The Lost Island of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  “With our sisters in the North, we’ve chosen a day and time for the Peace March and on that morning the Sisters of the Peaceful Revolution will leave their towns—towns all over Greater Tamarind!—and we’ll begin to march along the Coastal Road until we’ve gone all the way around the island. And as we go, people will see how many others in Tamarind want peace and they’ll feel brave and they’ll join us! And soon most of Tamarind will be marching with us and we’ll outnumber the soldiers and they’ll be unable to attack us. Soldiers who long to stop fighting and return home to their families will have the chance— they’ll throw down their weapons and leave the jungle. South and North will be one again. Our numbers as we march around the island will reveal the truth of what we all believe—Greater Tamarind is ready for peace!”

  The room had fallen silent as Isabella spoke. No one hummed, no one tapped a shoe on the floor or sighed or moved so that their wooden chair squeaked. By the time she finished speaking, all eyes were on her. Maya felt goose bumps prickle her arms.

  But then a girl in a seat at the back of the room spoke up.

  “But how?” she asked in a small voice. “How can we make the March happen? We had established contact with Gloria in the North, it’s true, but we haven’t been able to get a message to her for a month—it’s gotten too dangerous.”

  Isabella smiled patiently and waited.

  “It’s true that no messenger has been able to get to the North via the coast,” she said. “But now all that’s changed. Rather than send a messenger around the coast . . . we’re going to send one over the mountains.”

  “Over the mountains?” cried a tiny girl in the front row incredulously.

  “Yes,” said Isabella triumphantly.

  “But the mountains are too dangerous!” said an older girl. “There’s no easy way over them. Who will go?”

  And as she was saying that, the tall, dark-haired girl who Isabella had whispered to returned. And behind her, glowering, was Helix. A murmur went through the group—a boy was at the meeting!

  Maya gasped when she saw him. He looked furious and was struggling with the handcuffs that were restraining him. When he caught sight of Maya he looked at her suspiciously as if she knew what was going on and was responsible for his being brought there.

  “All right,” said Isabella. “You can uncuff him. Were those really necessary?”

  “He wouldn’t come with me without them,” said the dark-haired girl as she unlocked the handcuffs.

  Helix stood there rubbing his wrists and glaring around the room.

  “Sorry about that,” said Isabella. “But we need your help.” She paused. “We need you to go with Maya to carry a message to the North.”

  “And what makes you think I’d do that?” Helix asked.

  “Because you’re the only ones who have enough reason to go to the North,” said Isabella. “Her brother and sister are on their way to Bembao right now. There’s going to be a battle between the northern and southern fleets.”

  “What reason do I have to go?” asked Helix, scowling. “She thinks I betrayed them, anyway!”

  “Then she’ll go alone,” Isabella said simply. “She’s desperate, she’ll have to. There’s no other way to get to her brother and sister. Though she’ll be far safer with you.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Maya. “I never said I’d go anywhere!”

  Isabella went to the chalkboard and began drawing something.

  “This is Greater Tamarind,” she said. “This is Maracairol, where we are now. This, all the way around the coast and on the other side of the island, in the North, is Bembao. This road, along the coast, is impassable—any single travelers will be ambushed by soldiers. The only way to get to Bembao is to cut through the mountains, which are here.”

  She put the chalk down and dusted off her hands.

  “It will take the fleet with your brother and sister on it three days to get to Bembao,” she said to Maya. “Ships are already sailing to battle—it’s supposed to be the biggest one in years. The northern fleet invaded southern waters several days ago and took several towns along the coast, and the South is going to retaliate. All the ships on either side are massing for it. If you want to rescue your brother and sister, you have to get there before that. There’s no way that you can make it there without my help. It’s too far to go on foot, and even if you had a boat, the seas are too dangerous. I can get a truck to take you all the way to the foot of the mountains. After that you’ll have to cross on foot.”

  Isabella studied Maya.

  “The only chance you have of getting to your family before the battle is with my help. I’ll get you as far as the mountains,” she went on. “On the condition that once you reach Bembao you’ll deliver a message to our contact there. She’s coordinating the Peace March in the North. Her name is Gloria. When my brother, Lorenz, was injured fighting in the North she took him in and took care of him. She managed to get a message to us that he was safe, though not able to travel back. Anyway, that’s how we were first in touch. Gloria was organizing a peace movement in the North, and we decided to coordinate our efforts.

  “Anyway, our usual line of communication, through the towns, was severed a month ago because of fighting in the hills just west of here. We’ve decided that the Peace March will begin with the sea battle, while the soldiers are distracted. Everything is ready to be put into motion, we just need to get the message to Gloria. The March has to be coordinated perfectly or it won’t work.”

  Isabella paused.

  “You need us, we need you.”

  “Forget it,” said Helix. “Get someone else. I don’t want anything to do with this. I know how dangerous the mountains are supposed to be—no one sane would cross them.”

  “Fine,” said Isabella. “She’ll go alone.”

  Helix and Maya looked at each other mistrustfully. Then Helix’s face softened.

  “I didn’t set you up,” he said to Maya, emotion in his voice. “I was helping you get away. I swear. I don’t know how the pirates knew it was us, except that somehow they figured out that you were one of the children from the posters. They were on the lookout for three children and a baby leaving Port Town. You wouldn’t have been hard to spot, even disguised.”

  Maya nodded. Up until that moment she hadn’t known whether Helix had betrayed them or not. She hadn’t known what to believe. But looking at him now she was sure that he was telling the truth. She didn’t know how she knew but she just knew.

  “Will you come to Bembao with me?” she asked quietly.

  Though only a moment before Helix had been ready to wring Isabella’s neck and walk out of there and never see Maya again—no way was he going to try passing through the mountains to the North—when he looked at Maya, he knew he would go with her. He nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Meeting adjourned!” Isabella cried. “I’ll meet with Maya and Helix privately to discuss the details. The rest of you—wait to hear from me.”

  The girls in the room stood up, chattering. They smiled at Maya and Helix as they passed, filing out of the room. In a few minutes, Maya and Helix were left alone with Isabella.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. She left the room and a moment later returned holding a birdcage covered in a cloth. She withdrew the cloth and there was Seagrape, looking peevish and disgruntled. Helix quickly opened the cage and she hopped out. On her way to Helix’s shoulder, where she sat making grumbling noises, she pecked viciously once at Isabella.

  “It wasn’t until I managed to catch her, hanging around your jail cell, that I realized,” Isabella said.

  “Realized what?” asked Helix.

  “That she’s . . . you know,” said Isabella. “That she’s one of their birds.”

  “Whose?” asked Helix. “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the Dark Women’s,” she said. “I’m sure of it. Didn’t you know?”

  Helix looked at her blankly.

  “Who are you,
anyway?” Isabella asked curiously.

  But it seemed that Helix had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Interesting,” murmured Isabella. Then she changed the subject. “I’m sorry that I had to have you locked up like that,” she said brightly. “And for twisting your arm about going over the mountains. But really, it’s the best way, you’ll see.”

  Maya felt utterly confused—about everything. What did Isabella mean about Seagrape belonging to one of the Dark Women? Again she wondered, who was Helix, really? And how were the two of them going to make it over the mountains? She shook herself—she had to focus on the only thing that really mattered—finding Simon and Penny.

  “When do we leave?” she asked.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Catching Up * Moon Oranges *

  Maya Learns the Truth

  Isabella showed them the room where they could sleep, and told them that she would arrange for them to depart first thing the following morning. Then she left for the night. Maya and Helix wandered outside and sat on the steps. Maya had a million questions to ask him.

  “Tell me more about Simon and Penny,” she said. “What kind of place are they keeping them in? Do they have enough to eat? Are they scared?” Her voice quavered. She hated to think of Simon and Penny alone and afraid.

  “They were being kept in the gallows of one of the pirate ships, the Meggie Vic,” said Helix. “After we were captured they carried us in a fishnet along the road to the cove where the ship we were going on was moored. Simon managed to shove the book through a hole in the net. He was hoping that you would find it.”

  “I did!” said Maya, her face lighting up. “That’s how I knew you had been there, and that I was going the right way. But I don’t understand why they let you go and kept Simon and Penny,” Maya said.

  “They threw me out as soon as they realized I was from Tamarind,” said Helix. “They didn’t think I could help them. The next thing I knew, Isabella had men capture me and put me in jail, hoping that I would tell her more about you.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense,” Maya said, perplexed. “Why do the pirates want Simon and Penny and me in the first place?”

  “I told you,” said Helix. “It isn’t you they want, it’s the Pamela Jane.”

  “But why?” asked Maya.

  “They think that she belongs to them,” said Helix.

  “But she’s ours!” Maya cried. “We sailed here in her. I’ve lived on that boat for my whole life.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Helix. “It doesn’t matter—Simon can’t take them back to her. All he knows is that you landed in the Lesser Islands—but there are dozens of them, with hundreds of tiny islands and hidden coves. It would take the pirates forever to find your boat, unless they knew exactly where to look. And I’m the only one who does. But they didn’t realize that.”

  Maya wondered how long the pirates would keep Simon and Penny until they realized that Simon was no use to them. It was a chilling thought.

  “Now, we’d better get some rest,” said Helix. “Tomorrow’s going to be very difficult.”

  Tomorrow they would be in the mountains. Maya thought of the mountains—steep and perilous, their peaks disappearing into the clouds—that she had seen in the Outside World and she felt scared. How would they manage to cross them?

  Evening had come swiftly and heavily. Maya and Helix fell into silence, each giving way to their own thoughts about what lay ahead. In the yard, a few of the little girls were playing a game. They were peeling small, marbled oranges and letting the spray from their skins coat pieces of blank white paper. Then, holding the edges of the papers very carefully, they were carrying them over and lying them, faceup, on a low stone wall. It seemed such a curious thing to do that for a moment Maya stopped thinking about the journey.

  “What are they doing?” she asked.

  Helix looked up. “Oh, it’s an old trick,” he said. “Writing with ink made from zanoria pits—it’s a type of fruit—the ink is invisible. But it reacts with the citrus from moon oranges. When the moon comes out in a little while, the writing will appear. But it’s what people used to do in the old days when they wanted to keep special documents a secret.”

  The dinner bell rang and the little girls ran off inside, leaving the papers on the wall, anchored on the corners with pebbles. Maya stared at the squiggles shining on each blank white sheet, her heart beginning to beat quickly.

  “Coming?” Helix asked, getting to his feet.

  Maya shook her head. “In a minute,” she said. “You go.”

  When Helix had left, Maya quickly went out into the yard and reached up and plucked a moon orange from a shaggy green branch and ran back up to her room with it. With trembling hands she took the logbook out of her backpack and opened it to the first page, where the enigmatic shiny squiggles began.

  Could it be? she thought. Could it really be that . . .

  It was dark outside now and the moon was rising in the heavy velvet sky.

  She pierced the moon orange with her thumb and slowly peeled the skin. A fine citrus mist was released and hung suspended in the air for a moment before it fell down on the open page. Maya repeated this, peeling more of the orange until the facing page shone wetly. She slid the book out onto the moonlit windowsill and held her breath. Her pulse was racing. Come on, she whispered.

  She waited. Seconds ticked past. Nothing happened. It had been a crazy thought—a wild hope—that was all. She leaned back a bit, shutting her eyes. She would close the book and put it away—it had no more answers to give her. But when she opened her eyes again she saw a faint shadow over the top of the first right-hand page where the citrus spray had first touched.

  Maya barely breathed. As she watched, writing came into view. It grew bolder and darker on the page, rising up through her father’s logbook entries, and when it was all there, she turned the page and, hands shaking, peeled more of the orange over the next two facing pages. When the writing on those pages came into view she turned back to the very first page in the book, which was empty, and peeled the last of the orange over it.

  Maya watched as the logbook entries and notes receded and the new writing darkened and became clear. Was this where the answers lay, about ophalla and the Red Coral Project and Tamarind, and about how she and Simon and Penny all had come to be there? She was almost afraid to find out. Heart pounding, she began to read.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The Journal

  THIS IS TO BE A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE PAMELA JANE ON HER VOYAGES AROUND GREATER AND LESSER TAMARIND, TOLD BY HER FIRST MATE, AND BEGINNING ON THE SPRING EQUINOX.

  New Quarter Moon, Late Afternoon

  We rounded the southwest coast today, taking Scarab Rocks Passage between the Lesser Islands, where all hands came above deck to watch the infamous Lesser vines swarming on the edges of the islands. They seemed to grow before our very eyes and move like snakes. While we watched, one plucked a good-sized heron in mid-flight straight out of the air and drew it into the recesses of the jungle. It can be assumed that by now the bird has already been digested and all that is left is the beak and talons and some feathers, though perhaps not even those since the vines, once they crush the life out of something, are said to devour things whole. The wind dies and the current is very slow between Scarab Rocks, so it took us nearly an hour to cross a very little distance. Our small crew was afraid, since the vines have been known to reach out and grab whole ships and drag them into the jungle, though that, of course, may just be myth. Our old captain, may he rest in peace, never made our ship take this route. Our new captain, his cousin, Captain Ademovar, was unafraid, however, and spent the whole time peering into the jungle with a spyglass, hoping to witness any carnage.

  I am afraid of Captain Ademovar. He is a greedy man and loves blood. Our old captain was a wise and kind soul, who, despite my injured leg, took me to crew his ship when so many others would not, and he would never have wished the Pamela Jane to fall into his hands. He always
said that she was a rare and special ship, and that she must always be protected. He planned to leave her in my care, but the war changed all that. He was killed and Ademovar seized his ship. Though Ademovar is eager to take charge of a larger ship and be in the thick of the next battle, he holds on to the Pamela Jane because his cousin believed she had a secret value.

  Third Quarter Moon, Nightfall

  We reached the mouth of the Nallanda River at nightfall, in time to see the barges arrive from the interior. They rode low in the water with their cargoes of ophalla, which glistened white as mountain snow. Knowing how many have been killed over ophalla in the past few years, it is quite solemn to see it there, lighting the night air with what seems to be a supernatural glow. We are here to take a quantity of it to Maracairol, to beautify the embassies. I must admit that it makes me nervous to be carrying such a cargo in these times. Men have lost their lives for a mere pebble of the stuff, and we will be in possession of nearly half a ton. Our cargo will also include several cases of perfume from the cloud orchids farmed by the Amaranti tribe. No one but the traders has ever seen the Amaranti. We were supposed to carry produce—star fruit, mangoes, and eggplants—as well as cinnamon— but we received word that that barge was attacked and sunk eight miles upriver, so there will be none in the towns this week.

  Our small crew is nervous. Being such a small ship, we were spared from joining the war fleet, and instead were to carry goods to towns along the coast. But as the seas grow more violent, Captain Ademovar is urging that we be allowed to join the war fleet. I pray that this will not happen, but I fear it is inevitable. It no longer seems that the Council has the power to resolve the border tensions, and the current situation does not make for a good night’s sleep for any of us.