Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

T he harsh crack of something hitting the ground made Jane jump, then frown when she realized it was just a branch. It seemed odd that it would have landed with such force in the center of the clearing. She hesitated, then went to take a closer look. As she did, her foot caught on a trailing vine.

No! Not a vine. She had tripped over the handle of a primitive bag, roughly woven out of the vines that surrounded her.

She snatched it up eagerly, hoping that it would provide some type of explanation. To her disappointment, it only contained two items. The first was a small metal device—an unmarked cylindrical tube. The metal was smooth and unblemished, polished to a high sheen, and looked completely out of place in this primitive setting. She started to throw it away in disgust, then reconsidered and placed it back in the bag.

The second item was even more baffling. A thin sheet of white plastic was covered with meaningless symbols. If it had been intended to communicate with her, she had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to represent. Her hands shaking, she crumpled it into a small ball, but as soon as she let go of it, it unfolded into a smooth, unwrinkled sheet.

Another sign of obviously advanced technology, but what did it mean? And why would those two sophisticated items be left in such a rustic bag?

Her head ached as she tried desperately to come up with an answer. She rubbed her temples, simultaneously realizing that her mouth was dry and her throat sore from crying. She desperately wanted something to drink, but she had no idea how to find water.

"I knew I should have joined the Girl Scouts," she muttered. Of course, her widowed mother hadn't wanted her only daughter venturing into the wilderness. And Jane had been content enough with her books not to push the issue.

But she was still going to need to find some water, assuming that it would even be safe to drink. A sloshing noise interrupted her thoughts, and she looked over to see Mr. Tiddles upending a leaf and pouring the moisture from it into his mouth.

She rushed over to join him and realized that the plant he had chosen had large cup-shaped blue leaves, each one containing a small amount of fluid. Was it water? She hesitated, biting her lip, then dipped a cautious fingertip into the liquid. Her fingertip didn't burn and it felt just like water. After a cautious sniff, she touched her damp finger to the tip of her tongue. It tasted cool and slightly minty.

Mr. Tiddles chittered at her with what seemed like encouragement. Screwing up her face, she took a cautious sip. The cool liquid flowing into her parched mouth felt like heaven, and she abandoned her caution, draining leaf after leaf until her thirst was assuaged.

Afterwards, she sank back down to the ground and was immediately seized by second thoughts. What if the water wasn't safe? Horrible thoughts of poisoning and dysentery and death danced in her mind—the type of reaction her mother would have had—but she did her best to push them away. The water, if it was water, had tasted fine and she didn't feel any distress. In fact, she felt surprisingly clear-headed.

"And you're fine, aren't you?" she said to Mr. Tiddles, resolutely ignoring the fact that he was undoubtedly a native of this place.

He chirped amiably back at her and she realized that the noises of the surrounding jungle were changing. The light was definitely beginning to fade. She felt exposed in this clearing, but she couldn't bring herself to face the shadowy darkness of the surrounding jungle.

In the end, she gathered more of the enormous leaves and piled them at the base of a tree on the edge of the clearing. She sat down, her back to the tree, and pulled another leaf over her. Everything felt a little damp from the humidity, but the leaf provided a surprising amount of warmth as the air cooled. Mr. Tiddles crawled up on her shoulder and wrapped his long furry tail around her neck before falling asleep. Having him there comforted her, even though he couldn't defend her from anything larger than a bread box.

She stroked his fur idly and tried to come up with a plan. In her earlier thirst she had drained most of the leaves from the blue-leafed bush, and she hadn't seen any others in the immediate vicinity. She was going to need more water and soon. The liquid had been surprisingly filling, but at some point she was going to need food as well. Perhaps she could watch Mr. Tiddles and see what he ate. But water…

Night fell with a sudden overwhelming blackness. A fragment of memory appeared—something she had once read about sunset in the tropics. Did that mean that she was near the equator? If so, at least she wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death.

It was scant comfort and she returned to worrying about supplies. As she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the trunk, the image from the sheet of plastic reappeared in her mind. There had been a long wavy line angling across the sheet. With her mind still preoccupied with thoughts of water, she suddenly wondered if it was intended to represent a river. Could the sheet possibly be a map of some kind?

Her eyes popped open, and she scowled at the darkness as she tried desperately to remember what else it had contained. The one thing she was pretty sure about was that each side of the sheet had contained a symbol. On one side there was a circle with a line above it, and on the other side, a circle with a line below it.

As she racked her brain trying to decide what they might symbolize, a small light appeared on the far side of the clearing. It reminded her of the fireflies she used to chase in the backyard on warm summer nights. She smiled at the memory as it blinked off and on again like a tiny flickering sun.

Sun!

What if one of the symbols represented the rising sun and the other the setting sun? It leant more credence to her notion that the sheet was a map. And even if she couldn't decipher the other symbols, she did know where the sun had gone down, and she could mark where it rose in the morning.

The flickering light blinked out and then reappeared, accompanied by more. They began to fill the clearing and as they drew closer, she realized that they were much, much larger than the fireflies of her childhood memories. Each light was easily the size of her palm, and she caught brief glimpses of large gauzy wings surrounding the glowing bodies.

She sank down a little further against the tree and pulled the leaf up to her chin, but the fireflies paid no attention to her. They danced in the clearing, their lights shimmering in shades from pink to blue to gold, moving in beautiful, intricate patterns as she watched in delight.

Then an enormous dark shadow dove down from above. She caught a brief glimpse of a yawning mouth gathering up dozens of the fireflies before they all blinked out. A harsh squawk echoed through the clearing as she shivered in terror, afraid to move. A gust of wings and another brief glimpse of a huge shadowy flying creature, and it was gone.

Her whole body shook, her hands aching from the tight grip on the leaf. She peered sightlessly into the night, jumping at every noise until finally the constant tension wore her down, and she slipped into an uneasy doze.

Twice during the night, she heard cries. Once a jagged scream from the far side of the clearing, and the second time a harsh growl that seemed to come from the branches directly above her. Only the fear paralyzing her body kept her from scrambling out into the clearing.

Mr. Tiddles lifted his head the second time, and she could feel the tension in his small body, but he didn't move and after a few minutes, he snuffled quietly and settled back down to sleep. If he felt safe, hopefully that meant she was safe as well—unless he had some foolish idea she would be able to protect him.

Sleep was a long time coming after that.

When she finally fell asleep, she began to dream. She was lying on a tropical beach, the air thick and heavy with the scent of flowers. A man rose out of the sea and came towards her, his body outlined against the rising sun. He dropped down beside her, then gentle fingers began to climb up her leg. She smiled contentedly until the sound of Mr. Tiddles chittering penetrated her slumber. Her tired mind jerked awake, only to realize that she still felt the fingers on her leg. She gasped and yanked away the leaf covering her, then screamed and jumped her feet.

The most enormous insect she had ever seen was crawling up her leg. What looked like a thousand feet lined each side of a bright pink shell. She swatted at it frantically, and it dropped off her leg only to be pounced on by Mr. Tiddles.

He made an excited noise as he brought it up to his mouth and bit into it with a resounding crunch. A small spurt of purplish goo erupted from the shell and she had to turn away, her stomach churning. So much for the idea of eating what he ate.

Resolutely ignoring the contented chomping from behind her, she went to investigate the blue-leafed bush. To her relief, the cup shaped leaves were once again filled with liquid. She drank several, then faced the unpleasant reality of a jungle bathroom. At least she could use more of the liquid to clean up afterwards.

By the time she finished her perfunctory wash, Mr. Tiddles had come to join her. He drank the contents of one of the leaves, then looked up at her expectantly.

"You know I have no idea what I'm going to do, don't you?"

He still looked expectant, so she sighed and went to dig out the sheet of plastic. After her revelations of the night before, she was even more convinced that it was some kind of map.

A grouping of three stacked circles, like a child's drawing of a snowman, was in an open space in the center of a series of semicircles. Could that possibly be intended to represent her?

Hardly the most flattering depiction, even if she did have a few extra pounds. Of course, unless she found a food source that wouldn't be true for long. Pushing that depressing thought out of her mind, she returned to trying to decipher the map.

Straight lines crossed the bottom of the sheet. She couldn't decide what they represented, but the river, if it was a river, led down to them. And in the center of those lines was a patterned blue dot.

As she stared at it, she realized that it almost looked like the planet Earth.

The implications made her heart pound. What if this really wasn't just some unknown jungle deep in the Amazon? What if she really wasn't on her own planet any longer?

She tried desperately to convince herself that she was imagining things, but the vibrant foliage, the enormous fireflies, even the shadowy creature that has attacked them…

Mr. Tiddles reached up and patted her cheek, and she choked back a sob. She'd never heard of anything like him before either. Her thoughts circled frantically, trying to come up with another explanation, but deep inside she was already certain. She was no longer on Earth.