Secrets of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  “It’s you,” he said in amazement. “It’s you Papi was trying to communicate with!”

  “It is, it is,” said Davies cheerfully.

  Simon gazed at him dumbstruck. “Can we talk to my dad?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately, we’ve only actually been able to hear each other a handful of times,” said Davies. “I spoke to him; they know you four made it here safely. That’s another reason I knew you were here. I’d try to get him now but the reception has only ever worked very early in the morning or late at night. But I’ll do my best to reach him later, and if I can, I’ll tell him you’re safe.”

  Simon looked at the radio. He wished more than anything he could hear his father’s voice, just for a moment.

  “Which brings me to another reason I wanted to see you today,” said Davies. “So much of what I’ve invented in Tamarind was inspired by stories I’d heard about the Outside or by objects the rare Outsiders who came here brought with them. I would like to return the favor. I’d like something I’ve worked on to inspire scientists on the Outside—worthy scientists like your father and mother. This is my research. I want you to take it to your parents. In the right hands ophalla—just a few tiny pebbles of it—can be used for marvelous things to help many people.” He handed Simon a big sheaf of papers covered in very tiny print.

  Simon looked at the papers in surprise. “Thank you,” he said solemnly. He put them carefully in his backpack. Around him things ticked and burbled in the makeshift laboratory and the static of the radio whirred and popped.

  “Now hurry,” said Davies. “Time is running out! You should get back to Floriano before the Red Coral get there. As for where Faustina’s Gate is—I would study the birds if I were you. I suspect they hold the secret.”

  Simon shoved the papers into his backpack. “Thank you!” he called as he left. Back outside, he untied the ostrillo and vaulted onto its back and urged it on. He had learned the secret of how Faustina’s Gate could save Tamarind, but he still had no idea where it was.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A Revelation • Three Rivers • Death in the Jungle • Fog, Hail, and Storm • The SILVER WITCH • The Lighted Harbor

  The sky was dark and overcast and the hour felt later than it was as Simon and the ostrillo loped back to Floriano. Clunk! At first he thought someone had thrown a stone at him. But then another landed and another on the path before him, and then—ouch!—one struck him in the face. Quickly, he and the tall bird took cover in an empty lean-to on the edge of a farmer’s field and looked out in amazement.

  It was hailing.

  In the tropics.

  The mining was turning the weather upside down.

  Soon the air had faded to white and hailstones the size of marbles rattled across the landscape. The sound on the tin roof was deafening. When it showed no signs of abating, Simon retreated to the back of the shelter and settled down to wait it out. He took out the ophallagraphs and prepared to study them. Now that he was sitting down, Simon felt tired. It seemed to have been a long day already—every day since they had arrived in Tamarind had been strenuous. He was looking at the ophallagraph of the boats in the harbor for several seconds during an especially extended yawn before he realized it was upside down.

  Sometimes a tired mind will recognize patterns more easily than a mind that is alert and concentrating and sure of what it’s looking for. In the strange half light, the three waterfalls on the mountains in the background were glowing, gliding down the mountainside like liquid mercury. Suddenly the pattern they made looked familiar—very familiar. But why? From where? Simon turned the picture the right way up. He turned it back around. Now he was certain he had seen it somewhere before, but where was just out of reach, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

  In a flash it came to him. Eagerly, he rummaged in his backpack for Señora Rojo’s old battle map. He lined it up beside the upside-down ophallagraph.

  The three “waterfalls” in the ophallagraph were mirror images of three of the rivers that branched and forked their way across Tamarind on the señora’s map.

  “They aren’t waterfalls at all,” he said. “They’re rivers!”

  The rivers were labeled on the map: the Jal, the Ror, and the Sassalla.

  But what was the significance?

  Simon kneeled, his head in his hands, and stared at the image. Freezing drops of water fell on his back but he barely felt it.

  Look for the birds. They were the clues.

  He searched the image and found the line of birds. They followed what Simon now knew was the Jal River, up to where it disappeared into a dark triangle at the base of the mountains. The Jal was the smallest river, and the one closest to Floriano. It started in the East and looped around near Floriano’s bay before it flowed north.

  The birds were pointing the way.

  In this light, the dark triangle could be the entrance to a cave.

  Not just to any cave, Simon was sure, but to the cave that held Faustina’s Gate.

  “I found it!” he shouted joyfully, but the roar of the hail drowned out his voice. If the lean-to had been taller he would have jumped up and danced around. Faustina’s Gate was in their reach. It had been staring them in the face since the day they had met the señoras. Now, after all this time, he knew where to go. Not even the immensely clever Davies had figured it out.

  Simon calculated that Faustina’s Gate was only a few hours away from Floriano. Nothing was stopping them now. They could leave as soon as he got back. They would have to figure out how to use the tools once they got to the caves.

  With a satisfied sigh, Simon gazed at the rest of the ophallagraph. It was beautiful, the boats shuddering gently in a molten silver sea, the birds twinkling, the light reflecting off the water. It was like something out of a dream. His eye fell on the Pamela Jane. Then Simon noticed that she was pointing directly to the black triangle in the distance. He remembered what Frascuelo had said, that perhaps she was the one that should be chosen for a journey.

  Two revelations struck him at once and his heart began to pound.

  One, the Pamela Jane was heading for Faustina’s Gate.

  Two, she wasn’t just meant to sail up to the entrance to the caves—she was supposed to sail inside them.

  Davies had said there was a huge underground system of rivers and caves. A big enough cave system and the boat could conceivably sail into it. And for some still secret reason the Pamela Jane was the boat that was supposed to do this.

  Hardly able to contain his excitement, Simon waited impatiently for the hail squall to end, which it did, abruptly. He hurried from the shelter, leading the ostrillo by its bridle, but got only a few steps, noisy from the crunching ice, before he stopped and gazed, stunned at the devastation.

  The hail had stripped trees of their leaves and the jungle was stark and skeletal. Pulverized crops lay beneath a crust of white ice. Birds’ nests had been knocked to the ground, their eggs smashed, and yolk ran yellow on the ice. Lizards limped to the ends of branches. Frozen corpses of beetles and scarabs and spiders and wishing bugs gleamed wetly between ice pellets. Everywhere was silent except for the creak of ice melting and the drip of water from bald tree branches. Then, all of a sudden, from trees all around, birds began to shrill mournfully. The ostrillo ducked its head on its long neck and made a deep sound like a horn.

  Simon leaped aboard the ostrillo and urged the creature on, desperate to get away, but the slippery ice forced them to slow down. On the fringes of the battered jungle he passed a motionless heap of brown fur. It was an infant slothe-slotha, too slow-moving to escape and too fragile to withstand the sharp pummeling. Its disconsolate mother crouched keening over it. Then the ostrillo began to run. The ice was melting fast and soon its talons were pounding down on dry earth and, finally, they left the swathe of destruction behind.

  Simon’s backpack with all the papers from Davies jounced heavy on his back.

  He had to get to Faustina’s Gate before it was too late.


  * * *

  The closer he drew to Floriano, the more sure Simon became that something was very wrong. One moment it was pouring cold rain, the ferocious wind flailing the branches of trees, the next the atmosphere was eerily still and dark, the heat suffocating and the sky split by steely flashes of lightning. The changes in pressure made his ears pop. The ostrillo’s feathers were wet and bedraggled.

  As they neared Floriano fog was rolling in and the early afternoon was dark as dusk. Simon noticed a strange brightness in the sky above the town, but it wasn’t until he reached the crest of a hill that he saw its source.

  Moored in the bay, looming over the waterfront, was the biggest ship he had ever seen in Tamarind. She was huge and modern, her steel hull somehow heartless. Electric lights glowed from her portholes like dozens of eyes of a predator spying hungrily on the town, braced to attack. Her smokestack belched sooty black ghosts that hovered over the town, darkening its roofs.

  Simon looked at it in dread.

  The Red Coral had arrived.

  An explosion rocked a nearby hillside. They were already breaking ground for the mines. The ostrillo danced nervously. Dusk moths fluttered like miniature bats and the odd jungle firefly had begun blinking on and off, but otherwise they were alone. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Simon could feel the air cool—they were going to be rained on. Lightning flashed and thunder growled. He clicked his feet against the ostrillo’s sides and it began half skidding down the hillside to the outskirts of the town, Simon keeping a watchful eye out for any prowling Maroong or Red Coral. The steady whirr and pulse of insects buzzed in the dark trees. To Simon’s relief, he made it to Rua Santa Flora and opened the gate to Señora Medrano’s. There was a crack of thunder overhead. He reached the porch just as the dark sky opened and the rain came pouring down.

  * * *

  Inside, Simon found everyone—his sisters, Helix, the señoras, Dr. Bellagio, and the general—gathered in the kitchen, where there was an atmosphere of nervous excitement. Maya was sitting at the table scrubbing gray paint off Penny’s arms with a wet cloth. Helix was crouching in the corner, sharpening his knife, which rasped against a whetstone. Simon smelled mud, and in the muffled light he saw the camouflage daubed on Helix’s face. Up since dawn, the señoras were wearing their best dresses and had spent most of the time pacing anxiously, their cheeks flushed and their eyes bright. Simon collapsed gratefully into a chair and Señora Medrano hurried to get food for him.

  An explosion echoed from the mine site.

  “They arrived almost as soon as you left,” said Maya, looking apprehensively out of the window. “They must have started mining right away. The weather has been going crazy since they got here.” Outside the wind picked up and threw drops of rain at the windows as if they were stones. The kitchen grew darker.

  “Well,” barked the general, “did you find Maroner?”

  “Yes,” said Simon, and as quickly as he could, he told them about the link between ophalla and the Blue Line and about the strange and terrible loss of life he had witnessed on his way back. Señora Medrano put a plate of food in front of him, but Simon was too excited to eat.

  “We have to leave for Faustina’s Gate straightaway,” he said. “Davies said that the Blue Line is on the verge of collapse—if more ophalla doesn’t reach it soon the line will break down completely. If that happens Tamarind is done for.”

  In the distance another explosion rang out. Everyone but Helix and the general jumped.

  “Did Davies tell you how to get to Faustina’s Gate?” Maya asked.

  “No, but I figured it out,” said Simon, his eyes shining. “It was in the ophallagraphs all along. And,” he said, turning to Maya, “Davies was able to communicate with Mami and Papi—they know we’re okay.”

  “Good work, soldier!” said the general, hammering the table with his fists and getting to his feet. He looked strong and vigorous. He was in his element. Mud was caked on his boots and he stamped them vigorously on the kitchen floor.

  “Isabella’s scouts were in touch with us a few hours ago—the army is coming!” he said. “All hell is about to break loose! Everyone in Floriano has been alerted and is prepared to join the fight.”

  “As soon as people heard they’d be fighting with the general they rallied,” said Dr. Bellagio. “They’re marching in from all around!”

  “And,” the general said, pausing gleefully, “a surprise: Our boy Helix here is a real revolutionary like his father—he sneaked out to the Red Coral ship in the fog earlier this morning and opened the seacocks and bolted the doors to the bilges. The vessel has been slowly taking on water for hours. By the time the problem is spotted it will be too late!”

  Simon grinned and looked at Helix, who shrugged self-consciously.

  “Now,” said the general, “if the Red Coral start fleeing, they’ll be looking for any nearby boat to make their escape in—the Pamela Jane isn’t safe where she is anymore. You have to leave now while you still can.”

  Outside the rain had stopped suddenly and the fog had rolled in, so heavy it seeped through the windows and drifted through the rooms of the old mansion. The kitchen was dim. Maya looked worriedly out of the window.

  “We won’t be able to see five feet in front of us!” she said.

  “We don’t have a choice,” said Simon. “The mining is causing this weather—it’s only going to get worse. Anyway, it will help us stay hidden.”

  More explosions rocked the hillsides in the distance.

  “Time to go!” boomed the general.

  The señoras hurried to pack warm bread and fruit, which Maya tucked in her backpack for later.

  “Wait—what about Seagrape?” asked Penny.

  “Seagrape will find us,” said Helix, standing up and tucking his knife into his belt. His hair was wild, face mottled with dyes from the jungle, but he looked calm and cool.

  Simon was the opposite. His heart was pounding, he was breaking out in a sweat, and his whole body felt as if it were buzzing. After all this time they were finally going to Faustina’s Gate. But first they had to make it out of the harbor in the Pamela Jane, past the Red Coral. The thought of going anywhere near Dr. Fitzsimmons made his knees weak. What if the Pamela Jane was spotted?

  “You’ll have to be careful,” General Alvaro said briskly. “Floriano is crawling with Red Coral and Maroong. But the colonels are posted throughout the town as lookouts.”

  Another explosion cracked, echoing off the hills, and the bitter smell of explosives drifted in.

  “Good-bye,” Maya said, flinging her arms around the señoras’ necks in turn. “We’ll come back and tell you all about it, after we close the gate.”

  “We’ll see you soon,” said Simon as Señora Rojo embraced him. Her head wobbled slightly, and she held him tightly for an extra second. Suddenly Simon was reminded of Granny Pearl.

  He hoisted his backpack onto his back, Maya took a firm grip of Penny’s hand, and with Helix and the general they hurried across the wet grass toward the path down the hill. The shrill whistle of a single frog pierced the air. Fog hugged the earth and the drip of dew ticked like clocks. Ostrillo eyes blinked on and off through the gloom. When they reached the border of trees, Maya and Penny went ahead down the path, but General Alvaro stopped, taking Helix’s shoulder.

  “In case things don’t go well here, there’s something it’s time to tell you,” he said, his voice low. “Years ago I knew your father. He’s a good man—I never met anyone braver. Your aunts don’t know this, so don’t blame them for not telling you, but the last I knew, he was living in a small town called Barella, on the far northeast shore, where the jungle meets the coast. He may still be there.”

  Helix froze. “Barella,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” said the general briskly. “You get to it by the Cassandor Road.”

  Maya stopped and looked back up at them. “Come on,” she whispered urgently.

  “I wish I could go with you all the way,” Ge
neral Alvaro said, a youthful light in his eyes. “Good luck to you!” Then he raised his hand and—to Simon’s surprise—the old hero saluted them.

  * * *

  The Pamela Jane was hidden in a cove on the other side of Floriano’s harbor, and to get to her Helix and the children had to cross the town, skirting dangerously close to the Red Coral base camp.

  “There’s so much fog I think we’re safe to go along the waterfront for most of the way,” said Helix as they hurried down the hill. “That’ll be quickest. We’ll duck back into the town when we have to.”

  They set off through the back roads, sticking close to Helix. Simon held tightly to Penny’s hand so she kept up. They followed the beach for a while, jogging silently on the sand and shingles, every now and then leaping over a heap of fishing net or dodging an overturned rowboat that had been dragged up onto shore. To their left, Floriano was silent, the damp streets empty. To their right, past the swishy gurgle of the water, the giant Red Coral ship, already beginning to list ever so slightly to starboard, was a dark shadow looming through the mist.

  His jitters had passed and Simon felt strangely calm. A short time ago he had been a boy, complaining about his parents and tinkering with boat engines, going nowhere farther than school and the boatyard. Now here he was, in a strange and dangerous place, on the brink of the most important thing he had ever had to do in his life.

  The fog distorted sound, but when they heard the noise of the Red Coral camp growing louder, Helix put his finger to his lips and hurried them deftly along. Soon they could see clusters of tents. Equipment unloaded from the Red Coral ship was being transported up into the hills to the mine by a convoy of Maroong. Every now and then the fearsome glinting of the bones and teeth of their armor flashed through the fog. Simon kept his eyes peeled for Dr. Fitzsimmons, but the fog grew thicker and soon Simon could barely see the others next to him. The world stopped in white just inches from their faces. He held tightly on to Penny so they didn’t lose her.