In the moonlight, Sarah could see only a few steep yards of the jungle path before her. She had no idea how long she and Peter had been hiking. They had already crested several hills, and each time she thought that they’d be descending to the village on the other side of the island. But there was always another hill waiting.
This particular climb seemed endless. Each step required complete concentration. She had to calculate where to place her feet to avoid ankle-twisting ruts or slippery clay. Which branch or rock to hang on to for balance. There was Peter to help, as well.
A big tree root had grown across the path. She took Peter’s hand and helped him over it. No sooner had he stepped down on the other side than the bush beside them rustled with a shaking of leaves. She halted, holding her panting breath, and fired the stove lighter. The blue flame reflected off two eyes glowing in the foliage. She screamed.
Several piglets bolted from the bush and scurried across the path. An adult boar emerged and stopped in the path, facing Sarah with a menacing stance, its sharp tusks gleaming in the moonlight. Sarah jabbed the flame at the boar. She could feel her heart hammering, but the only sound in the night was the flame’s little hiss. The boar didn’t budge, its eyes jerking from Sarah to Peter and back to Sarah again.
When the last of the piglets was safely hidden on the other side of the path, the boar sprinted into the jungle.
“Phew,” Sarah said. She sat down on the tree root. She was drenched with sweat. Peter slumped beside her. Surf Cat bounded over the root and meowed impatiently, as if chiding them for stopping.
“Darn cat’s worse than Dad,” Sarah muttered.
Peter put his forehead on his crossed arms.
Sarah had been rationing the bottle of water. There was a quarter left. She swallowed half and handed the bottle to Peter.
When he’d finished, she took the empty bottle from him. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m so tired. Can’t we have a little break?”
“You know what Dad would say,” she said with fake sternness.
“Yeah. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a nap.”
Sarah chuckled. “True. But he was talking about Mom. Whenever there’s something to do, Dad does it until it’s done. So come on.”
Peter took a deep, wheezy breath and stood.
Just that little bit of water helped. They made it to the top of the ridge, and Sarah could at last see the ocean’s pale glitter. The moon was halfway to the western horizon. They’d been hiking almost all night. The path led along the ridge for a few hundred yards and then turned downhill to the village.
An hour later, halfway down to the seashore, the fiery red sun rose full above the eastern horizon even before the pale round moon had touched the western one. Sarah had never seen the sun and moon in the sky at the same time. The sight was unnerving, almost alien.
One more knoll stood below them, blocking the view of the shore and the village. Tops of coconut palms poked above the knoll. This sight soothed Sarah’s uneasiness. They’d soon have food and water. A village doctor who could treat Peter. A search party for their dad.
On a plateau before the knoll, the path narrowed through a field of tall grass. A shack stood on the edge of the field. One portion of the grass had been harvested, probably for roofing thatch.
By the time they reached the field, the moon had sunk into the sea and the sun had risen above it. She pushed her way through the grass. When she exited, she noted several small black leaves plastered to the backs of her knees. She reached down to idly brush one off. It remained stuck to her skin. She pinched it to remove it, but what her fingers squeezed was something soft. Rubbery. She took a closer look. Not a leaf. A leech, plumping up by the second with her blood. As were the other ones.
Her skin crawled. She yelped, slapping at the leeches with her fingers but not wanting to touch them either.
Peter bent over to examine his legs. “Hey, I got ’em too. They don’t hurt you. Mr. Tuttle says so.” Mr. Tuttle was his science teacher. “They’ll drink up and fall off. They use ’em in medicine, you know.”
“They’re gross!” Sarah cried. She clicked the gas lighter and carefully brought the tip of the blue flame to each leech. “Die, you suckers.” They writhed and fell off. She turned the gas lighter to Peter.
“No, no, let ’em be,” he said.
“God, Peter, I don’t want to be around somebody who’s got leeches all over him. Hold still. I don’t want to burn you.”
The leeches’ bites continued to bleed as they started walking up the knoll’s gentle incline. “They got this chemical that stops your blood from cagulating,” Peter said.
“Coagulating,” Sarah said automatically, and shuddered again. “Disgusting.” As they approached the top of the knoll, she started imagining the villagers’ response to two white kids with blood on their legs appearing out of nowhere. Would anyone know English? But it’d be easy enough to mime for a drink of water. And “doctor” was a universal word. So was “papa.”
The first thing that came into view was the sea, the distant blue giving way to mottled brown water ringing the island. And then the shoreline, curving several hundred yards between two ridges of tumbling rock. The narrow shore was empty, scoured up to the edge of the jungle and several coconut groves. Brown mud glistened, lapped by murky waves.
The village was gone.