Eva Ibbotson - Journey to the River Sea

‘She said there were only the two girls and their parents in the ambulance. She didn’t know there was another girl.’

Miss Minton took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

‘But Mr Carter went back for her, the twins say. She must be here.’

The Sister had come out of her office to join them. Now they all hurried to the men’s ward.

Mr Carter’s burns were serious. His hair and eyebrows were singed, his face was swollen, both arms were bandaged. He lay still with his eyes closed. But Minty had no thought to spare for him.

‘Mr Carter, where is Maia? Your daughters say you went back for her. Did you bring her out safely?’

‘I… tried…’ lied Mr Carter. ‘I went right to her door, but it was impossible. An inferno…’

Miss Minton swayed. ‘I am not the kind of person who faints,’ she said as the Sister moved towards her.

But there she was wrong.

For a few hours the bungalow had been beautiful. Orange and crimson and violet flames lit up the night sky; showers of golden sparks flew upwards as the fire danced and played on the dying house.

Then it was over, and there was nothing left — only grey ash and those strange objects which survive disaster. The nozzle of a flit gun, a splintered washbasin… and in what had been Mr Carter’s study, a single eye, cracked by the heat, staring creepily at the heavens.

So when Finn sailed back down the Negro at dawn, he saw no flames and heard no roaring as the house was destroyed. Everything at first seemed as it had always done; the big trees by the river, the huts of the Indians, the Carter’s launch riding at anchor.

Then the dog, standing beside him, threw back his head and howled.

‘What is it?’ asked Finn.

But now he too smelled the choking, lingering smell of smoke.

And as he sailed towards the landing stage, he saw it — the space, the nothingness where the Carters’ house should have been. Not even an empty shell. Nothing.

He had thought that the news of his father’s death was the worst thing that had happened to him, but this was worse because he was to blame. If he had taken Maia as she had begged…

He was shivering so much that it was difficult to steer the Arabella to the jetty and make her fast. There was no point in searching the ruins; it was so obvious that no one could survive such a blaze.

But there was one last hope. The huts of the Indians had been spared. Perhaps they had got Maia out; perhaps he would find her sleeping there.

He pushed open the door of the first hut and went inside… then the second and the third. They were completely empty. Even the parrot on his perch had gone, even the little dog. A broken rope in the run outside showed where the pig, terrified by the flames, had run back into the forest.

There was no doubt now in Finn’s mind. They had let Maia burn and fled in terror and in shame.

What would it be like, Finn wondered, going on living and knowing that he had killed his friend?

The howler monkeys had been right to laugh when he said he wasn’t going back. He had turned down-river again almost at once to fetch Maia, and he had made good time, travelling with the current — but he had come too late.

Finn went outside again and stood on the square of raked gravel that had been the Carters’ garden.

His mind seemed to have stopped working. He had no idea what to do. Should he go in to Manaus and see if he could find anything out — from the hospital perhaps?

After a while he found himself walking back along the river path to where he had left the Arabella .As he came to the fork in the path which led back into the forest, the dog put his head down excitedly into a patch of leaf mould. Finn pushed him aside and saw a smear of blood… and then a little way off, another… and another.

He almost fell over her, she lay so still, hidden in the leaves and creepers, almost as if she had burrowed into the forest to die.

But she was not dead. She lay stunned, still in her nightdress, breathing lightly with closed eyes. The blood came from a gash in her leg. He could see no burns on her skin. She must have fainted from loss of blood.

Then when he said her name, she opened her eyes. One hand went out to his sleeve.

‘Can we go now?’ she whispered.

And he answered, ‘Yes.’

Maia opened her eyes and saw a canopy of trees and, shining through the topmost leaves, a high, white sun.

She could smell the rich, heady smell of orchids and hear a bird whose single piercing cry came clearly over the puttering sound of an engine.

Then the overhanging trees disappeared. She was looking up at a pale, clear sky; and the light was suddenly so dazzling that she closed her eyes because she did not want to wake up or to stop. She wanted what was happening to her to go on and on and on.

She was lying on a groundsheet on the bottom of a boat. They were moving steadily through the water, not fast, not slowly; the perfect speed to lull her back to sleep. She was covered by a grey blanket; she pushed it off and saw that her leg was bandaged. It throbbed but not unpleasantly… it seemed to belong to someone else.

She closed her eyes and slept again.

When she woke once more it was to find that something was resting against her side, snoring gently: a dog the colour of dark sand…

So then she turned her head and saw behind her Finn, sitting quietly in the stern, with his hand on the tiller — and knew she was on the Arabella and safe.

It was the Indian side of Finn that had taken over when he found her in the wood. That managed to carry her to the landing stage and lay her down in the Arabella . That bandaged her leg and made her swallow one of his bark potions, and then cast off, telling her to sleep and sleep and sleep… Sometimes the European side of him protested and told him that he ought to take her to the hospital for proper treatment.

But he took no notice; he knew now what was best for Maia, and he was right — for now, as she woke beside the dog, she was herself again. The fear and exhaustion had gone from her face.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said, and smiled at him.

She had escaped through her high window; the gash on her leg was made by the broken glass as she scrambled through. The doors were already smouldering when she woke.

‘I don’t remember much after that. It was the smoke, I think. I know there wasn’t anyone in the huts.’

‘Why not?’ said Finn fiercely. ‘They promised they’d look after you.’

‘There was a wedding — an important one. They all went. And Minty, she went somewhere too,’ said Maia. ‘She’s left me.’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean, no? She wasn’t there — she didn’t come back from her day off.’

‘Maybe. But she won’t have left you. That isn’t what will have happened. What about the others?’

‘They escaped. I saw the river ambulance take them away, but I hid. I couldn’t bear to be with them any more. They were all quarrelling and screaming. So I hid in the trees. I didn’t notice my leg at first, but then…’ She shook her head. ‘But it doesn’t matter, Finn, none of it matters because you came back.’

They set a course back up the Negro, then turned into a smaller river, the Agarapi, which flowed northwest to the lands where the Xanti had last been seen.

It was a beautiful river. They travelled between small islands where clumps of white egrets roosted, or clouds of tiny pearl-grey bats flew up from fallen logs. What amazed Maia was how varied the landscape was. Sometimes they sailed through dark, silent jungle where all the animals were out of sight in the topmost branches; sometimes the river wound through gentle countryside, almost like England, where swamp deer grazed in grassy clearings. Once they passed into a patch of scrubland and saw a range of bare, brown hills in the distance before they plunged into the rainforest again.