Tiger Lily (5 page)

The Englander was awake the next time I looked, and he watched her come and go. He had begun to eat. His round cheeks puffed out and he stuttered one word, his lips shaking: “Phillip.” He held a frail hand to his chest.

She laid her hand on her own chest and said, “Tiger Lily.”

“A ship will come looking for us,” he said, with effort. He licked his lips a few times, then nodded, reassuring himself. He reached out and patted Tiger Lily’s hand. She didn’t flinch.

I wondered about the man’s ship. Neverland was so deeply and snugly tucked into a remote corner of the Atlantic, so far from anything else of interest and so surrounded by violent and usually impassable tides and currents, that the ships that did end up here usually only did so by accident. To find the island on purpose, I’d heard pirates claim over the years, was next to impossible. The pirates themselves had stumbled upon the island long ago during an escape, and now sheltered in a cove on the remote northwest side in between raids on the far-off trade routes.

Tiger Lily opened a trunk, its contents surprisingly, immaculately dry. She pulled out a few books, which, to her, contained only nonsensical symbols.

Phillip made an eager gesture and muttered, “Take it.” He made an attempt at an encouraging smile. “It’s a wonderful book. You deserve it.” Tiger Lily stared at the cover, then at him unsurely. “Do you know how to read?” he asked. She shook her head. She didn’t, but Tik Tok did. He had tried to teach her, years before, but she had had no patience for it.

As it grew dark, Tiger Lily built a fire. She tried to imagine where the Englander had come from, but all the world outside the island seemed impossible, like a story. I hid behind a log to stand close to the flames and watch them dance. I played with the sparks, throwing them against pebbles.

Finally, she squatted by Phillip’s bed to say good-bye. “I’ll come back,” she said. “I promise you, I’ll look after you,” He nodded. Just as she was about to stand, he pushed something into her hands. A tiny box that had come out of one of the trunks. Inside was a thin gold necklace, with an ornate gold pendant that held a small pearl dangling at its end. “You should have it.” His brown eyes lit up for a moment, from behind his spectacles. He licked his lips, swallowed. “It was my wife’s. It’s precious to me.” Again, his cracked lips widened in a frail smile.

Tiger Lily held the necklace, deeply curious. While old shells washed in all the time, she’d never seen a pearl before. The necklace was the most exquisite object she’d ever held. Wincing, Phillip rested his hands on his stomach. He was a portly man, but clearly malnourished now. “Don’t lose it,” he said. And made a feeble attempt at a smile. Tiger Lily hung the necklace around her neck.

Out in the open, it had cooled off a little, but the air still felt wet and warm when we set off just before dusk.

She made her way down the hill to the edge of the woods, holding the book, which she planned to give to Tik Tok. Her thoughts turned back to the village.

The sky fell away as she entered the thick of the forest, and I had flown up high to get a good look at the stars. She was soon wrapped in a cocoon of night noises … insects nibbling on plants or chirping, leaves rustling. The still, thick heat wrapped us in a fine layer of sweat, and Tiger Lily was tying her long black braids up to the back of her head when a low voice caught her ears, close enough to startle her.

She hid instantly, holding her body close to a tree, its rough life breathing beneath her hands. Then, gauging the voice’s location, she moved on toward it, utterly silent, her senses sharp. She didn’t notice she’d wandered into the tangled lowlands of the forbidden territory until afterward, when it was too late.

Almost immediately, she came to a deep, black lagoon. She stopped short at the water’s edge.

She waited for several minutes, and was about to turn around and continue home, when there was a movement among the branches to her left.

In the dark, I could barely see him. He was covered in mud, and blended in with the trees. He had an ungainly walk, like something unconscious of itself. His hair was caked in dirt and none of his features were visible, except his eyes glinted in the glow of the moonlight, and I got a yellow-lit glimpse of his features: a pale face, smooth and animate. He wasn’t terribly large in frame. There was a delicateness to his shoulders; they were like chicken wings. Below me, Tiger Lily was frozen as well.

A baby was tucked beside him in the shadows. The baby cooed.

Clearly, he hadn’t seen us yet. He was working on something, and I could see as my eyes adjusted that it was a spear.

I had never seen a creature like him. He was nothing like the men of the villages—orderly and well-postured, dignified and stiff. Nor was he like the men of tribes across the island—the Cliff Dwellers or the Bog Dwellers. He seemed very young, and also fragile.

And then there was a muddy, wet sound behind him. He turned, and as he did, I studied the sweeping black lagoon he now faced, still and mirrorlike under the moon. And then a bubble from the surface, and a figure slithered out of the dark water. Effortlessly, it beached itself on a rock protruding not far from the shore. A patch of moonlight coming through the clouds raked over it, revealing half of a woman—a mermaid. Her long hair was wet and pasted to her back. She waved at him in the dark, and he waved back. He walked over to the water, and said something in a low voice, and she laughed. He took another step toward the water’s edge. And she said his name.

“Pan.”

Below me, Tiger Lily startled. The tree shook, almost imperceptibly, in her arms. It was nothing. But enough for him to sense she was there. He lifted his face up, his glittering eyes. Tiger Lily ducked behind a tree and disappeared, and I fluttered up into the branches.

He moved toward us.

I watched from above as he hunted her. I could hear him breathing, listening for whatever it was that was hiding from him. Tiger Lily set her sights on a tree a few feet away, and came silently out, hiding behind the next. She chose another tree, and again, ran toward it on silent feet. They waited each other out. He disappeared into the trees beyond a small clearing to her left. She took the opportunity to veer right, behind a boulder. And in this way, they zigzagged toward the edge of the forbidden territory, where the scrubby, tangled lowlands gave way to high ground and taller trees. Her feet found the bare spots between rocks and over branches. And then she was beyond the line of low swampy growth and rising into familiar territory.

She knew how to fade into this forest. Long afterward, I heard him walking back and forth through the trees, but we slipped along the shadows, and in this way made the slow journey home, arriving long after nightfall.

T
ik Tok closed the book that Tiger Lily had brought. His hair was a revelation this morning, a glossy braid he had started on at dawn, woven with tiny seashells. He put the book on the shelf right next to his clock. He had been reading it many hours at a time for days. “I love it,” he said. “Thank you again.” He seemed to be bearing up the weight of the air as he stood, slow and tired. “Are you ready?”

Tiger Lily nodded.

Since she had been a child, Tik Tok had often taken her with him on his gathering expeditions, saying that he needed one person to help. But secretly, it was their private time to just be together in comfortable silence. Now, the silence was thick and tense. Tiger Lily was confused and hurt, but she preferred to stay that way rather than question him.

She kept her mouth closed as they walked, so that none of her anger would tumble out. Besides her clandestine swims with Pine Sap, she had never kept anything from Tik Tok. She avoided his eyes, and kept her gaze on his heels as he took the lead.

Tik Tok shambled along in front of her as they entered the forest. From behind, he was shaped like an eggplant, his hips swaying under his deep-green tunic, the shells in his hair bright in the morning sun.

After several minutes, they knelt in the dead leaves and rooted around.

Today they were looking for taro root, which Tik Tok used to treat insect bites.

“It’s for the best if the Englander dies,” he said. “Better than him suffering longer.”

Tiger Lily swallowed. She had been to the house twice since our first visit together, and Phillip didn’t seem to be getting any better. Clearly, Tik Tok thought she was holding out false hope. But hope wasn’t exactly what it was. She, too, believed the man was doomed, and she couldn’t explain to herself why she kept going back. She pulled at the taro root fiercely, holding it up in clumps.

“If he dies, it was all for nothing,” she said. Tik Tok winced, and she hurried to change the subject. “Do you really need all of this?” she asked.

“You always want to be prepared,” he said. “You don’t want someone to come to you needing help, and you can’t give it because you didn’t gather that herb.”

I had watched Tik Tok minister his potions to almost every person in the village: the old and young, the meddling, the generous and the petty, equally. I alone had seen him sitting up nights with those with fevers, sitting patiently next to people covered in salves for burns or cuts or animal bites, when Tiger Lily had tried to stay awake and fallen asleep, strong willed, but still a child after all. Twice, I had seen him nurse people back from the brink of death in secret, so the rest of the tribe wouldn’t think the person was weak. And once he had slaved over Giant himself for four nights, who had never been nice to anyone, least of all Tik Tok. He would sit there, his wrinkled face immovable, his eyes steady. I’d often stayed awake in my nook as long as I could, until my eyes drooped, and more than once, I’d fallen asleep behind his clock, and I’d woken to find him still wide-awake beside his patient. His collections—including the clock I slept behind—and his hair were his only indulgences, the sole things he did for himself.

Now I watched his face as he and Tiger Lily worked. It was a fine, delicate, feminine face, with full lips and warm brown eyes. His movements were unconscious but always minced, small, womanly.

“It’s my fault,” he said suddenly, the words seeming to bubble out of their silent work. “I wanted you. That was my mistake. I knew I’d never have a child. I begged them to let me keep you, though for a man to take in a little girl is unheard of. To take any child who isn’t a Sky Eater is unheard of. As eldest woman, it was Aunt Fire’s decision to let me or not. So she made me give her a promise. When it was time for you to marry, you should marry her son. It was a secret. She wanted it to seem like I chose Giant. To marry the daughter of the shaman would bring him great respect.”

Tik Tok leaned back on his heels and looked up, wiping a stray hair from his forehead delicately. “I was always able to put her off. The tribe wouldn’t get behind her. Until this. The Englander and everything.” He sighed. “It’s not your fault. It was my selfishness. I didn’t have the courage to leave you in the woods. But I should have let someone else have you … one of the other tribes,” he said. He leaned down onto one palm as, with the other, he yanked a root from the ground and brushed it off. “I could have told you. But I didn’t want you to live under a shadow. I never held you back from anything.”

Tiger Lily was silent for a while, her long, dark hair falling across her face, obscuring her expression, and Tik Tok stared at the root in his hands. Finally she reached for his fingers. “I’m glad you took me. It’s just a husband. Maybe it won’t be terrible.”

“It was my job to protect you,” he said. “And I didn’t.”

Tiger Lily shook her head. “You have. I’m okay. Really, Tik Tok.” Secretly, Tiger Lily knew it was her job to protect him too.

Tik Tok smiled, but his eyes became wet. His shoulders sank, and he steadied himself where he knelt over a patch of bitter gourd.

“I let you down, little one.”

She reached for his arm. “I’m not so little. I can take care of myself.”