Secrets of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  “Remember what Milagros told us,” said Maya. “We don’t have long—we have to hurry!”

  Simon let out the mainsail and Maya raised the jib and the boat began clipping along. Simon breathed the air deeply, as he took his last look at Tamarind.

  But then, just as they reached the mouth of the cove and were about to enter the open ocean, Helix turned and jumped overboard and began swimming toward land.

  “Helix!” shouted Maya. “Helix!”

  But Helix didn’t look back. He swam steadily toward shore.

  “What’s he doing?” cried Maya. She turned frantically to Simon. “Stop! Let’s turn around!”

  But though it was still a shock to see him go, deep down Simon had known since he heard the general tell Helix that his father was alive that Helix wouldn’t be coming back with them this time. A lump rose in his throat.

  “It’s the right thing,” he said hoarsely. “He needs to find his father.”

  “We could have waited,” said Maya. “We could have closed the gate later!”

  “There wasn’t time,” said Simon. “You heard Milagros—it had to be done right away.”

  “But,” said Maya, tears streaming down her face, “he isn’t even going to say good-bye!”

  “There was no easy way,” said Simon, putting his hand on her shoulder. “This is best. This is where he belongs. He couldn’t come back with us.”

  Simon knew that even if they had found Helix’s father, Helix would not have returned with them. He was from Tamarind and Tamarind was where he needed to be right now—he had a family here, a whole past to discover, a life sundered long ago by unhappy events and misfortune that now had to be repaired and begun anew.

  Helix reached the shore and turned and looked back toward the boat. He raised his arm and waved. Simon and Penny waved back at him, and then Maya did, too. Helix turned and began running along the beach toward the jungle. For a moment they watched him and then, just as suddenly as he had come into their lives, he was gone. Maya hunted for him with her eyes, but he could no longer be seen. There was no flicker of the undergrowth, no trembling branch or snap of a twig to give him away.

  Good-bye, my friend, said Simon in his heart.

  He wrenched his gaze away and looked back at the sea, at the long, great swells running up and down the coast. They were blazing at full speed out to sea now. Outside the Green Vale, the gyre was building force and the water was darkening. Simon narrowed his eyes and looked again at the sea. “We have to go,” he said.

  Tears spilling silently down her cheeks, Maya nodded. The water was already turning darker. The Blue Line was changing. Faustina’s Gate was closing. They could see, in the lift of each swell, racing schools of wahoo and tuna and the shower of color of smaller reef fish. Clouds massed ahead of them. The storms of the line were brewing. But behind them, all over Tamarind, trees were beginning to bud, enveloping the island in emerald, the seas were receding from the streets of the shore towns, life was stirring again in the ground, and in the Neglected Provinces, a gentle steady rain began to fall on the parched earth.

  Seagrape had followed them and was flying around overhead.

  “Go back,” Simon shouted to her. He waved his arms. “Go home!”

  “Helix gave her to us,” said Penny. “After we saw Milagros, he told me it was my job to take care of her now.”

  The parrot coasted along beside them and then flew across the sail, high up past the mast and coasted back down again. The sight of her comforted Simon. He turned and waved at the shore in case Helix was watching them.

  He took out the ophallagraphs. They made a sound like burned paper and the touch of his fingers blackened their edges. They were changing. Brief images seemed to come to light for a moment, as if Simon were looking into oil on the top of water, rainbowed in the sunshine. Then they dissolved. The paper crumbled. Simon was looking down at palmfuls of ash, soft as talc, as they blew away in the wind.

  Maya didn’t look back as they drew farther away from shore. When at last she spun around and looked frantically behind her, it was too late. The island was getting smaller and they were heading into the storm.

  This was the fourth time in his life that Simon had crossed the Blue Line.

  Gusts of salty wind battered the Pamela Jane. Her sails flapped wildly as Simon and Maya furled them, and she surged forward into the rising waves. The first drops of rain landed like warm stones on the deck and soon the children could barely see one another through the blur of rain and salt spray. White mist and gray-churned sea closed in all around them. All color was gone from the world. It was as if they were sailing into a great void. Maya took Penny into the cabin and Simon secured the wheel. He tied himself into a harness and stayed on deck, happy for the rain to lash him. He waited until the last minute to join his sisters in the cabin.

  And then, in an hour or two, they were out of it. It was as if the storm spat them out onto the other side of the world, and a current bore them away from it until it appeared to be merely a dark blot on the distant horizon, as insignificant as a cloud of insects drifting away on a summer wind. Somewhere hidden deep within was Tamarind, but it was lost to them.

  * * *

  They set a course for Bermuda and in two days they had reached it.

  This time as they sailed back down the channel through the reefs to the cove, it was daylight and the sea was calm. Penny was bouncing up and down at the bow, waving furiously, as the front door of Granny Pearl’s house opened and Mami and Granny Pearl came out onto the porch. Simon looked for his father but didn’t see him. The children moored the boat and waded to shore.

  Simon could feel the difference as he came across the lawn. The Red Coral Project men were gone. There was a lightness in the air, an absence.

  And a presence: Papi. The door was opening and he appeared now on the porch.

  Simon broke into a run after his sisters.

  Mami picked up Penny and squeezed her tightly, Maya hugged Granny Pearl, and Simon stopped and stood in front of his father. Papi was standing straight and tall. His beard was shaved off and he looked at once years younger, like he had when Simon was a child. Simon was embarrassed, but could do little to stop the tears that sprang hotly to his eyes as his father pulled him close and kissed his head. Simon had never been so happy to see his family in all his life.

  * * *

  The Red Coral Project was so small and secretive that once Dr. Fitzsimmons and his men were gone, there was no one left on the Outside who knew about it. The men who had watched Granny Pearl’s house were hired hands only, and when the money to pay them ran out they had disappeared. The Red Coral Project melted away. Their hold had been broken, and the children and their parents were free.

  For a long time after they returned, Tamarind was all the children thought of or talked about. It took time to get used to Helix being gone.

  Penny would often wander into Simon’s room and look at Helix’s half, as if she expected that he would come back at some point. Whenever they heard the latch on the gate, or saw a shadow in the moonlight across the garden, or heard the wind rustling in the trees, each of them would look up, hoping and half expecting that Helix would come through the door.

  But, of course, he never did.

  After they sailed away from Tamarind, Maya had discovered that, in addition to a letter he had left for their parents, written while he was alone in Tamarind, Helix had left his shark’s tooth necklace on her bunk in the cabin. She never took it off, even when she slept. She would sit on the porch with the old conch shell pressed to her ear, listening to the sound of the sea inside it, until after it grew dark and Mami finally made her go to bed. She moped for longer than anyone, until one night they were eating dinner—a real dinner, everyone together, like it used to be, Papi, too—when Maya burst into tears.

  “I can’t believe we’ll never see him again,” she said.

  “He gave us Seagrape, didn’t he!” Penny finally said, exasperated. “That means we’ll s
ee him again.”

  After that Maya didn’t cry at the dinner table anymore.

  * * *

  Seagrape had become Penny’s constant companion. She strutted around the house after her, muttered grumpily when Penny dressed her in doll’s clothes, and slept on a perch in the corner of Penny’s room, tucking her head beneath her wing. Sometimes she would go off to fly around for a while by herself, but she always returned. Penny sneaked scraps to her under the dinner table and Seagrape would squawk indignantly if someone’s foot accidentally jostled her.

  Occasionally she would come to visit Simon, wherever he was.

  Simon wondered about the señoras, the general, Dr. Bellagio, the colonels, Jolo and Small Tee, and Isabella. He often caught himself remembering the night she had thrown them both over the edge of the waterfall—how cold they had been when they finally crawled out of the river and how she had talked about Tamarind so beautifully and with such love on the train that night.

  He hoped that Tamarind was at peace again, and the terrible storms and droughts and floods had ended, and the land and sea were healing.

  Most of all, he wondered where Helix was, and how he was doing. Did he miss them? Did he ever wish to be back in his old room with Simon, or talking to Papi in his study, or sitting down with all of them at dinner? Had he found his father? Simon hoped so.

  Simon’s father received one last transmission from Tamarind: Red Coral defeated … Tamarind saved. Then the radio connection went out suddenly and never came back. Dr. Nelson left it on for a while, and checked it periodically, but it was only static. Eventually he turned it off for good.

  * * *

  Simon gave his parents the documents from Davies and the bag of ophalla stones that they discovered Dr. Fitzsimmons had secreted onto the Pamela Jane when he had tried to escape. Dr. Nelson pored over Davies’s research in wonder. “Davies Maroner has a very exceptional mind,” he said. “I would have loved to sit down and talk to him for hours.”

  Simon couldn’t yet understand all the complicated scientific formulations his father was working on but he was determined that one day he would.

  A piece of ophalla sat on the desk between them, emitting a dull luster.

  “Did you know it was alive?” Simon asked. “Or that something in it was alive?”

  “I suspected,” said his father. “But there was no way to know for sure. It doesn’t grow outside Tamarind, that much was certain, though Fitz would never believe that. But whether it’s actually dead here”—he picked up the ophalla stone and turned it over in his hand—“or whether it’s in a state of dormancy, of suspended animation … well, I can’t say.”

  “The compass was next to the book about stromatolites,” said Simon. “I guess that should have been a hint.”

  “Yes,” said Papi. “Stromatolites—living rocks. They’re what first gave me the idea that ophalla could be alive.”

  Then his expression changed. He looked at Simon sternly. “You know, it was very dangerous of you to run off like that, especially with Penny. Things didn’t have to turn out as well as they did.”

  Simon ducked his head.

  “But I’m sorry, too,” said Papi. “We shouldn’t have tried to hide so much from you. We were only trying to protect you. Anyway, I’m proud of you. Not many people your age—not many people any age—could have done what you did.”

  Simon felt his ears getting hot. This was exactly what he had wished for when things were at their blackest in the Neglected Provinces—to be able to sit talking with his dad about science and, well, just anything.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled. “So,” he said, “you think ophalla could be used to make medicine?”

  “Yes,” said Papi. “Well … ophalla itself won’t be used to make medicine, but what we can learn from it will enable us to understand more about different cures. Ophalla is completely different from anything else we’ve ever seen. It shifts the whole paradigm. The important thing is not having great quantities of ophalla itself, but in studying the bits we do have.”

  His face became sad as his thoughts turned to his old friend and he sighed.

  “I wish that Fitz had believed that,” he said. “The worst thing is that he had such a rare mind. If only he would have used it for something better than he did.”

  * * *

  The Pamela Jane could not be left as she was—gleaming, moon white, magnificent—and so Simon and his father built an external hull around her once again. Simon’s father left out a single patch, four inches square, near her starboard bow in which the alabaster-like carvings remained.

  One day, some time after they had been home, many weeks after they had finished working on the Pamela Jane, Simon was sitting in his father’s study at the desk opposite him, doing his homework. The Pamela Jane once again looked like an ordinary wooden boat and she sat peacefully on her mooring. Late-afternoon light poured in on the books and shells on the shelves and lit everything a mellow orange. The office smelled salty and musty. The curtains lifted for a moment, revealing the view to the green cove, where the Pamela Jane stirred gently on her moorings and Penny played down in the purple shadow on the sand. Maya was at a friend’s house. Laundry hung dripping into grass and Granny Pearl walked back across the lawn with her empty laundry basket. Then Penny came running and caught Granny Pearl on the porch.

  “Tell me another one,” she said.

  “Another one?” asked Granny Pearl. “I’m running out of stories—anyway, you’re the one who’s been to Tamarind, not me!”

  “Please,” Penny begged.

  “Oh, all right,” said Granny Pearl, and Simon heard her sit down in the creaky porch swing and pat the cushion next to her. “Just for a little while.”

  Through the window, Simon and his father heard as Granny Pearl began to tell Penny stories about Tamarind, the same ones she had told to Simon’s father many years ago. Though even Simon was too old for stories, they both stopped work and sat and listened.

  When his homework was done, Simon left for the boatyard. It was late spring and the evenings were long now. Granny Pearl had gone inside, but Penny and Seagrape were still on the porch. Penny was lying on the floor drawing a map of Tamarind, murmuring to Seagrape, who was perched beside her, peering curiously over her shoulder. Simon paused on the stairs to look at them for a moment.

  Then, smiling to himself, he ran out to his bike, leaning against the tree, and pedaled down to the boatyard. The bees drifted drowsily over the flowers, and far away, once more a dream, a wondrous green island lay under the sun.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to gratefully acknowledge the generous efforts of others on behalf of this book, including my agents, Sarah Burnes and Caspian Dennis; my editor, Amanda Punter, and the team at Puffin; Jean Feiwel and the team at Feiwel and Friends; Lexy Bloom; Julia Holmes, Lisa Madden, Lana Zinck; my parents; and Tim Hasselbring, who read countless drafts of this story with enthusiasm and a sharp eye that Simon himself would surely admire.

  Don’t miss Maya, Simon, and Penny’s first adventure in

  THE LOST ISLAND OF TAMARIND

  Now available from SQUARE FISH.

  REVIEWS FOR THE LOST ISLAND OF TAMARIND

  “Aguiar’s exciting debut novel is a cross between Peter Pan and Lost.… Developed with seeming ease, each new character advances the plot logically and fluidly. The storytelling, intricate as it is, builds to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

  —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

  “The book’s magic … lies in Aguiar’s precise, often lyrical, descriptions. A native and resident of Bermuda, she writes with authority about daily life in the tropics.… Aguiar uses her knack for realistic details equally well in the magical parts.… The Lost Island of Tamarind has a gentle spirit, tempering its dangers with warmth.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Stranded on a lost island, a teen faces nail-biting adventures searching for her missing parents in this fantasy
cliff-hanger.… As she bounces from one adventure to the next, Maya forgets all about having a normal life and longs just to have her family reunited. Spunky kids, perilous pursuits, and marine mystery make for a smashing good read.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  EXCERPT FROM

  THE LOST ISLAND OF TAMARIND

  BY NADIA AGUIAR

  Maya struggled after the boys, going as quickly as she could with Penny. Helix and Simon kept up a lively conversation, but Maya didn’t join in. Instead, she fretted. She didn’t like Helix or their situation one bit. Who knew where he was really taking them? They had no idea where they were going, not really. But Maya didn’t know what else they could do. She kept her eyes peeled for the jaguars Helix had talked about, but she saw no sign of one.

  Finally, Helix stopped and put his finger to his lips.

  “From here on, we’re going to have to be totally quiet,” he said. “I mean it. Don’t say anything and watch where you walk. Don’t step on a twig even.”

  “Why?” whispered Simon.

  “Because in a minute, we’re going to come out into a grove of banyan trees and that’s where the jaguars will be. They’ll all be napping at this hour.”

  “Then why are we going this way?” asked Maya. “Shouldn’t we be avoiding the jaguars?”

  “We can’t,” said Helix. “They’re on the shore all around here and my raft happens to be on the other side of those trees. Because of the way the currents run, this is the only point at which you can get to Greater Tamarind from the Lesser Islands. All the other currents drag you toward the Lesser Islands—that’s probably why you ended up landing here. You have to know the waters really well not to get sucked into a current. The winds are bad, too. We don’t have any choice but to go past the jaguars.”