The Lost Island of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  “I—”

  But Simon stopped and began picking a splinter from one of the planks on the deck. A dark, brooding look descended over his face. Their parents called it his Maya face.

  They sat there quietly for a while, the breeze rustling the green palms and the wavelets lapping the sand. The waves sounded like laughter. The jungle exhaled a loamy, vegetable smell. Maya wondered how big the island was and what she would see if she did climb to the top of one of the hills. She was afraid. What if there was nothing?

  “Maya,” Simon asked, staring through the mouth of the cove and out to sea. “Do you really think they’re okay?”

  Maya’s shoulders stiffened. “They had the rowboat,” she said. “They’re fine.”

  “I guess,” Simon said, squinting at the horizon. He was quiet. “But what if . . .”

  A lump rose in Maya’s throat. “Enough wasting time,” she said. “We’re going to climb a hill and find help and then you can stop bothering me with dumb questions.”

  She stood up and offered Simon her hand.

  “It might take us a few hours,” she said. “We should pack a few things that we might need.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Simon.

  Just then the parrot that had been on the boat reappeared and flew down low over them and then disappeared back into the jungle.

  “That bird is weird,” said Maya. “It’s like it’s watching us.”

  With a last look at the parrot, Maya went down to the cabin. She found her old backpack and took the remaining food in the kitchen, bottles of water, diapers for Penny. . . . What else would they need? It might take most of the afternoon to reach the top of the hills. Better to take too much than too little. She looked around the galley. Can opener, matches, lighter, pocketknife, canteens, a bottle, and tinned milk for Penny. A small pot in case they had to boil water before they drank it—it would probably come in handy. The first aid kit! Good thing she thought of that. What else? She caught sight of her mother’s calendar tacked to the wall. It had been two days since they had seen their parents. They had been due in port in Bermuda tomorrow—her mother had circled the date on the calendar. Maya drew some comfort from the thought that very soon people would be wondering where they were.

  She went to look for Simon and found him stuffing his backpack with books.

  “Simon! You can’t take those. We can’t carry them.”

  “They’re Papi’s books,” Simon said. “We have to take them. I’ll carry them.”

  “You can’t,” said Maya. “I need you to help me carry the rest of the stuff—the stuff we DO need.”

  Simon’s mouth tightened into a thin line. He kept squeezing books into the backpack.

  “Tropical Marine Ecosystems?” Maya read on one of the covers. “How is that going to help us?”

  “You never know,” said Simon. “You never know what’s going to be useful.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Maya said. “Look, if you want to carry Tropical Marine Ecosystems to the top of a mountain, that’s fine. But I’m going to split all the stuff that we do need to take between us. What ever you can fit in your pack after that is your business. But remember, I’ll have to carry Penny, too, so you have to take a lot of the heavy stuff.”

  She went back to the galley and divided the supplies, dumping Simon’s half on his bunk.

  “And hurry up,” she said. “We want to try to get there and back before dark.”

  Maya finished packing her own backpack and then she found the baby sling her mother used to carry Penny in. She made her bed—if her mother found the Pamela Jane she’d want to see the beds made—and she tidied up the galley, and then she went on deck to wait for Simon. She waited for a while, listening to him pack and repack his bag.

  “Hurry UP, Simon!” she called.

  Finally he emerged. It was clear that he had decided not to take the books, but Maya prudently decided not to say she’d told him so. They decided to inflate the spare rubber dinghy and paddle to shore in it so that the packs wouldn’t get wet, and then Simon would paddle back and leave the dinghy on the Pamela Jane and swim back to shore.

  Before they got into the dinghy they paused to look over the boat.

  “Good-bye for now, Pamela Jane,” said Simon. “We’ll see you soon.”

  Yes, good-bye for just a little while, thought Maya, feeling surprisingly sad. Even though they would be gone for only a few hours, it was hard to leave the boat. She turned to climb carefully down the ladder, Penny in one arm.

  Before he climbed down the ladder after Maya, Simon suddenly clipped his heels together and saluted the Pamela Jane, her furled white sails and sunny yellow hull and freshly scrubbed deck, and then he clambered into the dinghy and they began to paddle to shore.

  Once there, Maya scrambled happily onto the beach. It felt good to be on solid land! While she waited for Simon to take the dinghy back and return, Maya adjusted the straps of the sling so that it fit her, and she lifted Penny into it. Now that she was on the shore looking up at them, she wasn’t sure that they would be able to reach the top of one of the hills—they looked steep and treacherous. But what was the point in waiting on the beach? None, as far as Maya could see. Maya was not someone who could sit and wait patiently, anyway.

  Simon splashed to shore and joined Maya. Maya turned around for one last look at the boat before their hike and that’s when her eye caught motion on the opposite shore of the cove. She didn’t believe her eyes at first, so she squinted and took a few steps closer to the water. Simon had seen it now, too: a single green vine that was coming out of the jungle and moving, arched and waving through the air over the water toward the Pamela Jane.

  As the children watched, mouths hanging open, the vine reached the boat and began to coil itself around the mast as if it were the trunk of a tree. Other vines, seeming to move of their own volition, were coming down out of the jungle, and the air began to thicken with green cords. Still others rustled out of the undergrowth and slithered across the surface of the cove. Soon the deck was carpeted in a green, cushiony mat, and vines hugged the hull like creeping ivy. For a moment Maya feared that the vines would snap the mast in two or cause the whole boat to capsize. The children gazed in stunned silence as the vines drew the Pamela Jane slowly through the water toward the shore, where she came to rest. Then, wrapped snugly around the vessel, they stopped moving.

  “Maya . . .” said Simon, a slight quaver in his voice.

  But Maya was speechless. She strained her eyes to see the contours of the Pamela Jane beneath the glossy green leaves. A chill spread through her. She felt truly afraid now. They were lost and alone, and instead of finding help, they had arrived on a strange and dangerous island. She tried to think. As much as she hated to see the Pamela Jane that way, even if they could cut all the vines free—and she wasn’t sure if they could, with just the pocketknife they had—the wind didn’t favor leaving the cove. It could stay like this overnight, or even for a few days. And, if she was honest with herself, she was worried about taking the boat back into open waters. She and Simon were experienced sailors, but they were still just kids. With a small baby to take care of, no less.

  “I think,” she said, still looking at the place where she knew the Pamela Jane was. “We should stick to our plan. We can come back later with help.”

  Simon lingered for a moment, but Maya turned and began walking down the beach, heading toward the jungle. It looked like an impenetrable green wall. Simon, lagging behind and less than eager to go on a long hike, was surprised when Maya turned her shoulders and slipped in between the leaves and disappeared. For a moment he was alone on the beach, then he hurried to follow his sister. In a moment the white beach was empty and still again, a little frill of turquoise water nuzzling it, the white sand blinding in the sun. Anyone arriving in the cove would never have even known a boat was there.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Flying Fish * The Green Parrot Returns *

  The Logbook * A Face * Penny Vanishes * Ca
rnivore Vines *

  Enter Helix * “People blowing in from the outside”

  Inside the jungle the air had a gloomy green glow and smelled like rotting vegetables. Penny, wide awake now, gnashed her bald gums into Maya’s shoulder and hummed monotonously. Maya tried to convince herself that the vines that had taken the Pamela Jane were just some bizarre tropical species she had never heard of before—it seemed more and more possible the farther they got from the boat. Before long Maya’s legs were scratched and thick brown goop glopped up to her ankles. She had to watch each step, parting branches and vines with her hands and making sure she didn’t step right into the deepest of the murky puddles. Behind her, Simon was deliberately making his shoes squelch and splatter the mud.

  “Don’t get your clothes dirty,” Maya said without turning around.

  “You’re worried about me getting my clothes dirty now?” Simon asked incredulously.

  In another hour, Maya’s shoulders were aching from Penny’s weight and they seemed to have made little progress. Though that was hard to judge, because everywhere she turned everything looked the same. She even saw green when she closed her eyes. The trees formed a thick canopy overhead and she had no idea where the hills were that had seemed so towering just a little while ago from the beach.

  “My signal fire isn’t seeming like such a bad idea anymore, is it?” Simon asked from the back. Maya ignored him and tramped on through the tangled undergrowth.

  Maya thought the first of the silver darts that flashed past was just her eyes playing tricks on her. But then there was another, and another. A rumbling sound rolled toward them through the thick green air and they turned to look all around them but couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. Flashes of silver streaked past them on all sides. Maya had fainted once, and right before she had collapsed she had seen tiny sparks fly around the edges of her vision. It was like that now. No, no, no, she thought. Please don’t let me pass out. But it was obvious that Simon and Penny could see the silver sparks, too. Maya’s mouth dropped open when she saw the first fish dash past her, fins beating furiously, slices of gills opening and closing. And behind it came a whole school of silver flying fish, hurtling from out of nowhere. The children could not duck in time, and were caught in the middle of them and forced along the jungle floor.

  “It tickles,” Simon cried. The fish were nibbling his neck and one had gotten caught under his collar and now its tail slapped back and forth across his chin.

  As quickly as they had appeared, the fish disappeared, swerving off the path and pattering into a long pond that ran alongside the path, so covered in spongy mosses and lilies that until then Maya and Simon hadn’t noticed it. Its surface was broken for a moment and then the green sealed over again and was nearly still, the lilies turning slowly on a slack current.

  “What the heck WAS that?” Simon breathed.

  “Sometimes schools of fish fly like that,” Maya said. “You’ve seen them, out at sea.”

  “That’s out at sea,” said Simon. “Not on land. And these were doing more than just jumping out of the water for a few seconds—they were bombing through here. They were out of the water for a while.”

  “Well, they weren’t really on land,” said Maya haltingly. “They came out of the pond, or what ever it is, there. And they were going so fast that they probably weren’t even out of the water for that long.”

  “What ever,” said Simon. “It was weird.”

  Maya looked all around them and caught sight of a parrot, watching them from a branch a few yards away. It was the same parrot that had been on the boat, she was sure of it. It had a silver fish in its mouth and as Maya watched, the bird dove off the branch and flew off into the undergrowth.

  “What’s weird is that parrot who keeps following us,” she said. “It’s giving me the creeps.”

  “I don’t see it now,” said Simon, looking all around.

  “It went off with one of the fish in its beak,” Maya said.

  “Well, I guess we should keep going,” said Simon, shifting his backpack higher on his back.

  In a few more yards, the path—for there seemed to be some sort of rough path worn into the vegetation—swung away from the pond and cut deeper into the jungle. The children followed it.

  “Simon,” Maya asked. “Do parrots even EAT fish?”

  “I didn’t think so,” Simon said cautiously. “But I guess they do here.”

  “Wherever here is,” Maya muttered.

  They walked in silence for a while. Maya had the uncomfortable sensation that she was being watched. She glanced behind her from time to time—quickly—in hopes of catching what ever it was, but there was never anything but more and more jungle pressing in on itself, fighting for space. Once she thought she saw a face through the trees, held very still watching them, and her heart leaped into her throat. But before she could say anything she looked again and saw that what she had seen was in fact a funny-shaped knot on a tree that, in the weak light, had looked for a moment like a face.

  They stopped to rest in a clearing of banana plants. Maya peeled a banana halfway down and broke off pieces for Penny. She had two tins of milk, but she wanted to save them.

  “The insects are huge here,” she said. “And so is the fruit. Look at that breadfruit up there.” She swatted an insect off her arm. Above them in the clearing a yellow butterfly, large as a bat, floated in the hot mass of air.

  All around them the jungle vibrated nearly imperceptibly. A lizard sprang between branches, shaking the leaves ever so slightly. Peculiar birds swooped high above in the canopy or sat on low branches, watching the children and blinking every few minutes. Flowers seemed to be growing even as Maya watched them, but she blinked away sweat and told herself it was just the heat playing tricks on her eyes.

  Simon was quiet for a few minutes, thinking, before he spoke.

  “Maya,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Remember that shell the parrot brought?”

  In her mind, Maya could still hear it clatter on the deck.

  “Have you ever seen a shell like that before?” Simon asked. He took his backpack off and fished around in it and withdrew the shell. “I mean, anything like it at all?”

  “No,” said Maya shortly.

  Simon reached into the backpack and took out the logbook from the Pamela Jane. When she saw it, Maya opened her mouth to berate Simon for carrying it with them, but then she decided that an argument wasn’t worth it. He already had it with him now, anyway, and he was the one who was going to have to carry it. And it was comforting to see something from the Pamela Jane. Simon found the page he was looking for and turned the book around so Maya could see it.

  “I found this right before we sighted land,” he said.

  Maya looked down at the page. One of their parents had made a pencil sketch of the same type of shell that the parrot had brought to the Pamela Jane. Maya felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up.

  “It isn’t just this one,” he said. “Maya, all the things they drew in the logbook—I’ve never seen any of them before. You know that we know every kind of shell and animal in the ocean all around here. The things they’ve drawn just don’t exist. They’re close to real things, but they’re not the same.”

  “The shell is just a coincidence,” Maya said, cutting him off.

  “No, Maya, there’s something weird here. Why would Papi have written about all of these things in the logbook? You’re only supposed to record coordinates and what the weather is and what other boats you see. What’s all the rest of this for?”

  Simon turned a few more pages.

  “Maybe these things are clues to help us figure out more about this place,” he said thoughtfully. “Papi always said that the logbook was to help you find your way when you get lost.”

  “Yes, but it’s to help you find where you are when you’re still out at sea,” Maya said. “We’re not out at sea anymore, Simon. And even when we were, the logbook didn’t h
elp us much, did it? If it had, we’d know where we are right now.”

  Maya glanced quickly at the book and saw the sketches and diagrams and notes written in her parents’ familiar scrawl. Suddenly she felt deeply afraid. She feared what the writing in the logbook might mean and she didn’t want to look at it. The feeling that they were not anywhere ordinary had been growing and gnawing at her as the day went on, but she still desperately wanted to believe that they were just on the uninhabited side of some known island, and that if they could just get to help, everything would be okay. She just couldn’t think about the logbook right now. She stood up and tossed the banana peels into the trees, then lifted Penny back into the sling.

  “We just have to keep going” said Maya. “Even if the things they wrote had anything to do with this place, we still need to get to a town,” said Maya.

  “But,” said Simon.

  Maya began walking but Simon didn’t follow. Exasperated, she sighed and turned around to look back at him.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay, okay. I’ll look at the logbook later, all right? I promise. But right now we need to concentrate on finding help. Then they can tell you all about the book themselves, okay? Come on, let’s start moving again.”

  “We don’t even know where we’re going,” Simon muttered, getting to his feet. “We’ve been walking in circles.” But he put the logbook back in his backpack and, glaring at Maya’s back, he trotted to catch up with her.

  “I’ll go in front for a while,” he said, overtaking her.

  Maya let him go because something had distracted her. The face. There it was again. Just off the side of the path, watching them from between thick leaves. Maya blinked and it was gone.

  Both annoyed with each other, Maya and Simon walked in silence for a while. But then the bad feeling passed and they fell into a rhythm, singing sea songs and counting to one hundred in as many languages as they knew. Simon tied a spare shirt around his forehead and broke off a walking stick and pretended that he was one of the old explorers discovering a new continent. Maya played along and her spirits lifted. Suddenly even the pack on her back with Penny in it felt lighter. She felt a rush of love for Simon and Penny. Anytime now they would walk into a town where they would be able to get help—they may even be reunited with their parents by later that day. She reached her arm behind her head to grasp Penny’s pudgy little fist to give it a squeeze, but her fingers just sailed through the air without touching her sister.