I woke up with a knot in my stomach that day and knew exactly what to pin it on.
I’d been dreaming of the Jaguar’s den. It was difficult to orient myself to my bedroom or even to remember walking back to my house.
I could only recall entering the front door and realizing I hadn’t locked it when I left. No robbers here, I thought, only mice.
I laughed out loud and scared myself. I was sure to double-bolt the door.
I fell asleep the moment I got into bed, not realizing how tired I’d been.
And even though I had plenty to worry about, I felt a strange sense of peace.
It was over. Until the next day, at least.
And that’s what the knot in my stomach was. The next day was here.
On the Golden Path near the bottom of the hill, Heppa and her son, Jarro, were talking to the lady with the red hat and a man who looked like her husband.
“You can have everything I’ve got on me now,” the man bellowed, “and when we’re back in Georgetown, we’ll go to the bank and I’ll give you more.”
Heppa considered him sternly. The warm crinkles around her eyes were gone, no hint of a smile. She took Jarro by the arm and tried to walk around the couple, but the man stepped in front of them.
“I’ll pay you a thousand pounds,” he blurted out. “Two thousand! Just for a day!”
“We are not going back,” Heppa said seriously.
“Please,” said the lady in the red hat. “We can’t find anyone to take us. We’re very afraid. This is no place for people like us.”
“I agree,” Heppa said softly. “But here you are.”
“Please!” the lady in the red hat begged. “You’re supposed to help!”
“I am not your painting teacher now,” Heppa said. “I don’t want you to be hurt, but I will not put a mishin over my son.”
Heppa’s face crunched up like a fist. Mishin was the word our workers used for guests. It also means “dead fish.”
“We are going alone,” Heppa added with finality. “You stay until the boat comes—that is best. Do not bother anyone else. The jungle has a place for our people, but not for you.”
The woman in the red hat looked shocked. She had probably never been denied by someone she thought inferior.
“If we stay here,” her husband said cautiously, “how can we be safe? With the jaguar loose?”
Heppa sighed and shook her head. “Stay close to Ronan Rackham,” she said, exchanging a glance with her son. “But not too close.”
It was then that Jarro spotted me.
“Marlin! What are you doing here?”
I walked down to them and noticed that there were no guards posted on the walls. I searched the path on the pyramid for workers making rounds but saw no one.
“You should be with your father,” Heppa said. “He should have sent someone for you.” She waved away the anxious guests and ambled partway up the hill to me. She reached out and put her hands on my shoulders. “All of us are leaving. The jaguar escaped, and it’s not safe for anyone.”
Jarro touched her arm and said something in Arawak. Then he turned to me and said, “You should get inside.” He adjusted the two cloth sacks draped over his shoulders, carrying what looked like all of their belongings. They really weren’t coming back.
“Woo—wa—where?” I managed to ask.
“One of the villages, the other side of the river. We will be safer there . . . ,” Heppa said. “I don’t know if they’d take you.”
“The curse is on his family,” said Jarro.
“That’s what they’ll think,” Heppa replied.
“It’s the truth!” Jarro said.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But Marlin, go to your father. Whatever your fate, it is tied with him.”
She gave me a parting hug, but there was no comfort in it. I knew she was right.