Contents ( 49)
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“No.”
“Do you have isula ants? Lupuna trees?”
“No.”
She shrugged. “How can that be? It must be a very sad place.”
“It is.”
“Why are you here? Maybe you have insulted your tribe? Have they sent you away, like mine has sent me here?”
“No, and listen, I’m not a shaman—”
Her eyes burned into mine, spirited and alive in her brown, lined face. “No one has heard me speak the old language since I was a young girl. Do you know what that means?” She put a hand on the small of her back, as if it pained her. Her string bag jostled at her waist, the little frog jumping at its cage. “Something is very old in you, a forest spirit, a spirit that can hear. You have traveled from your village, from far, far away, with no weapons, yet you live. You stand here in front of me. How is that? Don’t you wonder? Maybe you are a young, silly shaman who doesn’t know anything yet, but that is what you are.”
I stood in my sack dress in the green bath of jungle light, wanting to cry. “If you’re right, how can I be less silly, be more like what you say I am?”
“Come and visit me when you’re ready to share your Boston secrets. Keep calling me with your mind.”
“I will,” I said.
“Now leave me,” she said gruffly, turning back to her camp, our visit obviously over.
My mind roiled as I set foot on the path toward Ayachero. I had no Boston secrets—but clearly she thought I was holding back from her. What did she really want from me? What if I could never speak to her as she assumed I could? What would be the price of that? No more warnings about electric eels or other deadly creatures? Or maybe she’d conjure something much more subtle and menacing, something I would never see coming.
NINETEEN
On my fifteenth evening alone, I sat in my hiding place in the longhouse: on a low shelf in my favorite storeroom, sandwiched between rubberized sacks of rice and farina, a Spanish-to-English dictionary—the only book I had—cradled in my arms. Next to me, lying on her back, her belly full of grubs, Charlotte snored, snuffling each time I reached down to scratch her shell-pink belly.
I raised my head. A voice, a laugh, a certain kind of music I hadn’t heard in what felt like months came tripping in through the window, just an open square in the wall of thatch. I jumped to my feet, kicking Charlotte awake and sending the book skittering across the sawdust. A rush of nausea, dizziness, as I got my bearings, took a spare second to wonder again what was wrong with me, before shelving that thought and bursting out of the storeroom, flying down the longhouse stairs three at a time. The entire village had turned out down by the shore, surrounding the hunters in a joyous circle. Chests puffed out, the men gestured at the river, the sky, each other, fighting for the chance to spout some choice tale about the hunt to the rapt crowd. The women who had gone with them to skin game and cook were greeted with less fanfare; they dragged the gear off the boats and gathered the dogs, who wandered famished and skittish along the shoreline.