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

Jed laughed again. ‘Don’t worry. This was all many years ago now, and the Awa’s directions were very specific. I am confident I know the way. It is a place he has told me about many times. It will be an honour to visit it finally.’

They carried on planting one foot in front of the other, the rain still falling hard, the ground rapidly becoming soft underfoot. There was no real footpath to follow; just a vague animal track with broken branches and flattened leaves leading the way. Vines hung from trees in thick, twisted tangles, as thick as ropes; brightly coloured sticky flowers were blooming in the humidity, the chatter of hidden animals at their shoulders, but always out of sight.

‘T-t, it is extraordinary to me that you are doing this,’ he said after another few minutes, stopping suddenly and casually holding a hand out as a ‘stop’ to keep her back. She watched, horrified and fascinated, as a vivid yellow eyelash viper slid past between their feet, disappearing in the next instant into the undergrowth.

She swallowed. If he was calm, so was she.

She dared to lift her eyes and look back at him. ‘. . . Why? Your son is a beautiful young boy. He deserves to be given every opportunity to live his life.’

‘No, I mean it is extraordinary you are doing this, even though you do not believe in it. You do not believe in the Awa’s methods.’

Tara hesitated, not wanting to offend. ‘Well, let’s just say I don’t fully understand them. The Awa cleared my headache when nothing – absolutely nothing – else has. I can’t explain that, so I’m open to . . . other options.’

Jed glanced doubtfully at her and resumed walking. He had known her since she was nine. He knew when she was being polite. She sighed.

‘Okay. Do I believe this plant we’re looking for will help Paco?’ she called, following after him. ‘No, honestly I don’t. I’m happy to be wrong; I hope I’m wrong! But for me, this is just a means to an end, a way to get something happening for your son – and that has to be better than nothing. As a doctor, it’s my duty to pursue every path of possibility for my patients.’ She squinted as something scampering through the tree overhead sent a shower of raindrops onto her, straight down her collar and running down her back. So much for her umbrella.

The background rush of running water became a sudden roar as they rounded an escarpment to face a dazzling waterfall. It was the sort of thing Tara had only ever seen on Instagram – water like horses’ tails, rainbows catching as the sun darted in and out of rain clouds. A flock of macaws were flying around at the upper reaches, landing in the neighbouring trees. She wanted to stop and admire it, photograph it, swim in it. But Jed didn’t stop. What before would have been the entire focus of a day of #gratitude was here just a footnote in their higher purpose, a pretty backdrop and nothing more. Within a few minutes it was behind them, the roar subdued to a gentle background rushing again.

Still it rained.

‘How did Rory react when you told him you were doing this?’ Jed asked over his shoulder, using his stick to beat back the plants that nodded over the path and making it easier for her to follow him. Well, easy-ish. He seemed to cover two strides to her one.

Tara grimaced, trudging behind him. ‘He hasn’t yet. I tried explaining it to him but I’m not sure he really took it in. He was like a bear with a sore head at me for waking him up. He’s not used to drinking like that.’

‘What were they celebrating last night?’

‘Everything and nothing. Holiday vibes. I think they’re just happy to be having time out. We all work pretty mad hours.’

‘You work too hard,’ he said simply, echoing the words he’d said to her yesterday morning too.

They kept walking, the path growing steeper, the mud becoming more slippery as the rain kept on coming down with no signs of stopping. Her feet were soaked, the tread on her trainers completely lost as the mud grew thicker with each step. Tara wished she had packed even just a cagoule – a cagoule! – instead of the expensive linen peasant blouses and silky dresses she had brought with her. Not that trekking on a mercy mission through the mountains had been on her radar back then – hindsight always came too damned late – and she was regretting the day she’d cut her old jeans down into shorts. She kept swiping at her thighs, not sure if it was insects or plants tickling them.

‘So is he The One?’ Jed asked, his voice more distant. Tara looked up and saw he was ten or eleven paces ahead now. She realized she was falling behind, tiring already in her inadequate footwear, feet sliding with each step, her socks sodden and her feet beginning to rub. ‘Will you get married?’

‘You already asked me that! Everyone always asks me that,’ she called back. ‘My mother’s like a stuck record.’

‘Sounds like a “no”.’ He pushed back a tangle of thick vines that hung from a tree like a curtain. They fell back in place behind him, snatching him from her sight.

‘No, it’s not a “no”; it’s an “I don’t know!” she shouted up to him. ‘Because I don’t!’

‘They say when you know, you know!’ he called back.

‘They say bollocks!’ she yelled. She heard Jed laugh at that – a distinctive belly-shaking sound – and it made her smile too, until a sudden commotion made her stop dead in her tracks. The jungle seemed to be shaking itself into activity, the constant twitchy, crackling torpor igniting into a frenzy of sounds, trees swaying, bushes shaking.

Jed?

She went to call his name, but a shout and the sound of muffled grunts made the word die in her