Free Kingdom of the Golden Dragon by Isabel Allende

pushed him away, wiped off the kiss, and invited him for a soda, because they had two hours to kill before taking off for London on their way to New Delhi. Alex followed her to the clubroom for frequent flyers. The writer, who traveled often, at least allowed herself that luxury. Kate showed her card and they went in. Then, only nine feet away, he saw the surprise his grandmother had prepared for him: Nadia Santos.
    Alex gave a shout, dropped his backpack, andopened his arms impulsively, but immediately contained himself, embarrassed. Nadia, too, blushed and hesitated a minute, not knowing how to act before this person who suddenly seemed like a stranger. She didn’t remember his being so tall, and in addition his face had changed, his features were sharper. Finally happiness overcame confusion, and she ran and threw herself against her friend’s chest. Alexander found that Nadia hadn’t grown at all during those months; she was still the same ethereal little girl, honey-colored from head to toe, with a ring of parrot feathers holding back her curly hair.
    As she waited for her vodka at the bar, Kate pretended to be giving all her attention to a magazine. The two friends, overjoyed at being reunited after their long separation and at starting off together on a new adventure, kept murmuring each other’s totemic name: Jaguar . . . Eagle . . .
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    The idea of inviting Nadia to come along on the trip had been in Kate’s head for months. She kept in touch with César Santos, the girl’s father, because he was supervising the programs of the Diamond Foundation in their effort to preserve the native forests and indigenous cultures of the Amazon. Santos knew the region better than anyone; he was the perfect man for that job. Through him, Kate learned that the People of the Mist, whose leader was a colorful and ancient woman named Iyomi, showed signs of adapting rapidly to the changes they were being forced to make. Iyomi had decided to send four young people—two boys and two girls—to Manaos to study. She wanted them to learn the customs of the nahab , as her people called anyone who was not an Indian, so they could serve as a link between the two cultures.
    While the rest of the tribe stayed in the jungle, living off what they hunted and fished, the fourrepresentatives were dropped right into the middle of the twenty-first century. As soon as they got used to wearing clothes and had mastered a basic vocabulary in Portuguese, they threw themselves valiantly into learning “the magic of the nahab ,” beginning with two formidable inventions: matches and buses. In fewer than six months, they had learned of the existence of computers, and at the rate they were going, according to César Santos, one day in the not too distant future they would be able to engage in cutthroat combat with the feared lawyers of corporations that were exploiting the Amazon. As Iyomi had said: “There are many kinds of warriors.”
    Kate told César Santos that it was important to let his daughter come visit her. She argued that just as Iyomi had sent the young people to study in Manaos, he ought to send Nadia to New York. The girl was old enough now to leave Santa María de la Lluvia and see something of the world. It was all very well to live with nature and to know the ways of the Beasts and the Indians, but his daughter should also be receiving a formal education. A couple of months in civilization would be very good for her, the writer maintained. Secretly, she was hoping that a temporary separation would ease César Santos’s mind, and then maybe in the near future he would decide to send his daughter to the United States to study.
    For the first time in her life, Kate was willing to be responsible for someone. She hadn’t taken responsibility even with her own son, John, who after her divorce had lived with his father. Her work as a journalist, her trips,