She glanced back toward Niolopua, who was sitting in the sand staring out at the water. This time, she didn't follow his gaze. She wasn't interested in what the sea had to show her. Instead she turned her eyes up the slope of the beach. A few yards from where she stood a small stream emerged from between the trees, carving a zigzag path across the sand on its way to the sea. She started to climb the beach to the place from which it appeared, studying the wall of vegetation as she did so. Another gust of wind moved the canopy, and stirred the colored blossoms so that they seemed to nod at her as she approached.
She slipped off her sandals at the edge of the stream, and stepped into it. The water was cold; far colder than the sea had been. She bent down and let the water play against her fingers for a moment, then-making a shallow cup of her hands-scooped some of it up and splashed it against her face, running her wetted fingers back through her hair. Icy water trickled down the back of her neck, and round and down between her breasts. She pressed her hand against her breastbone to stop the water going any further. She could feel her heart thumping under her hand. Why was it beating so fast? It wasn't just cold water and a hit of marijuana that was making her feel so strange: there was something else. She put her hand back into the stream, and this time she was certain she heard the double thump of her heart quickening. She followed the path of the water with her eyes, up into the green. Another gust of wind, and the fat wide leaves rose all at once, showing their pale undersides, and the deep shadows their brightness concealed. What was in those shadows? Something was calling to her; its message was in the water, flowing against her fingers and up through her nerves to her heart and head.
She stood up again and began to walk against the gentle flow of the stream, until she reached the edge of the vegetation. It smelled strong; the heavy fragrance of blossom mingled with the deeper, more solid smell of all things verdant: shoot, stalk, frond, leaf. She paused to see if there was an easier way in than wading through the stream, but she could see none. The foliage was thick in every direction: the easiest option was simply to keep to the flowing path.
The choice made, she stepped out of the sunlight and into the shadows. After no more than six or seven steps she began to feel clammy-cold; a prickly sweat broke out on her brow and upper lip. Her toes were already starting to numb in the icy water.
She looked back over her shoulder. Though the ocean was only fifty yards from where she stood, if that, it might have been another world. It was so bright and blue out there; and in here, so dark, so green.
She looked away, and resumed her trek. The stream no longer ran over sand now but over stones and rotted leaves. It was a slippery path, made more treacherous still by the fact that the ground was getting steeper as she progressed. She was soon obliged to climb, doing her best to strike out into the undergrowth when the route became too steep, using saplings and vines to haul herself up," then returning to the relatively unchoked stream once she'd reached a plateau and could proceed without the need of handholds.
She could no longer see the beach, or hear the waves breaking. She was surrounded on all sides by greenery and by the inhabitants of that greenery. Birds were noisy in the trees overhead; there were lizards running everywhere. But more extraordinary than either, and more numerous, were the spiders: orange-and-black-backed creatures the span of a baby's hand, they had spun their ambitious webs everywhere, and sat at the heart of their fiefdoms awaiting their rewards. Rachel did her best to avoid touching the webs, but there were so many it was impossible. More than once she walked straight into one and had to brush its owner off her face or shoulder, or shake it out of her hair.
The climb had by now begun to take its toll on her. Her hands, weary with their exertions, were beginning to lose their grip, and her legs were shaking with fatigue. The promising curiosity she'd felt on the beach below had faded. She might go on wandering like this for hours, she realized, and never find anything. As long as she followed the stream she had no fear of getting lost, of course, but the steeper the way became the more she ran the risk of falling.
She found a flat rock, in midstream, to perch on, and from there made an assessment of her situation. She hadn't brought her watch, but she estimated that she'd been climbing for perhaps twenty-five minutes. Long enough for Niolopua to be wondering where the hell she'd got to.
She stood up on the rock and yelled his name. It was impossible to judge how far the call went. Not far, she suspected. She imagined it snared in the mesh of vines, in the hearts of blossoms, in spiders' webs: snared and silenced.
She regretted making the sound now. For some absurd reason she'd become anxious. She looked around. Nothing had changed; there was only green, above and below. And at her feet the burbling stream.
"Time to go back," she told herself quietly, and gingerly took the first step down over the weed-slickened rocks. As she did so she felt a spasm of the same force she'd experienced on the beach passing through her from the soles of her feet.
Instinctively she looked back up along the course of the stream, studying the water as it cascaded toward her, looking for some clue. But there was nothing out of the ordinary here; at least nothing she could see. She looked again, narrowing her eyes the better to distinguish the forms before her. So many misleading combinations of sun and leaf-shadow-
Wait, now; what was that, ten or twelve yards from her, lying in the water? Something dark, sprawled in the stream.
She didn't dare hope too hard. She just started climbing again, though there were several large boulders before her, one of which had fallen like a great log, and could not be climbed around. She was obliged to scale it like a cliff face, her fingers desperately seeking little crevices to catch hold of, while a constant cascade of water rushed down upon her. When she finally clambered to the top she was gasping with cold, but the form she'd seen was more discernible now, and at the sight of it she let out such a shout of joy that the birds in the canopy overhead rose in clamorous panic.
It was him! No doubt of it. Her prayers were answered. He was here.
She called out to him, and climbed to where he lay, tearing at the vines that blocked her way. His face was a terrible color, like wetted ash, but his eyes were open and they saw her, they knew her.
"Oh my baby," she said, falling on her knees beside him, and gathering him to her. "My sweet, beautiful man." Though she was cold, he was far, far colder; colder even than the water in which he'd lain, passing the message of his presence down the stream.
"I knew you'd find me," he said softly, his head in her lap. "Cesaria… said you would."
"We have to get you down to the beach," she told him. He made the frailest of smiles, as though this were a sweet lunacy on her part. "Can you stand up?"
'There were dead men coming after me," he said, looking past her into the vegetation, as though some of them might still be lurking. "They followed me out of the sea. Men I'd killed-"
"You were delirious-"
"No, no," he insisted, shaking his head, "they were real. They were trying to pull me back into the sea."
"You swallowed seawater-"
"They were here!" he said.
"Okay," she said gently. "They were here. But they're gone now. Maybe I frightened them off."
"Yes," he said, with that same frail smile. "Maybe you did." He was looking at her with the gratitude of a child saved from a nightmare.
"I swear. They're not coming back. Whatever happened, sweetheart, they've gone and they're not coming back. You're safe."