Riley shivered. It was the first time Annabel had indicated she thought something was amiss as well. That moved Riley's fanciful notions from ridiculous right back into the realm of reality. Her mother was always calm, always practical. If she thought something was wrong, then it was.
A bird sounded in the forest on the riverbank, the noise traveling clearly across the open water. To lighten her mother's suddenly troubled mood, Riley cupped her hands around her mouth and repeated the call. She didn't get the delighted laughter she'd hoped for but her mother did smile and pat her hand.
"That's totally freaky how you can do that." Don Weston had left off slapping at bugs and was now staring at her like she was some carnival sideshow. "Can you imitate anything?"
Despite her dislike of the man, Riley shrugged. "Most things. Some people have photographic memories that let them remember anything they see or read. I call what I have 'phonographic' memory. I can remember and repeat virtually any sound I hear. That's one of the reasons I went into linguistics."
"That's quite a talent," Gary Jansen remarked.
"Isn't it?" Annabel slid an arm around Riley's waist. "When she was little, she used to imitate crickets chirping inside the house just to watch me go crazy trying to find them. And heaven help her father if he slipped up and used language he shouldn't in front of her. She could repeat it perfectly, right down to the pitch of his voice."
Riley's heart dropped at the sorrow and love in her mother's tone. She forced a little laugh. "I was also good at mimicking my teachers, the ones I wasn't particularly fond of," she volunteered with a small, mischievous grin. "I could call from school and tell Mom just what a wonderful student I was." Now her mother did laugh, and the sound filled Riley with relief.
To Riley, Annabel was beautiful. She was of medium height, slender, with dark wavy hair and darker eyes, flawless Spanish skin and a smile that made everyone around her want to smile. Riley was much taller, with bone-straight blue-black hair that grew almost overnight no matter how many times she cut it. She was very curvy, with high cheekbones and pale, nearly translucent skin. Her eyes were large and the color was nearly impossible to define-green, brown, Florentine gold. Her mother always said she was a throwback to a long-dead ancestor.
To her knowledge, her mother had never been sick a day in her life. She had no wrinkles, and Riley had never seen a single gray hair on her head. But now, for the first time, Riley saw vulnerability in her mother's eyes, and that was as unsettling as the crackling in the air signaling a coming storm. Riley's father had died only two weeks ago, and in their family, husband and wife rarely lived for very long without one another. Riley was determined to stick close to her mother. She could already sense Annabel pulling away, becoming more despondent by the day, but Riley was determined not to lose her. Not to grief, and not to whatever was hunting them on this trip.
Early morning had seen the last of the main river; the two boats were now traveling up a tributary toward their destination. In the reed-choked waters, the ever-present insects were getting worse by the moment. Clouds of bugs continually assaulted them. More rushed toward the boat as if scenting fresh blood. Weston and Shelton both went into a frenzy of cursing and slapping at exposed skin, although they both remembered to keep their mouths firmly closed after eating a mouthful of bugs. Ben Charger and the two researchers endured the insects stoically, following the example set by their guide and the porters.
The locals in their party didn't bother to even slap at the bugs as the pearly cloud descended en masse. Riley could see the boat ahead and they were even closer to the shore, yet as far as she could tell, the bugs hadn't attacked anyone aboard. Behind her, Annabel let out a soft startled cry. Riley spun around to find her mother completely enveloped in the cloud of insects. They'd abandoned everyone else and every inch of Annabel's body was covered with what appeared to be tiny flakes of moving snow.
La Manta Blanca. Tiny midges. Some said tiny mosquitoes. Riley had never researched them, but she'd certainly felt their bites. They blazed like fire and afterward, the itch drove one crazy. Once scratched and open, the little bites became an invitation for infection. She dragged a blanket off the flat board seat and threw it over her mother, trying to smash the little bugs as she took her mother to the floor of the boat, rolling her as if she was putting out a fire.
"Get it off of her," Gary Jansen called. "You won't get them all that way."
He crouched down beside Annabel and yanked at the blanket. Annabel rolled back and forth, her hands covering her face, the insects attached to every bit of exposed skin, clinging to her hair and clothes. Many were smashed from Riley's efforts. She continued to slap at them, trying to save her mother from further bites.
Jubal snatched up a bucket of water and threw it over Annabel, brushing at the insects to get them off of her. The porters immediately added buckets of water, dousing her again and again, while Gary, Jubal and Riley scraped the soaked insects from her with the blanket. Ben eventually crouched down beside her and helped to pick the bugs from her skin.
Annabel shuddered violently, but she didn't make a sound. Her skin turned bright red, as a thousand tiny bites swelled into fiery blisters. Gary rummaged through a satchel he carried and drew out a small vial. He began smearing the clear liquid over the bites. It wasn't a small job as there were so many. Jubal held Annabel's arms pinned so that she couldn't scratch at the maddening itch spreading like waves across her body.
Riley clutched her mother's hand tightly, murmuring nonsense. Her previous suspicions came roaring back to life. The tiny little midges had gone straight for her mother. There was no one more attuned to the rain forest than Annabel. Plants grew abundant and lush around her. She whispered to them and they seemed to whisper back, embracing her as if she were Mother Earth. When her mother walked through the backyard at their home in California, Riley was fairly certain she could see the plants growing right in front of her. For the forest to begin attacking her, something was terribly wrong.
Annabel gripped Riley's hand tightly as the two researchers lifted her to her feet and helped her stumble back to their sleeping area made private by the sheets and netting hung across thin ropes.
"Thank you," Riley said to the two men. She was all too aware of the stunned silence out on deck. She wasn't the only one to notice that the white bugs had attacked her mother and no one else after their initial swarm. Even those knocked from her body had struggled to their feet and crawled toward her as if programmed to do so.