‘I, um, live upriver on the hill.’
‘Oh.’
In the silence, while the girl frowned in a puzzled way at her notebook, Will tried to think of a new thing to tell her. ‘But I can walk a tightrope,’ he said. ‘My mother is a funambulist.’
‘Fancy!’ she said, her eyes brightening. ‘That’s a new word. I’ve heard of tightropes in a circus on the Mainland, but I’ve never seen one. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about – fascinating! Though I must say tightrope-walking looks awfully dangerous. Can you really do it? Did your mother teach you?’
Will’s eyes suddenly filled. To distract them both, he pointed to the turtles making their way out of the sand. ‘Where is their mother?’
‘Oh she’s swimming off to make more babies, I think. Where is yours?’
‘I don’t know.’ Will looked down at his feet. ‘I’ve been looking for her everywhere, but she’s vanished. I’m lost, and I’ve never been so far downriver.’
The girl put her hand on his shoulder. It felt steady and strong, like something you could rely on. ‘It’s a good thing I turned up then,’ she said, ‘because I know every inch of this island, and that’s a fact.’
When the last turtle had slipped into the sea, Will followed the girl back along the sand and into the forest. ‘Why not come home with me while we think what to do?’ she’d said. Her voice hadn’t gone up at the end as questions usually do and, like everything else she’d said so far, this sounded like the only sensible plan. Even though she wasn’t grown, there was something about the girl that made her seem that way.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked, stopping suddenly, and cocking her head at him.
‘Will.’
‘Will what?’
He hesitated.
‘It’s all right if you don’t want to give your name. Do you know, on Devil Island, no one even has a second name? Or maybe it’s so secret, it can never be uttered. What do you think?’
Will wasn’t sure. He was thinking about his mother’s words, ‘You are my Secret,’ and how she said he must never tell anyone he was the son of a pirate.
‘My name is Treasure,’ said Treasure, slapping at a mosquito. ‘Do you want to shake hands?’
Her palm was warm and firm. Will wanted to keep holding on to it.
But now the track narrowed and the forest thickened. Treasure strode ahead, flicking back vines and overhanging branches, and peeling away spiderwebs. Will hurried to keep up with her.
Treasure talked all the way, through the swamp bloodwoods and out into the next valley. She talked about hermit crabs and geckos – which weren’t really bad luck, in her opinion – and how some people boiled up the skins of boa constrictors as a cure for aching feet. Her nanna, who lived on the Mainland and had bad gout, tried it once and said it tasted disgusting. She showed him the Hercules Beetle which had a big horn right in the middle of its chest, and the giant silk cotton tree that seemed to be smoking above the forest.
She told him not to step on the prickly pear as it stung like fire, and to look out for snakes. Sometimes he wanted to say, I know that, but he never did. Instead he asked more questions. Her talk was soothing, almost like a lullaby, and even as he walked his heartbeat slowed as if he were being sung to sleep after a nightmare. There was something so comforting about her flow of words after all that terrifying silence.
The climb through the forest became steep, and they had to use all their breath to scramble over rocks and fallen logs. There was just the snapping of sticks beneath their feet, and the whisper of the sea.
Soon there were new noises, a bleating cry.
‘Goats,’ said Treasure. ‘Do you keep ’em?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll see ours soon.’
As they puffed into the clearing at the top of the hill, two fluffy white animals with black faces trotted up. They nibbled at Treasure’s face with their pink gums, and then at his own. He laughed with surprise as he stroked them – their coats were so soft!
‘We get milk from them,’ Treasure informed him. ‘I’ll give you some.’
Will followed her up a stone path to a verandah hung with brightly woven cloths.
‘Treasure, is that you?’ came a voice.
It was cool and dim inside, the stone walls shutting out the daytime heat. A woman was sitting at a long wooden table near the stove. She was bent over her work, her curly dark hair springing out in spirals as if she’d been twisting it around her finger in thought. Will saw that she looked just like Treasure, only older.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, holding up a string of beads. ‘Pretty?’
‘Mm,’ said Treasure. ‘Much better. You were right about adding the blue.’
The woman beamed and said, ‘Who’s this?’
‘Will,’ said Treasure. ‘I found him on the beach. He’s lost and yesterday his mother vanished.’
‘Oh dear.’
The woman stood up and came over to him. She was such a brightly coloured person in her red woven dress and rainbow earrings that she reminded him of a hummingbird or a flame flower – something so special you hold your breath when you see it. She looked deep into h
is face then nodded.
‘You’ll feel better as soon as you’ve had some nourishment.’
She brought out a blue pitcher that had been standing in a tub of cool water.
‘Goat’s milk and honey,’ she said, pouring him a glass. ‘Cold, sweet and strengthening.’
Will finished the glass in a gulp. But with it a raging hunger ballooned through his body and his knees almost gave way. It was as if the wanting had been waiting, folded down inside him until relief was near.
‘Looks like you’ll need more than milk to fill your belly. Treasure, light the stove and we’ll heat up some sweet potato and that chicken in mango sauce.’
Even though his legs ached and his eyes were heavy, it was hard to keep still. He wandered among the strange coloured balls that swung down on strings from the roof beams like giant painted eggs. They were decorated with scenes of birds and flowers.
‘Calabash ornaments,’ said Treasure. ‘You know, seed pods from the calabash tree. Mamma decorates them and sells them at market.’ Treasure waved airily around her. ‘She sells necklaces too, and her weavings. What does your mother sell?’
‘Clay pots,’ he murmured.
Treasure’s mother whirled around from the stove. ‘That’s your mother? Makes those pots? They’re wonderful – you can put sour tomatoes on to stew and they finish up sweet. Why, I see her often, and we have a word together. She hasn’t ever mentioned me to you?’ She tapped her chest. ‘Honey. My name is Honey. I gave her that blue-and-gold necklace last year, do you know it?’ She gave a low whistle. ‘But I never knew she had a child. Why is that now?’
Will shrugged. The lake of things he shouldn’t say and didn’t know had grown into a sea that might drown him. So it was better not to open his mouth.
‘Well, I’m sure she had her reasons,’ said Honey. ‘Now, set the table, Treasure, and we’ll have lunch.’
Treasure cleared all the beads and string and paints and brushes from one end of the table to the other, and put down orange mats for the three of them. When Will sat down to eat, such a sweet spiciness popped on his tongue that it almost stung. He ate without saying a word, and held out his plate gratefully when he was offered a second helping.
He was grateful, too, that the talk had turned away from vanishing mothers. He learnt that the glossy red beads on the table were seeds from the jumbie tree growing right here on the island, and that you could sell a necklace quick as a wink on the Mainland. But there you had to keep your wits about you as folk would try to cheat you as sure as a mongoose snares a snake. Treasure liked to accompany her mother on those trips, she said, as she always discovered new facts about the habits of Mainlanders and how to handle them.
After lunch, Honey brewed up bush tea for them all. Will ate a generous slice of banana cake too, followed by a bowl of custard. He couldn’t remember ever tasting anything so rich and smooth. Then he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He could feel his eyes closing and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘The poor child’s exhausted,’ said Honey. ‘Show young Will out to the hammock on the back verandah, Treasure. He’ll catch the afternoon breeze there and have a quiet nap. You’ll see,’ Honey stroked his hot forehead, ‘everything will look better after a bit of shut-eye.’
Will got up wearily, thanking them both for lunch, and followed Treasure out to the back steps. He sank into the striped hammock and almost at once his eyes closed.
Will woke to shadows gathering on the rolling slope below, and voices coming from inside. For a wild moment he thought his mother had come to collect him. He raced through the beaded curtain and into the house.
Treasure and Honey were sitting at the table threading beads. They must have recognised the expression on his face, as Honey said something like sshhh, heading straight for him, her arms outstretched. She smelled of paint and something spicy, cinnamon or nutmeg.
‘Now we’ve been talking,’ said Honey, ‘and made a plan. Tomorrow is market day. I will ask around if anybody has seen or heard about your mother. But we need to know exactly where you live. Is it the little house across the valley on Turnabout Hill?’
Will nodded.
‘Good. We’ve always said those folk at Turnabout Hill keep themselves to themselves.’ Honey looked at Will curiously, as if expecting something from him.
‘Please, Mrs Honey,’ Will burst out. ‘If you go to market, you mustn’t tell anyone about me. I mean, please do ask about my mother but please don’t tell anyone about me. My mother said I was her Secret and that’s why she never told you about me.’
Honey and Treasure studied him with their dark, serious eyes. He felt the heat rise up to his hairline. He knew they were good folk, but he had to keep his mother’s faith.
He waited for their questions.
But there was only the soft plik of a bird calling in the dusk outside and the shadows knitting in the corners of the room.
Honey gave a decisive nod, and stood up.
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of folk out there we’d all rather didn’t know our business, and that’s a fact. I’ll be cautious in my dealings but I’ll find some news of your mother, Will, never you worry.’
Will smiled at her and felt a leap in his chest. Light was stirring in that long dark day. He hoped the next would bring his mother back to him.
Chapter 3
From his hammock on the verandah, Will heard Honey moving around in the early dawn. There was the crack of kindling for the woodstove, the rattle of a tea cup. And then the creak of the door closing.
He was glad to hear Treasure stirring on the other side of the wall.
‘Do you want eggs for breakfast?’ she said as she popped her head through the beaded curtain. ‘And you can have toast with guava jam.’
‘Yes, please,’ said Will. He hopped out of the hammock and followed her.
‘The stove needs more wood,’ she told him when he asked what he could do to help. ‘See, that pile is chopped up, all ready to go.’
As Will picked up the small logs, he tried not to think about the strange man who’d come to chop the wood at home. The smell of cigar smoke was still sharp in his mind. Had the man really been looking for work? He wished he didn’t have to think about that now, when the flames were leaping brightly in the stove, and Treasure was humming a cheerful song.
‘I made the jam myself,’ she said when they were sitting at the table. ‘You have to stir it for ages while it boils, with spoonfuls of brown sugar. It’s delicious!’
She put a dollop of jam on his toast. The crimson sweetness melted in with the yellow butter and when he put the whole thing in his mouth the juices spurted.
Treasure laughed and swung her legs. ‘Mother says it’s like eating sunrise. She puts lime juice in too – that makes it tangy. But I like sweet. She’ll probably buy more guavas today at market. Oh, and she said she’d get some shoes for you, too. You can’t go running round barefoot forever!’
Forever. He didn’t want that word, it had no shape, it was like that awful drifting place where river meets sky, and nothing is real.
‘I have to go back,’ Will blurted. ‘Now. My mother might have come home and she’d be worried about me.’
Treasure leant over and put her hands on his knees. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Will tried on the sandals Treasure gave him. They were hers from last summer, and they fit, although the strap at his heels pinched a little, which he didn’t mention.
‘Excellent,’ said Treasure, beaming at him.
He caught the apple she threw at him to eat on the way.
‘We’ll go down the hill and along the river,’ she said. ‘It might be shorter to cut across the valley in the middle, but the forest there is too thick.’
Will stopped for a quick pat of the goats as he crossed the garden, and then he was running downhill after Treasure.
It was so much faster going down than up. They followed the rough path they’d trod before, only slowing now
and then to squeeze between fern trees growing close together as bristles on a brush, or rock ledges dropping suddenly away. When they reached the mangroves, their faces were damp.
‘Further upriver we can take a drink. But here the water is too salty from the sea. It’s called brackish.’ Treasure pointed towards the mouth of the river and its run into the Cannonball Sea. The sun glinted on the horizon, sharp and dangerous. Will quickly glanced away, and headed towards home and the un-brackish river he knew.
They picked their way along the bank mostly in silence. Roots rose hard as rocks in their path, and they had to look where they put their feet. As they grew nearer to the track up to Turnabout Hill, Will began to hurry. He felt like calling out, announcing his return, almost as if he were the one who’d disappeared, and now he’d decided to come home. He pictured his mother running out into the garden, her apron still tied at her waist after morning chores, scolding and smiling.
‘What’s that up there in the trees?’ Treasure called from behind him.
The tightrope stretched between the mangrove trees. He could see the ladder still there, leaning against the trunk as it had always done. It seemed so long since he’d climbed it, and yet no time at all.
‘Oh, is that your funambi-thingummy?’ said Treasure.
‘Tightrope,’ said Will.
‘Could you show me how you do it? I’ve never seen anyone walk on thin air in the true world. We have a storybook about a circus at home, but it doesn’t teach you how to walk the tightrope.’
Will hesitated. He just wanted to tear up the hill and see his mother. But a small part of him was afraid of what he might find.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it takes time to learn the tightrope. You have to practise.’
‘I bet it takes days and days and days.’
‘More like a year. Especially when you go high. You can’t take risks when you’re up in the treetops. You have to keep checking your centre as you go. It’s your balance that’s important. And you have to keep moving, one foot after the other. Never look back, only forward, with your eyes on the prize.’
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