Secrets of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  As the men heaved the tree out of the way, Dr. Fitzsimmons turned and scanned the jungle slowly. In spite of himself, Simon felt a chill creep over him. But Dr. Fitzsimmons’s eye passed over the children and he turned to the men and shouted for them to hurry up. When the jeeps were ready to go again, he climbed back into one of them, which snarled and shook as the driver gunned the engine, and the fleet sped after Isabella.

  Too scared to move, the children waited until the whine of the engines faded. Activity in the jungle that had stopped during the commotion resumed. Long-winged dragonflies zizzled through the air. A large, neon ladybug sauntered down a swooping vine. Monkeys swung hooting from branches. Frogs croaked from thick pink lotuses on a softly gurgling stream. Beyond the vivid world immediately around the children, the jungle darkened into murkiness. The stench of mushrooms in a rotting log rose to their noses.

  “I think we’re safe,” said Simon. “They’re gone … at least for now.”

  The children crawled cautiously back to the road. The monkeys had capered off. Thorns had snatched holes in the children’s clothes and Penny’s pajamas were grimy.

  “Are those bad men going to come back?” she asked, looking fearfully down the road.

  “No, Pennymouse,” said Maya. “It’s just us now.” She kneeled down to brush the dirt off Penny’s skinned knee.

  The three of them were alone in Tamarind again, and though he knew he should be worried, Simon couldn’t help smiling for a moment.

  What now? he wondered. As Maya tended to Penny, he chewed his lip, thinking. Green light dappled the road. “It looks like Isabella headed back toward Maracairol,” he said. “So … I think we should keep going to the City of Children to find out what we can about Milagros. Isabella was convinced Milagros could help. Maybe she’ll know about Faustina’s Gate, too.”

  Maya stood up. “I think we should try to find a town farther down the coast, where Helix was sailing,” she said. “Someone will have seen him.”

  “But in the city we can find out about Milagros,” said Simon.

  “We don’t even know who Milagros is,” said Maya. “All I want to do is find Helix. Mami and Papi aren’t here, that means I’m in charge.”

  Simon gave her a surly scowl. “Fine,” he said at last. “If you’re in charge, you can tell us which way to go to get back to the coast so that we don’t end up right back in Maracairol with Isabella.”

  Maya gazed around the endless dark green jungle. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally.

  “The City of Children is probably up ahead,” said Simon. “I think we should keep going on this road.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Maya a bit huffily. “If nothing else, someone there can tell us how to get back to the coast somewhere safe outside Maracairol. For now, anywhere that Isabella isn’t sounds good to me.” She picked loquats and bananas for them and peeled a banana for Penny. Hoisting their backpacks on, they set off on foot, following the same road they had been on before. Penny kept her eyes open for monkeys, but Simon could only think of one thing.

  “Do you really think Dr. Fitzsimmons is the Red Man?” he asked Maya.

  “It looks like it,” said Maya. “I was hoping that he wouldn’t even be here, but he is.”

  “But we know him,” said Simon. “We know he couldn’t be someone that bad. There must be some explanation. Maybe we should have talked to him when we had the chance.”

  “Don’t be naive,” said Maya dismissively. “Mami and Papi were his best friends, and look how he tricked them.”

  “I’m not being naive,” argued Simon, frowning. “I just don’t want to jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.”

  “What more do you need?” asked Maya. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Who is Dr. Fitzsimmons?” asked Penny, chewing on her banana and watching a blue velvet moth fluttering nearby, drawn to the sweet scent.

  “He used to be Mami and Papi’s friend,” said Maya. “But not anymore. I don’t know what happened, but he changed.” She looked pointedly at Simon. “He’s not the person we used to know anymore.”

  Simon ignored her. Maya didn’t really know anything. Simon had spent more time with Dr. Fitzsimmons than Maya had—he was the one who used to hang out in Dr. Fitzsimmons’s lab whenever they stopped in port in St. Alban’s. He marched a little ahead to show her that he wasn’t going to be bossed around.

  But what was Dr. Fitzsimmons doing in Tamarind? The scientist Simon had known almost his whole life was a great fuzzy bear of a man with a startlingly red beard and eyes that twinkled. His hands, surprisingly large, could handle the most delicate of specimens with gentleness and agility, and he had a big, deep laugh that made everyone with him smile before they knew what they were smiling about. He had a hearty appetite at mealtimes and though he towered over Simon and Maya when they were young, Simon had always felt safe with him. Dr. Fitzsimmons had always made it seem as if he and Simon were friends. Like Simon’s father, he would talk about science with him—everything from the distant dance of planets and asteroids to the tiny emerald ripples of flatworms visible only beneath the powerful microscopes in his spotless white laboratory. He had loved the creatures of both land and sea—how could such a man be part of anything bad? Simon’s parents had never proved that Dr. Fitzsimmons had betrayed them. They just refused to talk about him. He didn’t care what Maya said—there had to be more to the story.

  But after they had been walking for a while Simon forgot to be annoyed with Maya. The heat was steamy and enveloping. Their clothes were damp with sweat and dust from the road clung to their skin. A stream came out of the jungle and murmured along beside the road. Lilies grew thickly on its banks. Plants with leaves as big as sails soared over the travelers, and in the humid green gloom they walked past shaggy palms and clots of vines, and scented orchids that spilled—ivory, mysterious, opulent—from the mossy forks of branches. Jewel-colored birds swooped and dived on the fringes of the jungle, their cries pealing through the black caves of air between the trees. They were back in Tamarind, walking through the jungle together, and for a while Simon’s mind was emptied of anything but a fierce love and wonder of this place.

  But then he noticed that the lush, emerald trees were beginning to peter out and the jungle had fallen curiously silent.

  “Where did all the animals go?” asked Penny.

  The shadowy jungle grew brighter as the trees dwindled. Then abruptly the jungle ended altogether and Simon had to squint and shield his eyes from the blinding glare. The scene they came across took his breath away.

  The jungle had been slashed and scorched, and the earth stretched barren and blasted to a horizon distorted by bitter rafts of smoke. The burned ruins of a village lay slumped beneath a chalky film of ash. Charred corpses of animals had been picked clean by scavenger birds that had now moved on. The chirping, hissing, clicking, warbling, and swooshing of wings that formed the incessant backdrop of noise in the jungle had been erased and the air was eerily silent. Nothing grew—no fleece of green had arisen to suggest the soil would be renewed; no hardy stalk left standing had turned its face to the sun. Even the trees and plants along the border that had not been cut down or burned were gray and lifeless, as if the destruction was somehow contagious and a cold death was spreading across the land. Deep pits yawned open, and here and there brittle shards of ophalla stuck out of the ground. Simon’s stomach lurched as he realized what he was looking at.

  “They’re ophalla mines,” he whispered.

  “This is what the Red Coral have been doing,” said Maya in a low rage.

  This was the smoke they had seen as they sailed into Tamarind; the explosions they had heard in Maracairol. This was what Isabella had told them was happening.

  Simon felt as if he had been punched in the stomach—Dr. Fitzsimmons was part of this. He may even have ordered it himself.

  Simon remembered the army of glowing creatures they had seen, swishing lifeless in the current—were they so
mehow connected to this destruction? With a sinking feeling, he realized that the problem was much bigger than he had imagined.

  For the first time since they had arrived in Tamarind, Simon felt truly afraid.

  This was wrong. It was very, very wrong.

  Then anger began to bubble in him. He realized he was clenching his fists. “We have to stop them,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  City of Children

  A few hours later the children had left the desolation behind and were making good time along the wide dirt road through the jungle. Finally, through a break in the trees, they saw a town sitting snugly in the valley below. When they reached the bottom of the hill, the city gates came into view, and over them a stone arch that read CITY OF CHILDREN.

  They passed beneath it and walked slowly on, peering curiously around. The town was neat and orderly. The streets were swept and there wasn’t a scrap of litter for the lazy breeze to catch. The buildings, made of stone walls and tin roofs, were new and gleaming. Lush vegetable gardens grew around a long, open kitchen and communal dining room. A ball game was going on in a field on the outskirts and they could hear the thump of bare feet kicking a coconut husk wrapped with lizard skins. Small children were sitting in a circle under a tree, learning a lesson from their teacher. Through the windows of classrooms the familiar litany of times tables was being memorized. Signs pointed the children in the direction of RECEPTION, THE HALL OF RECORDS, THE INFIRMARY.

  The recess gong rang and children poured out of their classrooms. The sight of so many children all together made Simon think of the child prisoners in Evondra’s mining camp the first time he had been to Tamarind, and he felt a pang at the memory of the starving slaves. But these children were well cared for. Girls and boys in brilliant yellow and green uniforms were hurrying to a table for sliced cantaloupe and mangoes when they suddenly spotted the newcomers. They galloped toward them on bare, nimble feet. Alarmed, Penny took a firm hold of Maya’s hand and stuck close as the children swarmed around them.

  “Hello!” shouted dozens of voices. “Hello, hello!”

  “Are you coming to live here?” piped one.

  “Do you need a place to stay? There’s space under my tree!”

  “Have you lost your parents, too?”

  “Hello,” Simon finally managed to say. “We’re trying to find our friend.”

  Immediately the city children began babbling all at once again.

  “Who is he?”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Is he lost?”

  “Sort of,” said Simon. “We’re trying to find his family.”

  “His family?”

  “Did he lose his family like us?”

  “His family will be in the Records! Take him to Sorella! She’ll know!”

  Immediately a contingent ran off calling for Sorella, whoever she was, and Simon, Maya, and an uneasy-looking Penny were carried amidst an eager tide of children toward a building marked HALL OF RECORDS. As they got closer Simon heard a funny rustling, fluttering sound, like hundreds of dry leaves scraping along a pavement in a breeze.

  A woman appeared on the wooden porch and came out to greet them. She was a plump, comfortable-looking woman, with olive skin and soft arms. Her skin glowed from the humidity.

  “All right, all right,” she said. “Calm down and give our visitors some room to breathe!” She held out a moist hand for the visitors to shake. “I’m Sorella Banza,” she said. “Secretary in charge of Records of the Disappeared in the City of Children. How may I help you today?”

  “We’re looking for our friend,” said Simon, after he had introduced them and explained how they had come to be in the city. Upon hearing that the Red Coral had been chasing Isabella, Sorella grew deeply concerned. A few more women poked their heads through the door of the building and listened somberly.

  “Isabella is very dear to us,” said Sorella. “She was the one who created the city, to reunite children and their families who had been separated during the war.”

  Simon remembered that Isabella had helped in a war orphanage the last time they had been in Tamarind, too.

  “Now,” said Sorella. “You said you wanted to find your friend’s family?”

  “Yes,” said Maya. “Isabella hoped you would have a record of him here.”

  “What is his name?”

  “He goes by Helix,” said Simon. “But we don’t know his real name—he doesn’t, either.”

  Sorella looked doubtful. “I’m afraid I need more to go on than that,” she said. “What else can you tell me about him? How old is he?”

  “Um, about seventeen,” said Maya. “Maybe. He doesn’t really know for sure.”

  Sorella sighed. “Come with me,” she said.

  They entered the cavernous building and the children saw where the fluttering sound had come from. Tables stretched across the room and on them, weighted under stones, were pictures and paper documents, their edges flapping in the breeze that sailed in one set of open windows and out of the other. Women were hunched over, sorting through them.

  “Since the City of Children was founded, we’ve opened files for hundreds of children,” said Sorella. “These are the ones who have been successfully reunited”—she paused to point at a tiny cabinet—“and these are the ones still searching.” She indicated rows of files, stacked on top of the other, spilling in a dizzying maze around the room. “Unfortunately your friend’s story is all too common since the war. Without a real name, or the names of family members, or anything at all to go on, I wouldn’t know where to start. There must be something else you can tell me?”

  Simon looked around him in amazement. Had Isabella really thought she could find information about Helix buried in these files? It would take years to go through all of them! He felt discouraged. But he had a feeling that Isabella wouldn’t have been deterred. If there was something in here about Helix, there must be a way to find it.

  “Helix had a green parrot that Isabella believes someone named Milagros gave him to protect him,” said Simon. “Isabella thought that if she could find out who Helix’s family was, they could lead her to Milagros. She said that Milagros is the only one who knows how to save Tamarind from the Red Coral.”

  “Milagros—Milagros the Dark Woman?” exclaimed Sorella, her eyes widening. “But they were all hunted in the war—no one has seen a Dark Woman in so many years! Who knows if any are even still alive…”

  Milagros was a Dark Woman. Simon swallowed. The last time they were in Tamarind an evil Dark Woman, Evondra, had held them prisoner.

  “It was believed that a few escaped and went into hiding,” said Sorella. “Milagros may have been among them.” She paused, thinking. Shooing away giggling children who were peeking in the window, she motioned to Simon, Maya, and Penny to sit down at a wobbly table in the corner.

  “If Milagros sent the bird to protect your friend there’s a good chance that his family knows her and knows where she is,” said Sorella. “I’m sure that’s what Isabella was thinking. They say that Dark Women were the ones who saved Tamarind the last time the island was under threat.”

  “What are Dark Women, really?” Simon asked.

  Sorella got up and closed the window, then drew the green curtain so that the children, their tiny faces still peering in, sticky with mango, couldn’t hear. The daylight through the curtain cast a murky green light in the corner. She came and sat back down, dabbing sweat off her brow.

  “Dark Women are closely tied to the earth,” she explained in a voice barely above a whisper. “They’re attuned to its vibrations, they sense its moods and shifts, from the tiniest trembling fern to the herds of wild animals that live in the Borderlands to the very rock we stand on, to even—and especially—ophalla itself. You see … Tamarind is ophalla. It lies deep beneath our soil, the roots of our trees are tangled in it, we’ve fought countless wars over it, and our most precious things are made from it. Every step we take, somewhere deep below us is
ophalla. And the Dark Women know more about its secrets than anyone.”

  Penny looked troubled. “Are Dark Women bad?” she whispered.

  “No,” said Sorella, smiling gently at her. “They’re strange, but most of them are good. You don’t have to be afraid. I bet you like animals, don’t you?”

  Penny nodded.

  “Well, Dark Women can communicate with animals,” said Sorella. “Milagros’s gift is with birds.”

  She turned back to Simon and Maya.

  “But now that the Red Man is here bad things are starting to happen,” she said quietly. “People say there are storms happening all the time on the coast. Fish have been washing up dead for months. And now trees are starting to die—even ones far away from the mine sites. Look around, you’ll see them. Yesterday I was walking outside and I saw flying fish drop dead in midair. Something is wrong, and people say it’s because too much ophalla is being taken out of the ground.”

  The children listened soberly.

  “How can Milagros help?” asked Simon.

  “I don’t know how myself,” said Sorella, sitting back in her chair. “But if Isabella believes she can, then we’ll do whatever we can to help you find her,” she said. “Give us some time. There are a lot of papers to go through, as you see. But if Helix’s family has been here looking for him, there will be a record of their request somewhere. We’ll do our best with the clues we have. You can stay here with us tonight. Why don’t you go outside now—the children will show you around.”

  Several children hovering in the doorway waved eagerly to Simon, Maya, and Penny.

  Sorella returned to the records, and Simon, Maya, and Penny joined the children on the dusty porch. After a while, Simon joined some of the boys playing football, while Penny played happily with some of the other children. When it grew dark they were called to a long outdoor table, lit by candles, where the city children sat to eat. Penny was chattering with her new friends at another table. Everyone lined up and had cassava stew ladled on top of soft brown rice in their wooden bowls. Simon was famished, and he dug in hungrily. A dessert of sweetened yucca wrapped in banana leaves was passed around.