Mac turned toward Yanni, looking for support, but she was gone.
Thorne rose without another word and shuffled slowly back toward his bedroom. Mac carried his cup to the window. He was hoping he’d done a good enough job convincing his friend to leave Chapada, when a strange sound came to him from somewhere outside the house. It was familiar somehow, but at the same time completely unique.
Without a word, Mac picked up the candle and began to follow it, stopping as he reached the back door.
Extending his arm, the candle flickered against the predawn breeze, animating the boxes and gardening tools that cluttered the Thornes’ backyard.
MacCready edged a couple of steps farther, then paused again. Though he was only a few feet from the house, he could already feel the immensity of the forest—a living thing that waited beyond the tiny plot of cleared earth on which he stood.
The sound came again, and he knew where he’d heard it before.
He was back in the orchard.
The Brazil nut tree.
The branch.
GENTLE
It sounds like—
MacCready squinted into the darkness. There was a figure in the flickering candlelight.
Is it . . . Yanni?
It was, and he could just make out her back. She was standing absolutely still, her silhouette barely visible against a forest backdrop. For a moment MacCready thought she was listening to the strange song, until he realized that the sounds were coming from her.
MacCready sensed Thorne’s arrival beside him. “What is it, Mac?”
“It’s Yanni.” The zoologist nodded toward the silhouette, which continued to whistle and click into the forest. Her attention appeared to be focused on the dense stands of trees that began barely five feet from where she stood.
Abruptly, the whistling ceased but Yanni remained motionless.
For several seconds, there was absolute silence . . .
. . . and then the forest answered her back.
An hour later, Thorne watched nervously as MacCready rearranged the contents of his backpack on the porch. Yanni was seated beside him, her face full of concern. “You should come with us instead, Mac.”
Although his silence said no, MacCready knew that if he were to be totally honest, he would have much preferred to go anywhere with his suddenly resurrected best friend and his mysterious wife. Anywhere but that valley. Instead, he began pulling items out of the backpack—looking for anything that could lighten the load.
A Brazil nut hit him in the back and he flipped Bob a middle finger without bothering to look up.
“Yeah, Mac,” his friend chimed in. “Porto do Inferno, what a shithole.”
Now MacCready looked up from his unpacking job. “Are you guys finished?” he said, shaking his head.
The Thornes shrugged, simultaneously. Then Yanni rose and went back into the house.
MacCready decided to change the subject. “So Yanni talks to these things, huh? That’s interesting.”
“Hey, that was news to me,” Thorne said.
“Bob, we’re talking about your wife here. You must have some inkling of what all that whistling and clicking was about?”
“And I am tellin’ ya, Mac, I am clueless. But Yanni has always been kinda . . . you know, spooky.”
“Spooky?”
“Yeah, ‘woooo-wooooo’ and all that supernatural shit. It got her kicked out of her own tribe.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the assholes ’round here think she is some kinda witch.”
“A witch?”
Thorne shrugged. “Hey, everyone just leaves her alone, which is fine by me. But witch or no, she is currently mum on any topic related to conversations with giant extinct vampire bats.”
Mac shook his head. “Well, that’s real helpful Bob. In any event, it’ll give you both something to chat about while you’re packing up for the big move.”
Thorne looked away. “Jeez, this whole relocation thing . . . where are we supposed to go, anyways?”
“I don’t know. After you contact Hendry you can look for an apartment in Cuiabá.”
“That dump?”
“Why not go back to Brooklyn? Yanni’s certainly primed for it.”
“Brooklyn?” Thorne said, with a laugh. “And how do we get there—yellow cab?”
“Look, all I’m saying is that you’ve gotta get out of here.”
Before Thorne could respond, Mac pushed the Russian submachine gun and a sack full of cartridges into his hands. “And speaking of getting out of here, I need to travel lighter. Can you hold on to these for me?”
Yanni returned from inside the house and noticed a new and uncomfortable look on her husband’s face.
MacCready turned to her for support. “Hey, Yanni. It’s gettin’ dangerous around here. I’d like to leave this grease gun with you guys. It’s a beaut, huh?”
Yanni took the gun from her husband with one hand and the sack of shells with the other. “You shred it, wheat!”
MacCready smiled at the slang and his tone became more gentle, “So, now that you’re both well armed and all, there’s a question I’ve been itching to ask Yanni since last night.”