Chapter 42
Once Betty and Eve were sound asleep, Crystal crept off her ledge and sneaked by the three exhausted adults. All night she had stifled her sobs so no one would hear her. The sun was poking orange rays through the cave windows. At least she could get fruit for them now that it was morning. She hurried so Aunt Betty wouldn’t worry about where she’d disappeared to, but nobody was awake when she returned. Okay then, she’d do more. Anything to please them, to relieve the weight of guilt on her heart.
At the stream, she filled the water bucket and rinsed out the two cloths and lay them in the sun to dry. With one eye on the cave in case anyone woke up, she hunted mussels, cleaned them, and added them to the cauldron. All that work, and still everyone slept.
Her own eyelids wanted to drop into slumber, too, but she couldn’t bear to walk by Jake’s bunk to get to hers. The horrid thud of his fall yesterday kept echoing in her head. Even worse, what if she slipped past him and there was no sound because he’d stopped breathing? The thought pinched spasms in her stomach and squeezed her lungs so tight she couldn’t breathe.
She gasped in air and forced her imagination to picture Jake up and at ’em, smiling so big all his front teeth showed, beckoning her with a pat on the ground to sit beside him on the beach and read the Bible together.
He’d like it, wouldn’t he, if she kept the hearth fire going too? She fetched firewood from the plateau until her legs ached from the climb and her skin itched from the dirt and sweat. A speedy dip in the stream brought her to the last task she could think of, cutting up the fruit.
The sharp knife set her insides jittering. Slicing the mangos and star apples wasn’t a problem, but peeling the weird red fruit covered with green hair was something Eve always handled. Well, she had learned how to open coconuts, hadn’t she? A little practice and she could peel the creepy red and green fruit too.
She yelped as the knife split open the soft flesh of her thumb. The knife clattered to the floor and skittered toward the sleeping hall. Before Crystal could retrieve it, Eve rushed into the room.
No, not the Owl! Crystal’s insides shriveled into the darkest corner of her heart.
Eve stopped, glanced at her, then the food, then the knife. “Oh, thanks for getting the fruit—that’s exactly the lift I need. You want help?” She picked up the knife.
“I cut myself.”
“Let me see.” Eve took Crystal’s hand and examined her thumb. “Want me to sew it up? I’m getting pretty good at the job.”
Was she kidding or not? Crystal jerked her hand away. “That’s okay. I’m fine.”
A tap-tap-tap against the rock floor announced Aunt Betty’s arrival. “What’d you do, cut yourself? I told you to leave that knife alone.” She leaned on her cane and seized Crystal’s thumb. “Now look what you’ve done, on top of all our other troubles!”
A grunt from the sleeping corridor jerked their attention to its doorway. Jake stumbled into view. He leaned against the wall, his chest and palms flat against the stone for support. “Help me.” His voice was raspy.
“Jake! What are you doing up?” In two steps, Eve was at his side.
“Need you . . . look at my back.”
“What’s wrong? It’s not bleeding. Let’s get you back to bed.”
“Help me . . . to table.” His words, whispered with effort, were nevertheless insistent. “Need light to see.”
Fear punched the air in Crystal’s lungs. See what?
Eve’s voice softened. “Okay, lean against my back, then, like I did against yours during the typhoon.” She slipped Jake’s arms over her shoulders and trundled him with small steps to the table. Crystal swiped away the fruit and helped Eve lay Jake on the bamboo slats. Eve brushed away wisps of Jake’s hair plastered in sweat to his face. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
His answer scraped out between heaving breaths from the journey across the room. “Get close . . . Look.”
Crystal’s stomach knotted at how feeble his voice sounded. How he lay with the bumpy bamboo slats poking his face. How his arms lay limp by his side, like jellyfish washed ashore by the tide. She blinked back tears and forced herself to join Eve and Betty at the table.
At best, the light in the cave was dim. She leaned over and squinted at his back. The pattern of the cat’s claws marked four short furrows down each shoulder. The blood had dried into black lines puckered with miniature, pink volcanoes connected by fishline where Eve had sewn Jake up. Tiny, white dots the size of rice embedded the pink bumps.
No! Surely those dots had not moved. She bent closer. Every one of them wriggled and fidgeted.
She jumped back with a scream. “Maggots!”
As if choreographed, Eve and Betty leaped back with her. Their faces mirrored her horror.
Jake released a heavy sigh. “Thought so.” He raised his hand and opened his palm flat. “Let me see.”
Eve inched forward to peek at his back. “Trust me, they’re there. Some are already under your skin.”
“Show me one.” When no one moved, he murmured, “Crystal?”
“Gross!” But how could she refuse? Wasn’t she the cause of this invasion in the first place? If Jake had to bear it, so did she. Suppressing a whimper, she brushed a stubby, white larva into her hand and held it out for Jake’s inspection. It wriggled toward the crease line below her fingers. She squealed and dumped it onto his palm.
He shoved his hand level with his eyes. “Good. A maggot.”
Aunt Betty squeezed Crystal’s arm. “Get me that bucket of water. We’re getting rid of them right now.”
“No!” Jake’s voice raised the hair on Crystal’s arms. He lifted his head and shook it with surprising vigor. “Don’t.”
“He’s delirious.” Aunt Betty pushed Crystal toward the bucket. “Get the water.”
“Stop!” Jake boosted himself to his elbows and twisted around to frown at Betty. “They eat dead flesh. They’ll help my wounds.”
“I won’t allow it, Jake.” Tears brimmed in Betty’s eyes. “I won’t have you eaten alive by worms.”
“Wait.” Eve grasped Crystal’s arm. “I’ve heard about this, Betty. In some parts of the world, maggots are used medically to remove decay and prevent gangrene. It may—” She halted and pressed her lips together. When they stopped quivering, she continued. “It may be Jake’s only chance.”
Silence smothered the cave. Air vanished from Crystal’s lungs. Pulse and heartbeat quit. The words swallowed her soul. Jake’s only chance—to live.
The creak of the table shattered the quiet. Crystal jumped, her heart ramming her ribs. Across from her, Jake slid his legs off the bamboo slats to a shaky stand, his arms, braced against the table, equally shaky. His head drooped as if his neck had turned to rubber. “Take me back.”
Eve helped him to his bed. She returned to sit next to Betty and put an arm across Betty’s slumped shoulders. Crystal couldn’t distinguish the words Eve mumbled into Betty’s ear, but it wasn’t a hard guess. “He’ll be okay.” How many times had Eve said that? And look at Jake now.
Crystal’s insides ached. She wanted Eve’s arm around her. Wanted Eve’s hand smoothing her hair away from her face. Wanted, yes, even the empty words of comfort. But she understood she was unworthy. The words “eaten alive” cut deeply into her heart. Jake might die, maybe was dying right now, alone in bed. Slowly eaten by worms.
She sniffled bumpy, little sobs of air into her lungs. At last, here was someone who loved her for no good reason in the whole, wide world—and she had as good as killed him.
When she crawled onto her bunk that night, she hardly closed her eyes before Jake’s cries awoke her.
“Ginny!”
The soft patter of Eve’s feet, the tap of Aunt Betty’s cane, the slosh of two cloths dunked in water—they all said the same thing. The worms were eating Jake.
There were no more tears left to cry. Only a deep chill, and the certainty that tomorrow Jake would be dead.
Chapter
43
Eve entered the jungle at the place where she had hacked a path to her favorite tree. The opening cut in the thick growth bordering the stream formed a narrow arch that allowed her to slip through without being scraped, poked, or slapped by branches and leaves. More importantly, the bare earth of the trail removed chances of stepping on a snake. The fewer the challenges she had to face, the better she could focus on keeping Jake alive.
The twitter and hoots from the canopy overhead spoke of the continuity of life. The contrast of Jake’s deliriums last night, for the second night in a row, squeezed her heart. Which was worse, his fever and ravings while she and Betty frantically sponged him off and tried to comfort him, or the periods of utter stillness when she held her breath to see some small sign that he was still alive?
She batted away pesky insects hungry for her eyes. If only Crystal had risen early to gather fruit again for their breakfast, she could have grabbed a morning nap. But the child had remained on her bunk, curled in a fetal position rather than stretched out, half hanging off her ledge, as usual. Poor thing, no doubt she had slept as little as the adults and was filled with the same mind-numbing dread.
It was just as well. With Jake finally sleeping, she wanted to get out anyway. The cave that had been such a welcoming refuge was now a tomb sucking away her every breath. For a second, the image of the Japanese soldiers in the burial cave flashed into her mind. A shiver jabbed down her backbone.
She broke into a trot. They wouldn’t end up like those soldiers. No one was going to die. Not Jake. Not Betty. Not Crystal. Not her. They’d all make it off this cursed island. From now on, she’d refuse to think otherwise.
At her approach to her destination, a flock of brightly colored broadbills swooped away in noisy protest from the towering tree. Leaning into its upper branches was the crown of a second tree that had toppled over. It’s mossy trunk created a steep but convenient bridge to the first tree. From there it was an easy climb to the canopy. With practiced skill, she crossed the bridge and scaled the tree. The hole made by the fallen tree allowed her a view of the sky and, in the distance, the gray top of the volcano baking in the morning sun.
So, where was the closest troop of monkeys today? Although she couldn’t see them through the layers of green leaves, she had no problem hearing them. All she had to do was follow the noise, and whatever the monkeys were feeding on became the next meal for their human cousins. Since monkeys simply filled their stomachs and moved on, there was always something left for her to pick.
This time it was mangos. She carried her haul to the waterfall pool and deposited the mangos inside a shallow corral Jake had constructed. After harvesting two other fruits nearby, she bathed, then plodded downstream with the fruit pouched in her dripping shirt.
The coolness of the water rushing over her ankles soothed her. Really, there was no reason to worry about Jake. In spite of two nights of fever, he was at least eating and drinking during the day. With the chill of the cave to counter his fever, and the maggots to consume his dead flesh, he should recover. It was foolish to entertain any other possibility.
Foolish to think her feelings toward Jake had changed in any way too. Fear of his death had simply colored her admiration of him with hyped-up drama. The courtroom demanded data in black and white—facts had to be facts. And that was her venue, the courtroom, not the stage. The black-and-white fact was that her ambition to win United States vs. Romero had resulted in nineteen deaths. That had to be the basis for any emotions connected to Jake.
Sobered by her reality check, she arrived at the cave and spotted Crystal, bucket in hand, wading in the cove’s shallow water. Betty must have sent her out to gather mussels to distract her. They certainly didn’t need more meat with all the venison still on hand. Especially with nobody eating much of anything the past five days since Jake’s injury.
Betty greeted her with a dour face. “He had more deliriums while you were gone.” She eyed the fruit with glazed disinterest as Eve dumped it onto the table. “It’s those maggots crawling inside him that are making him sick.”
“You’ve been picking off the ones on the outside, haven’t you?” Eve paired the accusation with a sharp look and raised eyebrow.
“Every chance I get,” Betty shot back. “I don’t understand how those eggs hatched so soon, anyway. It takes at least two to three days, not one.”
Eve took over what was usually Betty’s job and sliced the fruit onto a seashell platter. “The eggs must have been laid at the pit. I swear every fly on the island followed him to the cave.”
Sudden horror drove stomach acid to the back of her throat. “Oh, Betty, I boiled the cloths before I washed him off, but I must have sewn some eggs in with the stitches!” She laid the knife aside and drew in a breath.
“I tell you, Eve, we need to cut them out.”
The thought of slicing into the tender, pink flesh on Jake’s backside brought more acid to Eve’s throat. “No. Absolutely not. Cutting him and digging around for maggots will only make things worse. Promise me you’ll drop the idea.”
Betty grumbled, but Eve made her give her word. Should she hide the three knives to make sure?
She called Crystal in to eat, but none of them consumed more than a few bites. Betty’s new batch of mussel-venison soup fared no better.
At midday, Eve took soup to Jake to encourage him to at least sip the broth. His body was hot, drenched with sweat. Before she could fetch the cloths and water to cool him, he called out for Ginny. Betty crawled off her bunk from a nap and hobbled without her cane to his side. “The time between his deliriums is getting shorter. He’s getting worse.”
Anxiety the size of a boulder rolled into Eve’s stomach. She sped to get the cloths and water. When at last Jake lay in a restless slumber, she climbed onto her own bunk and tossed and turned in a vain effort to sleep.
At dusk, his fever returned, rising and rising, his shouts for Ginny growing more and more frantic, until what seemed like hours passed before his fever broke. This time he slept without moving, his breathing so shallow that Eve and Betty checked his pulse again and again. Neither of them could swallow a morsel of food, and they didn’t protest when Crystal refused to eat.
When the sky was a grim black against evening stars, Jake’s fever broke for the fourth time that day. “We’ve got to keep him hydrated,” Betty said. While one of them mopped his body with one cloth, the other dribbled water into his mouth from the second cloth.
The cycles continued into the next day, and the day after that. Jake refused any nourishment but water. The cries of sorrow and grief during his deliriums drained Eve’s sensibility. His fevers robbed her strength. Each time she slept, she rose to the possibility that today might be the day Jake died.
He became the hub of the wheel around which she and Betty and Crystal revolved. She and Betty took turns caring for him, one sleeping as best she could while the other tended him. Crystal stepped up to the plate and nursed the nurses. She prepared the food and insisted they eat. She cleaned the dishes, fetched the water, woke one when the other was spent. She monitored the days for them. Today was the sixth day, the seventh, the eighth.
It was the one consistent request Jake made, asking, “What number day is it?” Or, as he grew more feeble, merely, “Day?”
On day nine, Crystal told her Jake gave her a thumbs-up, though he could barely lift his hand. “What’s that mean?”
Eve was at a loss. “Must be to encourage us.” But why? Each day he got only weaker and weaker. Disgustingly, each day the larvae got bigger and bigger.
On day ten, he spread his lips into what had to be a smile and lifted a trembling finger to point to Heaven. Stunned, they interpreted it to mean that today he would die.
The maggots were now almost half an inch long, forming horrid little humps under Jake’s skin. But on day ten, they became still. Jake’s cycles of delirium and fever stopped. His skin was pale, his arms meatless. He lay quiescent, his breathing barely discernable.
Eve spent the night in a chair next to his ledge, her heartbeat fluttering thunder at every shallow breath he wheezed in. His forehead was cold. Too cold.
Trembling, she awoke Betty and Crystal. “We need to say our good-byes.”
Chapter 44
Crystal crawled onto the ledge with Jake. The dried grass beneath him stank of urine and body odor and, up near his head, a little bit of vomit. She stretched out next to him and stared at his face until she could see his mouth half-hidden in his beard, and above it his nose and eyelids. Would he hear her? Probably not, but she had to tell him. For her sake. Tell him everything.
His left arm pillowed his head. His other lay between them. She copied him, an arm under her head, the other resting next to his. Her fingers brushed against the curly hair on his forearm, and she slowly lifted her palm until her hand lay like a fragile egg on a soft nest.
She chewed her lower lip. No crying. No Crybaby Crystal. She inhaled through her nostrils until her lungs were tight with air. She’d be brave and begin with the worst. The sneaky plan, her lie, everything. It was more than she could carry in her heart anymore. She released her breath and snuffled in more air through her nose. She’d tell him how sorry she was, and beg him to forgive her.
Then she’d tell him how happy he had made her—the happiest in her whole life. She’d thank him for taking her to see the rain forest, for teaching her how to start a fire, and how to mark a jungle path with broken branches. For telling her about him and Ginny, for spending his mornings teaching her Scripture and about God. For the Twenty-third Psalm—she mustn’t forget that.
She had a long, long list. The only thing she wouldn’t tell him was that he mustn’t wait for her in Heaven. She wouldn’t be coming. She didn’t deserve to be there.
She opened her mouth, but the words snagged in her throat. Her hand left its nest and flew to his beard and clutched hold. “I love you, Jake! I don’t want you to die!”
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