Goddammit. Why doesn’t she ever listen?
But as she reached the top of the trunk, she lifted her arms, grabbing on to a vine that hung from a tree on the other side. And like she’d practiced so many times, she swung from the vine and landed feet first at the edge of the ravine with a thud, like a fucking superstar.
“Let’s see Vautour and his crew do that!” she said with a wide grin.
He ran over and kissed her. “Please tell me you don’t do things this risky when you’re back home.”
“Would it change anything if I did?”
Rafa smiled. “Absolutely not.” He kissed her again, this time with more passion than the last.God, I love this woman.
The realization hit him like a refreshing blast of warm, tropical air. He could spend a lifetime kissing her. A new life that he wanted to start as soon as they got the hell out of this jungle.
“Look, here,” she said, locating a stone with a circular indentation at the edge of the cliff where the vine bridge had ended. She placed the medallion in the spot, and the arrow pointed northwest. “Come on. We’ve got to be getting close to the porta do coração da árvore.” The last landmark.
As they distanced themselves from the ravine, they pulled out their flashlights. With the vine bridge destroyed, it would be hard for Vautour and his team to make it over to the other side. Miri was right. Rafa doubted his father would be swinging from vines the way she had. It would take them a long time to cross, if they were able to at all.
The only landmark remaining on the list was the entrance: a door through a tree. They kept straight, consulting the compass to ensure they were going the right direction. Climbing over rocks. Dragging their feet through muck. Ferns whipping them in the face as they tried passing through.
They held their hands in front of them, swatting away leaves and branches as they made their way deeper into the forest, when suddenly, a thick wall of foliage blocked their passage. An impenetrable wall. There was no skirting around it. No getting through. This wall was made of thick tree trunks, spanning as far as the eye could see.
Miri ran her hand along the lush covering, looking for a way through before she stopped at one tree in particular. She ran her hands along its thick bark. Tracing every curvature with her hand. Feeling it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. This one feels…different. Not like a tree. More like stone.”
She pushed on the tree, and it gave way.
A door.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Miri stepped through the doorwaybetween the trees. Once through, her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and she froze, staring at the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen.
A ten-foot-tall, countless-feet-long wall made of rough-cut bluish stone blocks that sparkled under the moonlight in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. A wall that would have likely crumbled long ago if not held together by the roots and vines growing up and over it. And positioned before them, an entry made of two dilapidated wooden doors barely hanging on to their hinges.
The Cidade da Lua.
“Holy shit,” Rafa said, coming up beside her.
“Told you so.” She looked over at him and smirked. She’d done it. She’d found the Moon City.
Dr. Miriam Jacobs. Nobody extraordinaire.
“Should we go inside?”
She nodded and took his hand. They walked tentatively toward the wall and pushed through the gate. Beyond theentrance, structures made from the same glistening blue stone lined the city. Some sort of luminescent gemstone, no doubt. Lapis lazuli, perhaps? Or hackmanite? Miri was no minerology expert, but whatever it was, it was exquisite.
The rainforest had not been gentle on the city, however. Although it appeared untouched by humans for centuries, the buildings suffered from weather erosion and an invasion of plants. Smaller structures, likely the homes of the villagers, made of materials like wattle and daub, had all but crumbled near the city’s entrance. The larger structures toward the center of the almost-square-mile area constructed out of the luminescent stone seemed to have fared better, although a full-scale excavation would almost certainly involve reconstruction. Reconstruction that would inevitably involve assumptions, guessing, and interpretations.
It was larger than she had imagined, although much of the space in the middle remained an open thoroughfare toward a temple at the center of the city. A ball court, perhaps? Or a place for celebrations? It was hard to tell given the condition of the many buildings dotting the vicinity, but based on Miri’s research experience, an area this size could have likely housed a few hundred people in its heyday, providing everything its residents needed and more. An amphitheater. Terraces for gardens. The structures shared foundational characteristics reminiscent of those from other ancient civilizations, such as the Inca.
But this city was distinctly not Inca. The Inca hadn’t made it as far as Brazil.
The city wasn’t as grand or opulent as those found in other ancient civilizations. There was no giant temple like the one found in Tikal breaking through the tree canopy. Nor was it a city like Machu Picchu, ascending high above the clouds.Perhaps that was the reason the city had gone undetected for so many years. But its simplicity was breathtakingly beautiful.
