I pictured Beya stewing over my holding back all my “Boston secrets” and shivered. Was I letting her down, too? “So, why is her brother called Splitfoot?”

“Fishing accident when he was a kid. He got too relaxed with a big pirarucu he caught, just threw it in the bottom of the boat. Bad idea. They have teeth. Look, Lily, you have to promise me—”

“What now?”

“You have to keep this to yourself.” He closed the workbook, the only other book besides my dictionary we’d had the forethought to bring to the jungle. “You’re having a hard enough time with these women, some of them. They can be tough. You don’t need to be making anyone jealous, or concerned.”

“I don’t know who I would tell. Anna, maybe—”

“Nobody except me. You can tell me anything. I can tell you anything. That’s how it is. That’s how we are. And you must honor Beya. She’s the soul of the Tatinga. Splitfoot was never as powerful as his sister. I think it drives him crazy.” He gazed out the window as the sun sizzled the morning dew off waxy green leaves.

With a sigh, I went to sit with him; his closeness put my body and mind at peace.

He put his arm around me. “Listen, For God’s Sake got here late last night. He’s going to take us to the Frannies. I’ve got a surprise for you there.”

“What is it? How do you see through these lenses?” Taking his glasses, I busied myself trying to clean them on the hem of my none-too-clean dress.

He smiled. “Lily Bushwold, you have no—”

“Patience, okay, okay. A surprise, I’m psyched.” I carefully slid the glasses back on his face.

“The catch is, you need to give me my next assignment.”

I sat back against the wall and gazed at the trees out the window. “Tell me all about the mahogany grove. It sounds like a sacred place.”

There wasn’t much logic in this, but just the words mahogany grove called up the image of where Tia’s ashes were buried: an elegant grove of white birches that overlooked the Quabbin Reservoir; to her that was a holy place, and I could feel her there every time I wandered among those trees.

“When’s it due?” His eyes magnified behind his lenses, he lifted his pencil over his workbook. I adored him more than I could bear.

“As soon as possible.”

“Thank you. I love the homework,” he said in English. He shut the notebook and slipped off the shelf to his feet. “Now, show me where the monkey took your backpack.”

I led him to the towering trees near the bank, their crowns tangling and blocking the sun. Underneath our footsteps, the ground steamed softly, as if cooling on some new primeval morning. A tiny triangle of bright orange canvas glinted like a lone flower in the tapestry of every kind of green; a frayed brown strap hung down, forlorn. My underpants, jeans, and T-shirt were nowhere in sight. Omar cut a length of liana with a swipe of his machete, tied the ends together, and looped the circle of vine around both ankles. His bare feet bound by the coil, he jumped onto the base of the tree that held my bag prisoner. It offered no hand- or toeholds, but the liana created a band of friction from which he stood, nose to bark. Bracing his feet around the tree, he reached up and grabbed at a section a bit higher up, hung on as he jumped and braced himself still higher on the trunk. Like a human inchworm, he lifted his body up and up using the strength of his arms and legs and gut. In under a minute he vanished into the mid-story, around fifteen yards up. I waited, never believing he could climb high enough. Suddenly the orange triangle shuddered, disappeared, then hurtled from the branches. My backpack, empty of my treasures, torn and ragged and howler-monkey shit-stained, but so beautiful to me, came tumbling down at my feet.