Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (15 page)

“The time has come to tell them,” the witch informs him.

“They’re just kids,” Kyle says.

Just kids? Ouch. Ouch to the max. Why does Kyle have to group me with Roo, as though I’m not closer to his age than to hers? Do I really just seem like a kid to him?

“They are his daughters,” the witch replies.

“I’m not sure it’ll even help,” Kyle mutters.

Help
what
? I want to ask. But that’s probably the kind of thing a kid would say.

“Time is running out,” she says. “And if we do not tell them, they may stumble upon it in a most dangerous fashion. They already almost did. You know how this one is.” She points at Roo. Then she turns back to face us. “You already know the first truth of the volcano: Children must not utter the name of the volcano bird aloud.”

“Got it,” Roo says. I’m glad she doesn’t roll her eyes. I’m starting
to feel very nervous. I’m not superstitious, because Dad has zero patience for that, and I don’t think words can be magic spells, and I know it’s just a coincidence that the electricity happened to go out when Roo said you-know-what. But I
am
scared of the witch. And she doesn’t want us to say
Lava-Throated Volcano trogon
. So I sure as heck won’t.

And you know what else? I don’t really want to know the three other truths. I think I’d rather just go and take a nap, or a shower. I don’t like sitting here wondering, What difference does it make that we’re Dad’s daughters? What is time running out for?

“The second truth,” the witch announces. “Anyone who tries to capture the volcano bird will be driven insane.”

“Well, considering the bird is extinct, I guess we don’t have to worry about that one,” I say brightly.

“Because the volcano goddess still wants to protect her bird, right?” Roo says, gazing at the witch.

The witch ignores me and smiles at Roo. To counterbalance the witch, I frown at Roo. The thrilled, fascinated expression on my little sister’s face is only adding to the melodrama. I can tell she’s hanging on the witch’s every word when she should be taking all this with a grain of salt. Dad always taught us to take everything with a grain of salt.

“Third,” the witch continues, her face reflecting Roo’s glow, “the volcano can restore lost youth.”

“So he’ll always be as young as he was when she fell in love with him!” Roo says. Jeez, I wish she weren’t quite so into this. I wish she weren’t so full of belief about an old myth—a cool old myth, sure, but a
myth
. A made-up story.

“And fourth: Once the last bird dies, the volcano will blow.”

“Because they’ll finally be reunited!” Roo exclaims. Then she adds doubtfully, “Or because she’ll be so angry that the bird is dead?”

“Well, who knows!” I say, my voice high and peppy to cover the
unpleasant feeling in my stomach. “Too bad the volcano didn’t blow when the species went extinct. Then we’d know myths are true. That would be pretty cool.”

Kyle is staring at me. The witch is staring at me. Señor V is staring at me.

“You’re right,” Kyle says slowly. “The volcano hasn’t blown yet.”

They’re all still staring at me, and Roo is smiling like she knows a secret.

“Well,” Roo says after a moment, “maybe it hasn’t blown yet because the last bird isn’t dead yet.”

Dad told us all about Lazarus species. Lazarus species are probably his Number One Favorite Thing in the World. That’s when a species believed to be extinct turns out not to be extinct (which is why it’s named after Lazarus, the guy who Jesus supposedly raised from the dead). Dad said the idea that an extinct bird might not be extinct helps him get out of bed in the morning.

So, here we are, in the kitchen of the Selva Café, sitting in the silence following Roo’s suggestion, and Roo is squirming in her chair and bobbing her head and holding her breath, and then she releases her breath and reaches deep into the pocket of her shorts and digs something out and puts it on the table.

A golden feather.

A small, delicate, blindingly golden feather.

“Where the hel—heck did you get that?” For the first time ever, Kyle sounds surprised.

“Up there,” Roo says with a shrug. “It was just on the ground.”

How
did she sneak that into her pocket without me noticing?

“I’ve never found one of these,” Kyle murmurs, “not that I haven’t tried.” There’s a strange radiance in his eyes as he reaches for the feather and places it in his palm.

We all stare at it. It glimmers softly under the fluorescent lights, looking more precious than actual gold. Lying there in his hand, the feather almost seems to whisper,
Life, life, life!

The witch and the old man glance at each other. And I hear Taller’s voice echoing through my head:
Think that was one of ’em, Dr. Wade?

Then it hits me in the stomach, and in the heart.

“The bird,” I whisper, shocked. “It’s not extinct?”

“It is virtually impossible to find the male bird,” the witch says. “And it
is
impossible to find the female bird, much less her eggs. That is why everyone—most everyone—believes the species is extinct.”

“
This
is why Dad was so happy when he first came down here!” Roo explodes. “The Really Good News. The Big Secret. It’s that Dad saw a Lazarus species!”

Okay, fine, maybe. But Roo is forgetting something huge—The Weirdness. If Dad had succeeded in tracking a Lazarus species, why The Weirdness?

And then it dawns on me in a dark and horrible way: ANYONE WHO TRIES TO CAPTURE THE VOLCANO BIRD WILL BE DRIVEN INSANE.

I look over at Roo and watch her grin droop into a frown as she realizes it too.

“Madeline,” the witch says. “Ruby. Your father has been—”

“We know,” I say, pretending I’m not close to crying. “He tried to capture the bird. Probably so he could gather information about it. And now, if your volcano truths are true, he must be crazy. And he
has
been acting crazy. Okay, great, what next.”

“That is not all.” The witch’s voice couldn’t sound sadder. “He has not only been trying to capture the bird. He has been trying to kill it.”

I laugh when she says that. A short, miserable laugh, but a laugh. How to explain this to a witch: Dad would never, ever, ever, ever, ever try to kill a bird, much less a member of a Lazarus species.

“You’re wrong,” Roo informs the witch.

“We have observed your father in the jungle on the volcano,” the witch murmurs. “Tracking the last of them. He has been successful at least twice. In January, and again in May. We saw him capture the birds.”

“He did not
kill
any birds!” Roo insists. “He may have captured them, but he did not kill them. Be
lieve
me.”

I’m grateful that Roo is saying all the exact right things, because I’m having trouble finding my voice right now.

“The flesh was found,” the witch says very softly. “All the bones removed. Rotting up there deep in the heart of the jungle.”

And I get this image in my head of a pile of bloody flesh and twisted tendons. A dark feeling moves down my spine, and suddenly my fingers get shaky.

“Up there in that grove,” Kyle adds, “where you were this afternoon. Where you saw your father. The place I told you not to go. Because bad things happen there.”

“Dad would
never
kill a bird! And he would never,
ever
kill
that
bird!” Roo’s voice is rising by the second.

“You do not know him anymore,” the witch says. “He has changed. He is not a bad man, but he is not himself right now.”

And the truth is there’s not much we can say to that.

Roo turns to look at me. “But why,” she says softly, asking just me, “why would Dad kill a Lazarus bird?”

I don’t even have it in me to shrug. And no one else replies either.

“It’s La Lava!” Roo exclaims. “La Lava is making him do it! We saw him with this scientist guy who—”

“Dad wouldn’t kill a bird just because some people were
telling
him to,” I scold Roo. How can she have so little faith in Dad? She knows better than anyone else how brave he is. He’d stand up to anyone who wanted him to do something idiotic like that!

“Who knows why they want the volcano birds dead,” Kyle says, ignoring me, “but they do. We can’t waste time wondering about their reasons.”

Señor V says something to Kyle and the witch in Spanish, and I guess Roo understands too, because she says, “
We
have to stop him?”

“He will listen to his daughters,” the witch hisses.

“You think he’ll listen to us?” I say, remembering the way he was when we visited him in the white marble room. Acting like we were the last people on the planet he wanted to see.

“You and only you can stop him before he kills the last of the volcano birds,” the witch chants at me and Roo, almost as though she’s saying a spell. “You and only you can stop him before the volcano blows.”

The golden feather seems to glow with its own light, there in Kyle’s palm.

“Will you do it? Will you do it?
Will you do it?
” the witch whispers from behind black lace. The rhythm of her questions starts to match the rhythm of my heart. “Will you
stop
him?”

I
n the morning, I wake up to the sound of Roo squealing. A soft, amazed squeal. I lean over the side of the bunk and look down. Roo is sitting on the edge of her bed, legs extended, staring at her toes.

Sprouting from each of her toes: miniature yellow flowers.

No kidding.

I lean even farther to get a better look, almost tumbling out of bed. Then I scramble down the ladder and grab Roo’s heels and stare at the flowers. They’re simple flowers, three petals each, and smaller than Roo’s pinky fingernail.

“Pret-ty,” Roo breathes, the first word of the day.

“
CREEPY!
” I say. “You. Have. Flowers. Growing. From. Your. Toes!” I shake her heels with each word. One of the flowers falls off.

“He-ey,” Roo moans, and slaps my face.

“Ow!” I shriek.

“You made my flower fall!”

“Jeez, sorry, jeez.” I press my hand against my cheek, hot from the slap.

Roo steps out of bed, walks carefully across the room on her heels, and opens the door.

“Hey, where are you going?” I say. “You’re still wearing your pj’s.”

“Kyle will know why I have flowers on my toes,” she says prissily, and I just roll my eyes. Since when is Kyle God?

But underneath the eye-rolling I’m going,
Hey, why don’t
I
get to have flowers growing on my toes?

I follow Roo as she toddles across the concrete courtyard to the Selva Shop. Even though she moves as gently as possible, still she leaves a little trail of fallen flowers that I have to step around.

“Darn!” she yelps as each flower falls.

By the time we reach the Selva Shop, there’s only one flower left.

Inside, Kyle is arranging bottles of sunblock. Roo marches up to him, or marches as much as someone trying to make sure a delicate flower doesn’t fall off her right big toe can, and lifts her leg to show him her foot. I stay in the doorway, watching, grateful that my pj’s don’t look too much like pj’s.

“Huh,” he says, looking at it for a millisecond before continuing to stock the shelves.

“Hel-
loo
?” Roo insists.

“Hello,” Kyle replies, as though he doesn’t hear her tone.

“I have a
flower
growing out of my
toe
,” Roo says.

“I see that,” Kyle says.

“Well, isn’t that kind of
weird
?” she demands.

“Not really.”

“
Not really?
”

“It happens sometimes. Here in the jungle near the volcano. It’s a kind of fungus.”

“A kind of
fungus
?” Roo echoes.

I can’t help but laugh—Little Miss Special I-Have-Flowers-on-My-Toes Roo shoots me a mean look.

“Yeah. It only happens to little kids. Before they get, you know, older.” Kyle gestures toward the doorway where I stand. My belly does a little flip. Kyle, pointing at me. Kyle, referring to me as
older
. “I got it when I was younger too.
Abuela
says it’s either a sign of being close to the goddess of the volcano or a sign of having dirty feet. Probably the latter, in your case.”

“Ha!” I say from the doorway. Roo frowns and pulls the final flower off her toe. She throws it at me as she runs past me out the door.

“
MomMomMom!
” I hear her yelling out in the courtyard, “I woke up with flowers on my toes! I’m special! I’m special!”

“That’s interesting,” Kyle says, though it seems like he’s talking to himself and not to me.

“What’s interesting?” I say, blushing for no reason.

“She’s going to be good at this,” Kyle murmurs, still more to himself than to me. “The jungle is extending an invitation to her.”

“A
fungus
invitation?” I say doubtfully, jealous of Roo all over again. Who knows exactly what that means,
the jungle is extending an invitation to her
, but whatever it is, it does sound pretty special. Then again, I’d be the first to admit that Roo is special. More special than I am. Obviously. I’ve always known that.