Etelvina seized Eden’s old dress, her eyes dancing with curiosity. Carmen took the other end, trying to claim it. Eden watched the stiff techno fabric fold into odd shapes as the girls tussled over it.
Maria’s entrance immediately calmed her daughters who settled on the floor. Their mother handed Eden a brittle, ash-colored leaf with five points. In a pleading voice she spoke of the powerful healing it would bring Eden’s father. “Es más fuerte para tu padre.”
After Bramford’s miraculous healing, Eden was anxious to try anything. “Where is it?”
Maria pointed towards the mountaintop. “La Puerta del Cielo.”
“Heaven’s Gate.” Eden recalled her earlier suggestion that Bramford venture there to find the potent healing plant.
She emphasized the danger. “Es peligroso. You, El Tigre go. Doctor okay.”
If only Eden could reassure her that help was on the way. But she couldn’t risk word leaking to Bramford. He might steal away Eden’s father and Logan, too.
Maria knelt down, pretending to dig in the ground. She pulled out an imaginary object and glanced up at Eden with questioning eyes.
“A plant root?” Eden guessed.
“Sí.” Maria pointed at the leaf in Eden’s hand, explaining that it wasn’t as strong. “Menos fuerte.”
“You mean the root has more medicine?”
Maria nodded.
It had never occurred to Eden that various parts of a plant contained different remedies—it was just a plant. At home, she always had dialed in her symptoms to the oxy-drip, never wondering what drugs she received. How cut off from the natural world she had been. No wonder she often had felt like a lab rat, dependent and vulnerable, trapped in the tunnels.
The sisters’ squabble over the dress heated up again. Now Eden imagined a comical monkey in the bunched-up fabric, and the perfect idea struck her. She drew her finger along it while making a cutting sound. Carmen’s eyes lit with understanding—Eden needed the bamboo cutter. The young girl sprang from the room with Etelvina in tow.
Once more, their mother appealed to Eden. “You, El Tigre go.”
“He doesn’t need me to go with him, Maria.”
She was strangely insistent, as she explained that he didn’t understand. “El Tigre no comprende.”
Dark, silent eyes bore into Eden. She had the feeling her friend was referring to something other than the plant. Well, Bramford didn’t understand, did he? Not a thing about Eden, anyway.
“Okay, I’ll go with him,” she said. “If he comes back, that is.” Unless Shen gets here first.
Her gaze strayed to the window. Bramford had left on his foolhardy quest two days ago. For all Eden knew he might be dead.
“No te preocupes,” Maria said.
“I’m not worried.”
She faked a smile but knew Maria wasn’t fooled. Eden hardly thought of anything but him.
She welcomed the distraction of the girls’ return. They watched as she spread her old dress on the floor and proceeded to cut it. Inspired by the bandit-like tanager, she decided to fashion a mask for each girl.
At last, Eden saw how to catalog the chaos and at the same time, enhance it with reverie.
For Carmen, she made an umbrella cockatoo, Cacatua alba, its striking crest extended in surprise. Saimiri oerstedii, the cute squirrel monkey with jutting ears suited little Etelvina. She cut tiny holes at the sides of the masks into which Maria braided long strips of palm fronds. She tied them onto her daughters’ heads. Wide-eyed, they peeked out from the slits. Carmen squawked and preened like the showy bird while Etelvina scampered on all fours, imitating the chirping, squirrel-sized primate.
Eden beamed, wishing this were just one of many future family projects.
Then it came to her. She also would make a mask for Logan. A nocturnal creature like him: the tube-lipped nectar bat, Anoura fistulata, so necessary for pollination in the rainforest, and yet as feared and misunderstood as the poor, isolated boy.
She asked Maria to braid one more strip. “Uno más por favor.”
“¿Para ti?” For you?
Eden shook her head. “Logan.”
A hush fell over the room. Her companions traded knowing glances. To Eden’s surprise, they glanced at her portrait, which she thought they hadn’t noticed. Now she knew they had been afraid to mention it.
What deep, dark secret could cause the girls’ irrepressible spirits to wilt? Even Maria’s shoulders sagged. It had to be some superstitious Huaorani belief, perhaps because of his mixed race.
Eden carried on as if nothing had happened. She quietly shaped Logan’s mask with oversized pointed ears and wide wings. When she showed it to the girls, they ran away. Maria followed them without another word.
When it came time for Eden to leave the jungle, she would miss them more than she ever imagined. And what would happen to Logan when Shen arrived? She doubted that Bramford would give up his son. But how could Eden leave Logan here to suffer his cruel father?
Wait and see, Eden told herself.
She tied his mask onto the window mesh so that it hung like an upside-down bat. On impulse she waved towards the gated hut.
Just then, a host of orange-billed sparrows burst through the compound. A barred hawk, Leucopternis princeps, chased after them, its white bar flashing like a racing stripe. The hungry predator nipped the tail feathers of the smallest straggler. Eden gasped as the baby bird tumbled downward into the hawk’s beak.
Evolution, she mused. Only the fittest survived. Eden would have to be fit, possibly even fitter than Bramford, if she wanted to save Logan.
EARLY THE next morning Eden heard the telltale rustling sounds in her room and sprang to her feet. This time, she caught Logan by the arm before he could flee. The boy made curious yelping sounds as he struggled to get free.
“Logan, please, don’t be afraid,” Eden said.
He continued to look away from her. She wondered if he even understood her. Or was he simply shy?
The pearly glow of dawn barely illuminated him. He wore the bat mask, which had done the trick and wooed him back. She tentatively touched the tip of one wing.
“Do you like it?” she asked, keeping her voice light. “It’s not nearly as nice as the portrait you painted—which I love. I’m glad I have the chance to thank you for it. You’re very talented, Logan.”
Finally, he made a garbled response, though it sounded positive. Did he have a speech defect, perhaps the result of growing up in isolation? Was that the big secret?
“My name is Eden,” she said softly. “You have no idea how happy I am to meet you.”
He seemed to relax so she released her hold. She stepped back to take a better look at him, as a ray of sunlight glanced through the window. She almost laughed. No wonder she had imagined a spider monkey—he wore black clothing from head to toe. How hot he must have been in the tropical climate. For Earth’s sake, he even had on gloves. Even stranger, Eden saw whitish, kinky hair that puffed over the bat ears. She had expected biracial features, but certainly not Rebecca’s recessive coloring.
“You can trust me,” she added.
Logan turned and stared at her through the slits in the mask like a frightened animal peering from its hole. Despite the overhang of fabric that shadowed his eyes, Eden detected a pale color. Clearly, he also had inherited it from his mother, despite the low genetic odds. Was that what Bramford had meant? But what were the odds?
Anxious to see the boy’s face, Eden reached for the mask. “May I take it off?”
Since Logan didn’t react, she gently lifted it away. But she wasn’t prepared for the sight of him. How could she ever imagine pinkish eyes or the lack of any pigment in his skin?
Eden stared at him, her thoughts slow and searching. Then, as the shock began wearing off, she grasped the truth.
Holy Earth. Logan was a Cotton! An albino child.
A small scream escaped her lips. Immediately, Eden regretted it. Logan’s sad little face puckered. He sna
tched the mask from her hand with a pitiful cry. Too stunned to react, she watched him crawl through the window and run back to his hut. Of course, it was gated and opened onto the forest so that no one would see him.
Like a sleepwalker, Eden pushed to the main room. The bewildering image of the young Cotton’s face loomed in her mind, along with a noisy zoo of questions. How could Bramford have produced such a child? The albinism gene had all but been wiped out, at least according to the Uni-Gov’s proclamation. True, they found the occasional albino—and murdered the poor thing. Eden shuddered at the ghastly fate Logan had escaped.
She shook the hammock where her father lay sleeping.
“Wake up,” she said in a trembling voice. “Logan is a Cotton! I just saw him.”
“What?” her father muttered.
He had the humble look of the dying, the eyes soft and accepting. Eden steadied herself against a wooden pole and repeated the news.
“Hmmm. Yes, I see.”
Why didn’t he seem surprised?
“See what?” she said.
“The mother was a carrier of the albinism gene,” her father said with a thoughtful air. “Well, that is news.”
“But, Father?” Eden dropped onto a stool, her mind spinning out of control. “It takes two carriers to produce an albino. So how—” She stopped short, stunned by the implication. “Is it possible? Bramford is also a genetic carrier?”
He struggled to reach the crutch. “Yes, it’s extraordinary. I must see the child at once.”
Eden blocked his path. That explained why he only had remarked on the mother’s condition. He already knew about Bramford.
“Tell me the truth, Father.”
He released the crutch with a weary sigh. “Bramford swore me to secrecy. But now, with the evidence in plain view, anyone can guess the truth. You said it yourself.”
Eden felt the earth tilt, and everything she took for granted with it. Ronson Bramford’s DNA contained traits considered even more dreaded and inferior than having white skin. One of his ancestors had been an albino, a fatal secret that Bramford had gone to great lengths to conceal.
In fact, she doubted if he had ever felt superior to her at all. For Earth’s sake, the proud and mighty Coal must have been as self-conscious as she, if not more so. Both of them had hidden their true identities.
How alike they were, after all. And yet how little Eden had understood him.
“Are you all right, Daught?” her father said, his voice shaky.
Even now, as his energy drained away, he only showed concern for her. For once the dreaded nickname comforted Eden.
“I’m fine.” And it was true until jealousy bit her. “But how could Bramford have mated with Rebecca? He really must have loved her to risk a Cotton child.”
“I suspect he never knew about the mother’s inferiority,” her father said. “My hypothesis: she had her genome falsified. She must have paid a heavy price to some rogue genetic marketer.”
The story Bramford had told her while under the influence of the bejuco de oro began to weave together. The FFP used you to get to me.
“Or else,” Eden said, “the FFP discovered the truth about Bramford and set him up with Rebecca in order to guarantee an albino offspring.”
She could live with that scenario despite the racial profile: seduced by a backstabbing Pearl. At least undying love hadn’t caused such a supreme sacrifice.
“Still, how could any mother agree to have an albino?”
“Perhaps Rebecca didn’t know about Bramford’s genome either,” her father said. “It’s logical to assume the FFP tricked both of them.”
“Yes, that fits.” What were the odds?
Eden imagined the parents’ shock when they first laid eyes on their son and realized the truth about each other. Bramford and Rebecca became victims of their own lies, which in turn, branded Logan.
To his credit, Bramford had tried to save the child by hiding him in the jungle. But did pride or love drive him? If the truth came out, it would topple his empire. Naked fear fisted around Eden’s heart as she considered the consequences of having signaled Shen. Surely, Bramford’s half-brother would protect the boy.
“There are so few secrets left in the world,” her father said. “I didn’t know the truth about Bramford until the night of the experiment. Of course, he understood that I needed the correct genome. You can’t imagine how it threw off my calculations.”
Not the fire?
“Father, are you saying that your miscalculations advanced Bramford’s adaptation?”
“It’s quite possible. I made what corrections I could in the limited time. We argued about the disproportionate risk. Bramford said he had no choice.”
The final piece slammed into place as Eden recalled Bramford’s confession. I’d give my life for him. When he managed to hide Logan away, along with the evidence of his inferior genetics, the FFP set their sights on a new goal—her father’s work.
Thanks to my big mouth. Eden was not entirely off the hook.
Only, they hadn’t figured Bramford would use himself as a guinea pig. She understood he had risked his life in the hopes of saving his son. Even if the FFP stole the technology, Bramford’s adaptation would provide her father with necessary samples. And if Logan also could evolve, he might be safe from The Heat, as well as from those who would destroy him.
Eden pressed a trembling hand to her chest. Paternal love, not greed, had been Bramford’s primary motivation.
Sweet Earth, how wrong she had been about this incredible man.
A woman’s cry pierced the air, and Eden caught her breath. She hurried to the porch, afraid of what she might find.
“What is it, Daught?” her father called out.
“A dead jaguar.”
Bramford’s third and final donor.
Slumped near the fire pit, its feline head hung at a grotesque angle. Across the compound, Eden saw Maria and Lucy walking towards it. The sadness in their eyes terrified her. She took the steps two at a time, pressing a hand to her injured side.
“Bramford?” she said.
“No sé.” Maria didn’t know his fate.
Theirs was the deep sorrow of solastalgia, Eden realized. She watched them huddle over the slain animal with bowed heads, like supplicants in bygone churches who came on bended knee to ask for forgiveness. Long ago, God had died, and nature soon would follow.
Eden stared at the jaguar’s pitch-black coat, realizing yet another part of Bramford’s plan. Just like the original donor, this animal had melanism, the opposite of albinism. Bramford hadn’t chosen the trait for vanity’s sake, after all. He had sought to counter the extreme effects of his defective genome, for Logan’s benefit. All along, the fiercely protective father had danced one step ahead of disaster.
Flies buzzed round the jaguar carcass. Its flank, matted with blood, told of a vicious battle. A cold knot twisted Eden’s stomach. What if Bramford hadn’t survived?
LIKE STEEL KNIVES, the morning light angled into the center of the compound and burned Eden’s skin. Sweat trickled down her chest, draining her energy. But she hardly noticed her discomfort or the blinding glare, as she scanned the area for a sign of her Jaguar Man. What if he had hidden in the nearby bush like a wounded animal on the verge of dying? He might leave this earth and never know how she felt about him.
“Bramford?” Eden cried, running towards the rim of the forest. “Where are you?”
She stopped, straining to listen for a moan or whispered response. But there was none. She moved further down the ring of trees, her anxiety ratcheting higher with each step.
“Hello? Ronson Bramford!”
She ignored the dull pain in her side and the Huaorani women’s puzzled looks. Carmen and Etelvina raced out of their hut and skipped behind her. As if it were a game. The Indians might not care if Bramford met the Great Snake in the Sky, but Eden couldn’t bear the thought.
“Bramford, can you hear me?”
The broiling h
eat hobbled her walk, turning her feet to bricks of clay. She clumsily skirted the vegetable path and tripped over a stray potato root. Tangled there among the plants, she noticed several bright red patches on her arms and legs. The words formed in her mind with inexplicable terror: Sunburn. The Heat.
Then a shadow fell over her. Bramford’s deep voice quickened her heartbeat.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Eden looked up to find dull, bloodshot eyes staring back at her. Bright red slashes ripped across his chest. Wild hair tangled around a battle-weary face. Relief swept through her and, on its heels, indignation. She struggled to stand, sputtering with rage.
“For Earth’s sake, why didn’t you answer me? I’ve been screaming your name. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear me!”
Bramford glanced over at the slain jaguar. Eden felt like small fry in comparison. In fact, she detected a great shift in him. The uneasy alliance between man and beast, which had swung back and forth, now settled in favor of his savage side with solemn gravity.
Still, that didn’t excuse his rudeness.
“Well?” Eden said.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Bramford said, without great interest.
Inches away, his scent rushed over her and left her light-headed. His indifferent gaze traveled from her shorn locks to the short hem of her dress. She felt naked before him, excitedly so. And ready for the compliments she expected.
Instead, he asked, “Why did you cut your hair? Your neck will burn.”
“What do you care?”
“If you don’t, I don’t know why anyone else would.”
He swaggered past her towards the main hut. Furious, Eden stamped after him. “Obviously, you don’t care, Bramford. My father might live if you hadn’t gone away.”
“What are you talking about, woman?”
“Maria says there’s a plant that will save his life. It’s in the mountains—Heaven’s Gate. We should leave right now.”
Bramford hesitated on the top step. He looked down at her over his shoulder, an eyebrow lifted. “We?”
“That’s right.”