The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (53 page)

Michelle Paver was born in Malawi; her father was South African and her mother is Belgian. They moved to England when she was small and she was brought up in Wimbledon, where she still lives.

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Also by Michelle Paver

Without Charity

A Place In The Hills

The Shadow Catcher: Book One in The Eden Trilogy

Fever Hill: Book Two in The Eden Trilogy

The Serpent's Tooth: Book Three in The Eden Trilogy

Wolf Brother: Book One in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Spirit Walker: Book Two in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Soul Eater: Book Three in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Outcast: Book Four in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Oath Breaker: Book Five in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Ghost Hunter: Book Six in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Dark Matter: A Ghost Story

The Outsiders: Book One in the Gods and Warriors series

The Burning Shadow: Book Two in the Gods and Warriors series

FEVER HILL

Copyright © Michelle Paver 2004

The right of Michelle Paver to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Condition of Sale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First publication in Great Britain by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group Ltd

ISBN 978-0-9927494-3-9 (ePub)

This edition digitally published by

FEVER
HILL

Part One

Jamaica 1903

Chapter One

The doctors said she had tuberculosis, and blamed it on invisible creatures called ‘bacilli’, but Sophie knew better.

She was ill because the duppy tree was trying to kill her. The washerwoman’s little girl had told her so, and Evie knew all about things like that, for her mother was a witch.

The following year when Sophie was twelve, she recovered. But she still had bad dreams about duppy trees. So one night her brother-in-law took her up into the hills to meet one. Cameron rode his big bay gelding, and Sophie her new pony Puck, and when they reached the great tree in the glade on Overlook Hill they sat on the folded roots, and ate the fried plantain and johnny cake which Madeleine had packed for them. Sophie felt scared, but safe, because Cameron was with her.

And as she sat beside him in the blue moonlight, she watched the little lizards darting up and down the enormous trunk, and the fireflies blinking in the leaves; she listened to the whirr of the mango-bugs and the ringing pulse of the crickets; and Cameron said, ‘Look, Sophie, there’s a yellowsnake,’ and she glimpsed a tail disappearing behind a root.

She thought about all the small animal lives sheltering in the branches above her head, and realized that she must have been mistaken about the tree wanting to kill her. And after that she wasn’t scared of duppy trees any more. Instead, she became passionately interested in them, and tried to grow one in a pot.

‘Sophie’s making one of her about-turns,’ said Cameron with a laugh. And Maddy smiled at him, and helped her little sister to find a place for the potted duppy tree on the verandah, where it gradually died.

Then Maddy said, what about growing something which grows
on
duppy trees, instead? So they bought a book on Jamaican orchids, and Cameron took Sophie into the forest behind the house to find her first specimens.

Thinking of that now as the train rattled through the hill pastures on its way to Montego Bay, Sophie felt a sudden uprush of love for them both – and a tug of concern. She needed to see for herself that they were happy and well. She needed to dispel the vague impression which she’d gathered from Maddy’s last letter that something wasn’t quite right.

Pushing the thought aside, she turned her head and watched the pastures slipping past. Acid-green guinea grass rippled in the wind, dotted with ambling white Hindu cattle. On a dusty red track a black woman carried a basket of yams on her head with easy grace.

I’m home, thought Sophie. She still couldn’t believe it. For three years she had dreamed of coming back to Jamaica. She’d been dizzy with homesickness every time another letter arrived from Eden. Then suddenly it all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. School was over, and she was on her way out from Southampton. Now, here she was on the last leg of the journey. Kingston was far behind them, and Spanish Town and Four Paths. Such well-loved names. The hours she had spent as a child, lying on the Turkey rug in her grandfather’s study at Fever Hill, gazing up at the great tinted map.

On the opposite seat, Mr van Rieman cleared his throat. ‘According to this,’ he said, tapping the journal in his hand, ‘the Jamaican sugar planter is fast becoming an endangered species. It says that since the slaves were freed, hundreds of plantations have been turned over to cattle, or simply abandoned.’ He regarded Sophie over his wire-rimmed spectacles, his small eyes bright with the pleasure of finding fault. ‘I take it, Miss Monroe, that such will not be the fate of your brother-in-law’s estate?’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘Somehow Cameron always manages to keep Eden afloat.’

‘Indeed,’ said Mr van Rieman, looking slightly put out.

‘Eden,’ said Mrs van Rieman brightly. ‘What a lovely name.’

Sophie threw her a grateful look, and almost forgave the fact that for most of the journey the Americans’ small, baleful son Theo had been surreptitiously kicking her leg whenever his mamma wasn’t looking.

The train pulled into Appleton for the lunchtime stop, and they stepped stiffly down into the blaze of the November sun. Jamaica broke over them like a wave. Pickneys raced about between people’s legs. Higglers crowded the platform, plying their wares.
Butter-dough! Paradise plums! All sort a mango! Paperskin, Christmas, cherry-cheek!

Sophie breathed in the spicy scent of the red dust, and the familiar rhythms of
patois
. Mrs van Rieman clutched her husband’s arm and bemoaned his choice of holiday destination. She’d never seen so many darkies in her life.

Mr van Rieman led the way to the Station Hotel with the air of a missionary tackling darkest Africa. Twice he voiced his astonishment that Jamaica possessed no proper guidebook of its own. Plainly any country which lacked its own Baedeker hadn’t yet dragged itself clear of the swamp of barbarism.

Luncheon was awkward, with the van Riemans questioning Sophie in ringing tones, while the rest of the dining-room listened with open ears. Sophie swallowed her pride and answered as best she could, for the Americans had been kind to her when they’d met in the ticket office at Kingston – albeit politely appalled at the notion of a young lady of nineteen travelling alone.

‘If I have this right, Miss Monroe,’ said Mrs van Rieman, ‘you’re ten years younger than your sister, who has two darling little children?’

Sophie’s mouth was full of pepperpot, so she could only nod.

‘And what about you?’ said Mrs van Rieman with an arch twinkle. ‘Any sweethearts yet?’

Sophie gave her a fixed smile. ‘No,’ she replied. A woman at the adjacent table threw her a pitying glance.

‘Miss Monroe is above such trivial concerns,’ put in Mr van Rieman with ponderous wit. ‘Miss Monroe is a
bluestocking
! She intends to
study medicine
.’

‘I’m only thinking about it,’ said Sophie quickly. ‘There’s a clinic near my brother-in-law’s estate, and I thought I’d try to get some experience there, and see if I like it.’ She flushed. There was no need to tell them all that. But she always talked too much when she was embarrassed. It was one of her besetting sins.

‘I believe you spent your early childhood in London?’ said Mrs van Rieman. ‘Then you came out to Jamaica, as you had family here?’

Again Sophie nodded. Then, because she was nearly home and feeling a little reckless, she said, ‘Also I was ill, and Maddy thought the tropics would do me good. I had TB.’

There was a small silence.

‘Tuberculosis,’ repeated Mr van Rieman with a ponderous nod. His wife put her hand to her throat. The other diners applied themselves to their food.

‘Tuberculosis of the knee,’ Sophie explained. ‘That’s what made me interested in medicine. But I’ve been free of it for the past seven years. There’s no danger of infection.’

‘Of course not,’ said Mrs van Rieman faintly.

The waiter arrived with a bowl of fruit. Sophie reached for a naseberry, and little Theo made to do the same. His mother snatched his hand away. She gave Sophie a nervous smile. ‘Too acid,’ she murmured.

Sophie wished she’d pleaded a headache and stayed on the train. Or at least kept quiet.

Beside her, Theo kicked the table leg in a repetitive tattoo. ‘Did you have a splint?’ he said loudly.

‘Theo, hush,’ whispered his mother.

‘But
did
you?’

‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘A big clumpy iron one that I had to wear all the time for two years. I hated it.’

‘Were you always falling over?’ said Theo with a hint of contempt.

‘Not to begin with, because I wasn’t allowed to get up. I had to lie on the verandah and read. After that I had crutches. Then I fell over.’

‘Do you limp?’

‘
Theo!
’ said Mrs van Rieman.

‘No,’ lied Sophie. In fact she did limp a little, when she was tired or self-conscious. But she wasn’t going to tell that to the entire Station Hotel. They were already feeling sorry enough for her as it was: the sickly, bookish younger sister without a sweetheart.

‘If you never took the splint off,’ said Theo, ‘how did you wash?’

‘That’s enough,’ snapped Mrs van Rieman, and the subject was dropped.

As they rejoined the train, Sophie considered offering to move to another compartment. But she guessed that that would only embarrass the van Riemans. So instead they all settled back into their seats with self-conscious smiles, and Sophie gazed out of the window and longed for home.

Gradually, the cattle pastures gave way to cane-pieces. They were in sugar country now, and the heavy scent of molasses drifted in through the window.

Someone’s starting crop-time early, she thought. She breathed in deeply. The smell of home.

The familiar names flashed past. Ginger Hill, Seven Rivers, Catadupa. And far in the distance, she glimpsed the eerie blue-grey humps of the Cockpits: a harsh wilderness of treacherous sink-holes and oddly conical hills which had fascinated her as a child. Her pulse quickened. On the other side of the Cockpits, with its face to the sea, lay Eden.

The train halted at Montpelier for the final rest-stop, scarcely ten miles from Montego Bay. Mr van Rieman hurried off to the third-class compartment to consult his courier, and Mrs van Rieman went inside the station building to use the facilities, leaving her son – plainly with some misgivings – with Sophie.

They waited at the top of the station steps in the shade of a big silk-cotton tree, and watched the small-town bustle and the ox-wagons trundling past, piled high with sugar cane. Then Theo resumed the attack. ‘How
did
you wash?’ he said with quiet insolence.