The Lost Island of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  “My dear,” he said. “Let me take a good look at you.”

  Maya held her breath, feeling faint as his eyes roved over her face. She was grateful for the shadows and the dim light from the lamps. She didn’t breathe again until he straightened up and laughed.

  “You look just like your mother did at your age,” he said, beaming. “Speaking of whom, where is your mother? And why on earth are you on foot? Where is the car that brought you?”

  “My mother’s coming later,” Maya heard herself saying. He had bought it—he believed she was his niece. She could hardly believe it. In a way the most dangerous moment had passed. If he had believed her this far, it wouldn’t take much more to get him to help her with the search for her parents. And now her nervousness was making it easier to chatter on— he would think it was her excitement at seeing him. “She sent me ahead by myself because—oh, it’s a long story,” she said. “I have to explain it all to you later.”

  Senor Tecumbo frowned.

  “Who is this driver who let you out to walk by yourself?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. He had to stop for gasoline just down the hill and I knew I was almost here and I couldn’t wait any longer to see you, so I just ran up the hill by myself. It’s fine. Really, I’m fine, except that the car was held up along the way and my trunk was stolen and now all my things are gone. I don’t know what I’m going to do without any other clothes!”

  “Clothes?” he asked. “Don’t you worry about clothes, you’ll have all the clothes you want by tomorrow, I’ll arrange it. But I’m more concerned that the driver let you out by yourself. Tell your mother not to use him again. In fact”—he turned to the bodyguard in the black suit who had been following a little way behind them—“Lorco, find that driver and bring him to me. I’d like to have a chat with him.”

  Lorco—Maya knew that the man with the gun was the man Helix had warned her about. He had been looking hard at Maya ever since she had arrived. His gaze sent a chill across her skin.

  “He’s already on his way back to Maracairol,” she said quickly, but Senor Tecumbo insisted that Lorco try to find him. Fear pierced Maya’s chest as Lorco turned to leave—what if he found out the truth? She shook it off—there was no one to find.

  The villa’s magnificent pink stone walls loomed at the top of the hillside and great shuttered doors ran all along the front, opening onto a rectangular courtyard paved in white marble and bordered with fragrant night-blooming flowers. Maya managed to murmur responses to Senor Tecumbo’s questions as they crossed the rectangle and passed through the largest of the doors into a spectacular foyer. Gleaming black-and-white tiles spread in a checker pattern across the floor, and an ornate white marble staircase swept up to the second floor.

  “Why don’t you freshen up and then we’ll have dinner outside?” said Senor Tecumbo. “We’ll meet back down here in half an hour from now.”

  Maya nodded and a silent maid appeared from nowhere and took her upstairs to a bedroom at the end of a long, high-ceilinged hallway. The room took Maya’s breath away and for a few seconds she forgot anything other than that she had just stepped into a room fit for a princess. Long silk curtains the color of pomegranates drifted in the breeze. There was a vast, four-poster bed with a puffy ivory bedspread and fruit-colored pillows. To Maya’s delight, an ivory canopy sat on top of the four posters. There was a wardrobe and a dresser made with the same rich jungle wood that the bed frame was made from. Through the doorway at the other end of the room, she could see that the bathroom was the size of the whole cabin on the Pamela Jane. Simon was never going to believe her when she told him about all this. Maya caught sight of her own amazed face looking back at her in a large scalloped mirror. She quickly tried to look normal so that the maid wouldn’t suspect anything. The real Isabella probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash at such luxury.

  When Maya had washed her face and combed her hair, she left her room and descended the marble staircase. Senor Tecumbo wasn’t yet there, but there were two places set at a table outside on the rectangle. While she waited for him, Maya walked to the edge of the patio and leaned on the cool marble wall, white in the moonlight. Natal plums sat brightly in the dark hedges. Above her, a spray of diamond-white stars were scattered across the great black vault of the sky. She drank in the night air—so much cooler and fresher than the fetid, briny breezes that eddied down by the dock. It was a world away up here.

  Maya looked out in the direction of the sea. The lights of the boardwalk reflected on the surf on the incoming tide, but the light extended only a few yards out to sea on either side, and after that the sea fell away into swift darkness. There were no lights from passing ships in sight. Except for the evil huddle of the pirate fleet anchored in the bay, the sea was empty. And, she noticed for the first time, there was no light house beam sweeping the waters around Port Town. It was as if no one ever expected—or wanted—to be found. Or expected ships to seek shelter here. She felt melancholy all of a sudden. What if the plan didn’t work? What if she never saw her mother again? If they didn’t find their parents soon, would there come a time when she would stop looking for them? Would she just slowly let those thoughts go, until she was like Valerie Volcano, writing letters to a sister who would never receive them? The breeze loosened blossoms and they tumbled across the marble floor past her feet.

  “Aha,” said Senor Tecumbo, stepping onto the rectangle behind her. “The last time you were here you were a little girl! Now I see before me a beautiful young woman! How does everything here look to you?”

  “It’s wonderful,” said Maya, grateful that she could answer sincerely.

  “It is,” said Senor Tecumbo, coming to stand beside her to look out over the dark ocean. “And it’s an especially beautiful night. I’m glad you got here early, it was a very happy surprise.”

  Maya smiled.

  “One thing is odd, though,” said Senor Tecumbo. “Lorco has not found that driver who brought you here. I don’t like the sound of him, dropping you off and then disappearing like that. And I’m wondering if he had something to do with your trunk being stolen, too. People can be bought so easily these days. I’m going to talk to your mother about him.”

  “Oh,” said Maya. “I told him it was okay to go home. I don’t want him to get into trouble.”

  “Trouble?” asked Senor Tecumbo. “He should be in trouble. I wish your mother wasn’t so stubborn about staying in Maracairol. I’d be happiest if you’d both come to live in Port Town, where I would know that you were safe. I don’t know why your mother insists on staying on there when, well, when it seems clear that your brother won’t be returning.”

  Her brother—Isabella’s brother, not returning, from where? From the war? Was he a soldier? Maya’s palms began to sweat. She knew hardly anything about Isabella’s family. She had not had time to consider all the repercussions of the plan before Helix had whisked her from Mathilde’s to the villa. How was she going to keep up her pretense? The evening stretched out long and perilous before her. She was going to have to steer the conversation to her parents as soon as possible. To her relief, a waiter arrived with their dinner, which he set at a little round table beside the house.

  “Shall we?” asked Senor, offering Maya his arm.

  They sat down and the servant removed silver covers from their plates. Grilled asparagus, reef fish blackened in an orange sauce, salted potatoes, jungle greens with shiny red pomegranate seeds—it was a small feast. Maya’s mouth began to water. She felt guilty for a moment that Simon and Helix weren’t there to enjoy it, too, but she didn’t have long to think about it before Senor Tecumbo began asking her questions.

  “Now,” he asked. “Why did your mother send you ahead on your own? I can’t think what would have made her do that, with the roads the way they are. It’s not like her to be so reckless.”

  Maya took a sip of açai juice and swallowed it. The glass trembled a little in her hand. Here was her chance.

  “She sent me early becaus
e we wanted to surprise you, but also to ask for your help with something very important,” she said. “A week ago a couple arrived in Maracairol—they were from the Outside.”

  Senor Tecumbo put his fork down and stared at her.

  “From the Outside?” he asked.

  Maya nodded.

  “They had been looking for Tamarind, and they found the passage in,” she said. “They know how to get back to it. They could—I mean, it would be possible—for them to take people back with them. To show them how to get there. Mami thinks they could get people from the Outside to help Tamarind.”

  “The passage to the Outside,” said Senor Tecumbo softly. He turned his gaze to the ocean invisible in the darkness. “We used to dream of finding the way there. When the war began, many ships left to try to seek help for Tamarind, or just to save themselves. I never heard that even one made it. Days, months, even years later they would be washed back onto our shores as driftwood.” He paused. “Most people said it doesn’t exist, it’s just fantasy.”

  The dreaminess left his eyes and his gaze hardened.

  “Tamarind is full of charlatans,” he asked. “Who are these people really? They could be from far across Tamarind—the people there are different, you know. Or, more likely, they’re northern spies. How does your mother know they’re really from the Outside?”

  Maya spoke tremblingly. She wasn’t used to lying.

  “When you see people from the Outside, you just know,” she said. “I promise you, they were.”

  “Well, is your mother going to bring them here, or do I have to go to Maracairol?” he asked. “I don’t understand what she’s thinking. And she sent me a letter by a messenger just a few days ago—why wouldn’t she mention this then? You said the people arrived a week ago.”

  Maya tried to keep her breathing steady. She could feel her dress sticking to the sweat on her back.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t a whole week ago,” she said. Maya knew she had to hurry on. “But it doesn’t matter, anyway, because they’ve gone now.”

  “Gone! Gone where?”

  “They were on a boat with their children, but there was a storm and they were separated, you see. So now they’re somewhere in Tamarind looking for them. They have three children. Mami tried to tell them that we would help them find their children, but they were desperate and they left before she could stop them. She sent me ahead to ask for your help to find them. She’s doing what she can from Maracairol, but she thought that you could do something from here. The man—we think he was on his way to Port Town. It’s the only clue we have.”

  “Many people vanish and are never heard from again these days,” Senor Tecumbo said darkly. He took a silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead. “I had so many friends who left their homes in the morning and were never seen again. Young men—boys, orphans usually— stolen into piracy. Children captured in the jungle and never heard from again. Just think of our own family. Your father, my two brothers, killed in the fighting—it was a blessing that at least your father’s body was recovered. So few are. And think about your brother—no word for a year now. It tears at my heart.”

  Maya fell silent. She suddenly remembered that the girl she was so recklessly impersonating was a real person. She felt pity for Isabella’s family’s grief and guilt that she was using Senor Tecumbo. Senor Tecumbo fell away into his own thoughts, his brooding gaze wandering restlessly to the horizon.

  Reminding herself why she was there, Maya tried to steer the conversation back around to her parents.

  “But we can help them,” she said. “We can find them, if you just try—”

  “Find them?” Senor Tecumbo asked. “Isabella, you must know that when people disappear here they don’t come back. Look at what we did to try to find your brother. No, there’s nothing you can do. Your mother should know that, too. It’s the way it is now. These friends made enemies of the wrong people.”

  “But,” Maya said with a sudden inspiration, “but perhaps we could, I don’t know, we could put up posters about them around the town. Maybe someone saw them.”

  “My dear child, if we put posters up of all the people who went missing . . .”

  Maya was getting desperate.

  “At least we tried to find my brother. We have to try. If it were Mami who were lost . . .” Here Maya’s voice began to quaver. “If it were Mami who were lost, or kidnapped, wouldn’t you want people to help her?” Maya bowed her head, overwhelmed for a moment by genuine grief.

  Senor Tecumbo was a hard man, but he was also a man of great emotions and the sight of Maya’s bowed head and trembling shoulders moved him. And the thought of Margarette—his own dear sweet sister, Margarette, who had combed his hair when he was a little boy and let him bring all manner of lizards and iguanas into her bedroom without screaming at him, unlike his six other sisters—the thought of Margarette being lost to him again after they had so recently reconciled filled him with sorrow and he reached down and patted Maya’s shoulder.

  “Don’t cry,” he said.

  “Please,” said Maya. She wiped her hand over the back of her eyes and when she looked at him again her gaze was stern.

  Suddenly Senor Tecumbo began to laugh. The sound startled Maya.

  “You’re just as stubborn as your mother!” he said. “The women in this family! All right, Isabella. I’ll have a search begun in the morning. But I’m warning you, don’t get your hopes up.”

  Maya raised her tearstained face to his. She took hold of one of his huge hands—more like the paw of a great animal— and clasped it tightly between her own two small hands.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Senor Tecumbo patted her head. “Go on now,” he said gruffly. “You’ve finished your dinner and you should get some rest.”

  Maya bent to kiss his hand and then she turned and ran over the moonlit stones to the house.

  A few minutes later she was in her bedroom. She jumped into the plush white bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin. She was relieved to be away from Senor. She didn’t know how she was going to keep up this facade tomorrow, too—what if she was discovered? She took a deep breath and tried to be calm— the plan was working so far. But Maya felt very alone. She missed Simon and Penny terribly and at the thought of them together in Mathilde’s safe, cozy little shack, two silent tears rolled down her cheeks and soaked the ivory pillow. Oh, she wished she were there with them!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Missing * Exploring Villa Tecumbo *

  “They’re lined up down to the bay!” *

  The Old Sailor Offers a Clue * Sapphire

  Tooth Again * “The missing don’t

  return to us”

  MISSING

  Peter and Marisol Nelson

  Outsiders who came to Tamarind on board the

  Pamela Jane. Peter Nelson was last seen alone in

  Port Town. They are being searched for by

  their three children, Maya, Simon, and Penny.

  Generous REWARD for anyone with information.

  Please come to Villa Tecumbo this afternoon.

  True to his word, Senor Tecumbo had his servants begin a search the following morning. The light was barely on the harbor before posters were put up throughout Port Town and messengers were dispatched on foot to neighboring towns. Maya had directed what should be said on the posters. She didn’t describe her parents’ appearance because she knew that they may look different now than when she had seen them last—for one thing, Kate said her father had a beard. She thought that the most important details to include were themselves—her and Simon and Penny—and the Pamela Jane. If their parents were traveling across the island searching for them, this is what they would have talked to people about, and this is what people would be likely to remember.

  After breakfast, Senor Tecumbo had business to take care of, so Maya returned to her bedroom in the villa, where the clothes that Senor Tecumbo had promised her had already been hung in h
er closet. It didn’t seem to be getting much lighter outside and she saw with dismay that it had started to drizzle. She stood up and went to the window and as she watched the mist turned into solid, heavy rain that blurred the jungle and the town and the harbor together. She stared glumly out at it. She wondered about the others and what they were doing now.

  After a while, bored, she decided to explore. She left her bedroom and tiptoed down the hallway, peering into different rooms. She had never seen anything so opulent. The rooms themselves were vast, with high ceilings and tall doors that opened onto the great marble patio that ran the length of the villa. Tall, gilt-framed mirrors rested here and there, reflecting a silvery-gray light on soft velvet couches and oiled wood dressers. Maya was caught off guard every time she glimpsed a leg (it always took a second to realize it was her own) or saw her own faintly baffled face looking back at her. There were mosaics of sea battles and mermaids with jeweled fins luring ships in storms. There were stacks of heavy oil portraits and dramatic landscapes. There was a table long enough to fit fifty people and as many chairs with red-and-gold silk seats. White sheets were thrown over some things and they loomed like ghosts. It was like treasure. Then she realized that it probably was treasure seized during the war, or paid to Senor by wealthy families in exchange for his protection.

  Maya caught sight of a photograph, framed on the mantel. It was the original of the one that Helix had found in the newspaper. She stood transfixed as Isabella’s dark, piercing eyes stared down at her. Just then, she heard a noise from the hallway. She hurried to leave the room before she was caught snooping and she ran smack into Lorco. He fixed a cold, suspicious eye on her as she walked quickly back to her own room and closed the door.