Two

What the shit—" Rachel began, then stopped herself, realizing that a fragile ten-year-old was standing right next to her.

She bent low to the ground and saw suspicious dark spots leading up to the tree, like the tracks of some mythical round-footed animal. Rachel knelt down and felt the spots. The grass wasn't moist. Actually, the blades felt like the bristles on a wire brush.

None of the blackness had been here yesterday.

She touched the bark of another infected tree. It flaked and turned to dust. She jerked her hand away and saw what looked like a black ink stain on her fingers.

"These trees must have gotten sick," she said. It was the best she could offer young Christopher. She tried another joke. "I might have to send them all home from school today."

The boy didn't laugh.

Even though it was still technically morning, Rachel announced that they were breaking for lunch.

"But it's too early for lunch," the girl with big brown eyes said.

"Not on San Francisco time, it's not," Rachel said.

As she ushered the kids back to the main building, her mind raced to come up with possible explanations for what she'd just witnessed. But nothing made sense. Rachel had never seen or read about anything like this. It wasn't the result of the vampire bugs that could eat away at banyan trees if left unchecked. Or of Roundup, the herbicide that the groundskeepers used overzealously on the thirty acres of park that stretched all the way to Hilo Bay. Rachel had always considered herbicides a necessary evil—like first dates.

This was something else. Something dark, maybe even dangerous, a mystery she had to solve.

When the children were in the cafeteria, Rachel ran to her office. She checked in with her boss, then made a phone call to Ted Murray, an ex-boyfriend at Stanford who had recommended her for this job and convinced her to take it and who now worked for the Army Corps of Engineers at the Military Reserve.

"We might have a thing here," Rachel told him.

"A thing?" Murray said. "God, you scientists with your fancy words."

She explained what she had seen, knowing she was talking too quickly, her words falling over each other as they came spilling out of her mouth.

"On it," Murray said. "I'll get some people out there as soon as I can. And don't panic. I'm sure there's a good reason for this… thing."

"Ted, you know I don't scare very easily."

"Tell me about it," Murray said. "I know from my own personal experience that you're the one usually doing the scaring."

She hung up, knowing she was scared, the worst fear of all for her: not knowing. While the children continued noisily eating lunch, she put on the running shoes she kept under her desk and ran all the way back to the banyan grove.

There were more blackened trees when she got there, the stain creeping up from distinctive aerial roots that stretched out like gnarled gray fingers.

Rachel Sherrill tentatively touched one of the trees. It felt like a hot stove. She checked her fingertips to make sure she hadn't singed them.

Ted Murray had said he would send some of his people to investigate as soon as he could assemble a crew. Rachel ran back to the lunchroom and collected her group of fifth-graders from San Francisco. No need for anybody to panic. Not yet, anyway.

Their last stop was a miniature rainforest far from the banyan grove. The tour felt endless to her, but when it was finally over, Rachel said, "I hope you all come back someday."

A thin reed of a girl asked, "Are you going to get a doctor for the sick trees?"

"I'm about to do that right now," Rachel said.

She turned around and once again jogged back toward the banyan trees. She felt as if the entire day had exploded around her, like one of the volcanoes in the distance.