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“It’s the manchineel tree,” Captain Smith says when things have quieted down.

We had eaten the fruit of the manchineel, the world’s deadliest tree.

You allow Celeste and James to survive their manchineel intake with a little burning sensation and vomiting—nothing too serious.

When I was researching the manchineel online, I found some pretty terrifying message boards and read about people who had eaten several whole fruits, even one young woman who had to have a pacemaker installed after eating the apple.

But such experiences are not that uncommon as vacations go, so it wasn’t until I discovered the prune de Cythère and its strange kinship with the manchineel that I saw the rough outlines of a story.