and Gabriel was there and … oh Daddy, it worked! Just hearing my voice, and speaking again, has taken hours to get it right, but whatever they did …”
“What? What did they do?” Mason trembled, glancing from his daughter to his son, trying to make any sense of this turn of events. A minute ago he had been ready to tear this place apart, to single-handedly strangle anyone who got in his way of rescuing Shelby, but now it seemed he may have misjudged everything. “You were taken last night, kidnapped.…”
Shelby shook her head. “No, I … don’t remember exactly. Just a dream, running out into the thunderstorm, feeling out of my body somehow, and Gabriel was there and we were fighting like when we were kids, just playing really. Pretend stuff, and then I must have fallen asleep again. I woke up here. They had given me some kind of tea, and then I noticed a paste in my ears, something clumpy and wet and really smelly. So foul I almost gagged. And then I heard it—a ringing, then a throbbing, and then the paste crumbled and fell off, and this man with red hair and deep green eyes said something, and at first I thought he was some kind of priest or healer, but then he gave me a hug and walked away. And Daddy,” she smiled, “I could hear his footsteps in the earth. And the buzzing I thought was from my head was coming from honey bees, and I heard chirping and the trickling stream, and then Gabriel’s voice!”
She smiled at her brother as he approached, and she held out a hand to him. “It was just about the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, next to your own voice, of course, Daddy. It’s just like I remembered when I was a child. So amazing to hear it again, finally.”
“Shelby …”
“Dad.” Gabriel came closer, put one hand on Shelby’s shoulder while resting on his cane with the other. He wore loose-fitting beige khakis and a sports coat over a black t-shirt, and his head was shaved even closer than earlier. His thin lips spread into a smile like the carved grin of a totem-pole animal. “Sorry to scare you like that, but it was the only way.”
“Scare me? Jesus Christ, son. I almost had the FBI down here to shoot you all on sight.”
Gabriel just shook his head. “Like I said, it was the only way to try out this cure.”
“What was it?” Shelby asked.
“Something,” said Gabriel, “our father wouldn’t have allowed.”
“Why do you say that?” Mason felt his anger boiling. “If you …” he glanced around. “If this place, your company has this kind of medical capacity …”
“We don’t, Dad. Not exactly. As I said, we’re into environmental protection, law and regulation, but we also have an extensive R&D lab, where we invest heavily in developing natural cures from around the world, especially from endangered locations where we feel remote tribes might lose their ancient knowledge to pollution and extinction. We step in quickly to capture their secrets and preserve that wisdom. Including any plants, herbs and techniques that might otherwise have been eradicated without consideration.”
“You’re saying this was a tribal recipe from some Amazon rainforest?”
“Guatemala, actually,” Gabriel said. “We heard about it years ago and spent months and millions of dollars testing it in our facilities here and in the field. All under the radar of the restrictive FDA. I hope you’ll agree it’s worth it.”
“My God, Gabriel. What if there are side effects?”
“We tested it, thoroughly. Like I said, we were confident.”
“But why not just offer the cure up to the medical community? Let them document it, test it and verify the results? And pay you for it?”
Gabriel’s expression darkened. “Let one of the vile pharmaceutical corporations get their hands on it, claim all the credit and then march down and ravage the jungles and the people for the cure? No way.”
“But, there’s so much potential.…” He stared at Shelby, still marveling that she had been cured, his deepest wish all these years come true.
“In due time.”
“Time? Gabriel, there are people suffering.”
“People will always suffer, Dad. That’s their nature. They’ll still be suffering if and when this cure is made public. You must be patient.”
Shelby moved in, took Mason’s hand. “Dad, it worked. I can hear, and I’m so happy again. I can’t wait to see Mom and tell her.”
“I can arrange for you to be taken home now,” Gabriel said. “But Dad