The Lost Island of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  They were looking into a vast, magnificent, and spooky grove of gigantic trunks, covered in a shaggy hide of mottled green lichen. Their roots stood above the ground, forming dark, cathedral-like hollows large enough for the children to have hidden inside. Ropy vines with hairy tassels of roots stretched down from the branches to burrow into the earth and form new trunks, until over time the whole grove had become interconnected, and the canopy of leaves was so dense that little sunshine could get through and the light beneath the canopy was just a murky green gloom. But it was not the banyans themselves that Maya and Simon could not take their eyes off of, it was what lay beneath them.

  Lying napping beneath the majestic trees were forty or so jaguars.

  The jaguars had thick, soft, honey-colored fur with black spots. Beneath the green glow of the trees, each animal looked like a pool of light with tiny blots of black shadow. Vines swept soothingly back and forth over their backs in a fine breeze and rumbling purring rose from the creatures.

  “Don’t worry,” said Helix in a very soft whisper. “These vines aren’t like the others. They’re just sweeper vines—they put the cats to sleep. They’ll only nab you if you move too quickly. Just don’t make a sound and we’ll be fine.”

  He put his finger to his lips and motioned them to follow him as he began tiptoeing lightly through the grove. Simon went after him and a moment later, Maya took a deep breath and followed them. She watched where she put her feet, stepping gingerly so that not a single leaf would rustle nor twig would snap and disturb the cats’ slumber. Though it would have been difficult for the creatures to hear them over the roar of feline snoring. By the time the children got to the middle of the grove the sound was almost deafening. A tiny branch broke against Maya’s arm when she brushed past it and she froze in her tracks and waited, not daring to breathe, but the cats lay perfectly still, the vines sweeping in long, even strokes over their backs. The children crossed the halfway mark. Up ahead Maya could see water shimmering through the trees. They would get to the raft and then they’d be safe. Cats hated water, after all. The water got brighter and brighter with each step toward it. Maya tried to clear her mind of anything but where to put her feet. The right foot on a patch of soft ferns, the left foot balancing on a root sticking out of the earth, right foot in the quiet muddy place right there, left foot down just between those two rotting sticks . . .

  Then the worst thing happened.

  Penny woke.

  And began to wail.

  It was unlike Penny to wake from a nap crying but perhaps she had sensed the danger around them in her sleep. Horrified, Maya stiffened. Helix and Simon stopped, too, and looked over their shoulders at her. She looked back at them helplessly. Around them the cats began to wake. What ever spell the vines had put them under couldn’t withstand the cries of an eight-month-old infant.

  A fat yellow paw slapped down on the ground in front of Maya’s feet. Her breath caught in her throat and she looked into the furry, spotted face of a sleepy jaguar. The cat was stretching and yawning, its muscular jaw stretching out nearly in a straight line, its eyes rolling back in their sockets. When it opened its eyes again it leaped up, startled. Its lips and whiskers drew back in a snarl, and it lifted one of its great yellow paws to strike. Maya looked at the enormous, dirty claws and imagined what they were about to do to her, but could not seem to make herself move. Her feet felt rooted to the earth. And even though she was petrified, she was able to think quite calmly that even if she did begin to run, the giant cat would catch up with her in a heartbeat.

  She took a deep breath, preparing for the strike, but just as the jaguar’s paw descended in a death blow, from the corner of her eye she saw Helix swing his bow down from over his shoulder and withdraw an arrow from his belt.

  But Helix’s arrow sailed through the air without striking its target, because suddenly a long dark vine came swinging across and flew right under the jaguar’s ribs and lifted it up in the air. It hung, swinging slightly to and fro, twenty feet off the ground. The creature let out a surprised and outraged yowl that woke any cats that had still been sleeping. Suddenly all the jaguars were on their feet, snarling, ears flattened, tails dancing like flames. Several cats leaped for the children at the same time and as they did, other vines dropped down and looped around their middles and hauled them into the air, where they swung back and forth, howling in fury.

  “Don’t move suddenly!” Helix shouted to Maya and Simon. “Or the vines will grab you, too!”

  Maya had been about to make a mad dash for the water but she stopped and stood absolutely still.

  “Very slowly,” Helix said. “Very slowly we’re going to keep walking until we get to the raft, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Simon. He and Maya began following Helix again, and they walked through the rest of the grove, looking up in amazement at the jaguars swinging slowly back and forth overhead.

  They only started running when they left the grove and neared the shore. Maya breathed a sigh of relief to be back out in the sunshine again. But they stopped short when they realized that Helix’s raft couldn’t fit all of them. Growling noises still coming menacingly from inside the jungle, Maya hurried to collect driftwood and Helix sliced a few thin, rubbery vines from the edge of the forest and began tying the driftwood to the raft to make it bigger.

  “I can do that better,” said Simon.

  “It’s true,” said Maya. “He’s the knot expert.”

  Working quickly, Simon tied a series of knots that bound the driftwood to the raft.

  “Impressive,” said Helix.

  As Helix pushed the raft into the water and they clambered onto it, Maya looked nervously over the water. The channel separating the tiny island they were on from the bigger island was narrow, but the current flowed treacherously.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” she asked.

  “You can stay here if you like,” Helix said. “The vines will let the jaguars back down in a few minutes and I’m sure there’ll be a big fight over who gets to have you for lunch.”

  That was it, Maya did not like Helix. She gritted her teeth and crawled onto the raft.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’d rather drown than be eaten.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the Way to Port Town * A Dirty

  Diaper Pirates! * Maya Has an Idea *

  A Voice from the Beach

  The crossing was rough and the current played wickedly with the flimsy raft. Twice they almost capsized. Almost as soon as they reached the shore, the raft split apart and the current pulled the pieces out to sea. When Maya looked back she could see the vines swarming around the edges of the small island they had left behind.

  “Don’t worry,” said Helix. “That kind of vine only survives on the Lesser Islands. Which is a good thing, since there are enough problems here without having to worry about flesh-eating vines.”

  Maya and Simon looked at each other.

  “What do you mean?” Maya asked.

  “You’ll find out,” said Helix, but that was all he would say about it. He had already started to walk quickly into the jungle, and the children hurried to follow him.

  “How big is Tamarind?” asked Simon.

  “Big,” Helix answered. “Huge. Even I haven’t been over all of it.”

  The boys took the lead and Maya struggled along in the rear with Penny.

  “They’d slow down a bit if they had to carry you,” she muttered to the baby.

  Maya half listened as Simon continued to ask Helix questions, and Helix began to tell him all sorts of wild stories about encounters with gorgeous mermaids who sang to him and hair-raising sea battles between pirates and surviving for weeks on end by himself in the depths of the jungle when he went hunting. Maya didn’t believe any of it for an instant. She did gather, though, that Tamarind was quite vast, and they had only seen a tiny southwestern corner of it so far, and that there was a war going on that prevented most people from traveling much. She hoped they would reach
Port Town by early afternoon. She thought she could make it until then. Her stomach was starting to growl and her feet beginning to hurt badly, but she didn’t want to be the one to ask to take a rest. Finally they paused to catch their breath. Helix looked at Penny and wrinkled his nose.

  “Um, I think she needs her diaper changed,” he said.

  Maya had to agree. She took Penny out of the sling and set her on a large flat leaf and took out a fresh diaper—good thing she had remembered to bring those from the ship. Taking a deep breath, she took off the dirty diaper and wrapped it up.

  “Oh, sick!” said Simon.

  “Oh, knock it off,” said Maya. “Do you think I like doing this? Simon, it’s your turn next time.”

  “No way,” said Simon. “That’s a girl’s job.”

  Not knowing what else to do with it, Maya put the dirty diaper under a stone in the undergrowth. She cleaned Penny up as best she could, thinking evil thoughts about Simon. He never made a big deal of dirty diapers—it was all for Helix’s benefit. Penny babbled away about something while Maya pulled her shirt back down. What on earth are you saying? she thought. She wished her mother were there. Maya had often helped her with Penny, but she had never had to take care of the baby all by herself before—how was she supposed to know what Penny needed? She only had a few more store-bought diapers left—after that, she would have to switch to the cloth diapers her mother sometimes used. She sat the baby back upright and sighed. Maybe they would reach the town before the real diapers ran out.

  They were on a coral path that ran along a few feet from the edge of cliffs. The cliffs dropped steeply down to where the surf broke icy white at their base hundreds of feet below. The children sat in the shade of tropical thorn plums and looked out to the glittering sea. There was not a ship in sight. A giant white albatross wheeled in the air.

  Helix went off to forage for lunch for them, and Simon started to recount Helix’s stories to Maya in vivid—and often bloody—detail.

  “Did you hear how he got that scar on his ear?” he began. “He was in a fight with a pirate and the pirate sliced it right off and then he made Helix watch while he used it as bait and then he reeled in this huge barracuda and . . . !”

  Maya interrupted him. “Look,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t believe everything he tells you. We don’t know anything about him.”

  Simon frowned at his sister. “Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean I don’t have to,” he said. “You never like anybody.” Simon looked broodingly down at his blistered feet. “Anyway,” he said, “if it wasn’t for him you’d still be making us walk around in circles, waiting for the vines to eat us!”

  They heard rustling in the trees, and Helix returned carrying papayas.

  “How long before we get to Port Town?” Maya asked him.

  “At this rate,” said Helix, taking out his knife and slicing a papaya. “About four days.”

  “Four days!” Maya cried, dismayed.

  “Well,” said Helix. “Give or take. It’s slower because of the baby.”

  “I can’t carry Penny for four days,” Maya said. “Isn’t there a faster way? Or a closer town?”

  Helix shook his head.

  Simon, hearing the note of despair in his sister’s voice immediately said, “I can help carry Penny.”

  “No,” said Maya. “I’m bigger than you and she’s heavy for me.”

  “I can carry her for a while,” said Helix.

  Maya looked at the arrows bristling from the bag on his back and at the sharp point of his spear and didn’t think it was a good idea to let him hold Penny. Plus, Penny was her responsibility, and since their scare with the vines she didn’t want to let the baby out of her arms.

  “Even if we didn’t have Penny, I don’t think we could keep going for four days,” she said. “We’ve only walked for a few hours so far, and—” She looked down miserably at the ground. Blood had dried on scratches on her legs and flies buzzed around the cuts. Her feet were so blistered now that each step was painful. Why hadn’t she asked how far away Port Town was earlier? She didn’t know what to do next—she had been sure they would be able to reach a town that same day. She blinked away a few hot tears and closed her eyes tightly until the feeling passed. There would be nothing more mortifying than crying in front of Helix. She suddenly felt furious at him—it was his fault they had left the boat. The poor Pamela Jane, alone in the cove, with those horrible vines choking her! They should have cut her free and sailed away then and there. Maybe it wasn’t too late—maybe they could still turn around and walk back the way they had come. It was a much shorter distance back to the cove than it was to Port Town. They could swim back to the boat and—a loud boom sounded, interrupting Maya’s thoughts.

  The children didn’t know where the sound was coming from at first, but then Helix motioned for them to duck. They crawled to the cliff’s edge on their stomachs and looked out between the bushes and listened as another boom, this one closer now, ricocheted off the cliffs. Tiny pebbles rattled down to the sea below, and the great white albatross wheeled in the air. A puff of gunsmoke drifted around the curve of the coast and then a ship appeared, sails billowing strong in the wind. Maya and Simon and Helix watched in silence as others rounded the coast behind it.

  “Pirates,” breathed Simon.

  Helix nodded.

  Maya’s knees turned to jelly.

  From the children’s perch high on the cliffs the men on the decks of the ships were just tiny dark figures. The fleet sailed close together, like hornets in flight, their cannons glinting dangerously in the sun. The albatross began climbing high in the air, as if to draw them away from its nest. From one of the decks below Maya saw a sudden burst of fire through the bright air and heard a pistol crack. Then there was another and another and then the albatross cried out—it had been struck! It began to fall out of the sky, heavy as a stone, past the edge of the cliff where the children lay, and pinwheeled down toward the white surf breaking at the foot of the cliffs. There it vanished.

  Maya looked gravely down at the sea. A new fear began to spread through her as she realized that this part of Helix’s story had been true—there were pirates. Did that mean he was telling the truth about other things, too?

  “Come on,” said Helix. “Before we become firing practice.” Still crouching, the children followed him swiftly off the coastal path and back into the trees.

  The children had been so frightened by the pirates that even though they were tired, for a while after they left the cliffs they didn’t want to stop walking. They were thirsty and their canteens were empty, so Helix said he would take them to a nearby freshwater river. They walked in silence. Even Simon had stopped chattering and after a while Maya noticed his pace beginning to lag. He plodded along with his head down. Maya was relieved when they left the high jungle and began to walk downhill. At the bottom of the hill they met up with a trail that ran through the trees just above a long and desolate row of beaches. Every now and then the children caught a glimpse of the sand and sea. They heard the river before they saw it. It was away from the beaches, farther into the jungle. They went through the trees until they reached a little glade along its shore.

  Maya lifted Penny out of the sling and set her down on the soft emerald grass. She was fussing and Maya couldn’t seem to do anything to quiet her. Then Penny began to cry properly. Maya picked her up and rocked her. “What’s wrong?” she murmured. “What is it?”

  “It would be better if she could talk to us,” said Simon, patting Penny’s hand.

  At a loss, Maya opened one of the two tins of milk and filled Penny’s bottle. It did the trick—Penny took the bottle and guzzled the milk, making soft noises as she gazed up at her siblings with her big dark eyes. Maya realized with dismay that Penny wouldn’t be able to drink all of it, and that they had no way to save the rest, and after that there was only one tin left. If they didn’t find another source of milk, Penny was going to only have water and what ever
soft foods they could find for her.

  Penny content for now, Maya knelt by the river and drank deeply and splashed water over her face. The current was too strong for swimming, but she and Simon took off their shoes and peeled off their socks—their feet had bled right through them—and sat with their feet dangling into the cool water. Maya flexed her toes and grimaced as she looked at her feet.

  “I don’t think I can even put my shoes back on,” said Simon.

  Maya could hear a faint whining tone creeping into his voice.

  The thought of hours and days of hiking unspooling before them seemed impossible to contemplate. There was now no question that they could not return to the Pamela Jane. Even if they did succeed in cutting the boat free, they could sail out of the cove and right into the clutches of the pirates. Maya didn’t know what to do. It was late in the afternoon now— the days were short here. The river was already turning a deep murky green and the first shadows were gathering beneath the trees. How could they possibly walk anymore tomorrow? Dragonflies hummed in the hot air. She closed her eyes and lay back, listening to the river as it murmured against the muddy banks.

  She sat up suddenly. “Where does the river go?” she asked.

  A funny expression passed over Helix’s face. “Eventually it comes out near Port Town,” he said. “But it travels deep into the jungle first.”

  “Is there any way of traveling along it?” asked Maya. “I don’t think we can go much farther like this.”

  Helix looked uneasy. “This is the Nallanda River,” he said. “It goes through the Nero Jungle. You don’t want to go there, trust me.”

  “Why not?” asked Simon. “What’s so bad about it?”

  Helix didn’t answer. Maya’s eye wandered to his scarred ear and she looked quickly away.