But if Sister Teresa does that, Mari will be sent to the workhouse.
Luko places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. ‘He’ll calm down soon, I’m sure.’
The cook pads back to the fire. Mr Zamora already looks very calm to me. He is smiling that dead-eyed smile of his. Kidlat pads towards me, holding two bowls of noodles, and together we sit on the scrubby ground beside the orphanage door, and watch the workshop.
The stars are pricking through a dark sky before Mr Zamora unfolds himself from the chair and opens the workshop door. He enters and after a moment Mari comes out. She is even paler than usual, her head bowed. I hurry to stand, legs numb and full of tingles, reaching her as Mr Zamora closes the door behind her.
‘Are you all right?’ I say. She stumbles slightly. ‘What happened?’
It makes no sense for her to be so weak – she has been in there a couple of hours at most.
‘Just a bit dizzy,’ she says. The other children begin to crowd around, and she bows her head even lower. ‘Can we go to the cliff?’
I wrap my arm around her waist and mumble something to the others about her feeling a bit sick so they back off. I shake my head at Kidlat when he tries to follow, and he sticks his thumb in his mouth.
We walk slowly to the cliff and when we get there Mari flops down on the ground. She takes in three deep breaths.
‘Oh, that’s so much better!’
‘What happened? Why were you dizzy?’
Mari rolls on to her side. ‘That room, it has no windows, and he keeps all his chemicals in there. My head feels all sloshy.’
I remember the whiff of chloroform, how it made my head spin. ‘How awful.’
‘It stank. As for the jar it’s impossible – though you guessed that already, didn’t you?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry,’ I start to apologize, but she is grinning.
‘It’s all right. It just annoys me when people think I can’t do something because of my hand.’
A huge wave of relief crashes through me at her words, washing away the worry stuck in my throat. ‘Did you manage to fix some of it?’
Mari snorts. ‘Not in the slightest. He says I have to try again tomorrow, but I’ll never be able to do it. No one could. I expect he’ll get bored of waiting and buy one sooner rather than later. Won’t want to be without his killing jar long.’ She shudders at the words.
I want to ask her if she is worried about his threat to send her to the workhouse, but she is back to her normal self and I don’t want to bring it up. We sit listening to the lull and wash of the sea, until Sister Teresa’s bedtime bell calls us back.
THE BURNING
A
fter lunch, Mari is ushered back to the workshop. I cram my orange into her pocket before she stands up, and Kidlat does the same. A mouthed thank you and then she is gone for the morning. I am distracted all through mathematics, even answering Sister Teresa’s question wrong, though it is a sum so basic even Kidlat could get it right.
That evening he and I assume our watching position again, and as soon as Mr Zamora unlatches the door I hurry to Mari. Her eyes are bright with excitement, and she is holding her arm strangely around her stomach, as though hurt.
‘What’s wrong with your—’
But Mari grabs my hand. ‘Quickly.’
I feel small fingers, sticky with orange juice, wrap around my other hand but I shake them off.
‘No, Kidlat,’ I snap. ‘Stay here.’ He watches solemnly while we disappear out of sight, and I push down the prickle of guilt as Mari drags me in her unsteady wake. An afternoon spent inhaling chemicals has muddied her balance but still she pulls me along, almost running to the cliff. She spins around at the edge to face me, her golden eyes blazing.
‘Ami, I found the letters.’
My heart takes a fluttering, hummingbird beat. ‘What do you mean?’
She draws an envelope from her pocket. My name is on the front.
‘What?’ My head feels light, as if I have been the one breathing chemicals. ‘How did you get this?’
‘Stole it, obviously! Come on, Ami,’ says Mari impatiently. ‘Take it.’
The envelope smells of chloroform, and of oranges from the peel in Mari’s pocket. Nanay’s message is inside, but what if it is bad news? I can’t bring myself to open it. I slip it into my pocket.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’
‘Where was it?’
‘You know those boxes we see him coming back from town with? Well, I opened some and found a whole pile of letters, a stack high as here.’ She gestures to her knee. ‘Look.’
She moves her hand from her stomach, and tens of envelopes pour from her tunic, pooling around her ankles. She reaches into her other pocket and pulls out more letters. I catch sight of one addressed to Datu, another to one of the Igmes. I blink at her. What she’s telling me isn’t making sense.
‘Don’t you understand?’ She shakes the fan of letters at me. ‘He’s been intercepting letters from Culion. We have to tell Sister Teresa,’ I hear Mari say through the pulse in my ears. ‘He can’t get away with this.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
Mari freezes, and the voice sends a splinter of ice through my chest. We turn. Mr Zamora is standing in the mouth of the dark forest, the torch burning in his hand turning his gaunt face into a maze of shadows.
‘I was wondering where you kept sneaking off to. And aren’t I glad I followed, or else I wouldn’t know you were a nasty little sneak thief.’ He advances on Mari, who is still clutching her sheaf of letters.
‘You’re the sneak thief,’ she says boldly. ‘You’ve been stealing the letters from Culion.’
‘I am in charge here,’ he hisses. ‘And I decide what communication gets through. Those letters are contaminated—’
‘They are not!’ shouts Mari. ‘That’s not how it works—’
‘I am the scientist here!’ His eyes bulge. ‘I was sending those letters for testing in Manila, to prove that they are dirty, dangerous—’ He breaks off and breathes heavily. ‘But you have broken the box’s seal. You’ve ruined everything—’
He raises his hand as if to strike her, and the blood rushes to my head. I step between them, heart pounding, and Mr Zamora reels back as if from a snake.
‘You stay away.’ He waves the torch at me. He still thinks I’m Touched, like Nanay. And that means he’s scared of me. My own fear burns down into something sharp. I take another step towards him and he stumbles slightly, calling over my head to Mari, ‘You bring those letters back to my workshop immediately.’
‘You want to take them now?’ Mari throws some at him and they flutter like gulls. One lands on Mr Zamora’s foot and he scuffs it away. He doesn’t want to touch them with his bare hands.
But what he does instead is far worse. He looks from me to the letter, and back again. Then, a thin smile stretching his thin cheeks, he touches the torch to it.
It goes up instantly, a sudden flare of brightness against the grass. Anger bristles through me. Whose letter was that? Igme’s? Kidlat’s? Another from Nanay?
‘You can’t do that,’ Mari says indignantly, but Mr Zamora is beyond listening, beyond hearing us. He looks around for more letters, and brings the torch down again and again, even as Mari and I rush to rescue the scattered envelopes. Mr Zamora sets each one blazing, ignoring our cries for him to stop. They flare like beacons, or fallen stars.
The man advances on the larger pile, and though Mari is standing trying to scoop the letters into her pockets, he sets them alight too. She yelps and jumps away, and together we shove at him, trying to knock the torch from his hand. Laughing wildly, he dodges away and begins to back towards the cliff edge, swooshing the torch through the air in front of him. The heat comes horribly close to my cheek, a blistering kiss of pain as the tip of flame brushes by.
‘Stop!’ Mari shouts, pulling me back towards the trees. I am furious, fighting her. I want to pull the torch from his hands, shove
him over the cliff, anything to stop him laughing. Heat is pulsing through my whole body, down the backs of my legs, across my shoulders.
‘Ami, stop!’
Wheeling around on Mari, ready to push her if she won’t let me go, I finally realize what she is pulling me from. It is not anger making my skin burn hot – it is fire. Around the burnt letters the grass, dead and dry and waiting for the monsoon, has caught like tinder. What was a small brightness is now a flood of orange and red and heat. A wall of flame is spreading around us with the speed of a dam bursting, impossibly fast.
‘Come on!’ Mari yanks my hand, and we begin to run. The flames lick the trees as we reach them, low branches bursting into a dazzling orange blaze. I steal a glance over my shoulder. Smoke is rising like mist, but I see a white shirt darting after us, not far behind. My lungs tighten as more smoke snakes through my nostrils.
Though we are running as fast as we can, the flames are running faster. They dart from grass to branch to tree like spirits, growing hungrier and opening their flaming mouths wide as though they will swallow the whole world and everyone in it. The noise is crackling, cracking, the dry wood popping as it blisters and breaks. My chest heaves, stinging from a stitch and the smoke, and Mari is yelling, urging me on.
At last we are ahead of the fire and, coughing, we break through the thin strip of forest. The air is like walking through a waterfall, fresh and bracing. The children are already gathering, and some of them cry out as we emerge. Datu drags us clear, Kidlat trying to help, pulling on my trousers. Sister Teresa pushes her way to the front while Mari retches beside me. Kidlat is running his fingers over my face, frowning, as if checking whether I’m hurt.
‘I’m OK, Kidlat,’ I rasp. ‘I didn’t get burned.’
‘What’s happened? Are you all right?’ The nun drops to her knees beside Mari, staring at the blazing trees.
‘Mr . . . Zamora . . .’ gasps Mari.
‘He did this?’ Sister Teresa spits out the words. ‘Where is he?’
I look around. He is not here. He has not followed us. Mari and I look at each other, then stare in horror as a burning branch crashes to the ground.
‘He was right behind us—’ I start.
‘He’s in the forest?’ Sister Teresa leaps to her feet. Ignoring Luko’s shout of ‘No, Sister!’ and Mayumi’s shriek, she flings her habit across her mouth and plunges into the trees. Luko goes to follow her but another branch crashes to the ground in front of him, and Mayumi shrieks again, pulling him away.
Everything is a confusion of red: faces sweating and glinting, lit by the terrible fire, a heat so strong it feels as though it is singeing my hair. I count slowly to keep from panicking. One. Two. Three. If she is out by ten, it is fine. Seven. Eight. If she is out by twelve it is fine. Eleven. Twelve. I meant twenty . . .
Although the fire is roaring, it feels very far away, like hearing a storm from the bottom of the sea. The seconds keep passing. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. The older boys are hovering at the edge of the forest, trying to see through the fire and billowing black smoke. Finally, after the longest moments, Datu cries out, ‘They’re there!’
A strange shape appears through the smoke.
‘Help her!’ cries Mayumi.
The shape materializes into Mr Zamora, leaning heavily on the nun, who has wrapped him in her habit to protect against the flames. Some of the boys run forward and take Mr Zamora’s limp frame from Sister Teresa, who emerges gasping and spluttering, her eyes rolling, her face streaked with soot. Her wimple is aflame and she claws at it. Luko drags her clear of the smouldering fallen branches.
‘Water. Get her water!’ Luko shouts, helping her tear off the burning cloth. I force myself upright, head thrumming, and sit watching as Mayumi runs for water.
Under the wimple Sister Teresa’s hair is thick and a rich auburn, shining in the firelight, not grey as I’d always supposed. But it is falling out in great clumps, singed in places. Her forehead and neck are blistered and she moans. Her lungs sound as if they are full of fluid, not smoke. Mayumi returns with water, and before long a group of townspeople come running, a water cart following. They must have seen the fire from town. They set up a chain of buckets, doing their best to douse the flames, but none of us is watching the fire. All our attention is focused on Sister Teresa. Luko tries to get her to sit up, but her eyes roll back as she collapses.
‘We have to get her to a doctor,’ shouts Luko. ‘I’ll take her on Tildie – there’s no time to wait for a cart. Someone see to him.’ He nods at Mr Zamora, then lifts Sister Teresa.
Kidlat makes his way uncertainly to the collapsed man. Mari has finally stopped coughing, and she also drags herself to Mr Zamora. I watch Kidlat lower his ear to the man’s mouth. Mr Zamora looks more insect-like than ever, his limbs cricked out.
‘Do his lungs sound clear?’ asks Mari flatly. Kidlat nods. Mari’s mouth sets in a grim line. ‘Go and get some water, Kidlat. Ami, a rag to clean his face.’
Around us it looks like a battlefield, everyone scattered about. The fire has taken what it can from the trees and is dying back slowly. I tear a strip from Mr Zamora’s shirt and wet it in the bucket Kidlat brings, sponging the worst of the soot from the man’s face.
Suddenly, his eyelids snap back, eyes horribly bloodshot against his ash-grey skin. My face inches from his, he stares so hard at me – no, through me – it is as if his gaze is peeling back my skin. I tense. He smells like sour milk, and soot. His jaw works as he tries to sit up.
‘Get away from me, leper.’
Mari pushes him back down, hard. His eyes roll and he falls back, panting.
My heart thumps, its pulse heavy in my temple. I drop the shirt and stumble past the water chain towards the orphanage. Luko and Sister Teresa are gone, but more people are arriving from town with more buckets. I hurry inside and collapse on my bed, listening to the shouts, and the sloshing of water.
‘Ami?’ It is as though I have lain here for a thousand years by the time Mari’s weight dips the end of the bed. My body feels like it’s made of stone, fossilized. I imagine myself sinking down, down, down, through the bed, the floor, into the ground. Mari pulls me up with an enormous tug, and we hold each other in a darkness thick as a cloak after the burning brightness of the fire.
‘Do you think Sister Teresa will be all right?’ I say finally. Tears are running hotly down my face. Mari pulls back, wiping her cheeks. Her skin shines in the gloom.
‘I don’t know. She looked bad. Her neck was all burned.’ She shudders.
‘They should lock him up. She might have died. We might have—’
‘But we didn’t,’ she says, fiercely. ‘And you got your nanay’s letter, didn’t you?’
I had forgotten, but now I draw it out from my pocket, crumpled but intact. I hesitate. It is not until Mari says, ‘Ami?’ and touches my shoulder that I realize I am holding my breath.
The envelope is thinner than the last one, and when I open it there is only one sheet of paper. Instantly I know that I was right – there is something wrong. Nanay has written only three lines, and they wave and twist across the paper.
Ami, my child. I have been admitted to the hospital but you must not worry. It is only a complication. I think of you every day. I love you.
Below it are six more lines, but they are not in Nanay’s handwriting.
Dearest Ami, your mother’s condition is worse than she wishes you to know. I have written to Mr Zamora requesting special dispensation for you to visit. I am with her as much as possible, and Capuno is there otherwise. We all love you, and hope you can come home soon. Bondoc
‘Ami?’
I hear Mari as though through water. I slide off the bed and the ground spins beneath my knees. I have to put my hands down in front of me and hang my head to stop my vision blurring.
‘Ami,’ Mari says again, putting her hand gently on my back and rubbing up and down. I shrug her off and scuttle backwards. Her touch is too close to what Nanay used to do when I w
oke from heaving oceans and night demons, or worlds without her. Worlds without her were the worst.
‘Ami, tell me what’s wrong,’ Mari is talking close to my ear, but her words are breaking over me like water. My breath is catching in my throat. I can’t get it out and in fast enough. I can’t think.
I put a thumb in each ear and spread my fingers hard over my eyes and on my temples. The pressure and quiet focus me. My heart beats a drum in my ears.
For all the excitement of a new place and a new friend, I know at last what some part of me knew all along, even when I sat with Nanay talking about days passing easily, and lines bringing us closer, like steps. I cannot leave her, no matter what the doctors and the notices say. I will not.
When I take my hands away from my face, my heart is beating steadily again, and my head feels clear and certain. The other girls pour into the dormitory, asking us what happened, but Mari is watching me closely. There is something wild in her eyes, setting her irises alight.
Mayumi stands in the doorway, her eyes wide as a startled deer. ‘Bed, girls,’ she says in a cracked voice. ‘Please, no arguing tonight.’
Mari squeezes my hand. ‘Send me a message.’ She hurries past the gathering girls and upstairs, head down. As I settle into bed, ignoring the others’ whispered questions, the beginnings of a plan begin to itch my palms.
It takes a long time for the dormitory to go silent. The smell of woodsmoke hangs in the air as I wait for the others to sleep. Finally, it is safe to reach for a piece of paper. The string is already waiting outside.
I scribble two sentences.
Mari, I need your help. I have to get back to Culion.
I tie the message on to the string and tug lightly. It begins to rise immediately, but still I will it quicker. Finally the string waves at the window. How?
I take a deep breath and write four letters. Boat.
THE SECRET
W
e are woken by Mayumi, and for a moment I think that she has been left in charge, and that Mr Zamora has gone. But at ten sharp, he emerges from his hut as normal, as though nothing has happened, despite the courtyard being churned to mud with the water spilt from the buckets. When he speaks, his voice is raspy from the smoke.
The Island at the End of Everything Page 10