The Lost Island of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  Kate sat silently when they finished, a slight frown creasing her brow.

  “I don’t quite know how to tell you children this,” she said, hesitating. “It was some weeks ago . . . but I believe I’ve seen your father.”

  The world seemed to dissolve at the edges for a moment, as if Maya was about to faint. When she came back to her senses Simon had leaped up and was questioning Kate too quickly for her to respond.

  “Shh,” Maya said, tugging him back down to sit beside her.

  “What do you mean, you think you’ve seen our father?” she asked.

  “When I first got here,” said Kate. “I landed in Port Town. I spent a few days wandering around, getting my bearings. One day a man stopped me in the street. He had seen me go by and because I didn’t look like I was from here either, he followed me and asked if he could speak to me. He was looking for his children. Two girls and a boy, one of the girls was just a baby. He was a tall man. He had a beard.”

  “Papi doesn’t have a beard,” said Simon immediately.

  “He might now,” Maya said quietly.

  “I’ll try to be more specific,” said Kate. Then she recounted details about their parents and the Pamela Jane that there was no way she could have known if she weren’t telling the truth. She had, in fact, seen their father. Maya’s head spun—their parents were here, they were here, somewhere in Tamarind. Simon suddenly looked brighter than he had in days.

  “How is he?” Maya asked hoarsely.

  “He was thin, but in good health,” said Kate. “He was desperate to find you. I felt very badly for him.”

  “But he was by himself?” Maya asked, holding her breath.

  Kate lowered her gaze.

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “He was definitely traveling alone. But I’m sorry, I didn’t ask him anything and once he was sure that I hadn’t seen any of you he didn’t offer any more information. He thanked me and he continued on.”

  The children looked at Kate, suddenly devastated. Where was their mother?

  “Maybe,” began Maya. “Maybe they separated to find us. Or maybe they washed ashore at different parts of the island. It doesn’t mean that Mami isn’t out there, too,” she said to Simon.

  He nodded but he looked somber.

  “He didn’t say anything at all about our mother?” Maya asked Kate. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Kate said. “When he found out that I hadn’t seen you, he left. I didn’t see him again.”

  “Did he say where he was going?” Maya asked.

  Kate shook her head.

  Maya’s head began to ache. It was so cruel! A moment ago she had been brimming with joy at the knowledge that their father had survived the storm and was alive and well and on the very same island that they were on. And to hear the news in as unlikely a place as this—in a prison in the heart of the jungle— had made her feel giddy, as if anything was possible and at any moment their father might appear at the camp to take them home. And then immediately after that, to hear that their mother was not with him, to be left with no clue even as to whether she had made it safely to shore—it was too much. It had not even occurred to her before that their parents might not be together, so the knowledge that they were not shocked her to the core. Maya tried to collect her thoughts. “Kate,” she asked. “If we escape, would you take us to the town where you saw our father?”

  “Take you with me?”

  “In your plane. We aren’t very big. Simon and I could squash together in the backseat and I could hold Penny on my lap.”

  “Of course,” said Kate. “Of course. And even if he isn’t there anymore, you may find someone there who knows where he went. But the question is, how do we get out of here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Simon’s Plan * Evondra, the Evil Opera Queen *

  Concert * Act of Daring * A Great Rain

  How would they get out of there?

  Maya didn’t know the answer to that—their discussions with Horatio had left them none the wiser about how they might escape.

  Later that afternoon, Horatio trudged up the hill to bring them cassava bread for lunch. The children didn’t always get lunch and were happy to see him. Horatio passed the hunk of bread between the bars, and Simon took it and broke it into pieces for them to share. Horatio looked in at them.

  “You’ll be brought out tomorrow night,” he said. “For the concert.”

  Maya’s heart skipped a beat—freedom!

  “And then you’ll go back in,” said Horatio, turning and shuffling off back down the hill, chain rattling.

  Maya and Simon and Kate looked at each other, faces shining, barely able to contain their glee. Even Horatio’s dismal parting comment could not dampen their spirits now. The prospect of freedom—even if it was only for the duration of the concert—energized them. Once they were out of the Egewa prison tomorrow night, they would somehow find a way to break away from whoever was guarding them. . . . They sat there pondering how when suddenly Simon’s face lit up.

  “The Egewa prison!” he whispered excitedly. “We can use the prison to help us escape!”

  The following day dawned rainy and hot. Maya, Simon, Penny, and Kate huddled on the highest ground in the prison, but still puddles formed on the ground and the earth was soggy. They feared that the concert would be called off, but at nightfall the rain broke, the clouds began to clear, and moonlight shone on the wet earth and damp tiers of jungle. Maya and the others watched as, in the moonlight, the red monkeys escorted the slave children from the ark. They filed back out and over the hill to the opera shell.

  Maya was on tenterhooks by the time Horatio arrived. He let them out of the cage one by one, tying their wrists together, then looping a chain between the three of them. The children stretched their legs and took their first deep breaths of almost-freedom—even the air itself seemed sweeter just outside the prison bars! Their limbs tingled as the blood rushed through them. Penny was snug in the sling on Maya’s side. Maya was nervous about their plan and felt light-headed at the prospect of liberty. Horatio led them to the bottom of the hill, where they crossed a little footbridge—Simon had been right, there was a stream here. They climbed back up the hill on the opposite side and in the valley below they caught their first glimpse of what they had heard being built each day: the opera shell.

  It was a staggering sight: a tremendous, fan-shaped shell, large and luminous as the moon, sitting in the middle of the jungle. It was built out of ice-white blocks of ophalla, carved and polished until they shone. In front of it, at its base, was a wooden stage. A few slave children were hanging from ropes, making final preparations. The rest were seated cross-legged on the ground in front of the stage. There were hundreds of them. Bulky, red-haired monkeys stood about the fringes of the crowd. Until then Maya had been so preoccupied with their escape that she had not thought much about the concert itself. But now, regarding the awesome shell, she felt a shiver of fear—what power in the ophalla was Evondra trying to unleash?

  The only light beneath the jungle canopy came from the candles glowing in the skulls that stood on poles around the perimeter of the crowd. An orange glow lit the gaping eye sockets and leering jaws, and Maya cringed as they passed them. Horatio led Maya, Simon, Penny, and Kate down the hill and to the back of the audience, where he motioned them to sit down. A monkey at the front of the crowd cracked a whip and the hushed murmur rippling through the crowd faded. Silence descended. Another red monkey, scratching at fleas on its chest, walked past the children, its eyes roving the crowd. Maya met Simon’s eyes. His face was pale. Their plan depended on him. It wasn’t time yet, though.

  Maya scanned the crowd but could not make out Netti or Bongo anywhere. Then all eyes turned as a figure emerged from the wings and walked out and stood in the center of the stage. The figure was silhouetted against the light of the shell, and though Maya assumed it was Evondra, she could not tell for sure. Maya glanced down at Penny. It was past the baby’s bedtime
and she was asleep, her breath soft against Maya’s shoulder.

  There was a rustling in the treetops overhead, and Maya saw that the slave children were pulling ropes tied to the highest branches in the canopy overhead. The canopy parted and a beam of moonlight, roiling soft as smoke through the clouds in the trees, fell like a spotlight on the figure in the middle of the stage. It was indeed Evondra. Her hair shone black as oil and her lips and cheeks were stained red with berries from the jungle. She wore a long gown, as purple as the flesh of piranhas. A dark green snake was coiled around her outstretched arm, its head turned and raised to face her, its forked tongue flickering like a flame in a breeze.

  But there was no breeze in the jungle. The air was motionless and the clouds high up in the cloud forest moved so slowly they hardly seemed to be moving at all. Maya felt sweat pouring from her skin. It was almost too hot to breathe. The faces of all the children glowed dully in the moonlight.

  A noise came from Evondra’s throat, but it was not like singing. It was unlike anything Maya had ever heard. Her voice was clear as a bell and haunting. She sang only one note but it seemed less a note than a palpable vibration through the air. Slowly it seemed that all the creatures in the jungle ceased moving—the snakes stopped midway through their oily glide down tree trunks; the monkeys who had been munching fruit let the pits drop to the ground; the birds folded their wings and fell into reverent silence; even the tiniest ants and beetles stopped what they were doing as if to listen. As she sang, the ophalla shell behind her seemed to grow brighter. Maya watched nervously.

  “The vibrations from her voice are doing something to the ophalla,” whispered Kate.

  Bubbles seemed to be rising in the ophalla, growing bright and clear.

  The slave children and the animals of the jungle were transfixed. Then Evondra lifted her arm toward the crowd, and the children began to sing.

  “She needs more voices,” said Kate.

  The children sang, their youthful voices lifting like a sweet breeze over the camp, holding a single note. Again Maya looked for Netti and Bongo, but there were too many children for her to make out individual faces.

  Horatio left them and a different ugly red monkey came and took his place. Maya could feel its hot breath on her neck. There didn’t seem to be any other creatures behind it though— they had all moved forward and were staring spellbound at the stage. Maya glanced at Simon. This was their moment.

  Unbeknownst to Horatio or the monkeys, inside Simon’s backpack was a stick of Egewa, taken from the bars of the prison and wrapped carefully in a spare T-shirt. The day before, Simon had cut several lengths of fishing line with the penknife. Without touching the bars, he had tied a complicated series of knots between two right angles of the prison, creating a nearly invisible web. The web held the prison walls intact for the next part: Moving carefully, Simon had used the pocketknife to saw free a four-inch length of a narrow Egewa branch. He had tied a piece of fishing line around the length, so instead of falling to the ground, it dropped only a few feet before the line caught it. It had dangled there, poisonous amber sap glistening, twirling gently as they all gazed at it, their key to escape.

  The plan depended on Simon being quick. They wouldn’t have a second chance.

  Maya stared straight ahead and tried to breathe evenly so she wouldn’t attract the monkey’s attention. Beads of sweat clustered on her forehead. Slowly and without the monkey noticing, Simon, the knot expert, had untied his hands behind his back. Now he reached into his backpack. In one swift motion he withdrew the stick of Egewa, turned quickly, and shoved it in the monkey’s mouth. The monkey bit down on it—it was a reflex—and quickly its eyes widened in horror. It spit it out, but it was too late. As the children watched, it slumped over; its eyelids grew heavy and then closed. Hands trembling, the children and Kate worked free the knots that bound their hands. Then crouching, they slipped back away from the crowd, through the shadows and into the jungle.

  Now they just had to make it to the plane—and pray that it was still where Kate had left it. They ran as fast as they could, trying not to make too much noise. Maya held Penny to her tightly—she had woken but was too startled to cry. Kate was just in front and Maya could hear Simon breathing raggedly beside her. They reached the ridge and slipped quickly over to the other side, going faster now that they were running downhill. Maya began to think they would make it. Kate’s plane should be in the field just beyond the next hill. It had begun to rain again, just a few scattered drops at first, then it picked up its tempo.

  The strange singing behind them stopped suddenly and the jungle seemed to grow darker as the light from the ophalla shell dimmed. The rain came down violently now and the children could hardly see which way to go. If their absence hadn’t been discovered already, it was sure to be at any minute, and they pressed on, gasping for air. They passed the Egewa prison and scrambled up the slope away from it. Maya looked over her shoulder and saw the walls of the prison collapse in a mud slide. Just like that, the place where they had spent so many long days as prisoners was gone in a wash of dirt and pebbles and tree branches.

  Maya’s heart raced as they stumbled along. It was hard to run with Penny and she was behind the others. Simon looked behind him and then grabbed her hand and pulled her along faster. The rain was coming down so hard that sometimes Maya could barely see a foot in front of her face. But there was the ark, just up ahead. Then through the curtain of water she could see the silhouettes of other monkeys galloping through the trees.

  “They’re looking for us,” Maya gasped in a whisper. She felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. The monkeys screeched every now and then as they searched for the runaways. How were they going to get to the plane in time? The jungle was crawling with Evondra’s monkeys. Farther down the hill, Maya could hear the rushing stream, already rising from the rain. She saw the slave children marching through the trees toward the ark—the rain must have stopped the concert, and the children were being sent back. Hoping to take advantage of the distraction, the children and Kate began moving in a crouch through the trees in the direction of the plane, when suddenly a great red monkey, his wiry fur slicked flat by the rain and his mouth peeled back in a grimace, dropped down from a tree in front of them. He threw his head back and howled. More monkeys were upon them in a moment, and the terrified children and Kate were forced back through the trees toward the ark. They were prisoners again! Maya’s heart plunged—this couldn’t be happening!

  The monkeys jostled the children up the steps and pushed them inside. The door swung shut and they were in darkness.

  The air inside the ark was foul. Nausea washed over Maya. Trembling, she leaned back against the side of the boat and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. When slowly the scene before her became clear she held her breath and stared, horrified and speechless. The inside of the ark was like nothing she had ever seen. Children, their faces black with dirt from the mines, were crammed onto straw mats together. There weren’t enough mats and many lay on the bare floorboards, where splinters drove into their bony hips. Everywhere was the dank, oppressive smell of human filth and despair. One hundred pairs of listless eyes watched Maya and Simon and Penny and Kate. As she looked around her, Maya knew that as awful as the past weeks in the Egewa prison had been, she and Simon and Penny had lived like kings and queens compared to these miserable children.

  From a dark corner a small boy came bounding across the others, jabbering excitedly. The other children leaned out of his way but he had to hopscotch over the arms and legs that seemed to take up every inch of the floor. It wasn’t until he reached Maya and Simon that they realized who it was.

  “Bongo!” cried Simon joyfully. “It’s you!”

  Bongo wept tears of joy to see his friends.

  “Simon!” he cried. “Maya! Penny!” He reached out and petted Penny’s head gently.

  Netti came running after him and she and Maya embraced. They all chattered excitedly; although th
ey couldn’t understand each other’s words, the sentiment was clear. Netti wiped tears from her cheeks and smiled. But just then the ark lurched violently and a collective scream went up from the slave children.

  “It’s the rain,” said Kate. “It’s washing us down the hillside.”

  The ark slid a few more feet, and some of the younger children began to cry. Between the din of the rain on the deck above and the wailing in the hull, Maya could hardly think.

  “We’re going to slide down to the stream!” cried Simon. “And the water is rising—we’ll float away!”

  Kate eyed the rotting wooden beams overhead. “Who knows how long this thing has been lying here like this—it could be rotted through. If there’s a hole in it somewhere, the hull will fill with water and the ark will sink with all of us trapped inside. We’ll all drown. We have to get out, now—we don’t have any time!”

  “We have to get to the deck,” said Maya to Bongo and Netti. She pointed above them frantically.

  The rain pounded down on the deck above them, deafeningly loud, and the boat slid another few feet. Then one of the boys said something and the others went off and returned a moment later with what looked like a beam that at some point in time must have fallen from the ceiling. The ends were rotting, but otherwise it looked sturdy. Standing evenly on either side of it and counting off, the boys then swung the end of the beam as hard as they could into the door that led to the deck. The force nearly knocked them over. The door shuddered but stood. Again the boys heaved the beam into it.

  All the other children had gotten up and were crowded at the foot of the stairs. The boys with the beam swung it into the door again and again and again until finally the hinges snapped and the door burst open. Moonlight and rain poured in onto the dirty, upturned faces below. A cheer was raised and all the children began streaming up the steps to the deck. Maya, Simon, Penny, and Kate were forced along with them.

  Slave children emerged out into the fresh, pure air. Clean, cold rain beat down and washed the grime from their skin. The ark was tipped to one side on the hillside, so the deck was at an awkward angle. They were nearly at the bottom of the hill now, and Maya could see that the little stream had swollen into a muddy, fast-moving river, and the water was still rising. Funnels of rainwater coursing down the hill had loosened the earth beneath the ark and it was sliding down the hill in fits and starts. Maya held on to Simon and Penny, afraid that the whole thing would roll over. A sudden mud slide brought it swiftly to the edge of the river and a collective scream went up from all the slave children, now massed on the deck. Silence followed as everyone waited, breath held, to see what would happen. The water rose over the keel and then—Maya held her breath—the ark began to float.