Valentina's Uncle and the Disappearing Trees

Valentina's uncle was named Rodrigo, and he was, Valentina explained over breakfast the following morning while the rest of the school group was still in their rooms, a forest ecologist who had been conducting an unofficial study of a particular section of the cloud forest for the past two years. Unofficial because his formal research permit covered a different area, and because what he had found in this section of forest was something he had not yet decided how to report.

"What had he found?" Seren asked.

Valentina wrapped her hands around her juice glass. "You know what deforestation looks like from above, yes? Satellite images, patches of cleared land. The cloud forest here has been protected for thirty years. It's a national reserve. The satellite images show it intact." She paused.

"But Rodrigo found sections of the interior that do not match the satellite images. Areas where the canopy is intact but the understorey has been stripped. Where indicator species have disappeared. Where the soil composition has changed in ways consistent with extraction activity."

"Someone is taking things from the forest without clearing it," Seren said slowly. "Leaving the canopy intact so it looks fine from above."

"Taking plants," said Valentina. "Specific ones. Rare epiphytes, particular orchid species, bromeliads with unusual characteristics. The kind of plants that are sold to collectors and botanical gardens and pharmaceutical researchers. There is a significant illegal trade." She looked at Seren steadily. "The counter on Rodrigo's weather station display. It is not measuring weather. It is a motion sensor. It counts the number of times something passes through a particular section of the forest."

Seren thought about this. "He's tracking how often people are using that path."

"He told me, three weeks ago, that the numbers had increased significantly. That he believed the extraction was intensifying. And that he was close to having enough data to make a formal report." Valentina looked at her glass. "He was supposed to come home four days ago. He has not come home. My aunt has contacted the park authorities and they say they will look into it, but so far nothing."

Seren set her juice glass down. "He could be in the forest. Deliberately staying out to gather more data."

"He could be," said Valentina. "But he always tells my aunt if he is going to be out overnight.

Always."

"Then we need to go to the shelter."

Valentina looked at her. "I have been trying to get to it for two days. I know roughly where it is, but I don't know the exact location and the path is not marked on any public map."

"I know where it is," said Seren. "I can take you there."

They were in the forest before seven, signed out on the lodge's activity register as an early birdwatching session, which was a legitimate activity and which Valentina's participation made entirely plausible. The mist was heavy and the forest was loud with morning birds, and Seren led the way confidently, retracing the previous day's route with the help of her compass bearing and the photographs she had taken.

She found the junction in the main trail and the narrow path behind the Heliconia, and they went down together.

Rodrigo's shelter was exactly as Seren had left it. The weather station was still running, the notebook still in its ziplock bag. Valentina went straight to the notebook and opened it with the familiarity of someone who had seen her uncle's handwriting all her life.

The most recent entry was four days ago. Valentina read it in silence and then translated for Seren, whose Spanish was not good enough for the technical vocabulary.

"He had located what he believed was a staging area," she said. "A point in the forest where extracted plants were being held before removal. He had identified a route used by the extraction team, a path that connected the interior of the reserve to a point on the reserve boundary where access was possible by vehicle." She turned the page. "He says he is going to confirm the location of the staging area and then come out. He says he will be one more day." She looked up.

"That was four days ago."

Seren looked around the shelter. Everything was neat and in order. Nothing suggested a sudden departure or a problem. But nothing suggested he had been back since that final entry either.

She looked at the motion sensor display. Since the last notebook entry, four days ago, it had recorded forty-seven passages through the monitored section of forest.

"That's a lot of movement," she said.

"Yes," said Valentina quietly.

Seren thought carefully. They were two teenagers, alone in a forest, looking for a man who had gone missing while investigating illegal activity. The sensible thing was to go back to the lodge, tell an adult, and let the appropriate people handle it.

But the appropriate people had been told four days ago and had done nothing. And the motion sensor had recorded forty-seven passages in those four days, which meant that whatever was happening in this section of forest was continuing, was active, was not going to stop while people waited for official channels to move.

She thought about what Rodrigo had described: a staging area, a route out of the reserve. If he had found those things and something had gone wrong, he might be at the staging area, or between the staging area and the shelter.

She looked at Valentina. "Is there anything in those notes about which direction the staging area was?"

Valentina turned back through the notebook. "He mentions following a secondary watercourse.

He says it runs south-east from the main stream. He says the staging area is at a natural clearing where the watercourse broadens." She looked up. "He drew a small sketch."

She held up the notebook. The sketch was simple: a rough map showing the shelter, the main stream, the secondary watercourse running south-east, and an X in a small circle marked with the word bodega, which Seren knew meant store or warehouse.

It was perhaps a kilometre from the shelter, through forest that was getting denser and lower in elevation.

Seren looked at the sketch. She looked at Valentina.

"We go together," she said. "We don't approach the clearing. We locate it, we check if Rodrigo is there, and if we see any sign of him we call for help immediately. If we don't find him, we go straight back to the lodge and we tell everything to the trip leader and we do not wait for the park authority."

Valentina nodded. "Agreed."

They followed the main stream south-east until the secondary watercourse branched off to the left, exactly as described, and followed that through increasingly dense vegetation for about eight hundred metres before Valentina stopped and held up her hand.

From somewhere ahead, not far, came the sound of voices. Low, male, and accompanied by the sound of something heavy being moved.