Zo and the Forest of Secrets E-Book

Alake Pilgrim

• Herausgeber: Knights Of
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 307

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

PERCY JACKSON MEETS KATHERINE RUNDELL'S THE EXPLORER! A thrilling Caribbean island adventure and exciting new fantasy series, with futuristic twists. "FUTURISTIC AND BRILLIANTLY EXCITING" Katherine Rundell (The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer) "A FABULOUS BOOK... NAIL-BITING ADVENTURE" Kereen Getten (When Life Gives You Mangoes) "INCREDIBLE... ONE TO WATCH" Emma Kuyateh, Primary Teacher Bookshelf When Zo decides to run away from home, she isn't scared; after all, she knows the island like the back of her hand. But, as she journeys through the once-familiar forest, terrifying creatures and warped visions begin to emerge. With a beast on her heels and a lost boy thrown into her path, could a mysterious abandoned facility hold answers? Zo must unravel the secrets of the forest before she is lost in them forever...

Leseprobe

ZO AND THE FOREST OF SECRETS

Published by Knights Of

Knights Of Ltd, Registered Offices: 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5PU

www.knightsof.media

First published 2022

001

Written by Alake Pilgrim

Text copyright © Alake Pilgrim, 2022

Cover art by © Tasia Graham, 2022

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

Typeset by Marssaié Jordan

Design by Marssaié Jordan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN: PB: 9781913311292

ISBN: ebook: 9781913311728

ISBN: ibook: 9781913311407

ZO AND THE FOREST OF SECRETS

Alake Pilgrim

To my little one, for inspiring me to write this.

And to my family and friends, for sticking with me while I did.

Chapter One

WARNING

Was the old man standing next to me crazy, or cool? I didn’t have much time to decide.

Even in our heavy island heat, he was decked out in a three-piece multicoloured suit, with a floor-length coat made of scraps of fabric from every corner of the globe. To top it all off, he wore a straw fedora pulled low over his eyes, with a blue chicken feather dancing on one side.

“You better watch your back with that one,” he muttered, interrupting my thoughts in a wheezy, almost laughing, voice.

“What?”

I inched away from him, nearly tripping over a speckled goat that, for some reason, was wandering the Samaan Bay market like a stray.

“Maaa!” it protested, rolling its eyes at me through wild tufts of hair.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Great. Now I was talking to goats.

“You will be sorry, if you don’t get away from her.”

Who was this guy talking about – the goat? Thankfully, it was already strolling away, not even bothering to look back at me. Meanwhile, the nearest vendor was at the other end of her stall, selling rough-skin lemons. She didn’t have many customers. The rest of the market was loud and swarming with people, but this dusty corner was almost deserted. What crime did you have to commit to get stuck at a stall way out here?

Among the bones of old tents, shredded tarps and broken tables, the old man was strangely mesmerizing. He was lean, with a face full of dark angles and shadows. He wasn’t looking at me. Maybe he wasn’t talking to me at all. He seemed to be thoroughly inspecting a heap of bright orange mandarins, overripe in the sun, taking over the air with the smell of citrus and day-old roses.

I glanced around. Was no one else seeing this? Despite his get-up, nobody seemed to pay the old man any mind. I definitely didn’t want to be the one staring with my mouth open, “catching flies” as Ms. Kofi would say.

Where was she anyway?

Ms. K, the woman in charge of my life here in Samaan Bay, was nowhere to be seen. She was probably still on the other side of the market haggling over the price of yams. She’d told me to get a bag of limes and come back to her quick sharp. But this was my first Friday market, and the most excitement I’d seen since moving to Samaan Bay the week before.

It was barely dawn, but the crowd in the rest of the market was as thick as ants on a pile of sweets. People had come from the surrounding villages to buy and sell their goods. For once, the half-dead village was pulsing and alive. In the crescent-shaped market, calypso, soca, chutney, reggae, dancehall, jazz, pop, afrobeats, filmi and gospel music blasted from the open stalls. Vendors sheltered under pink, green and blue tarps, chatting loudly over the noise, catching up on news, and selling everything from gru gru bef to underwear, saltfish to yard fowl, car parts, coconuts and “Cold-in-the-ice!” drinks.

Sweat stuck my t-shirt to my back. Somehow, I’d wandered out here, away from all the action. A drink of water sounded great right now. I turned to go.

“Girl, listen quick, I don’t have much time,” the old man’s voice froze me in my tracks.

“Mr. Yancy,” a melodious voice cut in, “why you don’t leave this child alone?”

The lemon vendor had just finished her sale and was staring at us suspiciously.

“You’re Zo, right?” she asked, raising purple, pencilled-in eyebrows.

Apparently someone had sent my name out on the village hotline: look out for Zo Joseph, new to Samaan Bay.

“Why you don’t mind your business, Miss Lady?” the old man snapped at her.

She puffed up like dough tossed in hot oil. “Who you calling Miss Lady?”

I backed away slowly. Why was I here at all? I should be with my dad in New York, instead of in Samaan Bay watching two strangers argue.

Da… I swallowed the lump that grew like a plum seed in my throat whenever I thought of him. Right now, he felt like a world away.

As the vendor and Mr. Yancy went back and forth, something caught my eye. My mouth dropped open in slow motion. Was this for real? The old man’s coat seemed to change shape every time he moved. The patterns and colours shifted as if the coat had a life of its own. I looked closer. It was almost like it was rustling, moving, taking the shape of…my face.

I jumped back, choking.

“L-l…” My lips wouldn’t move.

I shook my head and the coat stopped moving. It was still a crazy clash of cut-out materials, but that was all. I swung around wildly. No one near me seemed to notice anything strange. The old man and the vendor were still bickering, and she hadn’t missed a beat. Clearly the heat was messing with my eyes.

“Listen, you!” the old man hissed at me suddenly, making me jump. “Do you see her?”

Under the hat, his eyes were golden-brown, glowing with a strange light.

“Wha-a-t?” I stammered.

The vendor quarreled about “mad people” coming to upset her day. The old man snorted at me. What on earth was he talking about? I could see the vendor-lady just fine. She was busy explaining to him, in no uncertain terms, that her name was Mrs. Boukan, not Toucan, and that she didn’t appreciate his brand of nonsense at this hour in the morning. She was a powerful woman, with a stubborn smile and a bright blue headdress tied high above her forehead like a bird in flight. He’d be better off leaving her alone.

As for me, limes or no limes, I needed to get away from here and back to Ms. K.

Too late. There was Ms. Kofi, pushing her walking stick through the crowd on the other side of the field and limping hard in my direction. Now I was in real trouble. Time to go.

The old man spotted Ms. K too. He turned back to me, and for a second his face stopped me cold. Somehow, he seemed more scared than I was. He looked wild and… hunted.

“You don’t see her?” he asked again desperately. “I know you can. You better wake up and use it before they do!”

What was ‘it’? Who were ‘they’?

Before I could move, he lunged forward and tapped me once with his index finger on the crown of my head.

“Hey!” I protested, ducking away.

“Wake up!” he hissed.

“Ay!” the vendor shouted. “Leave that child alone!”

She batted at him across the table, scattering her fruit.

He ignored her, pinning me in place with an acid stare.

Suddenly, a cloud of red dust swirled around me. I sneezed, seeing stars.

When I opened my eyes, the vendor was re-stacking mandarins, sucking her teeth and muttering. “Utter foolishness…”

Ms. K was headed for me with a face like rain.

And the old man was off in the distance, speeding away, with his coat flapping behind him.

Chapter Two

ESCAPE

Ms. K stalked ahead of me through the market, jabbing her walking stick in front of her like a sword.

“What was that old man telling you?” she probed again.

“Nothing,” I said innocently, “he was just babbling.”

The truth was, I had no clue what the old man meant, or why he was so afraid of Ms. K.

But I should’ve expected something like this. From day one, Jake, my mum’s new husband, and the one who’d dragged us here to Samaan Bay, kept trying to tell me that this village was special.

According to him, it brought together traditions from Native peoples, Africa, India, China, the Americas, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and more. People who, ages ago, had drifted or fled (“Or been taken hostage,” I’d muttered) to this tiny corner of the world.

Every time I complained about being here, Jake had just flashed his superhero smile and said, “Trust me Zo, you’ll see!”

Now, if by special, he meant that this place was spooky and weird, then after my experience in the market, I would have to agree.

I looked over at Ms. Kofi stomping along beside me. Why had the old man and his coat been trying to warn me about her? And how on earth did that coat have a life of its own?!

And most importantly, I hoped that the drama at the market hadn’t made her suspicious about my morning plans.

Back at the stall, the vendor had only calmed down after I’d bought two large heaps of lemons. All she told Ms. K was that Old Yancy had been bothering me and that she’d chased him off.

The noise and smells of the market fell away, as Ms. K and I walked along the gravel road that led from the village to the smelter where I was supposed to meet Jake.

The road was deserted except for the occasional stray dog, dashing into the bushes on the side of the road.

Ms. K squinted at me with her sharp black eyes. “Well, next time, stay away from Old Man Yancy eh! He is walking trouble.”

“Yes Aunty.” I’d already figured that out.

Technically, it was my business what he’d told me, but I didn’t dare say that out loud. Ms. K didn’t take rudeness lightly. She was a bent woman, not much taller than me, with skin creased and leathered by years in the sun and eyes that shone like her gold hibiscus earrings. Despite her uneven walk and small frame, Ms. K was not one to play with. She was strong enough to carry the crocus bag of produce we’d bought on her head, laughing at my offer of help.

Right now, I needed to stay focused. I couldn’t let that madman, and whatever issues he had, slow me down. So far, things were going according to plan. I’d gone to the market with Ms. K, giving Jake enough time to leave for work. Mum and the Terror were back at the cottage, about half a mile outside of the village.

Tayo, Jake and Mum’s new baby, was mind-blowingly cute to the rest of the world. But to me he was the Terror, because, between his night-time screaming and daytime pooping, he was the boss of the house and he ruled with a tiny, iron, milk-covered fist.

He and Mum were probably still asleep – worn out from a night of feedings and nappy changes.

This was my chance. I had to get going if I was going to make it.

“Jake’s giving me the grand tour of the smelter today,” I reminded Ms. K, feeling a twinge as the lie slid off my tongue.

“Mm-hm.” She adjusted the green and gold skirt wrapped around her waist without missing a step. “You have your food?”

“Yes, thank you,” I smiled sweetly, hoisting the pack of supplies further up on my shoulders.

Good, we were back on track.

Ms. K clicked her tongue. “And no swimming by yourself. You hear me? Unless you want to end up like those people.”

I rolled my eyes on the inside. Here we go again. At least I’d gotten her to stop asking about the old man. Now it was time to hear “don’t go into the water by yourself”, for the thousandth time.

Samaan Bay was still buzzing about the family who’d gone missing weeks before we arrived. They’d been on holiday in a village nearby. The parents had driven over to Samaan Bay and rented a speedboat to sail out to one of the coves beyond the eastern peninsula. Just after dusk, a fisherman had raised the alarm. He’d found the boat overturned past Hideaway Point, floating like a giant leatherback turtle.

The Coast Guard and Army had come looking for the family, with no luck. They’d even led search parties into the forest on Hideaway Point. But this was the northeast coast of Trinidad. As much as people might call it a small island, it was impossible to fully cover all of the forest, hills, and coves in this area.

Down on the village beach, I’d seen the rosaries, candle stubs, conch shells and deyas, smoking sticks of incense, coils of wooden mala beads, and fluttering prayer flags on thin bamboo poles, left behind by the villagers. Faded pictures, hung by relatives and friends from a twisted almond tree, spun in the sea-breeze. Scattered pieces of tinsel were all that remained of glittering tadjahs – small replicas of domed tombs – that had floated out to sea on the last night of the festival of Hosay, during which people had prayed for the missing family.

None of it had helped.

“No sign of them since,” Ms. K cut in, as if reading my mind.

People decided that their boat had hit a bad wave and capsized.

“The sea is a jealous one,” Ms. K warned me, her canerows plaited in a silver crown around her head. “She don’t like to give things back.”

A cold breeze from nowhere ran down my arms.

“I’ll stay away from the water,” I agreed.

I didn’t need to hear that story again.

Why was I even here? I missed my old house and life in the city. Back home, swimming and gymnastics camps were going on without me. I was missing the holidays with my friends. I missed Da. He had made Samaan Bay bearable when he came to get me settled in, but once he left, that was it. This village on the northeast coast of Trinidad was far away from everything, backed by forest and mountains, trapped between two peninsulas that stuck out like arms on either side of a long, crescent bay. All around us was the sharp smell of the sea, but the rocky shore wasn’t even great for swimming.

Instead of golden beach, abandoned fishing boats lined the stony sand in faded red, gold and green. Too many trawlers in other parts of the sea, rubbish, and oil spills had done their part. Most of the fish were gone from Samaan Bay and I wished we were too.

At least now I had a plan to get out.

I looked at Ms. K barrel along at a breakneck pace, despite the limp in her left leg. Operation Escape was in motion, and she didn’t suspect a thing.

On my right, the sea winked at me from its shield of coconut trees. I grinned back. It breathed salty air into my face and surrounded me with the rushing sound of the surf, breaking on rocks again and again. On my left, on the other side of the potholed road, was the forest, with tracks leading up into the mountains. The village was behind us, out of sight.

“Swung right out of the belly of the whale and I never get weary yet!” Ms. K sang hoarsely as we walked. Her gold-capped teeth flashed in the sunlight. Her face was a map of crisscrossed lines, weathered by years on the beach cleaning fish, back when there were fish in Samaan Bay to be caught.

Soon, as the road climbed, she stopped singing.

We went higher. The sea dropped below us on our right.

“Aunty, let me take the bag. Please.”

She waved me away, her breath sharp, face drenched with sweat.

I felt a stab of guilt. Ms. K had her own problems, and my plan wasn’t going to make her life any easier. I tried to swallow my discomfort. In the end, it would all be worth it.

Suddenly, Ms. K stopped and so did I. The road ahead wound sharply up a cliff. The smelter, ringed by a concrete wall, was at the very top, its entrance hidden by trees.

“Ms. K, I’ve been here before,” I pleaded. “You don’t have to climb up.”

She looked up at the steep slope and took a deep breath.

“Fine… but stick to the road!”

“Yes Aunty!” I turned to go, hiding my smile.

Ms. K muttered after me. “You know, that family was strange. The ones who went missing… They all had shaved heads. Even the woman. Pretty she was. Bald just like her husband and son.”

“Yeah, weird,” I said over my shoulder as I turned to go.

I’d heard this detail picked over by every one of the village aunties, who kept the gossip wheel turning day after day.

“Lila and Sarun Khan and their one child,” the old women tsked, shaking their heads. “I hear she was sick or something, but the sea have no mercy! Believe me…”

Ms. K cut through my thoughts, snapping me back to the foot of the road that climbed up to the smelter. “Listen, you go straight to your dad, you hear?”

I felt my whole body stiffen. It was a good thing that she was standing behind me and couldn’t see my face.

“Jake isn’t my…!”

She stuck her heavy staff on my shoulder, cutting me off mid-sentence. I spun around and froze.

In Ms. K’s place was a hairy bristling creature, with four sets of shiny black eyes. Beneath its eyes were sharp claws on either side of a dark mouth. They opened as if in a smile. The staff on my shoulder was held in a long, pointed leg, covered with quivering hairs. It was one of eight legs curving from the vast golden body that blocked my way. I couldn’t blink, move or breathe. The giant spider glinted at me.

“Stop…” it rumbled in Ms. K’s gravelly voice.

The old man’s warning rang in my head: “Don’t you see? Watch your back with her!”

Before I could move or scream, Ms. K the spider touched the staff gently to my head. There was a flash. I saw nothing but light. An electric jolt went right through my body.

I opened my eyes to find Ms. K staring at me with a worried look on her face.

I found myself nodding. What had she been going on about this time? Head straight to Jake’s office, don’t swim in the sea. Strange. Something else had just happened, something that I should probably remember, but it fell from my mind like a short burst of rain. I wasn’t sure why but, suddenly, leaving didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“You alright?” Ms. K was staring at me as if I’d been hit in the head. She adjusted her checkered skirt and balanced the crocus bag on her head with one hand.

How long had I been standing here?

“You sure you want to do this today?” Ms. K offered. “I will call your da… I mean, Mr. Lee, and tell him you not coming again.”

I shook my head slowly. It felt as heavy as a bowling ball.

Ms. K put both hands on her hips, her black eyes piercing mine.

Finally, she shrugged. “Okay.”

I felt relieved and confused at the same time. For a second, I wasn’t sure which way to go.

I forced myself to take slow steps on the road ahead. What was wrong with my feet?

I tried to wave. “See you later!”

“Mm-hm,” Ms. K grunted, turning away.

My throat was dry as I stumbled up the steep path. I made myself walk calmly. When I looked back, Ms. K was already out of sight on the winding road that led back to the village.

Now that she was gone, I moved quickly. Excitement fluttered in my chest. There it was among the trees, snaking left from the road to the smelter - a half-hidden trail leading up into the mountains.

I took one last look behind me, to make sure I was alone, then slipped into the cool of the forest.

Chapter Three

FALL

Something stung me in the neck – a small, sharp stab of pain. I slapped my skin and looked down. On the ground was a tiny silver creature like a gnat, with a bright green light, flickering out. It beeped like some sort of robot, then was still. I stared down at it. The forest had all kinds of stinging and biting insects, but I’d never seen this one before.

I looked around me slowly. It seemed to be the only one. That was a relief... It wouldn’t do to walk into some kind of wasp’s nest out here on my own. I dusted my hands and looked up at the hill in front of me.

Rain-Tree Hill was one of those places that felt like it was awake, watching to see what you were going to do. It stared down at me and my insect bite. I stared back more bravely than I felt.

Hours of trekking through the forest had finally brought me here. I sucked in the moist, earthy air. The hill was just like I remembered it from my hike with Da, back when he’d helped us move to Samaan Bay. I decided not to think about the day he left.

I took deep breaths, trying to shake the creepy feeling of being watched.

This place was strange, to say the least. Everything behind me was damp and forested, but ahead of me was a huge circular clearing and in the middle of it, Rain-Tree Hill. Somehow, in the rainy season, and in the heart of the forest, the hill and the ground around it were dry and bare, as if a fire had just passed through. Just like the ground that surrounded it, the hill was as naked as a vulture’s head. It was a rectangular slab of red rock, sticking up from the surrounding valley.

As I moved toward the hill, I stepped off the leafy forest floor onto dusty gravel that crunched beneath my feet. Stevie Wonder’s voice blasted from my headphones. It helped calm me down. Da was a huge fan. I pictured my dad’s beaming face, covered with his bristly black beard and spiky moustache. I could see his dark, smooth skin, the wire-framed glasses that perched on his flared nose, and the high cheekbones that crinkled his eyes every time he smiled.

This whole elaborate plan was for him. It had better work.

From this close, I couldn’t see the top of the hill, but I could get a sense of the odd table-like shape that had caught my eye when we first drove into Samaan Bay. I stepped slowly towards the tower of red stone and ran my hand across the surface of the rock. The stone was warm, covered with deep lines in different shapes.

“Indigenous hieroglyphs,” Da had whispered when we were here, “pre-Columbus. Exact origin unknown.”

“Why are we whispering?” I’d whispered.

He’d grinned and poked me in the arm. “You tell me.”

Somehow, this felt like a place that liked quiet.

Da and I had talked under our breath about hieroglyphs and what the carved images might mean. They had come up on our trips before. After all, it was Da who took me hiking and camping all over Trinidad, from spotting red howler monkeys in the Nariva Swamp to the burping mud volcanoes of Piparo.

Every July-August holiday, when he was back on the island, Mum got to focus on her next exhibition, while Da and I went roaming.

We’d be setting up the tent in some deserted place when he’d ask: “What happened to the frog when his car shut down?”

“He got toad!” I’d roll my eyes and groan.

Yup. Dad jokes are a menace.

Still, he made me laugh. At least, he used to.

Now, I pushed those thoughts away and ran my hands over the markings on the side of Rain-Tree Hill, trying to read them like Braille. What had happened to the people who left these messages behind? What had they been trying to say?

Ms. K had told me that the hill held the stories of everyone who’d ever touched it.

“A story don’t start where we tell it, you know…” She’d click her teeth as she parted my washed hair with her twisted fingers, and gently oiled my scalp. She’d comb the knots out of each wiry handful, holding the roots firmly to avoid yanking my head. “…is like a web, hard to unravel.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant the stories or my hair.

It didn’t matter now anyway. I was miles away from Ms. K, Samaan Bay, and everything I was trying to leave behind. 

Suddenly, in the forest, a Jumbie Bird gave an echoing, weeping cry. A chill ran down my neck. Strange. Those small owl-like birds only came out at night. Da had told me that the call of a Jumbie Bird meant that someone was going to die.

I pulled my twists up into a bun, hands shaking. The sun was high in the sky. What time was it? I yanked out my phone and stared at the screen. Getting here had taken three hours! Twice as long as it had with Da. I shoved the phone back into my backpack and headed up the path that curved around the sides of the hill.

Heat glued my clothes to my skin. I’d forgotten how hard it was to get up this trail. The gravel path was narrow and steep, with no railing. I tried not to look down.

Finally, I made it to the top, panting and soaked with sweat. I stood on the edge of a large flat clearing, the size of two or three houses, covered in red dirt, stripped of all trees but one. At the furthest end was a large samaan tree, the Rain-Tree, shaped like a giant’s open umbrella.

From up here, the view was insane. The hill was in a valley full of multicoloured trees that stretched down to Samaan Bay. The bay gave way to the wide ocean, shimmering in blue-green and gold. Surrounding the valley was a mountain range, shaped like a horseshoe opening out to the sea. Those forested mountains were much taller than the dry, red hill on which I stood. They were like lush carpet piled up against the sky, in so many shades of green.

I walked to the side of the hill that looked away from the sea. Hidden somewhere in the mountain range beyond, were the abandoned buildings of the ‘Zoo’, completely overgrown by trees.

The Zoo didn’t exactly match its name. For one, it wasn’t an actual zoo. Da said that in the early 2000s, it was a research centre owned by an international company that had leased the land from the government. No one knew exactly what they used the facility for, except that it was top-secret and heavily guarded by foreign security.

People from the village claimed that animals of all kinds: chickens, pigs, cows, monkeys, manakins and mosquitoes, were experimented on there.

Animals, and, according to the rumours, “Humans too...”

The villagers had called the place the ‘Zoo’ and avoided it like the plague. Then, a few years ago, without explanation, the company just up and left. The Zoo was abandoned. To this day though, it was a place no one ever went; haunted by ghosts.

I had no intention of breaking that rule. There were other places to hide. Besides, I didn’t know exactly where the Zoo was, other than ‘in the mountains’, and I certainly wasn’t about to go looking for it.

Da had warned me about the Zoo when he brought me up here to Rain-Tree Hill, just before leaving for his new job in the U.S. We had spent the morning exploring the hill and the forest around it. From the moment I’d decided to run away, I knew that I’d come here first, before finding another place to lay low.

A crooked smile crept across my face. Once Da heard that I was missing, he’d be on the next flight to Trinidad. I’d give him three or four days to get the news that I was gone, fly down to the island from New York, and take the long drive out to Samaan Bay to join the search. Then I’d let the search party find me. I’d come out of hiding with some sob-story about being lost in the forest. Everyone would be so relieved. Then I’d talk to Da face-to-face, tell him again how unhappy I was; how serious I was about going to live with him.

A small voice inside pointed out that my plan was crazy. I told it to shut up and get with the programme. I had to do something drastic to get Da’s attention. With the new baby, Mum barely had time to talk to me, far less really listen. As cute as Baby Tayo seemed, I called him “the Terror” for a reason. At this point, he pretty much held Mum hostage and nothing I told her was getting through.

Da kept saying to give it time, that Samaan Bay would be a great new adventure, but it was just another place where I was ignored.

“Send pictures,” he told me, just before leaving to catch his flight, squeezing me in a bear hug that smelled like black coffee and mint, “it’ll be like I was there.”

It wasn’t.

During our camping trips, Da had taught me everything I knew about surviving in the wild. Now, I would use it to bring him back to me.

My stomach whined. Time for lunch. I’d had one of the sandwiches and sports drinks in my backpack when I’d entered the forest, but that felt like years ago. The sun hammered down on my head. I was parched. There was no shade in the clearing other than the Rain-Tree. I walked over and sat under it with a sigh, sipping from one of the bottles of water in my bag. Ms. K had packed two large thermoses of water for me and two more for Jake. Plus, I had an extra can of the sports drink. So, I should be fine for the next few days on my own. Still, Da had taught me that it was always best to conserve water.

On a hot day like this, the Rain-Tree’s shade was a lifesaver. All around me, its roots stretched out in different directions, like dolphins cresting the sea. I looked up at the web of branches above me, covered with hairy ferns, spiky bromeliads and what looked like large, hanging, wooden, bean pods.

This tree was a world of its own. Still, I knew I couldn’t stay here forever. The net of leaves was shielding me from the sun right now, but at the slightest sign of rain the leaves would fold up on themselves and I would be soaked. Hence the name: ‘Rain-Tree’.

I took one of the food containers out of my bag. Ms. K’s bake and saltfish sandwiches tasted even better on the hill. I devoured one ravenously, crunching bits of sweet green pepper, licking salty drops of coconut oil off my fingers. She’d packed some for Jake too – half of them filled with saltfish and the rest with guava jam. I’d ration my meals over the next three days to make sure that I had enough.

Hopefully, no one would miss me until Jake came home that evening. A worrying thought slithered across my mind. What if Mum called Jake to see if I’d arrived safely at the smelter? It would kick the whole search process off early. Maybe I should leave the hill now and get to another, less obvious, hiding place.

I slid the food container back into my bag and stood up, holding a sandwich in my hand. I’d eat this one quickly and leave. The sun was high in the sky and there was no breeze. My clothes stuck to my skin. Mosquitoes whined in my ears. I waved them away. There was a long-sleeved shirt in my backpack, but it was too hot to wear now. The hum grew louder. Too many insects. Maybe I should put on that shirt after all. I jerked in pain and slapped my neck.

Something had stung me, again.

“Ouch!” I groaned.

It hurt much more than a mosquito bite.

In my palm was another gnat; its green light beeping out. What was this? Up close, the gnat looked metallic, like a tiny silver drone, with a green light flashing inside its head. Suddenly, I heard a whir.

I looked up. Above me, swirling around the trunk of the Rain-Tree, was a shining neon-green cloud, like fireflies. Except, fireflies didn’t bite. My skin was being dotted with stings. I grabbed my backpack and turned to run, but the swarm spread quickly, filling the air around me. The hum rose to a buzz. I swatted my arms, trying to get to the path that led downhill.

In an instant, the lights were on me and with them a hundred tiny points of pain. The insects were all around me, flying into my clothes and face. I shielded my eyes with one hand and swung my other arm wildly, trying to keep away from the sides of the hill and the long drop to the ground below.

As the swarm spun around me, I fell to my knees. My skin was on fire. I scrambled to my feet and ran a short way forward, but they were on me again, peppering me with stings. This time I fell harder, flat on my face. I could do nothing but try and catch my breath. After a while, I noticed a change. None of the insects were biting me. But they weren’t gone either. Their hum seemed to hover right over my back.

A picture popped into my head. It was of Mum, sitting next to her easel in the garden of our old house in Cascade, in the hills above the city of Port of Spain. My parents sold the house when they got divorced, but back then it was still our home.

There, in the garden, I could see Mum’s face, calm and focused. She’d been working on a piece for her next exhibition, but now she was motionless in front of the wild, dark canvas, her orange head-tie as still as the rest of her body. I was seven then, standing next to her in the low grass.

“Mama,” I whispered, “what you doing?”

She answered me through half-closed lips. “Being still.”

Then she gently moved one finger and murmured, “Look…”

My eyes followed her hand. Then I saw it, zooming in and out of bright red bougainvillea flowers: an emerald-green hummingbird with royal purple wings, a shining turquoise back, and cobalt tail.

The tiny bird hung there in the air for a moment, its long narrow beak buried in the heart of a flower, wings moving so fast they seemed invisible. Then it was gone.

Now, years later, face down in the dirt on Rain-Tree Hill, I thought about that moment. I forced myself to be still. From the sound of it, the swarm was right above me. I could feel their whirring energy, hear their hum of rage. The hum rose to a roar. The pulse of sound pressed my body into the dirt. I felt something warm drip from my nose. The insects hung above me, waiting. Then slowly, the sound began to fade. After a while, I could picture the small green lights leaking away.

Finally, it was quiet.

I lay on my stomach, every inch of my body inflamed. There was no sound. I wanted to move, but what if they came back? After what felt like hours, I held my breath and rolled over on my left side. I bit my lip to keep from screaming in pain. As I turned, I heard a series of light pings, as though a set of nails had fallen from my body. Through my swollen eyelids, I could just make out tiny silver balls on the ground next to my face. Were they the curled-up bodies of dead insects, their green lights gone out? I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

I tried to get up, but every movement was agony. My head felt like it was made of lead. I fought to stand, but my body dragged me back down to the dirt. My eyes glazed over. Sleep slid up and took me away.