Flora, by aaron

Story by aaronmv2k6

This one's gonna be more action-y than my previous stuff. This will probably be my longest one so far, I could easily see this going at least 8-10 chapters with the plot I've written.

Flora

by aaron

Prologue

Excerpts from the diary of Andrew Salz (1898-1960)

March 27, 1935

"...It has been nearly a month since my arrival in the Amazon Basin, and initial contact with the tribe has gone well. Their language appears to a dialect of Arawakan which I am thankfully familiar with..."

April 18, 1935

"...It has been some time since my last entry, but much has happened in the last two weeks. I will start at the beginning. Some ten days ago, I came across a young mother and her child, no more than a year old. Though I am no medical doctor, I knew the mother would soon be dead: her chest was pierced by a single arrow, and the shaking of her body could mean only one thing: the arrowhead was poisoned, likely with curare. Her garments marked her as an outsider, and I knew the life of her child, and my own, were forfeit were I to bring her to the village. Through her suffering, she saw me and called to me. With her last breath, she pressed the child into my arms and uttered the following in her native tongue:

'Protect her'

There was little I could do, so I returned to my camp, child in arms. I have since decided to leave South America prematurely. If I am to honor her wish, I feel I must return home. Rebecca will be overjoyed to have a child; through all my efforts to comfort her, I know our inability to concieve has been the source of much grief for her..."

May 10, 1935

"...Since my return to the comforts of our home, I have been able to give more thought to something that has puzzled me to no end; the child's necklace. It is quite a curious affair. The necklace is adorned with a single piece of white stone. At first, one might be persuaded to believe it was an arrowhead, save for the tip. The point has been ground into a crescent moon shape. While this gives the piece a rather sinister quality, I am sure it was not used as a weapon. My efforts to research it have been fruitless; the design is like nothing I have seen in my studies. My colleagues at Columbia University have fared no better. I have attempted to scrape off a sample from the piece, in an attempt to identify the type of stone used, but it is too hard for my instruments to even scratch... Even stranger is our child's attachment to it: Each time I have taken it out of her sight to study it, she has cried incessantly. While Rebecca has her misgivings about the matter, I have decided our child will keep the necklace; it is the only link to her past. On a less serious note, Rebecca and I have decided on a name: Olivia..."

Chapter 1

Present Day

The warm, humid air clung to her like a funeral shroud. The sounds of forest life were all around her, alien, but somehow familiar. And then there were the drums. Sometimes as quiet as the patter of raindrops on leaves, sometimes as deafening as a torrential downpour. The drums increased in tempo, and her heart began to beat faster. She was drawn to the source of the drumming, both afraid and entranced by it.

Violet shot up off her bed, panting. Even in the cool morning air, her face and body shone with sweat. She wiped her brow, and reached for her glasses on the dresser. She put them on, and the details of her room shot into focus. Violet changed out of her sweaty pajamas, and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Today was a Sunday, the day after her 16th birthday, and Violet hopped downstairs, giving her mom, Rosemary, a quick hug.

"Morning, Mom" she said.

"Morning, Violet. You sleep okay?"

"Um, okay I quess..."

Her mother stopped for a moment. "You had that dream again...The one about the jungle, right?" Violet nodded. Her mother walked to the fridge and pulled a carton of milk out. "You aren't doing anything today, are you?"

Violet shook her head. "No, just finishing up homework. Why?"

"I, uh...have something for you. I was going to give it to you yesterday, but with everything so hectic, I decided to do it today instead." The two of them sat down to breakfast, and after cleaning up, Rosemary went up to her room to fetch that "something". During the wait, Violet pondered her dream. It was always the same, but Violet could never remember how it ended; just as she felt she was reaching the source of the drumming, the dream would end and she would wake up. Finally, her mother came down the stairs and handed a necklace to her, adorned with a single piece of cut stone. Violet held it up to the light.

"Looks kind like an arrowhead."

"No...not exactly. You remember me telling you about your great-grandfather?"

"Yeah. He was an anthropologist from Columbia University in New York, and he studied under Franz Boas. His areas of expertise were the indigenous tribes of the Amazon Basin."

Her mother nodded. "On one of his expeditions, he came across a little girl and her mother. The mother t

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