After the Ashes (18 page)

She resisted.

“Let's go,” I said.

“No.”

“Why won't you come with me?”

She took a watery breath, and her shoulders drooped. “My father always told me there were creatures in there that would eat me. He said I should stay away.”

“What?” Her father had done Brigitta a disservice telling her that. There were animals that were dangerous, to be sure, but only when threatened or desperate. “That's not true. Besides, Mr. Charles Darwin says,
‘The present condition of the Malay Archipelago, with its numerous large islands separated by wide and shallow seas, probably represents the former state of Europe.'
So you see? We're practically in Europe! What would your father say to that?”

“What about the bugs?”

Bewildered, I asked, “The insects? What about them?”

“They'll crawl all over me and bite me and—” Her voice rose in panic.

I grabbed her shoulders. “It will be fine, Brigitta. I know the forest. I know what's in there. I'll keep you safe.”

“No,” Adriaan said, yanking her toward him. “
I'll
keep you safe. Won't I?”

He was only a year older than us. I didn't know how he thought he could protect Brigitta in the jungle, but she apparently trusted him. The tendons in her neck stood out sharply as she gave a short, stiff nod.

I addressed the crowd. “We should all go in the jungle for safety.”

Some people ignored me entirely, keeping their eyes pinned toward the ocean. The water remained hidden with all the smoke and ash in the air, but that was the direction of danger.

The others waved their hands as if to be rid of me.

“Come on,” I implored. “We should move farther inland. Away from the ocean!”

Someone asked, “Why should we listen to you?”

Another person said, “You have no interest in us.”

My face grew hot enough to make steam. This was what Vader meant about needing people. Only he didn't mention how that could work two ways. It wasn't that I needed these people right now. They needed me. But they wouldn't listen. And it was all my fault. Because I had been so judgmental. “Please,” I begged, “you have to listen to me. Go to the jungle!”

Grumblings and dismissals. “We were fine last time.” “There won't be another wave.” “The jungle is more dangerous than the sea.”

Were they all mad? Were they so scared of the forest they would rather face another lethal wave?

I didn't have time to convince anyone else. Grabbing Brigitta's and Adriaan's hands, I dragged them with me. With one last look over my shoulder, I cried, “Please come into the jungle!”

No one moved.

I led Brigitta and Adriaan into the familiar emerald landscape. My oasis. My sanctuary. Even though I hadn't been here in a month, even though Brigitta and Adriaan stood unwillingly by my side, even though the world seemed to be ending, the jungle welcomed me.

Brigitta was about two seconds from running away like a rabbit, so I babbled. “One time, I came through here and saw a Javan lutung. He was a splendid monkey! He watched me for a while, and then he ran down the tree, turned to look me directly in the eye, bowed and ran off. I swear if he had been wearing a hat, he would have doffed it. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen!”

Anxiety rolled off Brigitta and Adriaan placed her arm on his. I continued, “There's no need to worry about any of the animals here. They're just as frightened as we are right now. They don't know what's happening either.”

“Would you please be quiet?” she said in a snotty voice.

My mouth snapped shut, and I moved faster.

“Slow down,” she called.

I rubbed my eyes. Be quiet. Slow down. Couldn't she do anything without ordering me around? I wasn't her maid! “Don't judge, Katrien.” My aunt's voice again.

“Where are we going?” Adriaan asked.

“I know a place we can stop.” I pointed with a vague motion. “It's a sort of clearing, and there's a little stream there. It should be far enough inland.”

“How far?” Brigitta asked.

“About two hours if we hurry.”

They stopped. “What?” she said.

“We have to keep going.”

She turned in a complete circle. “I can't see anything but trees, Katrien. Surely we're safe right here!”

“Certainly we're safe.” Adriaan patted her arm.

I glared at him. “We've only been walking for a few minutes. We're hardly away from Anjer.”

He crossed his arms. “We should be far enough inland.”

“Let's keep going,” I urged.

Brigitta stamped her foot. “Katrien Courtlandt! I am not moving one more step from this spot!”

“We need to keep walking.”

“Why?” Adriaan said. “What exactly do you think is going to happen? Why don't you think we're far enough away from the ocean?”

“I don't know. But I do know I would feel safer deeper in the jungle.”

He threw up his hands. “This is ridiculous. I'm going back.”

“You can't!” I cried, reaching out to him.

“Why not?”

“I just told you, I don't think you'll be safe.”

“Then neither will my brother. I have to go get him.”

Brigitta placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why did you leave him?”

Adriaan turned bright red under the mud coating his face. “I . . . I don't know.” He spun on his heel and ran like a startled rusa deer.

“Adriaan,” I called. “Come back!”

But his blurry outline disappeared.

I faced Brigitta. “We need to keep moving.”

“No,” she said, her mouth drawing into a straight line. “Why should we?”

“For the last time, Brigitta, I just know we'll be safer the farther away from the ocean we are.
‘Success will often depend on having special weapons or means of defence.' ”

She blinked, bewildered, before she gave her head a quick shake. “I'm not going anywhere. I think we're fine.” She plopped down and gave me a look that dared me to go on without her.

I was tempted. I longed to leave her to her own devices. Let her get washed away by a mountain of water like—

No.

Don't even think it, Katrien.

What did I owe Brigitta? Nothing. But Tante Greet had not raised me that way. She tried to instill a sense of empathy in me. I rarely listened to her in the past, but now that she wasn't here her daily reminders buzzed in my brain.

She had come all the way to Anjer from the Netherlands when my mother died. Vader asked, and Tante came. It was simple for her. Even though, as she said, she missed “weather and seasons and snow and tulips.”

“Piles of snow, Katrien,” she would say. “Sometimes a meter high.”

With the ash, I was beginning to understand more about snow.

I looked around and noticed there was less ash on the ground here than there was out of the forest. “It must be caught on the leaves,” I murmured.

“What?” Brigitta gave me a withering look.

“Nothing.” I studied the trees as best as I could without my spectacles. Normally they teemed with life—ants, beetles, butterflies, maybe even a python or monkey. But they were empty today.

How could that be? There must be some sort of creature hiding
in their branches. I had never once been in the jungle and
not
seen an insect or an animal of some kind. “Brigitta, could you come here a moment?”

She sat rooted to her little patch of dirt. “I told you, Katrien, I'm not moving.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I'm not asking you to walk. I just need to borrow your eyes.”

“Why?”

“I lost my spectacles in the wave. I can hardly see.”

“And you've had me following you?” she screeched.

“I know precisely where we are.”

“How can you know that? You can't see anything!” She crossed her arms and muttered loud enough for me to hear. “I knew you looked more ridiculous than usual. I should have stayed with the others.”

“Listen, Brigitta, I have explored this forest almost every day since I was seven years old. I know where we are. Trust me.”

“Why should I trust you?” Her voice turned suspicious. “Can you see me?”

Although she was blurry, I could make out her movements. “You're mostly a blur.”

“Then you can't see this?” She stuck out her tongue and made a rude gesture with her hands.

My first instinct was to slap her, but I fought the urge. “I don't know what you're do—”

Suddenly I hit the ground as the loudest noise I had ever heard came from Krakatau's direction. It sounded like every cannon on Earth had been fired directly at me.

Brigitta giggled. “What are you doing?”

Something terrible had happened. Another wave would surely come. I was right, we weren't far enough into the undergrowth. We weren't safe. “We need to climb the trees,” I said, standing up, urgency filling my voice.

“Oh, please! Not that again.”

Why was she laughing? Didn't she hear that explosion? Didn't she know how dangerous things were? Didn't she want to live?

She chuckled and grinned that silly grin. Enough was enough. I stomped over to her, yanked her to her feet and slapped her with a satisfying thwack.

“Ow!” She cradled her cheek. “What did you do that for?”

Brigitta always brought out the worst in me. I put all my contempt for her in the tone of my words and spat, “Just climb the blasted tree.”

“Why do I have to climb a tree all of a sudden? Just moments ago you were telling me we needed to move farther into the jungle!” Her arms flailed about like a macaque's tail.

“Did you not hear that blast? There's no time to move!”

“What blast? Are you making fun of me?” Her voice grew suspicious again.

“No. The blast! From Krakatau! The loudest one yet!” She might have been a tree for all the reaction she gave. How could she not have heard that noise?

She leaned in, her face centimeters from mine. Her fury was visible despite the mud and ash coating her. “Listen to me, Katrien. I do not like you telling me what to do. I don't even know why I followed you, but that ends now.”

She turned, and as she did I caught sight of her jawline and suddenly understood. I grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around. “Brigitta. I know why you didn't hear the blast.” I wiped a finger by her left ear and ran it a few centimeters toward her neck. When I pulled my hand back, I showed her the blood trickling down my finger.

When she rubbed her own hand against her face, she saw more blood. She then clawed at her right ear, but it wasn't bleeding. “What is this?” she screamed, shaking like a scared dog.

With both my hands on her shoulders, I steadied her. “It's going to be fine. It's probably from the blast. Your right ear is fine. We can look at it more closely later. But right now we have to get to safety. I need you to go up that tree. I'll be right behind you.”

She still trembled. “I can't do that.”

“
Ja
, you can.” I copied the low, measured tones Tante Greet used on me when I grew flustered trying to cook.

She shook her head, trying to back away.

I squeezed her shoulders. “Come on, Brigitta. You can do this. You have to do this. You don't have a choice.”

Brigitta seemed to take hours going up the cempedak tree, but at least she climbed it. I crawled behind her the entire time, reassuring her along the way. “You're doing great. Keep going. Just a little bit more.”

Finally she reached a long, thick, sturdy branch.

“Brigitta,” I called to her, “I need you to climb onto that branch.”

“What?”

“Climb onto the branch,” I said a little louder.

She moved over and clung to it like a sick monkey.

“Keep going, Brigitta.”

“What?”

Was her hearing getting worse, or was she just being obstinate?

“Keep going,” I repeated. “I need space, too.”

Inch by inch, she crawled farther out on the branch until I had just enough room. We wouldn't have long until the water found us. I recited my favorite quote from Mr. Charles Darwin.
“ ‘We should not forget that only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy. We should not forget that only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy. We should not forget that only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy.'
”

“What are you saying?” Brigitta cried.

“Nothing. It's not important.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Then the thundering, rushing noise of water suddenly echoed through the jungle. “Here we go,” I muttered, before I yelled, “Hold on, Brigitta!”

“I don't think I'll be able to, Katrien!”

“
Ja
, you will!”

“No!”

“I won't let you fall!” I wrapped my arms around her ankles and the branch.

“Oh, my God!” Her piercing cry came over the crashing of the wave. “It's enormous!”

Even without my spectacles, I could see the wall of water. It roared into the forest, taller—much taller—than the wave that took Tante Greet away. This one was taller than the trees.

We weren't going to make it. This wave was Death.

The water slammed into us with the speed of a steamship, shifting me on the branch. I clung as tight as I could, holding my breath as the water washed over my head.
Dear God, please let my breath hold
.

As the wave crashed around us it churned over and under. What was left of my skirt swirled around me. The water pried my legs off the tree. I clamped my arms tighter against the branch and Brigitta's ankles.

Debris smacked into me. Something heavy hit my arm, and my eyes popped open with the pain. I squeezed them shut again. The saltwater burned the cut in my leg. I longed to cry out, to moan, but I kept my lips clamped tight like a locked trunk.