The howler monkeys had been right to laugh when he said he…

““The howler monkeys had been right to laugh when he said he wasn’t going back. He had turned downriver again almost at once to fetch Maia, and he had made good time, traveling with the current--but he had come too late. Finn went outside again and stood on the square of raked gravel that had been the Carters’ garden. His mind seemed to have stopped working. He had no idea what to do. Should he go in to Manaus and see if he could find anything out--from the hospital perhaps? After a while he found himself walking back along the river path to where he had left the Arabella. As he came to the fork in the path which led back into the forest, the dog put his head down excitedly into a patch of leaf mold. Finn pushed him aside and saw a smear of blood…and then a little way off, another…and another. He almost fell over her, she lay so still, hidden in the leaves and creepers, almost as if she had burrowed into the forest to die. But she was not dead. She lay stunned, still in her nightdress, breathing lightly with closed eyes. The blood came from a gash in her leg. He could see no burns on her skin. She must have fainted from loss of blood. Then, when he said her name, she opened her eyes. One hand went out to his sleeve. “Can we go now?” she whispered. And he answered. “Yes.””

— Eva Ibbotson