CHAPTER 13

ISAAC’S PACE ON THE RETURN to the resort is much brisker, as if he can’t wait to be done with his charge so he can get back to whatever more serious business is under way at the church. The moisture in the air is full-force tropical, and he’s walking so fast that sweat forms a T along his spine. Breathing hard. It must be hell to walk along the dirt path in those dress shoes, too.

“If you want to take a break . . .” Julia starts.

If he hears her, he pretends not to. The broad, grassy fields are behind them, and they now skirt the jungle again. The sound of wind in the palm trees so similar to the sound of ocean waves. Like they’re talking to each other.

“There’s some shade over there. . . .”

“I’m fine,” Isaac says. “Thank you very much.”

He doesn’t ask her how she’s doing, or turn around to see. Julia’s hair is damp from the sweat trickling down her own neck. God, she wishes they’d given her a hat. Still enough sun shining through the scattered clouds that she’s figuring the back of her neck will be lobster red soon. She’d take out her rain poncho, but since the damn thing is waterproof, it’d only make her sweat more. She can feel a blister starting at the back of her heel. New boots.

“I can make my own way if you need to get back to the village.” She’s still hoping to slip away at some point—she needs to hit the wayfinder points programmed into her GPS phone, and she hadn’t really anticipated that they’d be so corralled and observed. With the storm coming, today could be her only chance.

Isaac exhales hard, as if he was thinking he’d love nothing more than to ditch her. “I can’t.” His tone is short. “What I mean to say is, I’ve been instructed to escort you to the resort.”

He seems to realize he’s bungled the proper hospitality response, because he adds, “It’s actually my pleasure to escort you back.”

She wonders what on earth could have gotten so deep under his skin to fluster him so. He casts an occasional nervous glance in the direction of the jungle, like he’s expecting something he doesn’t want to see.

Well, if he doesn’t need a break, she does. She deliberately slows down.

He doesn’t seem to notice, and keeps walking. So she heads to a palm tree offering some shade, leans against it, lets the cooler sea breeze ruffle her hair. There are clouds gathering out on the horizon, but they don’t look particularly threatening. A couple of coconuts lie on the grass, encased in their thick green-skinned husks. God, what she wouldn’t give for something to drink.

Isaac gets about a half mile away, almost to the top of a small knoll, before he realizes that she’s not behind him. He doesn’t bother to hide his irritation—she watches him practically stomp his way back. In the meantime, she takes a seat by the tree, digs around in her bag for the knife. Finds it. He might confiscate it, seeing that it wasn’t on the “approved for Kapu” list, but she figures he’s just as thirsty, if not more so, than she is. She grabs a coconut, pierces the skin and starts to saw into the husk. It’s tougher than she thought it’d be.

Finally he reaches her. He notes the knife, seems like he’s about to say something, but just reaches his hand out instead.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

She gives him the knife. He quickly stabs the top of the husk with it, and then saws through the matted fiber. Does the same thing every few inches until he can pry the top off in sections, which he then starts to pull away roughly, angrily.

“I never knew it was so much work,” Julia says.

“Yeah, well. It is.” He tosses it to her half-peeled, then gets to work on the second coconut.

He’s really pissed at her. Why, though? She tugs at the husk—it’s incredibly hard to pull off, but she manages. Underneath is the round nut, a wizened, hairy ball.

Isaac makes short work of his, tearing the husk to shreds with a sinewy strength she wouldn’t have imagined him capable of. He holds the revealed coconut, his hands reddened. Finds the eye of it, twists the knife in, then hands it to her.

“Thank you.” Julia gives him the other one, and he digs a hole in it, too.

She holds the shell up to her lips, tips it back. A rush of coconut water fills her mouth. It’s not cold, but it’s refreshing nonetheless.

Isaac does the same, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. When he’s done, he wipes his mouth with the back of the hand that holds the knife. He looks out at the ocean, the waves rolling in on dark lava rocks. No beach here.

“You know, I can make it back on my own,” Julia says. “We’re halfway there already, right?”

He doesn’t say anything, just stares at the waves.

She tries another tack. “I really appreciate everything you’re doing for Irene, for our family. It means so much to my aunt Liddy, to bring her home. She’s not doing so well herself, and—”

“Do you know how coconut trees get from one island to another?”

“No.”

He nods, still staring out at the ocean, the incoming storm. “The husk is a boat. The coconut falls onto the beach, and the waves pick it up, carry it on to another island. It floats on currents. It can still be viable for a year, travel three thousand miles. But it’s all because of the husk.”

Why is he telling me this? “That’s really interesting. I had no idea.”

“No, you don’t. He’s putting us all at risk.” Isaac takes another sip from the coconut, a longer, deeper drink, the way men at a bar knock back a bourbon when they need liquid courage.

“I’m sorry . . . what—”

“Just allowing you to be here. Your very presence. It’s stirred things up. Things that shouldn’t be . . . stirred. And now, letting you come to the ceremony.” A bitter laugh. “You saw the lei. Do you know what that means?”

He takes his now-empty coconut, throws it hard at the ocean. It sails through the air, arcs, then crashes into the waters with a splash.

The violence of it shakes her. And he’s still holding the knife.

“No,” she says. “I don’t.” What the hell has gotten into him? He practically trembles with barely contained rage.

“You’re right,” he says tightly. “You’re right. You’ll be fine walking back to the camp by yourself. Here, take this.”

He offers her the knife back. The sides are wet and sticky from the coconut.

But the way he looks at her. A pure, vicious hatred, as if he’s considering pushing her off the cliff, trying to work himself up to it.

And he could, couldn’t he? No witnesses, no one to know better, suicide runs in their family, plus there’s a handy trail of accusations about her mental health courtesy of Ethan. She would just be subsumed into the island’s history of tragedies, another casualty, a haole who didn’t listen.

For the first time, it occurs to her that maybe Irene didn’t jump off a cliff to her death.

When she doesn’t take the knife, he throws it into the ground, where it lands blade down.

“Suit yourself.”

And with that he heads off down the trail, back toward the village, and the church, and the Reverend, and the coffin with the white flower lei inside. She watches him become smaller and smaller, until the path takes him down a hill, where he disappears altogether.

Once he’s completely out of sight, Julia breathes a little easier. She hasn’t been the focus of that level of vitriol since she exposed a health insurance executive who’d been booting children with cancer off their parents’ policies. She wonders why it was directed at her instead of the Reverend, since apparently that’s where Isaac’s beef lies.

She drinks the rest of her coconut water, tosses the empty shell on the ground. Then she reaches into her backpack, pulls out the GPS phone, and powers it on. Still at fifty percent power. Damn, she forgot again to charge it. Two missed calls from her favorite great-aunt. She ignores them, clicks the map button, and then the red pin for Irene’s camp—sees that it’s only about a mile and a quarter away from her present location. The waypoints with probable spots for the corpse flowers are farther.

She faces the jungle—something solemn, eerie about it, a wall of dark green. Isaac was definitely spooked, so maybe she’s just reverberating from his agitation. Misty clouds gather around Kapu’s peak. It could be raining already. And how long will the charge on the satellite phone last?

It’s not smart. It’d be better to wait until after the storm clears. But that could take a few days, and she desperately wants to cut her stay short, go back with the pilot. She has the print map too, a backup. And if worse comes to worst, it is an island, and all she has to do is head in the direction of the ocean. Right?

Famous last words, says Ethan.

And what about the dose of medication she missed?

Screw it. If it gets too hard, she can always just turn around, and she’ll take the damn pills when she gets back. She can’t afford to miss this chance. So she reaches into her backpack, pulls out a pair of lightweight, moisture-wicking pants, pulls them up under her muslin smock, then pulls the smock up and over her head, tosses it on the ground. Discovers she forgot the lightweight, moisture-wicking shirt, which leaves her with just her tank top, or the option of putting the smock on again.

Hell no.

But it might have some use. Julia gets the knife out of her backpack, picks up the smock, and roughly cuts off a strip of cloth from its hem. Wraps it around her mouth and nose, tying the ends in the back. Instant face mask. Then she stows what’s left of the smock, and the knife, in her backpack, zips it shut, and hefts it over her shoulder. Grabs the GPS phone, checks the compass for her direction, and then starts for the wall, and the jungle beyond.

In the jungle, the humidity seems to jump a few sweltering degrees, and she’s glad she’s wearing pants—the brush scratches at her legs. The boots, too, are useful in the soft earth, and with the help of a bamboo stick she found, she’s making pretty good time. She’s surrounded by plants she’s sure Irene would be able to name, categorize, in an instant, but Julia can only identify them with vague nouns and adjectives: tall thin trees with patches of that white mold, or lichen; whitish-gray moss that hangs from branches; knee-high plants with long leaves; thick roots pushing up through the layer of dead leaves and twigs; brown vines that curl around trunks; palms with bark that peels off like a coconut’s husk; rotting logs covered with a thin fuzz of green moss.

Julia hears life all around her, but doesn’t see anything except small gnats that buzz constantly around her head, and the occasional floating mosquito. Birds sing and chirp and cheep, something trills, something goes woot woot woot woot woot, and all the while the soft rush of wind blows through the leaves at the top of the canopy. It feels beautiful, peaceful in a way, but at the same time she gets the feeling that she’s being followed, or watched. Every time she turns around at the sound of a clink or a crack, nothing, and no one is there.

Isaac? Did he really leave her alone, or did he just settle into a distant spot to spy on her? Someone could have followed her out of the resort, to the village, and then into the jungle. Not inconceivable, given the competition.

What was it Irene said? Something about how every tree, every leaf, seemed to be watching. Whispering.

She pauses. No—nothing unnatural, or strange.

Don’t psych yourself out, Julia. Stay on track.

She pushes aside the dark, shiny leaves of a fern, digs her stick into the rise of a low hill, and starts to climb it. She should be close to Irene’s camp now, or what’s left of it. Julia’s improvised face mask is damp from her labored breaths, and her left hand is slightly reddened and itchy from something she must have touched or brushed against. She hears the soft buzz of insect wings, feels something land on her neck, which is followed by the quick pinprick of a bite—Julia slaps at it, sees something the size of a small cockroach haphazardly fly away. Wonderful. Her foot suddenly sinks into a patch of mud, and she reaches out for a tree branch to steady herself.

And she sees a pair of footprints. As in human footprints, barefoot, in fact, and small, child-size.

Snap.

Impossible. Her heart starts to pound—Evie?—but no, why would she even think that, Evie’s on the far side of the world. Maybe a child from the village whose curiosity got the best of them and they followed her into the jungle. They probably know every inch of it, the island is so small.

“Hello?” Julia says.

No answer. A pebble tumbles down from a rocky ledge a few yards to the left.

“You can come out. I won’t bite, I promise.”

Still no answer. But then they’ve probably been instructed not to talk to her. Told that Julia’s very presence is a danger. And she must look so very strange, in pants, with a mask covering her face. It’s a little unnerving for Julia too, but at least there’s a reasonable explanation for feeling like she’s being watched. And they can’t report her transgression without admitting their own, so she should be safe on that count.

“All right, I’ll just pretend I’m all alone. If you change your mind though, I have some M&M’s.”

That part is true—she’d squirreled some away in the false bottom of the suitcase. Quick energy for the trail. She lets her backpack slide off her shoulder, unzips it, locates the bag in one of the side pockets. She takes it out, rips it open, shakes a few of the round candies out into her hand. M&M’s were always serious currency with Evie.

It makes her feel better, not being totally alone, being in the presence of a child, even one that isn’t hers. A girl, most likely, at least if what the Reverend told her was true.

She eats a few M&M’s and drops the rest of the candy in the hollow of a nearby tree. She doesn’t think it will be there for long.

There’s not much of Irene’s camp left. If the GPS hadn’t started beeping, Julia would have probably trudged right by it. A pole covered in lichen leaning wearily against a tree, a rotting bamboo platform covered in dropped leaves—other plants sprouting up and through the poles—the remains of a frayed, mildewed rope dangling from a branch overhead.

Julia tests the platform with her weight, and thinks better of it. Instead she clears some of the debris, to see if there’s something salvageable. She imagines anything useful that wasn’t sent back to Aunt Liddy was scavenged by the villagers, like the people who went through her dead neighbor’s stuff in Los Angeles. Human beings are the same the world over.

Poking up out of the earth is the tarnished gilt handle of a teacup and another porcelain shard—she picks them up, turns them over, rejoins the pieces in her hand and recognizes the pattern with its pale roses. It’s the same china that Bailey served coffee in.

A soft click of a branch being broken a few yards away. Julia wouldn’t be surprised if the children didn’t play here, nothing like a good fort. She puts the broken teacup on the platform, reaches for the M&M’s, shakes a few more out, and places them into a small pile in the curve of the cup, then looks around for anything else. Under the platform, she finds a pair of rusted and bent silver eyeglasses, missing a lens, and a couple of tarnished copper pennies, 1931, 1928. There doesn’t seem to be much else.

Julia’s about to move on, see if she can hit one more waypoint, when her boot knocks against a hard lump in the dirt.

She crouches down and digs around in the earth with her hands, uncovering a rusted black metal box, the cover dented. Locked, of course. She shakes it. Light, and probably empty, but small enough to fit in her pack. She decides to take it with her.

Just as she slips it into her bag, there’s a booming clap of thunder, followed almost immediately by hard sheets of rain, a kind she’s never experienced before, so heavy the drops practically feel like hail. She frantically pulls out her rain poncho, but by time she yanks it over her head, she’s already soaked. At least it’s a warm rain.

The sensible thing would be to wait it out, find some cover somewhere, but then again, there’s no telling how long the storm will last. Wet is wet. She’s pretty sure the GPS is waterproof—it would have to be, right?—and she has, in the worst-case scenario, a backup print satellite map.

She reaches into her bag, pulls out the GPS, covering it as best she can with her free hand. It’s a three-mile hike through a ravine that cuts near the jagged peak of the extinct volcano, then half a mile to the beach with the corpse flowers. Forty percent power. Just about eleven o’clock in the morning; she should have at least eight hours of daylight.

Completely doable.

Right?

She can sense Ethan about to give a smart-ass answer, but she quickly finds an imaginary chair to prop under the imaginary doorknob of the imaginary closet she keeps him in.