The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

Tara felt her stomach drop as she listened to them argue; she understood it was a lost cause. Jed couldn’t convince his wife and she got to have the casting vote. Her culture didn’t recognize the help Western medicine could give to her son; she didn’t see it could save his life.

Jed looked back at her, an expression that she couldn’t quite read on his face. ‘Tara,’ he said slowly, picking his words carefully. ‘We thank you for coming here tonight and offering to help. It is a great honour to us that you have shown so much friendship and compassion to our family. You, whose family has done so much to help protect our country. Sarita wishes you to know she sends you many blessings.’

He didn’t even sound like her old friend, but a stranger, a humble employee demurring politely to the boss. Tara gave a weak smile. ‘I see. Well . . .’ She looked at Sarita and nodded in acknowledgement, but she didn’t want blessings or thanks or honours. She wanted that boy to live.

‘Come, you must be hungry. We will eat.’

‘Actually—’ She stopped him, defeat crashing over her like a wave and taking her energy with it. ‘I’m so tired still. The flight last night and the jet lag . . . If I can’t help here, would it be terribly rude if I went to bed?’

‘Of course not, please . . .’ He turned and spoke rapidly to Sarita again. She nodded and began moving quickly, gathering things from hidden corners. She returned a few moments later with some sheets.

Jed took them and went to lead Tara outside.

‘Gracias. Buenas noches,’ Tara said, stopping at the door, her gaze flitting one last time to the sight of the thin boy labouring on the mattress. It was almost more than she could bear.

‘Buenas noches,’ Sarita said with the Awa, both of them watching her go.

She followed Jed into the night. It was black as pitch but he walked, sure-footed and clear-sighted, to a small hut just a few metres away.

‘This is empty,’ he said, handing her the sheets. ‘You will be perfectly safe here.’

‘Of course. Thank you.’

‘Just remember to check for ants. They give a nasty bite out here.’

‘Sure. Jed, I—’

But he stopped her with a firm smile. His wife’s word was final.

‘Good night, Tara.’

Chapter Sixteen

She felt a tickle, light as a hair, over the back of her hand. A breeze had found her and fluttered over her skin. She gave a soft moan, feeling herself slowly rise up from the depths of sleep. She felt heavy, heavier than she had ever been, like an anchor listing on the seabed. Vaguely, behind closed eyelids, she detected skeins of light. The tickle came again, crossing to her wrist, getting closer to her f—

She jumped up with a gasp, her eyes focusing just in time to see a beetle the size of a plum skittering across the floor. It was a dazzling electric blue, actually beautiful. Just not to inhale.

‘Jesus!’ she hissed, sitting back on her heels on the mattress and trying to bring her heart rate back down. She sat there, inert, her head hanging, for several moments. She had a vague sense of despair in her bones but she couldn’t put a shape to it, couldn’t quite cast off the confusion of sleep until she looked at the rudimentary bed she had been lying on and remembered where she was – and why.

Oh God. She rubbed her hands down her face. That boy, that poor child. How long had she slept for? How many hours had he been lying in suffering, while she’d slept soundly here? She remembered her failure to do anything about it. Her losses were coming thick and fast at the moment.

With a sigh, she looked around her more keenly. The room, no bigger than a few square metres, was softly lit, daybreak tumbling through numerous wooden splits so that the room felt covered in golden splinters. There was a small hatch in one wall and she got up to open it.

She peered out – and instinctively smiled. The greenery was dense and lush, massive banana tree leaves splaying like parasols; a line of washing strung up between two trunks and hung with dull-coloured sheets. She saw a couple of small pigs truffling along the ground. Smoke was twisting from the top of one of the huts. It was an extraordinary scene, so completely tropical and different in every way to the rooftops-and-terraces vista from her Pimlico flat. Back home, nature was something to clip, tame and suppress into submission with perfectly clipped box balls, artful sprays of lavender and erect tulips. Here, everything ran riot, sprang up, toppled over, spread out, fought like toddlers, for air, rain, light . . .

She heard chickens pecking somewhere just out of sight from here and thought how much it sounded like waking up in an aviary, to the sound of wing flaps and trills and squawks.

Steadily, she felt nature acting as a balm to her frazzled nerves, the bright light of day dousing the emotional passions of last night. This was not her tragedy; it wasn’t, and she had to maintain her boundaries. She could try to help her friend, yes, but if he would not be helped . . . What was it Rory had said? You can’t save everyone.

She pressed her fingers to her temples, a long-worn, completely unscientific habit for gauging the strength of her headache. Today’s was low-to-medium.

What time was it, anyway? There was no way of telling. Her phone was out of battery, with no way of charging it out here – she resolved to go into town later and buy a solar battery pack if she could – but from the light and the angle of the sun, she guessed it was early morning still. Five, maybe six o’clock? Had it not been for her run-in with the beetle, she might have slept for hours yet. She yawned, thinking of her promise to be back