The Signature of All Things

Alma to another sudden question: Why had she not enlisted the help of the Hiro contingent in her search for The Boy? Who better to find a missing Tahitian youth than other Tahitian youth?
    Upon these realizations, Alma ran out of her house and hailed down those five wild boys, who—at that moment—were throwing mud at each other with a tremendous sense of purpose. They came running over to Alma as one slippery, muddy, laughing mass. It amused them to see the white lady standing on their beach in the middle of a rainstorm in her soggy dress, getting drenched before their eyes. It was good entertainment, and it cost them nothing.
    Alma drew the boys near and spoke to them in a mixture of Tahitian, English, and passionate hand gestures. Later, she would not remember quite how she managed to present the idea, but her central message had been this: ’ Tis the season for adventure, lads! She asked them if they knewthe places in the center of the island where Sister Manu did not like people of the settlement to go. Did they know all of the forbidden places, where the cliff people dwelled, and where the most remote heathen villages could be found? Would they like to take Sister Whittaker there, on some grand adventures?
    Would they? Why, of course they would! It was such a diverting notion that they started off that very day. In fact, they started off immediately, and Alma followed them without hesitation. Without shoes, without maps, without food, without—heaven forfend— umbrellas , the boys led Alma straight up into the hills beyond the mission settlement, far from the safe little coastal villages she had already explored on her own. Straight up they went, into the fog, into the rain clouds, into the jungle peaks that Alma had first seen from the deck of the Elliot , and which had appeared so fearsome and alien to her at the time. Up they went—and not only on this day, either, but every single day for the next month. Each day, they explored ever more remote trails and ever more wild destinations, often in the driving rain, and always with Alma Whittaker on their heels.
    At first Alma worried she would not be able to keep up with them, but soon enough she realized two things: that her years of botanical collecting had rendered her exceptionally fit, and that these children were rather sweetly considerate of their guest’s limitations. They slowed down for Alma at particularly perilous spots, and did not ask her to leap across deep crevasses as they did, or scale wet cliffs by hand, as they could with easy proficiency. Sometimes the Hiro contingent got behind her on a particularly steep climb and pushed her up rather ignobly, with their hands on her broad bottom, but Alma didn’t mind: they were merely trying to help. They were generous with her. They cheered when she made ascents, and if night fell while they were still deep in the jungle, they held her hands as they guided her back toward the safety of the mission. On these dark walks, they taught her warrior chants in Tahitian—the songs that men sing, to summon courage in the face of danger.
    The Tahitians were known across the South Seas as deft climbers and fearless hikers (Alma had heard of islanders who could march thirty miles a day through this inaccessible terrain without faltering), but Alma was not one to falter, either—not when she was on a hunt, and she felt strongly that this was the hunt of her life. This was her best chance to find The Boy. If hewas still anywhere on this island, these tireless children would track him down.
    Alma’s increasingly long absences from the mission did not go unnoticed.
    When sweet Sister Etini asked Alma at last, with a worried face, where she was spending her days, Alma said simply, “I am hunting for mosses, with the help of your five most able-bodied young naturalists!”
    Nobody doubted her, for it was the perfect season for moss. Alma, indeed, spotted all manner of intriguing bryophytes on the stones and trees that they passed, but she did not pause to look closely. The mosses would always be there; she was looking for something more ephemeral, more urgent: a man. A man who knew secrets. To find him, she had to move in Human Time.
    The boys, for their part, loved this unexpected game of leading the peculiar old lady all over Tahiti, to see all that was forbidden and to meet the most remote of peoples. They took Alma to abandoned temples and to sinister-looking caves, where human bones could still be