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 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either

the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2012 by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Cover photograph of road © ilker canikligil, shutterstock.com;

cover photograph of center girl © airportrait, istockphoto.com;

cover photograph of far right girl © iñaki antoñana plaza, istockphoto.com;

other silhouettes © Tulay Over; clay adorno butterflies (reference for Aztec

butterfly in jacket art) catalog number 30.2/9231 courtesy of the Division

of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History.

Mariposa definition on opposite page loosely based on online information

referencing the following sources: Sheena Morgan, The Real Halloween;

Dr. Carlos Beutelspacvher, “Las Mariposas entre los Antiguos Mexicanos”

(Butterflies of Ancient Mexico), 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form

or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc.

95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

leeandlow.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

by Worzalla Publishing Company, October 2012

Book design by Isaac Stewart

Book production by The Kids at Our House

eBook conversion by Ugly Dog Digital

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCall, Guadalupe Garcia.

Summer of the mariposas / Guadalupe Garcia McCall. — 1st ed.

p. cm.
 Summary: In an adventure reminiscent of Homer’s Odyssey, fifteen-year-old Odilia and her four younger sisters embark on a

journey to return a dead man to his family in Mexico, aided by La Llorona, but impeded by a witch, a warlock, chupacabras, and

more.

ISBN 978-1-60060-900-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) —

ISBN 978-1-62014-010-9 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-60060-901-5 (e-book)

[1. Adventure and adventurers--Fiction. 2. Sisters--Fiction. 3. Llorona (Legendary character)--Fiction. 4. Supernatural--Fiction. 5.

Dead--Fiction. 6. Mexican Americans--Texas--Fiction. 7. Family life--Texas--Fiction. 8. Texas--Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M47833752Sum 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2012014845

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mariposa (mah-ree-PO-sah)

from the Spanish, mariposa, the apocopate Mari- (Mary in English) and posa (to rest or
repose)

Butterfly. Mariposas are slender, delicate insects with four wide, colorful
wings. In almost every culture, butterflies are associated with
transformation. The Aztecs held the butterfly, papalotl, in high regard and
had a special celebration to welcome the migrating monarchs in early
August every year. They believed that mariposas were the cheerful souls of
their loved ones, the angels of women and children, their fallen warriors,
their ancestors, returning home transformed to assure them that they were
well and that life, however brief, was beautiful.

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 TABLE
of
CONTENTS

PART I: THE DEPARTURE

Prologue: El Cazo/The Pot
Chapter 1 La Calavera/The Skull
Chapter 2 El Pájaro/The Bird
Chapter 3 La Estrella/The Star
Chapter 4 El Venado/The Deer
Chapter 5 El Mundo/The World
Chapter 6 La Mano/The Hand

PART II: THE INITIATION

Chapter 7 El Árbol/The Tree
Chapter 8 La Sirena/The Mermaid
Chapter 9 La Araña/The Spider
Chapter 10 La Garza/The Heron
Chapter 11 El Alacrán/The Scorpion
Chapter 12 La Muerte/The Death
Chapter 13 Las Jaras/The Arrows
Chapter 14 El Diablito/The Little Devil
Chapter 15 La Dama/The Lady

PART III: THE RETURN

Chapter 16 El Nopal/The Cactus
Chapter 17 La Chalupa/The Canoe
Chapter 18 El Corazón/The Heart
Chapter 19 El Músico/The Musician
Chapter 20 La Rosa/The Rose
Chapter 21 La Corona/The Crown
Chapter 22 La Luna/The Moon
Author’s Note
Glossary
Acknowledgments
About the Author

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 To my cinco hermanitas
whom I love con todo mi corazón:
Alicia, Virginia, Diamantina, Angelica, y Roxana
the Garcia girls, together forever —
no matter what!

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 PART I
THE DEPARTURE
In which my younger sisters and I find a drowned man in the Rio Grande
and how, with La Llorona as our mystical guide, we take a trip across the
Eagle Pass border to return him to his family in El Sacrificio, Coahuila,
Mexico.

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 PROLOGUE
EL CAZO: “Hazme caso o te caso con un sapo.”

THE POT: “Listen to me or I will make you marry a toad.”

— a play on the multiple meanings of the word caso
(pay attention and wed/marry)

Almost a year after our father left the house, never to be heard from again,
the long, miserable drought ended in Texas. The heavy summer rains had
more than enchanted everyone; the days that followed had brought forth a
most unexpected, spectacular surprise. To our delight, an unusually large
brood of American Snout butterflies swarmed Eagle Pass by the billions.
Indiscriminate in taste, the mariposas flittered over cultivated gardens
as happily as they danced over thorn-ridden lots and neglected fields. To
them, nothing was safe, nothing was sacred.
Because they were everywhere, clinging to freshly scrubbed laundry on
clothes lines, or stuck to the bottom of well-heeled shoes, the butterflies
were on everyone’s most wanted list, including Mamá’s. She hated
sweeping their brown, dusty corpses out of her kitchen and off her porch,
but she especially hated how they followed her everywhere like a dark little
cloud.
That same summer, Mamá stopped being a housewife. After admitting
to herself that Papá wasn’t going to send any more money, she’d done the
responsible thing and gone out and found her very first job.
 As for us, we tried staying indoors and playing Lotería like Mamá
instructed. It was difficult, however, because to play Lotería we needed a
caller, un cantor, and Papá had always been ours. A good cantor can recite
the traditional riddles for all fifty-four cards in the Lotería by heart as he
reveals each card to the players. Riddles like “El caso que te hago es poco”
were all right, but to keep things interesting Papá had always altered the
riddles and personalized them to fit our family. We’d squirm and giggle
with joy and excitement every time a new riddle featured one of us. One
day, however, right before he left, Papá made up a particularly ominous
riddle.
“La Sirena,” he called, holding up the card for The Mermaid. “La
mujer who wants to take your Papá away! No! We won’t let her!”
My parents were like any other parents; they bickered and made up all
the time. But that day the riddle upset Mamá so much that the fight it stirred
up between them soured the game for Papá. From then on, we played
Lotería as a family with less and less frequency. So it was no surprise that
after he left, we lost interest in playing the game altogether.
The summer of the mariposas, we abandoned our beloved Lotería for
good, neglected our chores, and went completely wild. We cared for no one
but each other, not even Mamá. Because we were always unsupervised, we
finally had the freedom to do whatever we wanted, wherever we wanted,
whenever we wanted.
On rainy days, I’d read a book and watch the girls as they played in the
crowded shed behind our house. But on scorching summer days, when the
pavement was so hot you couldn’t sit on it, they made aluminum bracelets
and arm cuffs out of the bottoms of soda cans they rubbed against hot
cement sidewalks. Sometimes, they even costumed themselves with dusty
curtains and old tablecloths, scissoring through the faded fabric with
Mamá’s gardening shears or tearing them apart with their bare hands. And
when Mamá would get upset because we weren’t helping, we’d whine and
then scrub out a pan or two before we’d take off again. Honestly, there was
just too much fun to be had to pay her any mind.
Some days, we’d hike the hills beyond El Indio Highway, following the
swarm of mariposas. They’d become our dusky shadows, our companions,
as much a part of us as we were to each other. Most days, however, we rode
our bikes as far away from home as we could get, a flighty brood of the tiny
butterflies straggling behind us. With our chubby little sister, Pita, sitting
precariously on the handlebars of my bike, we pedaled down to the river,
rode through one of the large gaps in the eleven-foot border fence, and
swam for hours at a time without drinking or eating anything more than the
watermelons we chilled in the bank of our river.
The waters of the Rio Grande were unruly and loud, but we had found
an alcove far off El Indio Highway, a pebbled niche where the current
swirled in peacefully and stayed for a while, as if to rest from its long,
draining journey over boulders and through canyons all the way from
California down to our miniature bay in Eagle Pass. There it pooled,
relaxed, cleansed itself, and bubbled into laughter at the sheer joy of having
us in its midst. We splashed around in that cold, clear water like river
nymphs, born to swim and bathe till the end of days. It was a magical time,
full of dreaminess and charm, a time to watch the mariposas emerge out of
their cocoons, gather their courage, and take flight while we floated faceup
in the water. And that’s exactly what we were doing the morning the body
of a dead man drifted into our swimming haven.

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LA CALAVERA: “La calavera del muerto
está en su huerto.”

THE SKULL: “The skull of the dead man

is in his grove.”

Juanita reacted first. Being fourteen and only second oldest, she didn’t
usually take charge. But when she felt the corpse floating beside her, she
started pulling Pita out of the water as if she were a sopping Raggedy Ann
doll.
“Holy shiitake mushrooms!” the twins, Velia and Delia, shouted in
unison, frozen in place by the sight of the body bobbing up and down and
side to side only a few feet away from us.
I shrieked the way Mamá would have if she’d been there with us. “Get
out! Get out! Get out!” Grasping only the sleeve of Velia’s shirt, I yanked
her toward me with all my might.
“Odilia!” she complained. “Let go of me!”
“Get out of the water! Now!”
“Okay! Fine. But I thought you were yelling at him,” she defended
herself.
I pushed her and Delia ahead of me. “Why would I be yelling at him?
He’s dead!” We stood, all five of us, drenched with fear on the bank of the
river, staring wildly at the first cadaver we’d ever seen in our lives.
 It was spooky, like seeing a ghost floating facedown in the water. His
dark hair was long for a man. His thick tresses floated loosely around his
head like the black tentacles of a sea monster.
“We should call someone.” Pita shivered, pushing her wet hair out of
her face and scooting over to stand behind me as if she were afraid the man
was going to suddenly get up and come after her.
“The authorities,” I said, my mind still reeling from the shock. The only
thing I could think of was how Mamá was going to give me one historical
paliza when she found out — and she’d find out if we called the authorities.
But I had it coming to me. After all, I got my sisters into this by bringing
them here. The waters of the Rio Grande were dangerous, and Mamá
wouldn’t care that our swimming hole seemed safe to me. How many times
had we heard of drowning victims turning up on its banks?
The twins, Velia and Delia, chimed in. “The cops for sure.”
“No. We should call the border patrol. I bet they know what to do,” Pita
said, sounding older than her ten years.
“Guys,” Juanita whispered, her face suddenly pale. “Do you realize
what this means?”
“What?” Velia asked, still staring at the body floating in the river. I
didn’t respond. Juanita’s brain always worked differently from my own, so I
couldn’t begin to guess what she was about to suggest.
Juanita’s face broke into a grin. “We’re going to be on TV!” She
sobered a little when she glanced down at the body again.
“Mamá is not going to like this. You know how she feels about talking
to strangers,” Velia reminded Juanita. She was right. Mamá was more than
paranoid about giving out personal information. In her mind, everyone was
a potential predator, and we were under strict orders never to speak to
anyone about anything if she wasn’t around to protect us. We weren’t
allowed to use the Internet anywhere other than school, where we were
semiprotected. No e-mails, no instant messaging — not only couldn’t we
afford a computer at home, but Mamá worried that we didn’t understand
how to distinguish our real-life friends from dirty old men. “Besides, we’re
in no condition to be put in front of a camera. Look at us. We look like
bums.”
I looked at each of my sisters in turn. We were wearing cut-off shorts
and ripped tank tops. Pita tugged at her wet shirt, squeezing out the water
and pressing it down over her round belly to smooth it out, while Velia and
Delia tried in vain to straighten out each other’s clothes. And to say nothing
of our hair, which was not only wet but thick and clumpy with dirt residue
from the river water. Pita had leaf particles clinging to her bangs. I reached
over and picked the bigger pieces of debris out of them as I mulled over our
predicament.
“Well, it’s not like we’ll have a choice. This is big,” Juanita tucked her
shirt into her shorts, as if that was going to make a difference.
The twins nodded at each other. “This is more than big — this is huge,”
they said in unison. They had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences.
They were even closer to each other than all five of us were as a group. It
was a game they played — presenting themselves as the “twin front,”
fooling people who didn’t know them all that well by making them think
they really were exactly alike.
I tried to think of a way out of it as I chastised myself for bringing the
girls to swim in the river all summer long. Calling the authorities brought
with it consequences, but we couldn’t just leave the dead man where he was
in the water. He’d pollute our swimming hole — not to mention that he
should be put to rest somewhere.
“Ginormous,” Juanita whispered beside me.
Delia pulled her ratty tennis shoes off her feet and beat them against
each other, trying to loosen the clumps of dirt from their soles. “You think
they’ll get here that quickly? Like right away? Can’t we go home and
change before we call them? I don’t know about you, but I want to look my
best for my first-ever television appearance.”
“No, we can’t,” I said, looking at the twins. They were the pretty ones.
With their long honey-brown hair, hazel eyes, and perfect smiles, they had
nothing to worry about. They didn’t look as pretty right now, after a day
swimming in the river, but it didn’t matter. The camera would love them, no
matter what they were wearing or how disheveled their hair had become.
Not me — like Juanita I was big boned, darkly bronzed from being out in
the sun every day, and homely as a gingersnap.
Juanita undid her droopy ponytail and tried to comb her wet hair with
her fingers. “This isn’t a movie set, and you’re not starlets yet,” she
reminded the twins, who had aspirations of someday making it in
Hollywood. “This is about him, not us.”
“That’s right. This is real life, and that’s a real dead man in there.” I
pointed to the river. What if bringing an investigation here meant no more
swimming? “Whoever we call is going to want to interrogate us. The cops,
the border patrol, everyone’s going to want to know how and when and
where we found him. And that’s when the news people get involved.”
 Velia looked at her twin sister for validation, not grasping the full
meaning of what I was getting at. “But we’re filthy. My shorts are ripped.
See? We can’t be seen on TV looking like this. What will people think?”
Delia put her hand on her twin’s shoulder. “They’ll think we’re poor,
and that our father has abandoned us,” she stated sarcastically. The painful
truth set off my sisters. Suddenly everyone was talking at once.
Pita’s voice cut through us all, saying aloud the one thing that worried
us more than Mamá finding out about this. “Do you think Papá will see us?
On television?” Pita asked, biting the inside of her lip. “I hope we don’t
embarrass him.” I couldn’t help but wonder, myself, what Papá would do if
he saw us. Would he feel sorry for us? Would it make him come back?
“It’ll be fine,” Juanita assured her. “Here, let me fix your hair.”
As Juanita used her fingers to scrape back Pita’s hair and resecure its
braid, I thought about where our father might be now. “We don’t know if he
even watches the news,” I reminded them. “The truth is, we don’t know
much about him nowadays. Not where he’s living, where his band is
performing, or why he hasn’t called or come home in almost a year.”
“Well if he does watch the news, he should be embarrassed,” Juanita
retorted through the ponytail holder clenched between her teeth. “Leaving
without saying good-bye — I don’t know why I’m even surprised.” She
spat out the rubber band and bound up the bottom of Pita’s braid. “Did you
know that seventy percent of men aren’t as attached to their female children
as they are to their sons? It’s true. I read that somewhere.”
Delia let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes. “Can’t you ever
talk like a real person? I’m tired of listening to you quote stupid stuff!”
 “If you two taradas are done arguing, we need to go home and change
before going up to customs,” Velia said, taking the focus away from Papá
and back to the situation at hand. The body was still floating gently in the
same place. The way the current worked here, once something floated into
an eddy it had to be pushed out again.
Juanita smacked Velia in the back of the head, then pushed her away.
“If you call me tarada ever again I’m gonna show you just how ignorant I
am by kicking your behind all the way across the river.”
“Knock it off,” I said, stepping between them. If we kept bickering,
we’d never make a decision about the dead man and what it meant for the
future of our swimming hole. After a quick glance at Juanita, I turned my
attention to Velia and Delia. “What’s wrong with you all? A man is dead in
the river and all you can do is fight? We should be pulling him out and
going to get help.”
Delia didn’t look at Juanita. Instead, she turned to look at the drowned
man. His blue shirt clung to his back in a crumpled mess. It was still
semitucked into his belted jeans. He was wearing brown cowboy boots that
were probably made from rattlesnake skin, like the ones Papá had on his
feet the morning he walked out of our lives. “We could push him out again
and move him downstream, then cut him loose in the water down there.”
She pointed downriver.
“Or we could just lug him back out to the deep end, have the river carry
him further away, then call someone,” Delia said.
“I think pushing him out there is a good idea,” I said. “So who’s going
to help me here and who’s going up to customs to report this? Remember
the rule of the five little sisters — cinco hermanitas, together forever, no
matter what! No one’s allowed to go off on their own, so we’ll travel in
packs. Delia? Velia? What are you two doing and who are you taking with
you?”
“Now hold on,” Juanita interrupted. The twins waited in the water a few
feet from the dead man, caught between their older sisters’ argument.
“We’re not calling anyone. We can’t turn him in to the migra. They’ll throw
him in a hole somewhere and forget all about him.” The concerned look in
Juanita’s eyes told me she truly believed the rumors. Like Juanita, I’d heard
the horrible rumores from the comadres in our neighborhood too. They
whispered about unclaimed bodies in sacks and shallow unmarked graves. I
was sure the rumors were grossly exaggerated, but we had no way to know
one way or the other.
“They throw them in a hole?” Pita stood behind us, away from the
riverbank as if afraid of getting too close to the corpse. “Why?” she wailed.
Her plump face twisted with anguish and her eyes brimmed with tears.
At the sight of our baby sister in distress, I put an arm around Pita’s
shoulders, hugging her to my side. “They don’t treat them like animals.
They bury them,” I corrected, trying not to scare her any more than she
already was.
“Maybe we should just let them do that,” Velia said, inching back
toward the shore. “I’d rather not touch a dead body if I don’t have to.” She
didn’t come out of the water, though.
I tried to signal to Juanita with widened eyes that it was enough, but she
either didn’t get the hint or decided to ignore it. “Hello?” she burst out,
arms flailing. “Those customs agents are ruthless! To them, illegals are no
better than stray dogs. They’d shoot them before they’d help them.”
 “You’re so full of it,” I said, shaking my head. “Customs agents are
government workers. They have to take care of the bodies they find.”
“Shows how much you know,” Juanita mumbled, looking at the dead
man floating in front of her.
“And what makes you such an expert?” I demanded, still hugging Pita.
I pulled her closer, turning her away from the sight of the dead man. “One
of those stupid books you read all night. No, wait. You were just born
knowing it all. Sorry. I forgot.”
Pita scrunched up her face, on the verge of sobbing aloud. “I’m scared.”
“Shut up. We don’t have time for crybabies.” Juanita scowled at Pita.
The dead man continued to float in front of us like a giant water-logged
voodoo doll — a bad omen to be sure.
Juanita paced along the bank, agitated. I let go of Pita to sit down on a
rock, the weight of the decision we needed to make unsettling my stomach
with a queasy feeling that no matter what we decided, our lives would
change.
“I’m telling Mamá!” Pita wailed, but when she started toward the bikes,
Juanita pulled her arm and forced her to face us.
“No you’re not, you little snitch,” she said. “We’re not telling anyone
anything. We’re going to do the right thing.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. Knowing Juanita and her quixotic
ways, this could turn into one of her many harebrained schemes. Next she’d
be starting some kind of crusade to prevent the drowning of illegal aliens in
the waters of the Rio Grande. “And what’s that? What is the right thing,
Juanita?” I asked, exasperated. Arguing with her always had a draining
effect on me.
 “Help me pull him out,” Juanita said as she waded into the river. “Water
quickens the rate of decom — decomp — decay. So we need to hurry up.”
“I’m not touching that,” Pita announced, stepping behind me.
“Him. You’re not touching him,” Juanita hissed at Pita, who pressed her
face against my back. “He’s a human being, even if he is dead. Now help
me pull him out. Pita, you go sit over there if you can’t handle it.” She
directed our little sister to a chinaberry tree with giant overhanging
branches a few yards away. Obediently, Pita went to sit under the
designated tree. Delia and Velia looked at each other, shrugged, and
followed Juanita deeper into the river where the body was still floating in
the gentle water.
“We should call the authorities, Juanita,” I said, trying to control the
situation like Mamá would’ve wanted. “I don’t think we should pull him in.
No telling how long he’s been dead.”
As usual, Juanita ignored me. Although she was only a year older than
the twins, who were thirteen and full of cuss words and spite, Juanita was
much taller and more muscular. Next to them, she looked Amazonian. Like
the female warriors in Greek mythology, she could’ve pulled in the man’s
body without help from any of us.
I stood my ground.
Delia and Velia stood waist deep in the river and stared at me with the
exact same expression on their faces, an expression that said I should do
something.
“What?” I asked them. “I’m not helping her. She’s crazy. Always has
been.”
 “I’m not crazy. I’m compassionate. No, I’m more than compassionate;
I’m . . . considerate,” Juanita said, using the word correctly. Unlike the
twins, who were having fun exploring the criminal side of language, Juanita
had recently discovered the pocket-sized dictionary, and big words flew out
of her mouth every day. Most of the time, I complimented her on her
vocabulary, but at that moment her consideration was making me sick to my
stomach.
“He’s heavy,” Juanita huffed as she pulled the dead man toward her by
his right arm. Delia and Velia screamed when the body made contact with
their midriffs. They sprang out of the water like sleek mojarras — two slim,
delicate fish flying out of the river. So Juanita ended up bringing in the dead
man by herself. I only helped her when she was having trouble dragging
him over to sit him up against the trunk of a mesquite tree.
Juanita moved his arms up and down and side to side. “He hasn’t been
dead very long,” she hypothesized. “See, no rigamorphus.”
“Rigor mortis,” I corrected. “You still have some work to do on those
dictionary skills.”
“Whatever,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “I think he just drowned,
like a few hours ago. He doesn’t smell and he’s not swollen.” But I could
tell he was definitely dead, to the point where I was sure pumping on his
chest wouldn’t have done him any good.
“Drowned? What do you know about drowning?” I asked her. While I
wasn’t sure she knew what she was talking about, I was relieved to hear the
news. Even if she wouldn’t listen to me, at least Juanita wasn’t exposing the
other girls to some super-decayed dead man’s germs.
 “Hello. I watch Crime Dawgs. It’s like my favorite show.” The sight of
her turning the body over and pressing and prodding at the head and torso
with her bare hands turned my stomach. Juanita had nerves of steel. I had to
give her credit for that. “Besides, it’s obvious he drowned. There are no
other signs of trauma, no bullets, nothing. See?” She flipped the body onto
its back again.
“We should really go up to customs and get some help,”
I began.
Juanita’s brown eyes were warm and dark with the genuine concern she
was so proud of. “I wonder where he came from. If he has a family . . . do
they know where he went? Did he tell them?”
Because I knew exactly where this was coming from, I put my arms
around her shoulder and pulled her close. “He must have,” I assured her.
“Papá didn’t,” Delia whispered to Velia as they stared at the drowned
man. His brown hair was slicked back from his face now, as if he had just
gone for a swim, and his face was expressionless, serene, as if he were now
sleeping in the hot sun to dry off. Except, of course, that he was still fully
clothed.
Juanita ignored the twins and crouched back down to inspecting the
body. “He’s soaked.”
“Duh,” Velia said, rolling her eyes toward Delia.
“We should take off his clothes,” Juanita suggested. “Let him dry out
before he starts to grow fungus or something.”
“Gross! I’m not doing that!” Velia and Delia exclaimed in unison.
I pushed Juanita gently away from the corpse. “We should leave him
just the way we found him.”
 “We should have left him in the water, babas,” Delia said, thumping
Juanita on the shoulder with the back of her hand.
“Watch your mouth!” I warned. I was tired of the twins calling
everyone stupid. Delia mumbled an apology under her breath.
Ignoring my command to leave the drowned man alone, Juanita tugged
at the dead man’s left boot and yanked it off his foot, almost falling back in
the process. To everyone’s surprise, a tightly wound plastic bag fell halfway
out of his sock. Juanita pulled it all the way out and looked at us before she
opened it.
“Money,” she whispered as she pulled out a huge wad of rolled up
American bills and laid it down beside the drowned man. Velia snatched it
up and started sorting it, divvying it up between herself and Delia.
“Look at this. Hundreds, fifties, twenties,” Velia announced. She and
her twin unrolled the bills, laying them in neat stacks over a flat rock a few
feet away.
Their announcement piqued Pita’s interest. Like a curious kitten, she
crawled out from under the chinaberry tree and came over to join us. She
picked up a hundred dollar bill and turned the foreign object over in her
hands. “He was rich.”
“There’s a wallet, with an address,” Juanita whispered, pulling the
man’s Mexican driver’s license out of the wallet and staring at it. “His name
is Gabriel Pérdido. He’s from El Sacrificio, across the border.”
I stood up and stepped away, wiping my hands on my wet shorts. My
palms suddenly felt sticky and dirty, and I couldn’t breathe right. “We have
to turn it all in — the wallet, the money, everything,” I said resolutely.
 “We can’t do that to him,” Juanita said, looking up at me with those big
brown eyes.
I felt like a jerk for not caring as much, but I had to be reasonable. “We
don’t even know this guy, so stop acting like we owe him anything.” There
had to be something we could do that would be right, but also not get us in
trouble with Mamá. If she realized we’d been swimming so close to the
deep end of the river all summer, she’d never let us come back here. On the
other hand, we had no other choice but to report the poor man. Mamá
would be even more upset if she found out that we didn’t. And knowing
Pita’s loose tongue, Mamá was bound to find out sooner or later. We were
doomed either way.
“He’s probably got a wife and kids, and they’re worried about him,”
Juanita insisted. “And right now they’re wondering what he’s doing, if he
made it across all right.”
“We don’t know that.” I snatched the driver’s license from her. “Look.
His driver’s license expired six years ago. He probably doesn’t even live
there anymore. Truth is, we don’t know who he is or what he does, or even
if he has a family.”
“He has a family!” Juanita yelled. She threw his worn-out wallet at me.
Pita picked it up and looked at the picture flap inside, which started her
tears again. Velia and Delia took it away from her and stared at it too, but
they didn’t say anything.
“He has a family and a home and a life,” Juanita said as she took the
wallet back from the twins and passed it to me. Behind the plastic, on the
right side of the beat up wallet, was a picture of the man with his family.
“We can’t just leave him here. We’ve got to find a way to take him back to
his family.”
“El Sacrificio?” I asked, the name getting caught in the back of my
throat.
“Hey, isn’t that close to . . . ,” Velia started.
“Where Papá is from?” Delia finished Velia’s thought, looking at her
twin first and then turning to me with an expectant look.
“We can’t go to El Sacrificio,” I said. The idea of possibly encountering
Papá terrified me. What if he didn’t want to see us? What if he walked away
from us again?
“Why not?” Velia asked.
“Abuelita Remedios still lives near El Sacrificio, in Hacienda Dorada,”
Juanita said, a plan to visit Papá’s mother forming vividly within the shine
of her dark brown eyes.
“We can’t go to El Sacrificio,” I repeated firmly.
Velia and Delia clearly questioned my sanity, from the looks on their
faces. “Why not?”
“I’d like to see Abuelita Remedios again,” Pita whimpered, taking my
hand in a silent plea. I felt sorry for her. She had only met our grandmother
once before, when she was around three.
“We can’t,” I insisted. I shook my head and let go of Pita’s hand. I
stepped away and turned my back to them. I stared off into the woods,
down the worn path that led back into town, wishing we’d stayed home
today.
“Look. It’s been years since we last went to Hacienda Dorada. I’d like
to see Abuelita again too,” Juanita said, plopping down between the rock
with the money and the dead man. “Experts agree children need to be close
to their grandparents. It makes them feel secure, and when they grow up
feeling loved they make better parents themselves.”
“That’s a bunch of horseradish! I’m never becoming a parent,” Delia
interjected.
I held up my hands in a vain attempt to stop this runaway train of
thought. “We can’t go because . . . ,” I began. Then, dropping the wallet on
Juanita’s lap, I closed my eyes and fought past the raw, agonizing emotions
that threatened to overwhelm me. It was painful to know that our paternal
grandmother lived less than a day’s drive away and we had not seen her
more than twice in our lifetimes. If only Papá had been more willing to do
his job and make us a family, maybe El Sacrificio would be more than just
an exotic name printed on a dead man’s driver’s license.
“Because why?” Juanita demanded doggedly. “Give me one good
reason.”
“Because it’s all the way in friggin’ Mexico, that’s why!” I growled.
Juanita waved the wallet up at me again. “Don’t you see? There’s a
reason we found him instead of the border patrol. He came looking for us
because he knew we could help him. It’s not a coincidence that he’s from
the same place as Papá.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You’re not making any sense.”
Juanita continued passionately. “Don’t you get it? We were meant to
find him, so we could go see our abuelita in Mexico again. It was fate that
brought him to us.”
“Do you even know what you’re considering?” I asked. The man was
dead. There had to be a law against what she was proposing.
 “I know it’s going to be hard,” Juanita concluded. “But if this man’s
family is ever going to see him again, we’re going to have to be the ones to
take him back. And maybe while we’re in El Sacrificio, we can find
out . . .”
“If Abuelita Remedios knows what’s happened to Papá?” I whispered,
more to myself than to them.
My comment was met with silence. I hadn’t meant to make the
connection, but it was too late. The thought was out there. Their eyes said it
all. The same question had been on everybody’s mind, not just mine. I was
about to take it back when something caught my eye. On the other side of
the Rio Grande, on a hill, something moved . . . a woman?
She stood still — watching us from afar. I tried to focus in on her face,
but the sun’s reflection bounced off the surface of the water and her form
wavered in the afternoon light. One minute her long, white dress was
billowing against her legs, and the next she was gone. Disappeared. Like a
ghostly apparition, she vanished into the surreal light of the fading sunset.
“What is it?” Juanita asked, looking across the river.
I thought of La Llorona, the legendary Weeping Woman said to have
drowned her own children. Mamá says she roams the rivers of the world in
search of them. Goosebumps rose on my skin and my body shook slightly.
“Nothing,” I said, rubbing my arms briskly and turning my attention back to
the girls. “Let’s get out of here. It’s getting dark.”

OceanofPDF.com
EL PÁJARO: “Pájaro, pajarito, encántanos
con tu canto bonito.”

THE BIRD: “Bird, little birdie, enchant us

with your pretty song.”

We can cross the border at dawn, pretend we’re going on vacation with our
father,” Juanita suggested. We walked our bikes out of the woods and
mounted them, ready to ride the rest of the way. “Once we’re through the
checkpoints, we can drive straight to El Sacrificio.”
“Excuse me, and how are we going to do that? Are you going to call
your fairy godmother and ask her to turn a watermelon into a chariot?” I
asked. “Because I don’t know about you, but I left my magic beans in my
other shorts.”
Juanita gave me the evil eye. “¡Calláte! I’m not stupid, so you can stop
acting that way.”
Velia patted her shirt pocket with a flattened hand. “It’s not like we’re
broke; we have money now.”
“You took his money?” Juanita asked, shocked. “I can’t believe you
stole from a dead man.”
“It doesn’t belong to us. We can’t just take it,” Pita said, looking scared.
“We can if it’s for a good cause,” Delia said. “We’re not using it to buy
ourselves stuff. It’s not like we’re really taking a vacation. We’re using it to
take him home.”
 I thought of the drowned man again. We’d left him sitting by the
riverbank, drying under a mulberry tree, the tiny mariposas clinging to his
mouth and nostrils as if trying to resuscitate him.
“Well, technically, we will be using it on ourselves, because he’s dead,”
Juanita pointed out.
“Okay,” I said, looking up at the darkening sky in frustration. “So how
are we gonna get there? Do you even know where you’re going?”
“We can take Papá’s old car. There’s an old map of Coahuila in the
glove box,” Juanita said. She hit my arm with the back of her hand and then
grabbed the handlebars of her bike as she pedaled off.
“That car’s a lemon,” Velia yelled after her. She smacked her lips in
disgust and then pedaled after Juanita.
“It’s worse than a lemon,” her twin elaborated. Shaking our heads,
Delia and I pushed off and rode our bikes at full speed trying to catch up
with Juanita and Velia. I had to work extra hard because Pita was riding
behind me, her arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders and waist, like a
heavy backpack. “That car’s a pile of junk, Juanita,” Delia continued. “Not
even a dung beetle would want to push that old ball of caca around, much
less hold on to it. Mamá should have sold it a long time ago.”
“Bought us some new school clothes or something,” Velia added,
slowing down to talk to us.
The girls were right, of course. About everything. The car was still
running, so it was sellable. Since Mamá didn’t know how to drive,
preferring to take the bus everywhere she went in Eagle Pass, she made me
start it once a week and drive it around the block to keep the tires from
going flat. But my hermanitas were mistaken if they thought I was going to
drive them around in that death trap. It needed an oil change and the brakes
squealed — and those were just the things I knew to watch out for. God
only knew what else might be wrong with it.
“See? You can’t even agree on how to get there,” I said, looking at
Juanita for acknowledgment.
“Well, we’re going. You can join us, like a good big sister, cinco
hermanitas, together forever — or you can break our motto and stay behind
like a coward.”
I turned around, gritting my teeth. “That’s insane,” I growled as I
pedaled on, wondering how to fix things without any real solutions coming
to mind. Velia and Delia rode around Juanita and flanked me.
“Listen, if you don’t take us Juanita is willing to drive,” Velia said
without looking at me as she slowed down to match my unhurried pace.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Juanita wouldn’t know how to find a gas
pedal if it had a rattle on its tail. At least I have a driving permit. Let’s just
get home for now. The right thing to do will come to us.”
We let the conversation die off and pedaled our bikes back to the house
in silence. When we got there, the sun was a luminous orange globe
touching the horizon. Mamá had already left for work. She was a waitress at
Mr. Gee’s, an all-night café off Main Street on the edge of town, so she was
always gone by eight o’clock and didn’t come back until the next morning.
Soon after we got home from the river, the girls had another one of their
yakking sessions in the twins’ room, and as a result, they were running
around the house packing for their trip to Mexico. I didn’t intervene or stop
them from packing. They were exhilarated by the idea of taking a long,
adventurous journey, but I knew very well how this was going to turn out.
They weren’t going anywhere. They just didn’t know it yet.
I ignored them and went to the kitchen to fix them welfare burgers for
dinner. We called them welfare burgers because we used regular sliced
bread instead of buns. Mamá said buns were more expensive and they were
the same exact thing, so she just didn’t see the point in wasting money on
them.
As for me, I wanted a sandwich. The long, hot summer day had made
me hungry for something cold; so I took out the bologna and cheese.
Because there was no mayo, I ate my sandwich dry as cardboard as I stood
over the kitchen sink and looked out the window at the darkening sky.
When I looked up at the kitchen clock on the wall by the back door I
realized it was much later than I thought, so I went to talk to the girls.
I poked my head into the twins’ room, humoring my sisters as they
sorted through a pile of unfolded laundry in the middle of the full-size bed.
“Dinner’s on the table. You need to eat to keep your strength up for that
long drive.”
“Do you think we’ll need sweaters?” Velia asked her twin, pulling an
old tattered sweater out of the cluttered closet. She tucked it under her chin
and displayed it over her flat chest.
“It’s the middle of the canícula,” I said, stepping all the way into the
room. “Why would you need a sweater during the hottest part of the
summer?”
“It gets cold in the desert,” Delia said. She sat cross-legged on their
dilapidated dresser, smug as a cat.
 “We’re going to a desert?” Pita asked. “But I wanted to wear this
dress.” She had put on her best church dress, a baby blue, short-sleeved silk
dress she’d had for a long time. She twirled around and watched the full
skirt swirl around her like an open umbrella. Then she stopped, looked at
herself in the mirror, and tugged at the snug waistband. Clearly Pita wanted
to impress Abuelita. She always had to try so much harder than the twins to
feel pretty.
“That dress doesn’t even fit you anymore.” Delia uncrossed her legs
and jumped off the dresser. She poked Pita’s baby fat and pulled on the
dress collar’s silk ribbon bow. “Too many tamales. You’ve got to stop
eating so much, Fajita Pita. Wear something else. You look like a chile
relleno in that.”
“I don’t care. It’s my favorite dress, and I’m wearing it,” Pita whined as
she slapped Delia’s hands away. “And don’t call me that!”
I took Pita’s round face in my hands and squeezed her cheeks. “You
don’t have to worry. We’re not going to any deserts.”
“Coahuila is a desert, isn’t it? It’s next to Chihuahua, and Chihuahua is
a desert,” Velia asked no one in particular.
“Think so?” Delia furrowed her eyebrows. I rolled my eyes.
“Of course not, calabazas. You’re such knuckleheads sometimes,” I
said, looking around and talking to all of them at once. “Okay, let’s get this
straight. First of all, only the western part of Coahuila is a desert. El
Sacrificio isn’t, even though it’s just as hot as Eagle Pass in the summer.
But we’re not going there anyway. So just get in there and eat your dinner.
Then go to bed. It’s almost eight, too late to worry about the body tonight.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
 “Tomorrow!” Juanita complained as I turned around and started out of
the room. “What do you mean tomorrow?”
“But we have to go back tonight,” Delia whined. “To prep him.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I insisted. Then I turned around and left
them there, whining and fighting again.
I went to my room and entertained myself by reading a few pages of
The Great Gatsby. It was on my summer reading list, and so far, I had not
been able to get past the third chapter. My mind was on other matters, like
how to settle the girls into bed without causing a riot.
I played again with the idea of calling customs, to tell them about the
body, but there was something else none of us had considered. Not even
Juanita with her presumed giftedness had realized that once our swimming
hole was discovered, we’d never be able to go back there. At the very least,
the border patrol would keep an eye on that particular area of the river in
case anyone else tried sneaking through that gap in the fence. We were
lucky they hadn’t noticed us swimming there already. They might even
close it off, making us leave our swimming days behind.
By the time the girls burst into my room, frayed backpacks and old
bucket purses busting at the seams, I was all ready to go. I stood up, picked
up my own backpack, hiked it high up on my shoulder, and faced them.
“I’m going to Marisol’s house. I think she’s having a sleepover
tonight.”
“What? When did this come up? You didn’t mention it before!”
Juanita’s continuous demanding tone was the most frustrating part of her.
“What about the body? We said we’d take him back.”
 “I told you. We’re not going to Mexico,” I said decisively. “Mamá
would kill us. Besides, she’s already mad. I called to tell her I won’t be here
tonight to take care of you. She was so upset, she threatened to cut her
hours short and come home. I think she’s already working on it.”
It was a total lie — but they needed a reality check, and they wouldn’t
call Mamá to confirm my story. Besides, while I made dinner, I’d developed
a plan to have Mamá “be home” that night, if not in body, then in spirit.
“So you all better be in bed by the time she gets here,” I continued.
“You know how she gets when she’s in a bad mood.”
“This isn’t fair!” Juanita screamed, her arms rigid and her face reddened
with rage. She was actually crying. Juanita never cried. Her stubbornness
usually led to yelling or bullying. It was unnerving. I don’t think I’d seen
her cry since she found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. Suddenly I felt like the
wicked stepmother in Snow White.
Juanita, probably embarrassed at her tears, stormed out of the room.
She didn’t go very far though — I could hear her mumbling under her
breath in the hallway.
Delia threw her backpack on the floor and kicked it to the corner of the
room. “You’re an ignorant, goody-goody, wanna-be saint! ¡Una
santurrona!” she declared.
“And a sissy-face!” Velia added spitefully. Their remarks didn’t bother
me. I was used to the twins’ stylized brand of cursing by now. They’d been
doing it all summer, pretending they were old enough or even brave enough
to curse like sailors, but never quite getting the words out. I was more
worried that Juanita, who was glaring at me from the door, would do
something drastic like storm out of the house and go back to the river.
 “I bet Marisol kicks her big fat behind out and she has to sneak back in
here like a sewer rat,” Delia told Velia, flopping down next to her twin on
the bed. They both looked at me like they were about to spit in my face,
eyes glistening with wrath and frustration.
Juanita came back into the room, looking more like herself again.
“You’re a lousy sister!” she yelled.
“Enough!” I finally raised my voice the way Mamá does when she’s
done putting up with them. “Now go to bed before I call Mamá back and
tell her what’s really going on. And you, stop cursing, or I’ll wash your
mouths out with Clorox.”
To my surprise, the twins flounced off the bed. All four of my sisters
marched out and down the hall to the kitchen without another word. I went
out the front door, locked it, and put the spare key to the deadbolt in my
pocket. There was no other set of keys in the house to that door, so if they
wanted to open it again, they’d have to wait until Mamá came home or
jump out a window.
The thought had barely entered my mind when I heard the unmistakable
sound of a window being slid open. I turned around to look at the darkened
house. The only light was in Pita’s room, which faced the front.
“You can’t back out of this! We out-vote you four to one!” Juanita
screamed, her body halfway out the window.
I lifted my hand in the air, my index finger extended. “Rule Number
One of the code of the cinco hermanitas: The eldest sister has the final
word. Always. Good night.”
I left the yard, closing the gate behind me noisily, so they could hear me
leaving even in the moonless night. Then I walked resolutely up the
sidewalk toward Brazos Street. The thought of them escaping through a
window made me cringe. I froze momentarily before I reached the corner,
but then I realized they wouldn’t do that. They might be wild, but they
depended on me for everything. If I wasn’t in on it, it usually didn’t fly.
That was the beauty of following the code of the five little sisters. We really
did do everything together.
I walked around the corner, past the Aguileras’ house, and cut across
two empty lots, where I got the left leg of my jeans tangled up on some
bramble weeds. I had to stop to pull the brambles off, and then I turned up
Zamora Street toward Mr. Gee’s. Peering in through the glass door, I saw
that Mamá was standing at the counter, slicing pie with a heavy knife. Her
black hair was twisted up in a haphazard knot and the dark circles under her
eyes were more pronounced tonight. She’d been working so hard lately.
Guilt stabbed at me, but I pushed it away. Even though I knew it would
make Mamá mad, I needed to talk to her.
As if she had ESP, Mamá froze in midslice and looked up, making
immediate eye contact with me. The sight of me standing there with my
nose pressed against the glass made Mamá clench her mouth, and she cut
through the crust of that pie like she wanted to kill it. She finished plating
the slice of pie before she left the counter. I opened the door and started to
go inside, but she hurried to meet me. Taking my arm in a vicelike grip, she
turned me around and marched me back outside.
“What are you doing here?” She massaged her forehead with her
fingertips, rubbing at the worry line between her eyebrows as if she wanted
to erase it.
 “It’s important,” I started, noticing the deep-set lines on her ring finger
where her wedding band used to sit. It had been months since she’d stopped
wearing it, but apparently wearing it over the years even after gaining a lot
of weight had left her finger scarred.
Mamá used to be skinny before she got married, then she got really fat.
I mean really fat, like almost three hundred pounds fat. But she lost it all in
the eleven months since Papá left, so she was back to being thin again. Not
skinny thin like she used to be when she was a girl, the way the twins are
now, but definitely thinner. So thin, in fact, she didn’t look like our Mamá
anymore. But I wasn’t worried about her anymore, because she wasn’t as
sad as she used to be and she was eating again. She looked more like me
and Juanita now, strong and voluptuous, but tired from working so hard.
“We talked about this, Odilia,” Mamá warned in Spanish. “Unless it’s
an emergency, you can’t come here. One more incident like the last one,
and I’m out of here. Is that what you want? To get me fired?”
Last time I was here, I was trying to get Pita to come back home. She’d
made such a scene, bursting into the café to whine to Mamá that the girls
were picking on her again. “No, but . . . the girls — ” I started again.
“I don’t want to hear it, Odilia,” Mamá warned, her upper lip getting
thinner and tighter as she spoke. “I’ve told you before, if nobody’s dying
and the house isn’t on fire, it’s not an emergency.”
How could I convince her without giving anything away? “But they’re
being ridiculous,” I continued, blinking nervously now, because we had
caught the attention of Mr. Moore, the restaurant manager.
Mamá tried to control her temper by closing her eyes and taking a deep
breath. “I mean it, Odilia. Take care of your sisters. I can’t be in two places
at once.” This wasn’t working. I was only bothering Mamá, and she
couldn’t help me anyway. I wanted to scream at Mamá and tell her that
everything wasn’t going to be okay, that I couldn’t take care of it, but then
Mr. Moore burst through the door, almost knocking us both down.
“Is there a problem?” Mr. Moore asked, standing halfway out of the
restaurant and holding the door open. His bald pink head was covered in
sweat. It glistened like a Christmas ornament under the fluorescent lighting
spilling out from the café. I felt like taking the cleaning rag from his apron
pocket and wiping it down for him, but that wouldn’t have been nice, no
matter how good it would have made me feel to do it.
“Oh, no. Odilia just came over to pick up some money for eggs,” Mamá
assured her boss, quickly switching to English. Reaching into the front
pocket of her apron, she made a show of pulling out a couple of dollar bills
and handing them to me.
Mr. Moore shook his head. “And this is more important than keeping
your job?”
“No. It’s not. And Odilia knows better. It won’t happen again,” Mamá
whispered. Normally, Mamá doesn’t let people mistreat her. She knows
how to defend herself, but she had to act all meek and mild because Mr.
Moore was a big fat slop-eating hog and she needed this job. After all, it
wasn’t like she had many career options without a high school diploma. She
spoke English well enough despite the fact that she only went as far as the
third grade in Mexico — which was all her parents had money for — and
she hadn’t come to the States until she met and married Papá when she was
just seventeen years old. Up to now he’d always taken care of her.
 When she first started working, the only jobs she qualified for were
janitor, maid, and waitress. After a few trial runs, she decided she hated the
other two, so she was doing her best to keep this job. She couldn’t stand Mr.
Moore, but she got along with the customers and they tipped her well.
“Then let’s get back to work, shall we?” Mr. Moore raised his
eyebrows. When we didn’t move, he cleared his throat. With his lips
clamped shut and his eyes bulging out of their sockets, he looked like a toad
on steroids, but Mamá knew he was about to explode, so she nudged me
aside.
“I’ll be in in a minute,” Mamá said, taking me by the shoulders and
turning me around so that I was facing the parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as soon as Mr. Moore was inside the restaurant
again. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Whatever it is, deal with it, Odilia,” Mamá insisted. “You are the
eldest. It’s your responsibility to take care of your hermanitas. I can’t do it
all. Now, go home before I lose my job.”
Because I’d known how going to see Mamá would turn out, I left Mr.
Gee’s without feeling one bit of remorse over not telling her what was
going on. At least I’d tried. There was nothing more I could do when she
wouldn’t give me the time of day. I couldn’t help but think she wouldn’t get
in so much trouble at work if she and I had cell phones. Money was just too
tight, and calling the restaurant would only get her in more trouble. Mr.
Moore didn’t approve of personal phone calls. But then, a cell phone would
probably be yet another reason for Mr. Moore to accuse Mamá of
neglecting her work. Last week I saw him chew out Mamá’s younger
coworker for texting instead of finding something “useful” to do on her
break, like tidying up the break room.
Feeling less than thrilled at having to once again “take care of it,” I
walked back down Zamora Street the same way I’d walked up. The truth is,
I needed to stall for a while if my plan was going to work tonight. So,
instead of turning right on Brazos, I just kept going until I hit our old
elementary school.
The campus fence wasn’t locked, so I was able to walk right up to the
classrooms. I dusted the powdery corpses of half a dozen dead butterflies
off a cement bench and lay down on the quad under the moonlight for a
while, contemplating my sisters and our rebelliousness. We were taking it
too far, this rowdiness. Maybe I needed to tone down my part in it, become
more responsible, listen to Mamá — wash some dishes or do some laundry
for a change.
At that exact moment, a star shot across the sky. Its sparkling life faded
into the horizon as it died away, unsung, unwept. Immediately following
behind it, another star fell from the sky. It went down in the same direction.
Then another one, and another, and another. On and on they all went, one
right after the other, all five descending in the same direction.
Something told me I should hurry up and make a wish before the
magical moment passed me by, so I closed my eyes and thought about the
one thing I truly wanted — Papá.
Yes. If I could have anything, I’d have Papá come back into our lives
and take care of us. I wanted him to stop touring, get a real job, and be
home every day like he used to be when we were young. I wanted Mamá to
stop working and worrying all the time. It’s not like I wanted her to tuck us
in at night and sing us a lullaby in Spanish like she used to. We were too old
for that now. No. I just wanted to be a family again. With that longing in my
heart, I closed my eyes and actually fell asleep right there on the school
bench.
When I woke up, I lit up the face of my thrift store watch and couldn’t
believe how long I had napped. It was ten past midnight. Two hours had just
flown by! I jumped up and trotted past the empty lots, but instead of going
straight down the street toward home, I took a detour. I turned into the alley
behind our house. Hiding behind the Olivarez family’s dumpster, I opened
my backpack.
Hastily, I took one of Mamá’s blue dress uniforms out and slid it over
my own clothes. I unzipped my jean shorts and slipped out of them,
shedding them like a snakeskin and stuffing them into my backpack. Then I
changed into an old pair of Mamá’s work shoes and twisted my hair around
and pinned it up into a half French twist, an easy, well-rehearsed styling
technique I’d learned from Mamá, who always wore her hair that way. I
completed the outfit by tying a white apron around my waist.
By the time I got to the house, the lights were all out. I could see that in
Juanita’s bedroom a nightlight was shining, but, when I jiggled the latch on
the chain link fence, it went out. I kept my head down as I walked into the
yard. Just as Mamá would, I struggled with the doorknob, pretended to look
in Mamá’s apron pockets for her keys, and finally opened the door. I didn’t
turn on any lights or make any noise. Like Mamá, I chose to walk in
darkness. Quickly and quietly, I slipped into her bedroom.
I didn’t undress, but instead lay on Mamá’s bed fully clothed with my
back to the door. Soon, I covered up with her blanket and pretended to
snore, congratulating myself the whole time. I was bien águila, the queen of
ruse.
Not even ten minutes went by before the bedroom door clicked open,
and I heard someone enter Mamá’s bedroom. But I didn’t stir. Instead, I
continued to fake snore.
“Mami?” Pita said quietly, sweetly, reaching the bed and touching my
shoulder. She tried to shake me a bit, whining softly under her breath, but I
snored again, loudly this time, like Mamá does when she’s really tired.
I heard another noise, more like a rap, then another — a knock, then
two, three, four more. I shifted in bed and halfway turned. In the mirror, I
saw the dark silhouettes of at least three of my sisters locked in a muted
struggle. In the darkness, I could hear their muffled grunts, and then the
intake of a sharp, deep breath before they knocked each other to the floor,
taking Mamá’s ironing board with them.
I clicked the table lamp on and saw Velia, Delia, and Pita all tangled up
on the floor. “What’s going on?” I yelled.
Pita wailed, “They’re trying to kill me!” She took a sharp breath,
struggling to free herself.
“We are not!” Delia and Velia exclaimed even as they held her down.
“They had their hands over my nose and mouth. I couldn’t breathe!”
Pita whined, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand when they finally
freed her.
Juanita entered the room and looked from the girls on the floor to me on
the bed. “What are you doing in Mamá’s clothes?”
“Stop biting me, you little traitor!” Velia spat out. She was so mad, she
kicked at Pita’s leg.
 “Aw!” Pita scooted away from them and stood up. “I wasn’t gonna tell,
I just wanted to give Mamá a good-bye hug.”
“Sure you were! ¡Chismosa!” Delia scolded. “You’re the biggest gossip
there ever was.” She turned around to give me a dirty look.
“Don’t kick her.” I let Pita sit on the bed with me. “You should be
ashamed of yourselves, treating her like that. She’s a little girl, not a spy on
Mission Impossible.”
“And you’re not Cinderella, so why the stupid get-up?” Juanita threw
back at me.
I undid the knot on Mamá’s apron, slipped it off, and laid it on the bed
beside me. Then I pulled the pins out of my hair and let my hair loose. It
felt good to let my scalp breathe again. “Never mind me,” I said. “Didn’t I
tell you all to go to bed?”
“You were bluffing, weren’t you?” Juanita’s dark brown eyes narrowed
in disgust. “There was no sleepover, and you never called Mamá. It was all
a trick — to stall us.”
Delia got up and dusted her rump. “Well, it didn’t work; we’re going
anyway,” she announced.
“That’s what this little snitch was doing in here. She was going to tell
Mamá we’re leaving,” Velia said, kicking at Pita again before she stood up
too.
“I said, don’t kick her,” I warned Velia. Then, looking at Juanita, I
asked, “Oh yeah, well, how’re you going to get there?”
I started to unzip Mama’s uniform down the back. I felt ridiculous
sitting there dressed up like a waitress even as I tried to sound like the voice
of reason. Delia went to the door and blocked it, her feet apart and arms
crossed like some kind of mobster. “If you won’t drive us there, Juanita
will. She’s been watching you. She knows how to do it.”
“She has the keys,” Velia said, as she went to stand next to her twin.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I said, pulling my clothes out of
my backpack. I peeled the waitress’s uniform off, put on my T-shirt, and
pulled my jean shorts back on quickly.
“Well, we’re going anyway,” Velia concluded.
They walked out of the room, leaving me and Pita to stare at each other.
I heard a commotion in the living room, the girls arguing again, but the
front was locked and I had the only key. “They’re not going anywhere,” I
assured Pita. No sooner had I said that than I heard the front door slam shut.
“What the heck!” I walked out into the hall just in time to hear my
father’s old Chevy Nova sputter loudly to life. I pulled off Mamá’s frumpy
shoes and pushed on my own sneakers. Dang it! There was obviously
another set of keys, to the house and the vehicle! I had no idea where they’d
found them, but they had, and now my sisters were trying to drive away in a
compromised vehicle without a clue as to how to handle it.
“Ah, you cussed!” Pita followed me down the hall. From the living
room window, I saw Juanita, Velia, and Delia jumping into the car. I ran out
onto the porch.
“Hey! Get out of the car! What do you think you’re doing?” I hollered.
Juanita put her arm out the window and waved my old canvas bag at me,
taunting me from inside the car, daring me to stay behind. Then she revved
the engine like a professional race driver and stared me down.
“Wait for me,” Pita called, leaving my side and running out after them.
She jumped into the backseat. Seeing that I wasn’t leaving the porch,
Juanita shrugged, put the car in reverse, and backed out of the driveway.
The left corner of the Nova’s rear bumper clipped the chain-link post,
taking the gate with it and knocking down a good part of the fence. Juanita
didn’t even look back at the fence damage as she put the car in drive.
I ran into the darkened street as Juanita peeled out. “Come back here!” I
yelled, but they were driving off so fast, I had to cut across the neighbors’
lawns and through their backyards to keep up with them. Pumping my arms
and legs as fast as I could, I followed the car all the way down to the corner.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and I could barely hear the
knocking engine of Papá’s old car for the pulse pounding against my
eardrums.
“Okay!” I screamed. “Okay! I’m coming with you! Stop! Stop!”
They paused long enough to let me jump into the front seat while Velia
made room for me by quickly crawling into the back with Delia and Pita.
“Can you at least let me drive?” I asked.
“You can drive us into Mexico, but not before that,” Juanita said,
gripping the wheel resolutely.
“Then turn on the lights!” I demanded as we made our way down Main
Street in the dark. If they didn’t want to get stopped by the police, we
should at least look like we knew that much about driving. The idea made
me think that perhaps I shouldn’t have pointed that out to her — getting a
cop’s attention would definitely bring their harebrained trip into Mexico to a
standstill. But police involvement was more of a last resort. There had to be
a better way. “Use the wipers,” I continued. “Get these dead butterflies off
the windshield so we can see where we’re going.”
 It wasn’t at all how I had planned our night to end, but I figured all
hope wasn’t lost. It was just easier to let my sisters think they’d won.
However, the instant I buckled up I promised myself I’d surrender the body
when we got to the international bridge — no matter what.

OceanofPDF.com
LA ESTRELLA: “La más alta y brillante
de todas mis hijas.”

THE STAR: “The tallest and brightest

of all my daughters.”

When we got back to the river’s edge, the girls exhausted themselves
prepping the body for the trip. Velia held a flashlight, while Juanita, who
had brought a pair of Papá’s old jeans, one of his dress shirts, and his
cowboy boots, dressed the body with the reverence of a dedicated
mortician. Afterward, we slept with the mariposas in the car. At five
o’clock in the morning, the girls got up and splashed cold river water on
their faces.
“I don’t like it,” Pita scrunched her chubby face in disgust when they
propped the dressed body up against the mesquite’s trunk. He was as rigid
as the mannequins at JCPenney, with a baseball cap on his head, dim
sunglasses over his lifeless eyes, and his arms crossed awkwardly in front
of him.
“He looks too much like Papá,” Delia admitted, stepping away from
him.
Velia scrubbed away the thick layer of rouge Juanita had applied to his
cheekbones in the dark. “He looks like a prostitute.”
“He does not,” Juanita said. “Don’t take it all off. He needs to look
alive.”
 Delia helped her twin sister scrub off the excess makeup from the dead
man’s neck. “He doesn’t look alive; he looks ridiculous. Men don’t wear
makeup, Juanita.”
“Fine, have it your way. But we’re gonna get caught if he doesn’t look
half alive,” Juanita answered.
I left them there arguing with each other and took a short walk while
they figured things out. Once they got the body in the car, I’d drive us up to
the international bridge and turn it in. We’d be home in time to fix breakfast
for Mamá. Then we’d go to bed and only dream about what could’ve
happened after this night.
I walked alone along the riverbank. In the dawning light, it shimmered
with the hues of day fighting away the shadows of night, while the
multitude of trees and shrubbery that grew for miles and miles along the
riverbank still shrouded the land in shadow. Suddenly, to the left of me,
about ten yards southeast along the river beyond the twisted path my sisters
and I had worn into the thicket, two small figures ran past me in and out of
the dusty brush right up to the river’s edge. They ran along the bank,
skirting it so closely that pebbles flew off their footsteps and bounced down
into the water. Their faces were indistinguishable in the dark and their white
outfits were muted by the lack of sunlight, but I could see that they were
little boys running away from something — or someone.
It didn’t take very long to see who they were running from. Behind
them, a woman in a pale dress came running, screaming at the boys,
begging them to stop. Her long black hair whipped behind her as she fought
through the brush. It was clear to me she was worried — frantic, even —
that they might fall into the river.
 “¡Ay, mis hijos!” she screamed as she side-stepped ruts and rocks with
her small bare feet. The short trees tore at her immaculate white dress, but
she didn’t care. She pulled herself free of any tree limbs that clawed at her
and kept chasing after her children, never losing sight of them.
“Hey,” I screamed after the children. They didn’t turn to look at me or
acknowledge me in any way. They were getting dangerously close to a cliff
at the edge of the river. I left the security of our path and darted after them.
They still ran parallel to the waters of the Rio Grande, much too close to the
current that roared furiously below. The waters here were dark and angry,
almost violent — nothing like our friendly swimming hole. I sped up, afraid
they might lose their footing.
Too late, I screamed for them to get away from the edge. In a second,
they were falling, both of them, one behind the other. Into the water they
went, making loud splashes as they fought to stay afloat. Without thinking,
I scrambled up to the edge and jumped in after them.
The roar and chilliness of the dark water awakened my senses, and my
heart constricted in my chest as I came up for air. I had to fight the
undercurrent to keep from being swept away. As I struggled to stay afloat, I
looked around wildly for the children who I clearly saw fall into the water
seconds before me.
They were about fifteen feet away from me, being dragged down, into
the body of a heavy current. Their mother, running along the river, cried and
screamed for me to help them.
“¡Ay, mis hijos!” she wailed miserably.
I swam with long even strokes, trying to remain in control of my body,
not letting the undertow pull me down. But my efforts were in vain. The
water rose over my head and swirled around me like a whirlpool, dragging
me deeper and deeper, until the thin light of dawn turned into darkness, and
I couldn’t see anything anymore.
All was obscurity and cold, and I thought I would drown. What would
Mamá think? Did I fail my sisters? My lungs ached with the pressure of
unreleased air. Just when I was about to give in, the roaring stopped and I
felt myself break through the surface. The fresh morning air hit my lungs
like a blow to the chest, and I pressed a fist against my heart as if to stop the
pain from killing me.
As I coughed and sputtered in agony in the now-calm water, I saw one
of the boys floating before me. I grabbed his arm and pulled him in.
Dragging him over my shoulder, I began to swim toward the riverbank,
where his mother was crying out for me to bring him to her. When I got
close enough, she stepped back.
“You’re too late. He’s drowned,” she wailed as she stood watching me
struggle with her son’s body. At her words, inexplicably, the boy’s body
slipped from me. It bobbed in the water and wavered in the pre-dawn light,
then disappeared before my very eyes. I turned around to look for his
brother and saw him drifting a few feet away from me. Before I could dive
for him, he vanished like a strange mirage.
“Here, let me help you,” their mother said, extending her hand to me
from above. The hand was cold as a corpse, but I took it anyway. At first I
attributed the coldness to her state of despair or my own soakedness, but
when she pulled me out she spoke again, and what she said made me want
to jump right back in the water.
 “It is always the same way,” she said, her expression helpless in a worn,
weary face. The woman’s hair was long and disheveled, and her long tunic
dress was torn and frayed. I could tell it used to be a white robe of some
kind when it was new, but it was so old it was gray now. On the whole, she
looked unkempt and malnourished, close to death. “They drown before I
can reach them. It is my nightmare, my destiny, my fate to search endlessly
for them by night only to find them drowned with the sigh of morning.”
Recognition entered my mind, and I froze, unable to speak.
The woman’s eyes softened and she looked sad. “You know who I am,
don’t you?”
“Llorona?” I whispered the dreadful name before I could censor myself.
Most women would be offended to be mistaken for the ghostly apparition,
but she did not flinch at the horrific namesake. Instead, her smile was
apologetic and teary — it evoked compassion rather than fear.
“Some call me that,” she admitted, as she tried to take my hand. “Do
not be afraid. I cannot harm you.”
Was she saying she was La Llorona? As much as the idea of talking to a
ghost fascinated me, it also frightened me. I had heard so many awful things
about La Llorona that I couldn’t help it, I pulled away from her and took a
few steps back. “But you . . . killed your children.” It was common
knowledge, more than a legend. Every mother on both sides of the border
warns her children that La Llorona will get them if they wander too close to
the river. I couldn’t help but wonder if by playing in it all summer, we
hadn’t cursed ourselves.
“I know what they say,” she admitted. “I’ve heard the stories many
times through the centuries. But they are mistaken. I did not drown my
chiquitos.”
“You didn’t? Then why do they run away from you?” I looked back at
the dark river, wondering if I had really seen her children drowning. Had I
imagined trying to save them? Was it possible I was dreaming all this?
La Llorona stepped away from me and turned to the river. She wrapped
her arms around herself as if the memory gave her a chill. “We were
arguing that night — their father, Hernán, and I — about his decision to
leave. We fought over the children, dragged them into our pain. Mis hijos
were so scared, so confused, that they fled toward the river in darkness and
drowned. It is a nightmare I experience every night, a memory I am forever
reliving.”
I went to stand beside her. Her loss was unimaginable, and suddenly she
was very human to me. “Why do you look for them, if you know they are
dead?”
“It is a punishment I impose on myself,” La Llorona began. “A penance
for my part in it. I should have been more careful, made sure they were
always safe. I want them to come back to me, but they won’t — or can’t. I
do not know the reason behind it, but they are being kept from me. I would
never take the children that play at the river, the way people say I do. I do
not want other children. They could never replace my chiquitos. Believe
me — you and your sisters have nothing to worry about. I am not here to
harm you.”
I considered her words and wondered why someone would willingly
punish herself for all eternity. It seemed implausible to me. But then again, I
was standing on the edge of the river talking to a ghost. Nothing was
normal. Nothing made sense. “Then what do you want from us?”
 “You were chosen for the goodness in your heart,” she explained. “Like
Juan Diego, the most humble of the Virgen’s children, you are noble and
kindhearted. You displayed great courage when you jumped into the water
to save my sons. Your sister was right when she said finding the body of the
drowned man was not an accident.”
She took my hand once again, her touch still deathly cold. Standing
beside the hackberry shrubs with hundreds of empty desiccated cocoons
still clinging to their branches and a carpet of butterfly corpses under her
feet, La Llorona did not look anything like a malevolent specter. She looked
more like a tired, heavily burdened woman.
“My sisters are waiting,” I said, trying to take my hand from hers so
that I might escape if I had to.
La Llorona let go of my hand. “Please, try to have faith. I am here in
your service, to guide and protect you,” she said.
I put my hands under my arms to warm them. “Protect me? From
what?”
“Yes,” she said, a wry smile curling around her lips. She had a look of
age about her, despite appearing no older than Mamá. It was something in
her eyes, the sorrow of long ages lived in them. “It is an eternal atonement,
to watch over the children of the sun, the children of my people, the Azteca
bloodline.”
“Aztec?” I asked, surprised. Mamá never said we were Aztec. Papá was
fair-haired and light-complected, implying a Spanish bloodline rather than
native Mexican, but Mamá did have olive skin, black hair, and dark eyes.
“Yes. You are descendant of a great people,” she continued, pulling my
attention away from my wild, erratic thoughts and making me focus on the
situation at hand.
At that very moment, the sun burst out from beneath the horizon, and
La Llorona’s features changed. She went from being a tired woman to
looking downright frightening. Her disheveled hair suddenly turned
completely white. The loose silvery strands writhed around her head like
serpentine ghosts, more fearsome than Medusa’s. La Llorona’s gaunt face
shriveled up like a pale raisin, becoming sallow and ashen, creased by
centuries of wrinkles and dark blotches. But it was her eyes that scared me
the most. They turned a deep, evil black. They glittered like cursed
gemstones. I was so terrified I couldn’t move, but I trembled where I stood.
I couldn’t speak for a moment — my throat tightened and I was having
trouble breathing.
“Don’t be afraid,” she pleaded. “I don’t have much time. Once the sun
rises completely I must go back.”
The gentleness of her voice calmed me a little, and I was able to reply,
though I wanted to run away, back to my hermanitas. “G-go back where?
Why are you here?”
“I have been sent here to help you find your way,” La Llorona said.
“There is a path designed for everyone and everyone must walk in his or
her path. This is your path. You must walk it. To refuse would be . . .
unfortunate.”
Unfortunate. The word felt ominous, coming from La Llorona herself,
and my body stiffened in response. I fought to speak, to get out the words to
the question that was suddenly weighing heavily on my mind. “Am I going
to be cursed, like . . . like . . . you, if I don’t — walk my path?”
 “Change must take place. It is important. To remain as you are would
lead to isolation. You would be doomed to a lonely existence, ripped apart
from those you love.”
I threw up my arms and let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re speaking in
riddles.” I didn’t understand what La Llorona wanted me to do. How was I
supposed to change, to find my way? What did that even mean?
“Then let me speak plainly,” La Llorona began. “You must go to El
Sacrificio and take the drowned man back to his family.” The sun had
finished rising and its full radiance was dissolving La Llorona’s form. She
stooped to hide under the shade of a cluster of huisache trees, looking
almost translucent.
“But . . . we don’t even know who he is. Sure, we have his wallet, but
we’re just kids,” I began.
“It’s not all about him,” La Llorona assured me. “This is about you and
your loved ones too. Your family is lost in turmoil. You must find each
other, become whole again.” Though La Llorona’s body was translucent,
her eyes remained untouched — dark and luminous in the shadows of the
huisache trees.
“Are you saying that this is about the trouble between Mamá and
Papá?”
“This is about all of you: your sisters, your parents, even your abuela,”
La Llorona continued. “You must travel to the other side, into the land of
your ancestors, to find each other again.”
Before I could ask her to clarify her puzzle — after all, my sisters were
all right here with me — I heard Juanita’s voice, then Delia and Velia
calling out for me. I turned toward the clearing.
 “Here, take this,” La Llorona said, reaching for me again. This time I
did not pull away as she placed something bulky and cold into the palm of
my hand and closed it tightly for me, her bony fingers pressing against my
own. Though she appeared to age before my eyes, her skin felt youthful and
firm as it made contact with mine. “You will need it, for your journey will
be filled with many hardships. Your courage and conviction will be tested
throughout your travels. You must accept it and use it.”
I opened my hand to look at it, wondering. Before I could ask, she said,
“An ear pendant.” I held it up to the light, where the gold glittered in the
morning sun as I twirled it between my fingertips. At the base of the ear
pendant, a serpent’s fangs held a small loop. Within the loop five wide rings
were suspended, each one larger than the last, nesting snugly inside each
other, like the rings of Saturn.
“It is a likeness of Cihuacóatl, La Serpiente,” La Llorona explained,
watching it glint in the morning sun. Along the bank we were almost fully
exposed to the sun, though the thick woods continued to stretch for miles
around us. “A most powerful amulet. It was given to me by my mother on
my fifteenth birthday at the altar of Tenochtitlan, when I became a woman.
It has magical properties, gifts from the gods. But you can only use it five
times, once for every ring on its axis.” I examined the beautiful pendant. It
had to be centuries old, if she was telling me the truth. “Take it,” she said
when I tried handing it back. How could I take something so valuable?
Even half a pair must be worth a fortune. “It belongs to you now. Wear it on
your left ear. When you need help, take hold of it, spin it, and invoke the
goddess, the Aztec queen, Tonantzin, the Holy Mother of all mankind, and
ask for her magical assistance. Whatever you ask, she will provide.”
 “I — I can’t do this,” I told La Llorona. How could I take responsibility
for something so powerful? It frightened me more than La Llorona herself
to do such a thing.
“This ear pendant can do many things,” La Llorona insisted. “It can
change your aura and provide you with safe passage as you travel from your
world into ours, but be careful to use it wisely; never call upon its power in
anger or arrogance. You and your sisters must remain pure of heart on this
journey, Odilia. Be courageous, but remember also to be noble and kind. If
you do that, everything will be all right.”
“Odilia? Is that you?” Juanita’s voice startled La Llorona, who stepped
back into the brush.
“They’re just little girls, dreaming up an adventure. I can’t drag them
down to Mexico. I can’t sacrifice them to follow my path,” I whispered
fiercely, still holding the ear pendant in front of me. But La Llorona wasn’t
taking it back. I heard twigs breaking and footsteps getting closer from the
direction of the swimming hole. The girls couldn’t see us from the path. We
were hidden behind a heavy cluster of huisache trees. But if they veered off
the path, they’d find me talking to a phantom.
“This is not for you to do alone,” La Llorona said. “You must come
together, you and your hermanitas. You must rejoice in the strength of
sisterhood and return the man to his family.”
“Because we’re lost?” I asked. Even as I said it, a pang of recognition
that La Llorona was exactly right about us, that we were lost, fluttered to
life within me much like the mariposas who were beginning to stir in the
morning light. At the same time, La Llorona confirming Juanita’s crazy
plan made me question my own sanity. But what if she was right? If doing
something as simple as returning a dead man to his family would save our
family, shouldn’t I try? Yet the thought of going into Mexico without telling
Mamá where we were going or why made me feel awful. We hadn’t even
left her a note. What would she think? Would she feel abandoned again?
Delia and Velia were arguing with each other in the brush behind us.
They weren’t more than ten feet away, but the cluster of huisaches sheltered
us from their view. “She left!” Delia declared.
“No. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t leave us out here all alone,”
Velia said, their voices getting closer and closer, until I knew they were only
a few yards away.
I focused back on the spectral woman whose voice was becoming more
strained. “It is the only way,” La Llorona whispered. “Your mother and
sisters need you! They are lost in despair.”
They needed me right here, taking care of them. Mamá was depending
on me to keep them safe. “I’m tired of your riddles. I’m taking them home,”
I said, turning to go.
“Please,” La Llorona pleaded, standing up and stepping in front of me.
“You must take him back. Don’t do it for him. He’s just a man, one who
committed a selfish act. Don’t do it for his wife either. She cries for him for
her own selfish reasons. Don’t even do it for his little ones, who, like many
children, have already turned to their play without thinking much of him
anymore. Do it for your hermanitas. Deliver the man home to his family
and then drive your sisters to El Sacrificio to see their abuela. Reunite your
family, Odilia. It is all part of the journey you must take, the path to true
happiness.”
 “Odilia? Who are you talking to?” Juanita burst through the brush from
another direction. I thought she was with the twins behind the huisaches.
She stopped abruptly and stared at me. “And why are your clothes all wet?”
she asked.
I looked around for La Llorona, but the apparition was gone. “Nobody,”
I said, suddenly feeling stupid. I’m losing it, I thought, as I pushed branches
aside, fighting my way back to the clearing.
“But I heard voices,” Juanita insisted.
I tucked the ear pendant into my pocket for safekeeping. “Me too. I
think it’s Delia and Velia arguing again.”
“No,” Juanita said. “I heard them, but I heard you too. You were talking
to someone out here.”
“I wasn’t.” That was one thing I hated about Juanita, the way she clung
to things and wouldn’t let them go, like a dim-witted gnat stuck on a piece
of rotting fruit. I couldn’t explain to her who I’d been talking to, but she
wouldn’t let it go.
“Yes, you were. I heard you,” she insisted. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Okay. Fine,” I finally admitted. “I was talking to La Llorona. She
wants us to take the drowned man home. I tried telling her we couldn’t, but
she said we have to do it because it’s our destiny or something. I couldn’t
understand her. She talks in riddles. There. I admit it. I was talking to a
ghost. Are you happy now?”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t care! I don’t have to know!” Juanita
clamped her mouth shut and stalked off. I followed close behind without
saying another word. If I’d known the truth was the one thing that could
shut Juanita up for good, I would have stopped lying to her years ago.
OceanofPDF.com
EL VENADO: “No es venado, es venada,
y hay cinco en mi ramada.”

THE DEER: “It’s not a deer, it’s a doe, and

there are five of them in my arbor.”

Instead of helping Juanita carry the body, I went to sit in the driver’s seat of
Papá’s car to be sure Juanita didn’t try her driving stunt again. Looking at
myself in the rearview mirror, I took the cubic zirconia stud out of my left
ear and replaced it with La Llorona’s elaborate ear pendant. The zirconia
studs weren’t expensive, but they were a birthday gift from Mamá, so I
didn’t want to lose them. I attached both studs to an old envelope I found in
the car and tucked them safely into the glove box. Still looking at myself, I
shook my head, trying to get used to the weight of La Llorona’s ear
pendant. I watched it glint in the daylight and wondered if it really was
magical. It looked ancient and mysteriously beautiful, and for a moment, I
thought it glittered magically.
Juanita rested her forearms on the driver’s window and looked at the ear
pendant. “Where did you get that?”
“I found it,” I said, twisting at the back of it to make it stay in place. It
would take time to get used to the great weight of it pulling down on my
small earlobe.
“Nice,” she said, touching it gingerly. “Can I try it on?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not mi — ”
 “It’s not what?” Juanita’s eyes narrowed as if she was trying to put
together a word puzzle.
“It’s not . . . not. Nothing,” I said, stammering on my words like a
stalling engine. “Don’t you have something better to do than stand around
looking at me? I’m not that interesting.”
Her face dropped sheepishly. “Well, I think I’m going to need some
help. He weighs a ton. Dead weight, you know.”
“Oh, no,” I said, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut.
“This is your show, not mine.”
“Fine! Whatever!” Juanita walked away in a huff. I leaned back against
the car, crossed my arms, and watched as she enlisted the help of Velia and
Delia.
Even though I had put on the earring, I refused to admit that I was
seriously considering taking the body back home to his wife and kids. It
was unfathomable. This is stupid, I kept telling myself. Ghosts aren’t real,
and they don’t give you expensive presents. I should go home and have my
head examined.
“Okay,” Juanita said. After positioning the body in the backseat with
the side of his face resting against a pillow, looking like he was trying to
sleep, Juanita took a list out of her back pocket and started rattling off its
contents. “Blankets?” she asked.
“Check,” Velia verified.
“Flashlight? “ Juanita continued.
“Check.” Delia patted her hip, and for the first time, I saw that she had a
sort of tool belt full of odds and ends wrapped around her waist. It was one
of Mamá’s worn waitress aprons with loops and odd-shaped pockets sewn
awkwardly all over it.
I pointed at the absurd contraption. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“In this?” Delia asked, grinning with ingenious pride, her perfect smile
brilliant. “Medical kit, makeup, perfume, scissors, batteries, candles . . .”
“Perfume?” I asked. “Why would we need perfume?”
Velia rolled her eyes at me. “Hello? He’s gonna start stinking.”
“Oh, great,” I retorted. “So now he’s not just going to look like a
prostitute, he’s going to smell like one too?”
Velia gave Delia an elbow shove in the ribcage. “I told you we
should’ve brought Papá’s Old Spice.”
“It was almost gone,” Delia said, rubbing at her side.
“So why not bring both?” Velia looked mad now.
“I did,” Delia said, pulling out Papá’s old bottle of cologne with nothing
more than a few drops left in the bottom of it. “See?”
“People, please,” Juanita interjected. “Can we just move this along? We
don’t have time to nitpick each other.”
“That’s right,” Velia said, watching me intently with fierce hazel eyes.
“Today we’re on a mission, and we shouldn’t let anything stop us from
doing what’s right. Today, we need to work together. Otherwise, this whole
thing could blow up on us.”
“You mean, like we could get caught and end up in juvie?” Pita asked.
Delia took off the apron and folded it carefully so nothing would spill
out of its pockets. She put it in the trunk, where I saw more supplies. When
had they gotten those out of the house? “They wouldn’t do that to us, would
they?” she said, looking at Velia for reassurance.
 “Of course not,” Velia answered, sounding like an expert. “It’s not like
we’ve broken any laws.”
“Actually,” Juanita began, “improper disposal of a dead body, even
failing to report it, is a crime. That’s why we’re doing things right, and
taking it to his family, who can give him a proper burial. But no matter what
happens, we are Five Little Sisters, cinco hermanitas! The Garza Girls!
Together forever! No matter what!” Juanita exclaimed, and like every time
one of us said those words, they all huddled together and hugged.
That’s when I started to turn. Being left out of the circle of the cinco
hermanitas was like becoming an orphan, or suddenly being homeless. I
didn’t like the way that felt, didn’t want to be apart from them, ever, even if
Juanita was changing the subject to avoid focusing on what could go wrong.
So I did what any true sister would have done at a time like that. I stepped
forth and let them pull me in.
I wasn’t pretending either. At that very moment I changed my mind,
believed in us as a team, believed that together we could get through
anything. And for an instant, I wondered if maybe La Llorona was right and
this journey was our destiny, our path to true happiness.
So we all loaded our gear in the trunk and got in the car. Juanita rode in
the front with me. Delia and Velia sat side by side in the backseat next to
the “sleeping” drowned man while Pita wedged herself against the opposite
car door trying to stay away from him. At the edge of the woods, before we
turned onto El Indio Highway, I paused at the stop sign long enough to turn
around to look at the twins.
“What do you think?” I asked, shaking my head to make the argollas,
the nesting rings on La Llorona’s ear pendant, rattle against each other. “Do
I look stupid wearing only one earring?”
“What are you talking about?” Juanita asked. “You’re wearing two of
them. They’re a matching set. But really, where did you get them?”
“Them?” To my surprise, I felt the weight of an ear pendant on my right
ear even before I reached up and touched it. Feeling the coldness of the
yellow gold within my fingertips, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror
again. There it was, the other ear pendant, framing my face and winking at
me. Its magical power was indisputable in the sunlight.
“I found them,” I said, trying to satisfy her curiosity without giving
away too much. She hadn’t believed me when I tried telling her about La
Llorona anyway. “Well? Do I look dumb wearing these giant hoops?”
“No,” Velia said, excitedly joining the conversation. “You look
powerful, like a woman who knows what she wants out of life.”
Delia reached over and flicked the golden rings with her forefinger,
making them tinkle against each other. “Yeah, especially with your hair all
wild like that. You look like a gypsy, a rebel with an eye for fashion.” I
reached up and touched my hair. It was more than “wild.” It was downright
ratted with knots because I hadn’t even brushed it once since we got out of
the water yesterday, when we found the dead man. I wondered if there was
a comb I could use later in Delia’s apron contraption.
“I think it makes you look older,” Juanita observed. “More
sophisticated.”
“Good. Good. I like that,” I said, putting the car into gear and turning
onto El Indio Highway, toward the border. I’d need all the sophistication I
could muster to make us believable when we attempted to cross the bridge.
 Crossing customs on the American side is always fast and easy. There’s
a toll to pay, so Velia put the three dollars in the dead man’s right hand and
rested it on the right shoulder pad of the driver’s seat. She pressed her own
shoulder under the dead man’s arm to make it look like she wanted to be
close to her daddy, when in reality she was keeping his arm from slipping
and falling into her lap.
When we pulled up to the tollbooth, the duty officer didn’t even look at
us. Peripherally, he must have seen Velia take the money from the drowned
man’s hand and reach over me to pay, because he took it from her without
once glancing at us, unaware of who or what was inside the car.
That’s how much he cares, I thought.
At that moment, I had a choice. I could make him care by informing
him that the man sitting rigidly behind me was actually a corpse, or I could
just keep driving. As I watched the duty officer straighten up and look at the
next car, a brazen breeze picked up around us. It passed through the car,
dragging a small bevy of tiny brown mariposas into the car. The butterflies
flittered around us, beating their wings gently against the windshield then
sitting prettily on the dashboard. At least a dozen of them had flown into the
backseat and settled on Pita. Four of them clung to her hair, opening and
closing their wings in long, luxurious strokes, while the rest of them
crawled delicately along her arms.
“I think they like us,” Pita said, smiling and sitting as motionless as
humanly possible, trying her best not to disturb the delicate butterflies. With
one of the mariposas climbing up her nose, staring at her eye to eye, Pita
looked like Bambi, right before the hunters shot his mother.
 The image of Pita looking so innocent and young made me think of the
dead man’s children, sitting at home, wondering what happened to their
papá. At that moment, I realized what would happen if we were caught with
a dead man’s body in our car. These people would call Child Protective
Services and that would lead to a full-on investigation of Mamá. They
would label her neglectful and make her look like an unfit mother.
It felt like I deliberated our journey for hours, when in reality, we were
there for only a few more seconds. The people in the cars behind me started
honking, and the toll booth attendant looked into the vehicle for the first
time since we drove up. He glanced suspiciously at the sleeping man behind
me. Terrified that he might catch us with a corpse in the car, I snapped into
action. I reached up and gave my left ear pendant a vigorous spin and asked
it for help, low enough for the girls not to hear me, “Aztec queen,
Tonantzin, Holy Mother of all mankind, give me your magical assistance.
Distract this man, make him forget what he has seen.”
“That’s a nice pair of earrings,” the attendant said, mesmerized by the
sight of the whirling argollas humming against my cheeks. “Where’d you
get them? I’d like to find something like that for my wife.”
“They were a gift,” I said, watching as the man squinted to avoid the
glare of golden light emanating from La Llorona’s ear pendant and glinting
directly into his eyes, momentarily blinding him.
“They’re beautiful,” he said, still too entranced by them to do much
else.
“Is that it?” I asked, as I watched the officer stare at my earlobe.
“Ah, sure, go on,” he said, waving us off in a dazed state of mind.
 The spell worked! I knew La Llorona was real, but for her promise of
magic to be real too was more than I had expected. I was so exhilarated by
the realization that I did the most unexpected thing in the world. I listened
to my inner nut and sped out of the caseta, leaving behind everything that
was familiar and normal and full of life and crossing over the threshold into
the darkness of a dead man’s life.
We drove the few miles across the international bridge with the
windows down, the wind whipping our hair around our faces, until we
slowed down and drove into the aduana, the Mexican customs station. I
pulled into the center booth and waited for the officer to come over to speak
to us.
The Mexican official was scary. He was a big fat man, older than the
moon, with huge, bulging eyes that devoured our female frames. When he
saw that our “father” was asleep in the backseat, he looked from one pretty
girl to another and licked his lips like an iguana. I wanted to sink the gas
pedal into the floorboard and peel out of there, but he had other ideas. He
looked at my small chest for a long time, and then he smiled knowingly at
me.
“Where are you young ladies going?” he asked.
“We’re going to Chihuahua,” I lied in perfect Spanish, a task that was
not difficult, since Spanish was our first language.
“We’re taking him home to — ” Pita interjected.
“Our grandmother!” Juanita exclaimed, smiling nervously. “We’re
going to go see our grandmother in Chihuahua.”
The girls’ lies cut through me with the sharpness of an obsidian knife.
The mention of our grandmother made me physically jerk in my seat — it
was so reminiscent of what La Llorona had said I should do. I turned
around and whispered, “T.M.I.,” with an I could kick you look on my face.
Inside, I was fighting the urge to cry. The thought of going right up to my
paternal grandmother’s residence, sitting down at her table, and tasting her
cooking more than saddened me. I wondered how she would receive us
after only having seen us twice in her lifetime? Would she even know who
we were?
“It’s our birthday. Me and my twin’s,” Delia continued, pointing at
Velia.
“My grandmother’s throwing us a party,” Velia said, batting her long
eyelashes.
“There’s going to be a live band, Los Coyotes,” Delia invented,
showing her perfect teeth as she smiled. “You can come if you want.”
Where are they coming up with all this? I asked myself as I watched
them lie shamelessly to the dirty old man. The more unsolicited information
we provided, the more he might suspect something.
“He can’t come. He has to stay here and take care of business,” I said,
turning to give them a look like the one Mamá gives us when we’re being
bad. The look worked, because after that they just looked at him and pouted
in mock disappointment.
“Your big sister’s right,” the old officer said, laughing. “I have too
much work.”
“You see. He can’t come,” I concluded, staring straight ahead.
“But thanks for inviting me,” he said. “You girls have fun. Maybe I’ll
see you on the way back.” And with that, he winked, an act that turned the
sandwich I’d had the night before into a revolting slime that churned and
festered in my stomach.
“Bye! Bye!” Both Velia and Delia waved at the officer as we drove off
past the aduana and into Piedras Negras. My heart was racing and my head
was hurting, but the girls were whooping and hugging each other in the
backseat. Juanita just sat back and looked at me smugly, a tiny bit of sisterly
pride glinted in her brown eyes, but I didn’t acknowledge it. I stared at the
road ahead instead.
“We did it!” Velia yelled. “We got through the freakin’ border!”
“Don’t celebrate yet,” I told them as I veered around the plaza. We
circled around El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and promptly
crossed ourselves at the sight of the old church. We may have been wild and
rebellious, but our mother wasn’t raising complete heathens.
“You might want to go in there and pray,” I continued. “We have a long,
challenging road ahead of us. We’ll be lucky to get past the checkpoint
outside the city limits. This guy was the least of our problems.”
“Hey, if we can get past that fat bobo,” Juanita said, “we can get past
the checkpoint.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled under my breath. They had no idea how much
of an effort this was going to be, but I figured they’d find out soon enough.
No use bursting their sopapillas quite yet.

OceanofPDF.com
EL MUNDO Mundo: “El mundo pudiera estar
parado y nosotros bien mareados.”

THE WORLD: “The world could be standing

still, and we’d all be just as dizzy.”

We drove around Piedras Negras, getting a few more things for the road.
Except for the initial shock and anxiety of seeing so many sospechosos, idle
young men, conspicuously posted outside prominent buildings or lounging
on stone benches in the plaza, we felt confident enough to go about our
business. Although we did our best to make it fast. We didn’t want to call
attention to ourselves in case they were members of any of the border
gangs, who had been abducting people along the Frontera, the border
between Mexico and the US.
I bought a huge bag of tortilla chips, some peanuts, and some water
bottles from a street vendor. Velia and Delia purchased piping hot ears of
corn on a stick, wrapped in their own leaves and enveloped in newspapers
to keep them warm. Juanita bought some raspas, icy fruit-flavored treats, to
cool us down. I drove with one hand while I ate mine before it melted.
This time the girls were right — getting through the checkpoint outside
Piedras Negras on Highway 57 was easier than getting past the old officer
at the aduana. The guard at the depot didn’t ask us where we were going or
what we were doing in Mexico. We gave him the same story about our
grandmother, but he seemed uninterested.
 Actually, the officer, a young skinny guy in his early twenties, was
more about making a buck than doing his job. When he asked us for our
travel permit, he rubbed his fingers together and rested his right hand just
inside the door as he looked away toward the road behind us. Velia, Juanita,
and I looked at his hand dumbly.
“Ahem,” Delia cleared her throat. We turned to look at her. The dead
man’s hand was propped back on the headrest of my seat, holding a crisp,
neatly folded twenty dollar bill between the index and middle fingers. “The
permit is in the glove box, remember?” she continued, arching an eyebrow
to emphasize her point.
“Oh!” Juanita’s eyes sparkled with understanding. Then she searched
the glove box and pulled out a piece of paper. She looked at it for a
moment, then offered it to me. I stared at it dumbfounded.
Velia took it, reached over me, and pressed the money and the paper
into the man’s hand and smiled at him. I’d seen Papá do this many times
before, but it would’ve never dawned on me to try it. If it had been left up
to me, we would have gotten hauled into a Mexican jail that day.
The skinny officer took both items. He pretended to read the piece of
paper as he discreetly stuffed the twenty dollars into the cuff of his long-
sleeved shirt. After a few seconds, he handed the “permit” back to me and
waved us through. I handed the paper to Juanita and drove off. The whole
incident took less than two minutes, but it was the longest, most stressful
two minutes of my life.
“Ah, the power of moo-lah,” Juanita said, resting back against her seat
and laughing out loud as we drove off.
 “I can’t believe we pulled that off,” I said, letting out a long-held
breath. “What was that? What did you show him?”
“I don’t know. An old receipt of some kind,” Juanita said, looking at the
piece of paper in her hand. “Doesn’t matter. It could have been my
Christmas list for all he cared.”
After driving for hours in the hot morning sun without stopping, past
Nava, past Allende, past Nueva Rosita and Sabinas, we hit a long stretch of
open road. The day was hot and sticky and we were drenched down to our
socks. The old Nova’s air conditioner had never worked, so our only source
of comfort came from the open windows. At the first signs of civilization,
we veered off the road and stopped at an old gas station just south of
Monclova.
Juanita went into the convenience store to pay for the gas. I kept an eye
on her as she looked around for goodies to bring back to the car. The
peanuts were running low, and the water and chips were long gone. After I
finished pumping the gas, I went in to hurry her along. I wanted to make
sure we were on our way before other travelers showed up and saw the dead
man propped up against our back window.
“Let’s go,” I said, as she picked through the bottles of Mexican fruit
pop in the beverage cooler. “Papá is getting upset.”
“Stop telling me what to do,” Juanita ordered. “Can’t you see I’m busy
here? Man, you made me lose count . . . three, four, five. There. We can go
now.”
I picked up a pineapple soft drink. “Six,” I said, handing it to her.
“No,” she insisted, putting the bottle back in the open cooler. “We don’t
need so many. There’s only five of us.”
 “No,” I corrected her. “There are six of us.”
Juanita lashed out at me. “You always do this, Odilia. You always think
you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t. You’re just a big fat
bully who doesn’t know anything. Count ’em! ¡Cinco hermanitas! Five.
There are five of us!”
“Don’t forget Papá,” I said, nodding to the shop owner and his wife
staring at us from the counter.
“Oh,” Juanita said, her ego deflating like a tire. “I forgot about Papá.
He’s probably dying of thirst. Here, let’s take two for him,” she said,
picking up a seventh soft drink.
“Whatever,” I said, walking away. “Let’s go. You’re making us late.”
When we got back to the car, Velia had Pita in a fierce headlock. Our
baby sister was squealing like a piglet, but Velia had her hands over Pita’s
mouth to keep her from crying out too loud.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, hauling the door open and jumping in
the front seat. Pita was crying silently, her body shaking.
“Little Miss Tattletale here was going to call Mamá,” Delia hissed
through clenched teeth. “She had a handful of change and she was trying to
leave the car. She said she was tired and hungry and she was going home.”
“Start the car!” Juanita demanded, dumping out the sodas on the
floorboard and jumping in the front seat. “Hurry! They’re looking at us.
Let’s get out of here before these two get us in trouble.”
I didn’t have to ask who was looking at us. The middle-aged woman
and her husband were peering out the shop window, watching us. Juanita
reached down for two sodas. She handed one to Delia and they made a
show of opening them. As we pulled out of the gas station, Delia put on a
bright, happy smile on her face and waved good-bye to the couple as
Juanita guzzled down her soda enthusiastically.
“¡Chiflada!” Velia hissed, letting go of Pita and pushing her aside.
“Guys, you’ve got to stop tormenting each other,” I said, as we made
our way down the highway. “We’re about to hit Castaños, and I want us to
stop and eat a real meal, but not if you’re going to act like this. I can’t have
you turn on us, Pita. We’re in this together, remember? And Velia, you can’t
treat her like she’s an animal.”
“It’s her fault,” Velia spurted, her hazel eyes burning with resentment.
“She bit me, the little mongrel.”
“What?” I asked.
“I tried to keep her in the car, but she bit me. See? My arm is still
bleeding.” Velia held out her slim arm and I assessed the damage.
At the sight of purple teeth marks on Velia’s forearm, I lost it. “That’s
it!” I said. “We’re not stopping in Castaños. We’re driving straight through.
We’ll stop to rest in the woods. You guys are just going to have to wait for
me while I go back and get us some real food from a restaurant. It’s a shame
too, because take-out food doesn’t taste nearly as good as when it’s served
warm. You’re just going to have to eat your tacos all cold and stiff.”
“I don’t care!” Pita kicked the backseat. “You can keep your stupid
tacos. The first chance I get, I’m telling — I’m being kidnapped!”
Juanita’s head turned back faster than you can spin a top. “Kidnapped?”
“You heard me. I’m turning you in!” Pita insisted, crossing her arms.
Tears were rolling down her face, her eyes were red orbs of anger, but she
wasn’t making so much as a whimper, which was unusual for her. She
usually wails louder than a smoke alarm.
 “I told you we should’ve left her behind,” Delia told Velia.
“Yeah? Then she would’ve told Mamá where we were going, and they
would’ve found us by now.”
“True,” Delia whispered as she turned to face forward. For the rest of
the ride, we all ignored our disloyal little sister. Pita, her face scrunched,
cried that she was hungry, so I assured her we would be stopping soon.
After we passed Castaños, I took the nearest country road to the left and
drove into the woods. We found a small clearing where we all got out to
stretch our legs and catch our breath. We’d been on the road for at least four
hours and my body felt numb. None of us were used to sitting around too
long.
“I’m going back into town,” I said after a while, and nobody
complained. Juanita, Delia, and Velia unpacked some of the blankets and
backpacks from the trunk. I left them there, resting sedately under the shade
of a tall ash tree, far off into the woods, out of sight of anyone driving by.
Castaños was small — deserted. I’d noticed that on the way through,
which was what made it the perfect place to stop. The less people saw of us,
the better. The only street vendor I found was stationed at the edge of town.
I got out of the car and bought some tacos and more sodas to go. The
vendor pretended that he couldn’t break the twenty dollars I handed him, so
I made him give me the change in sodas, an act he did not like, but I didn’t
have time to make change anywhere else, and I was not going to tip him ten
dollars. I was in a hurry to get back to the girls.
As I drove out of town, I saw an ancient woman standing in a blighted
field. She stood watching me, her long gray hair caught in the wind like
wisps of silver thread. I couldn’t see the details of her long tunic dress from
this distance, but I could tell it was old and graying.
“Llorona?” I whispered, slowing down to get a better look, but as I did,
the mysterious woman turned away from me. I watched the road ahead for a
good place to turn around, but when I looked back, the woman was gone.
Disappeared, like she’d never been there.
As I sped away, I had a suspicious feeling that I was needed back at our
secluded rest stop, and I was right. As I drove off the road and up to our
hiding place, I saw that Delia and Velia were lounging together under the
tree. They looked like bookends, sitting right up against Pita, who was tied
and gagged between them like a giant tamal rolled up in her own blanket.
“What in the world . . . ?” I asked as I stumbled up the hill toward them.
“She tried to run away,” Juanita explained. “We had to run after her,
knock her down, and drag her back here. She did it again and again. A
hundred times. It was getting ridiculous.”
I handed Juanita the plates of food and shoved Delia away from Pita.
“More ridiculous than this?” I asked, staring at them in disgust. If we hadn’t
been two-thirds of the way to El Sacrificio already, I would have shoved
them all back in the car and taken them back home.
“They had no other choice,” Juanita whispered, defending her sisters.
“She’s crazy.”
Velia pushed Pita toward me and got up to stretch her long, coltish legs.
“Yeah, her brain is fried!”
Delia joined her twin to shake her legs out and kicked at Pita in the
process. “She’s got mad cow disease!”
 “Don’t kick her!” I knelt down and removed Pita’s gag. “How could
you do this to your own sister? This trip is supposed to help us get closer.
We have to stick together, be nicer to each other from now on.”
Pita squirmed miserably beside me like a cocooned butterfly trying to
break free. “My arms are asleep.”
“What makes you so righteous all of a sudden, Miss Know-It-All?”
Velia taunted.
I ignored Velia’s comment and started to undo the knots that held the
blanket together around Pita’s body. “Get away from her. What’s the matter
with you? She’s not a goat. She’s a human being, a child who’s obviously
afraid.”
“She’s a narc,” Delia started. “She won’t stop trying to turn us in.”
“Are you okay?” I asked Pita as I removed the blanket and freed her
completely.
She nodded and threw herself into my arms, bawling. “I’m not a narc,”
she wailed, clutching at my shoulder. “I just want to go home. I miss Mamá.
I miss our Lotería games. I miss the mariposas!”
“I know,” I whispered, holding her tightly. “I know, mamita, I know.
But we’re almost there, and after we deliver this man to his family, we can
all go home. I promise. You’ll get to sleep in your own bed tomorrow night.
Can you just hang on for a few more hours? Maybe?”
“Yes,” she whispered, worn out from her tearful release. “I think I can.”
“Good,” I kissed her forehead. “Are you hungry? I brought you some of
those baby taquitos. The little red ones you like, with guacamole. You want
some?”
She shook her head and buried her face in my shoulder. “No.”
 “You tired?” I asked her, feeling my heart twisting painfully within my
chest. “You want to take a nap?”
“Yes,” she whispered, snuggling her face into my neck.
I fluffed a couple of pillows and laid them down for us. “Well, why
don’t you lie down here with me and rest,” I invited. Pita lay down and I put
my right arm around her. Delia and Velia snorted in disgust. They turned
their backs to us and opened up the containers of food.
They started to eat the tacos. After they’d had their share of the food,
they slid a tray over to our end of the blanket, their faces contrite. It was
their way. They were often hotheaded but also fast to regret their harsh
words; this was their peace offering of sorts. Juanita and I coaxed Pita to eat
before taking a nap, which she finally did, with delight.
After we ate, we all lay back down in the blankets and waited for the
afternoon sun to burn itself down. When we awakened at dusk, we were
covered in mariposas. The snout-nosed butterflies were everywhere,
flittering in the air, resting on our bedclothes, even tangled in our hair.
“They found us!” Pita shouted, jumping up and spinning around on the
blankets like a ballerina. “I love you! I love you!” she kept chanting to the
butterflies. The mariposas swirled and twirled around us like dark
snowflakes in the surreal light of dusk, making the moment almost magical
in its beauty. Little by little, the butterflies drifted away. Onward and
forward they went, moving toward the car, with Pita dancing in their midst.
I looked at the sun looming low in the horizon. “I think it’s time we
moved on. It’s about to get dark, and I don’t want to see what kind of wild
beasts roam these woods after dark.”
 “I think you’re right,” Juanita agreed. She got up and together we shook
out the blankets and rolled them tight. Velia and Delia packed up our gear
and we headed out again. We left the afternoon’s shenanigans far behind us
as we drove farther and farther away from home. Our more sisterly mood
had returned, at least for now.
“What do you think his wife will say when she sees him?” Juanita
asked in the darkness of the car. We had been driving for almost an hour
under the blanket of night, and by our calculations we were about to hit El
Sacrificio within the next few miles.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s too late to turn back now. Besides, I
think we’re doing the right thing.”
Juanita reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “We’re doing more
than the right thing,” she said. “We’re doing something honorable here.
We’re making sure this man receives what’s coming to him.”
“And what’s that?” Velia asked.
“A proper funeral, of course,” Juanita informed her. “Being laid to rest
in his own hometown, surrounded by his family and friends. Everyone
deserves that. This is an admirable thing we are doing. They’ll thank us for
this. His wife and his family will be eternally grateful to us. We might even
end up in the news after all, but in an even greater light. We’ll be heroes.”
“Heroines,” I corrected proudly.
“In the news?” Delia asked. “Are we ready for it?”
“Well, at least we’re better dressed!” Velia retorted from her seat in the
back. I didn’t know that I agreed with her — we’d been driving all day in
the hot summer sun, and we hadn’t bathed since before our swim yesterday.
 Delia squealed, as if the concept had finally sunk in and she couldn’t
believe it. “We’re going to be celebrities!”
“We’ll be in all the papers!” Juanita chimed in, turning to look at the
twins in the backseat. “People will want our autographs.”
“We’ll be famous?” Pita asked, her eyes full of wonder, as if they were
starting to wake up to the seriousness of our situation.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Velia whispered. She wrapped
her other arm around Pita’s shoulders and pulled her in close for a hug.
“Being famous is like eating the best flan in the world. It’s so good, you can
never get enough of it. Trust me, you’re going to love being in the
spotlight.”
In celebration, Juanita turned on the radio. Our favorite songbird,
Selena, was singing happily about something fun and exciting, a song about
love at first sight.
“Bidi, bidi, bom, bom,” she sang. “Bidi, bidi, bom, bom.” Her voice on
the radio was so exhilarating, so full of life, that, suddenly we were all
singing. Our voices drowned out Selena’s, but we didn’t care. It wasn’t
about listening to her, it was about singing along with her, about being in
the moment with her. For a brief and joyful instant, she brought us closer
together and made us enjoy each other’s company. She made us sisters
again.

OceanofPDF.com
LA MANO: “Dame la mano, hermanita,
que no tengo hermano.”

THE HAND: “Give me a hand, little sister,

for I don’t have a brother.”

It was almost ten at night by the time we finally arrived in El Sacrificio.

The town was smaller than we’d expected. In fact, it wasn’t really a town.
El Sacrificio was no more than a few dozen houses clustered around the
country road we’d been traveling on since we’d turned east on Highway 57.
At a puestecito, a corner store about to close down for the evening, I got out
of the car and asked an elderly man who was sweeping the storehouse porch
if he knew how to get to the dead man’s home. The old man squinted and
looked toward the car before he answered.
“He would have been better off staying gone,” the old man said,
pointing to the car with his chin.
“What?” I asked.
He opened the door and placed the broom against the inside wall. “He
has no business being here today. What does he want to do? Ruin that poor
girl’s day?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. “Do you know him?”
“Of course I do. Everyone knows each other around here,” the elderly
man said as he took a rag out of his apron and began to wipe down the
metal domino tables folded out by the front door. “He’s a good for nothing.
Un vago. But that’s none of my business — flour from a different sack, as
far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, do you know how to get there?” I asked again. But instead of
answering me, the store owner turned away and left me standing there.
Then he went into the tiny depot, closed the door, and came to the window
to pull down the shade. A moment later the porch light went out and I stood
there, wondering what I had done wrong.
“You’re almost there,” a woman’s voice whispered from the darkness. I
turned around and almost jumped at the sight of a female figure coming out
of the shadows from behind the storehouse, like a ghost.
“God, you scared me,” I said, holding a hand to my chest as if to stop
my heart from fluttering out of it.
“You’ve come a long way,” the woman whispered as she inched her
way toward me, never really leaving the shadows of the porch, but getting
closer and closer to me, until I could finally see her face. “I’m proud of you,
Odilia.”
“Llorona,” I whispered her name in grateful recognition.
“You’re almost there,” she continued. “Just follow the sound of the
whispering moon, listen to her sighs. It’s a small pink house. You can’t miss
it tonight.”
“Wait,” I said, as she started to drift back into the shadows. “Is this part
of your destiny? To watch over us, help us when we need you?”
“I will be watching you as you deliver him, and afterward too,” La
Llorona said. “But I cannot interfere with your journey. There are rules that
must be followed, and I will not be able to break them. There is only so
much I will be able to do. The rest is up to you. You must face your own
fears and fight your own battles as you go along. That’s why I gave you the
ear pendant.”
“Fight my own battles?” I asked. “What are you talking about?” I’d
battled too much with my sisters on this trip already. I was ready for some
peace.
“I’ve said too much. It is not for me to explain,” La Llorona whispered.
She turned away and disappeared into the darkness, leaving me alone with
her cryptic words. But I didn’t have time to decipher their meaning. I had to
get out of the night air. El mal aire can kill you if you linger in it too long.
So I turned away from the puestecito, got in the car, and drove on, trying to
finish what we’d started that morning. As we left the cluster of houses
behind, I looked up at the moon and tried listening to her sighs. I wasn’t
sure it was the moon that sighed, but I could hear something, a wisp of
music, a whisper of song.
“What’s going on?” Juanita asked when I stopped the car and poked my
head out the window, trying to hear where the soft sound was coming from.
I held my hand up with my palm out, signaling Juanita to stop talking.
“Shhh. Listen,” I said. “It’s coming from over there.”
La Llorona had been right; there was no way of missing the pink house,
not with a party going on in the front yard. A small mariachi band was
playing in the background, and people were either dancing on the lawn or
sitting at folding chairs at small round tables, which had been draped with
white linens and decorated with white floral arrangements.
Juanita leaned over me for a closer look out of my window. “What do
you think’s going on?”
 “I don’t know, some kind of fiesta,” I whispered. I passed the house and
inconspicuously parked next door, just in front of their neighbor’s fence,
away from the lights strung on trees and all around the dead man’s yard.
The dimness of the night hid us from the guests, and we sat quietly inside
our vehicle observing everything from a dark, safe distance.
“I think someone’s having a wedding.” Velia pointed. “See, there’s the
bride sitting at that long table by the band.”
“That’s not a wedding dress,” Juanita said. We all peered out of the car
without making any attempt to get out. I don’t think any of us had the
courage to crash a party by delivering a dead man to it.
“It’s not?” Velia asked.
“No,” I said, suddenly understanding. A cold chill went up my spine as
I realized what was going on at the drowned man’s house. “There’s no
groom.”
“Then why is she wearing a white dress?” Pita’s voice from the
backseat was small and innocent.
“Because it’s her fifteenth birthday,” I whispered. “It’s a quinceañera.”
“Whose quinceañera?” Pita asked.
“The girl in the picture,” Velia whispered.
“The little girl in the picture?” Delia asked, horrified. “You mean . . .
she’s not little anymore?”
We were all dumbfounded at the realization that the dead man’s
daughter was not a child anymore, but a young lady my own age. How
could we proceed with such a different reality from the one we’d imagined?
It was like our dreams were shattered. The girls looked disillusioned. I was
more than shocked; I was dumbstruck. Presented with the current situation,
I didn’t know what to do, how to proceed.
Juanita pointed to the celebration taking place in the dead man’s front
lawn. “We have to get out of here. We can’t ruin her special day!” she said,
shaking me out of my stupor.
“Shush. Keep it down. We don’t want to call attention to ourselves. Not
yet, anyway.” I bit my fingernails and tried to figure out the best way to
handle the situation. We could leave, of course, but where could we go?
What could we do that didn’t involve taking the dead man with us?
“We have to do something. We can’t just sit here and eat our hands,”
Velia said, knocking my hand away from my face. She was just like Mamá,
who didn’t believe in biting your nails, no matter what the circumstance.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. Going up to the house at this time would be
more than inappropriate. It would be downright mean to ruin someone’s
debut.
“I think we should get out first,” Delia said.
“No. We need to talk first,” I said, turning around to look right at the
twins as I spoke. “Listen. When we get in there, they’re going to have lots
of questions for us. But we have to be smart and have each other’s back. We
can’t just blurt things out anymore like you did at the bridge.”
Juanita turned around in her seat and looked at Pita specifically. “Yeah.
We’ve come a long way. We can’t afford to blow it now. So you guys have
to follow the rules of the cinco hermanitas. Let Odilia and I do all the
talking and don’t contradict anything we say. And for God’s sake, don’t
improvise. Too much cream spoils the tacos, so just keep it simple. Okay?”
 “Fine. Whatever,” Velia said, flapping her hand dismissively in front of
Juanita’s face. “Can we get out now? I really have to pee. Does anyone else
need to pee?”
“I have to pee,” Pita piped up, squirming around in the backseat.
“Stop fooling around. You can’t just go up there and ask to use their
restroom. They don’t know us from Adam,” I whispered. Their commotion
was only going to draw more attention to us.
“But I do have to pee!” Pita started rocking back and forth, like she
couldn’t hold it for one more second. I rolled my eyes and ignored her.
“Stop whining and be quiet,” I said after a few seconds of further
complaints. “I need to think, and we should keep a low profile until I figure
out what to do.”
“Maybe we should just drive away,” Delia whispered behind me.
“Come back later, when the party’s over. We can find a store where we can
use the restroom.”
“Are you kidding?” Velia hissed. “We’re in Mexico and those are real
Mexicans in there. These people can party till dawn.” Not to mention the
stores we’d driven by had been dark, locked up like the puestecito. And our
last resort would be to go in the woods. For this one single thing, the twins
just wouldn’t rough it. So we always rode up to the nearest gas station to
use the restroom when we were swimming.
“Well, we can’t sit here all night waiting for the party to end,” Delia
told her twin. “I don’t know about you, but Papá here is stinking up the car.
Seriously — he’s giving me a headache.”
“I don’t smell anything,” I said, and to prove it I took a deep breath. It
was all I could do not to gag. The smell of death had been festering in the
afternoon heat, and now it was unbearable.
“I say we find a place to park it for the night, and by that I mean get a
room somewhere,” Velia said, reaching over the front seat and touching my
shoulder for a sign of concession.
“Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen,” Juanita said. “Did you see the size of
this place? They don’t even have a gas station here. We’d have to go back
out to the highway if we wanted to find a motel.” She turned around to look
at Velia in the backseat. “And how would we move the body into a room
without calling attention to ourselves? It’s not like we can leave him in the
car all night in the parking lot. Let’s face it, going to a motel is out of the
question, and nothing else is open this late. I think you’re stuck sitting next
to him until this party’s over.”
“He doesn’t smell so bad,” Pita said, pinching her nose. “I think the
perfume’s working.”
I had to admit it. “Juanita’s right,” I said. “We can’t get a room. Not
until after we’ve delivered him.”
“We could go back to the woods, camp out, wait until morning,” Juanita
suggested as she stifled a yawn, laid her head back, and closed her eyes.
“I am not going to sleep in the woods at night. I’m not a goat,” Delia
retorted. “Next thing you know, you’ll be expecting me to sleep in a barn
with horses and hay and God knows what else.”
“And lechuzas? You want those evil owls climbing all over you while
you sleep, pecking your eyes out?” Velia teased Delia in the backseat.
“Shut up!” Delia retorted, pushing at her twin’s shoulder. “I don’t
believe in that stuff.”
 “Of course you don’t,” Velia continued. “How about vampires and
werewolves, you believe in those?”
As if on cue, an enormous animal ran up to the car and jumped up onto
the driver’s door. He stuck his gigantic head in through the window and
barked wildly. Delia and Velia screamed. I jumped in my seat, throwing my
left arm out to protect my face.
The drooling, long-eared beast sniffed me and then yelped and clawed
his way inside through the driver’s side window. I couldn’t see all of him at
once, that’s how enormous this beast was. He had to be as big as me, but
much heavier. His huge paws dug into my arms and thighs, his claws
painfully cutting through my skin. He was so excited, he punched me in the
stomach with a mammoth paw as he pulled the rest of his enormous body
into the car. I would have doubled over in pain, except that his weight was
plastering me against my seat.
“Get him off me! Get him off me!” I screamed, but nobody could help.
Juanita, in the front seat, was busy trying to get away from the beast — a
Great Dane. In his excitement, the dog sniffed our clothes and licked our
faces so frantically you’d think the frenzied creature had three heads.
Finally the beast made his way over me and jumped into the backseat,
which by that time only held the drowned man because fear had set the rest
of my sisters into motion. They had all vacated the car long before I was
free from the dog and able to open my door and crawl out.
As I stumbled up to Juanita, Pita scooted over to me and clung to my
waist, trying to hide behind me. We stood against the chain-link fence in
front of the dead man’s neighbor’s house watching the gargantuan canine
panting and licking his chops and whining inside the car. He sat next to the
drowned man with his enormous paws neatly propped together on the dead
man’s lap, his tail wagging a mile a minute.
“Great. So much for keeping a low profile! Now I’m going to smell like
a wet diaper,” Delia said, mopping over her saliva-slathered hair with the
hem of her T-shirt. Her actions reminded me of my own condition, and I
wiped at my face with my shirtsleeve. It was disgusting.
“Do we have any of that perfume left?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Juanita said, without looking at us. “But it’s in my bag, next to
Marmaduke’s evil twin. You wanna get it?”
“Serberús!” The voice and a pitched whistle produced by the tall figure
of a young man at the gate of the drowned man’s house made the mammoth
canine stiffen in the backseat.
“Go home, Serberús!” the young man commanded.
“Serberús? Like the three-headed dog from Hades?” Delia asked,
looking at me. “Well, he’s right about one thing. He’s got a Hell of a
personality. But I’m not so sure he’s fierce enough for that name.”
“I know. He’s nothing more than a big spoiled puppy,” the young man
said, stepping forward. As if he’d been a circus beast trained to behave like
a domesticated creature, the mammoth dog left the dead man’s side and
slipped out of our car through the opposite rear window. He came around
the car and sat docilely by the young man, waiting for his reward. The
young man patted his forehead and pointed up the street, saying, “Go home,
Serberús!”
To our surprise, the dog trotted off into the darkness.
“Are you okay, ladies? Sir?” the young man asked as he peered at the
body of the drowned man sitting propped against the glass of the back
window.
“He’s fine,” Juanita jumped in.
The dog owner stepped up to the car and reached for the back door.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s not feeling well,” Velia explained, getting between the young
man and the car door just in time to prevent a catastrophe.
“He’s dead . . . tired,” Delia interjected. She laughed nervously and
shuffled her feet around.
This wasn’t the time to blurt out the real reason behind our arrival at the
house. “It’s been a long trip,” I said, trying to deviate the conversation away
from the drowned man.
“Forgive me. I am being rude. I have not introduced myself. My name
is Efraín Pérdido. I am sorry about my abuelito’s dog. He meant you no
harm,” the young man said. “Excuse me, but I didn’t catch your names. Are
you friends of Beatriz?”
“Beatriz?” Juanita asked, looking toward the house.
“La quinceañera. She is my little sister,” Efraín explained, putting his
hand on his chest and bowing his head slightly as a form of introduction.
I looked closely at the wide-set eyes and squared jawline of the young
man. He looked vaguely like the little boy in the picture in Gabriel
Pérdido’s wallet, which weighed me down as I thought of the distressing
news we were bearing. Dressed formally as he was, in a black tuxedo, it
was obvious that he was part of the debut court, the escort of one of the
birthday girl’s attendants perhaps. It became very clear to me that we
couldn’t finish what we’d started that morning, not yet anyway.
 “We’re more like friends of the family,” I started. “But we’ve come at a
bad time. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Nonsense,” the young man said, raising his arms in exaggerated
welcome. “A fiesta is the best time to greet friends of the family. My
sister’s quinceañera is turning out to be quite a reunion. We just met some
cousins from Sabinas today. But you have not told me your names.”
“We are the Garza sisters,” Juanita began. “This is Odilia. She is the
eldest, and this is Delia and that’s Velia. They’re twins. This little one is
Pita, and I’m Juanita. Listen, can we use your restroom? We’ve been
holding it for a while.”
“Of course, of course,” Efraín said, extending his arm and stepping
aside so that we might pass into the front yard. “You are welcomed at our
festivity. Tell me, how do you know our family?”
“Well, we don’t know anyone else. Just him,” I said, pointing at the
drowned man and then looking back at the girl in the white dress. She was
walking around with her mother, clinging to her arm, happily greeting the
guests.
A voice from the darkness spoke. “Efraín, who are you talking to?”
We all turned around to see an older man coming toward us. He was
wearing black jeans, a nice pressed shirt with a bejeweled bolo tie, and a
cowboy hat. He was too old to be part of the debut court. He was obviously
not a chambelán or escort, but the authority in his voice made me think he
was someone of importance.
“These girls just arrived. They’re from your side of the family, I think,
abuelo,” the young man said, turning around to face the other man.
 “Really?” the older man said. “Let me see. You look like my nieces
from Nava, but I haven’t seen you since you were bitty little things. Is that
my compadre in there?”
Before we could stop him, the older man was stooped over holding onto
the front door window, looking into the backseat of our car. He started to
say something, and then suddenly, he stopped.
“Well?” the young man asked.
“¡Madre de Dios!” the older man whispered, still looking into the
backseat of our car. “Gabriel, is that you?”
“Gabriel?” the young man in the tuxedo asked, leaning forward to peer
into the car again. “It can’t be!”
“Inés!” the old man turned around and started shouting toward the
house. “Inés! Inés! ¡Hija mía!”
We stood huddled by the fence, dreading the inevitable as we watched
both the Quinceañera and her mother freeze in their tracks. The music
stopped and both mother and daughter turned around to look at the old man
as he yelled, “Inés, my daughter! Listen to me, m’ija. Gabriel is home! Inés!
Your husband is home!”
As if we were in a B-rated movie, time seemed to stand still. I froze,
unable to think. How could I warn them without making it worse? To my
horror, everyone stopped talking and looked at the mother of the birthday
girl. She stood rigidly holding her daughter’s shoulders with both hands as
if to stop herself from fainting.
Then silently, slowly, Inés Pérdido, wife of Gabriel Pérdido and mother
of his two children, walked quietly past men, women, and children as if she
were in a trance. She made her way toward our dusty old car with her
daughter trailing behind her.
The older man held out his arms to her, and Inés went into them
instinctively. Efraín, the young man in the tuxedo, took the birthday girl in
his arms and they all stood looking expectantly at the car door, as if waiting
for the past to hit them in the face when it opened. The guests, who had left
their tables and chairs to follow Inés and her daughter out to the car,
crowded behind the fence, quietly waiting for the night’s drama to come to
a head.
“Is it really him?” Inés asked, her voice small and faint.
“Sí, m’ija. It’s him.” The old man held his daughter against his chest
and nodded. She sucked in a breath and smothered a whimper.
“No llores, m’ija,” the old man said, stroking her hair as he begged her
not to cry.
Efraín’s voice quivered with emotion. “Mamá? Is it really him? After
all these years. Is that really Papá? It doesn’t look like him.”
“Papá?” the birthday girl whimpered. “No. No. He can’t do this to me.
Not now. Not tonight.”
“Beatriz, m’ija,” Inés started, her voice quivering with emotion.
“It’s just like him, isn’t it, Mamá?” Beatriz continued, anger streaking
her face with tears. “Just like him to ruin everything!”
“Beatriz, por favor,” Inés begged, reaching out to take her daughter into
her arms.
Beatriz fought off her mother’s embrace. “He should have stayed
gone!” Beatriz sobbed. “I hate him, Mamá! I hate him! Please, make him
leave. I hate him!”
 “Beatriz,” Inés continued in her quivering voice. “He is your father. He
has a right to be here. Please don’t deny him that.” Ines finally gathered her
daughter in her arms, visibly trembling herself now. She looked at the car
again, her eyes narrowing. “Why doesn’t he get out? What’s wrong with
him?”
“He can’t,” I said from my place at the fence.
“It’s not that he can’t. He won’t. He’s a coward,” Efraín spit out,
clenching and unclenching his hands.
“Listen,” I started. “There’s something you should know.” I stepped
toward Efraín, but he was faster than me.
“Get out, you coward!” Efraín Pérdido screamed at his father. Then
without hesitation, he lifted the door handle and yanked the door open.
“No!” I screamed.
“Don’t do that!” Velia and Delia finished my thought, but they were too
late. To everyone’s horror, the pillow cradling the drowned man’s head slid
down the glass and Gabriel Pérdido’s body tipped over sideways, falling
onto the cement sidewalk with his arms outstretched before him in full rigor
mortis.
The birthday girl’s head fell back and her body went limp. The crowd
behind us gasped, and Pita screamed. Several of the guests moved quickly
toward Beatriz, but her grandfather reached her just in time to stop her from
hitting her head on the edge of the curved driveway.
Efraín helped his grandfather carry his sister into the house with Inés
and a slew of gabbing quinceañera attendants following close behind them.
My sisters and I waited by the fence with the rest of the guests, who stood
around the body speculating about Gabriel’s return.
 While everyone around us talked about the tragedy and asked
themselves where he had been, the old man came back down the driveway
to inspect the body of his daughter’s estranged husband.
When he was done his face looked pale and drawn. He stood on the
sidewalk and looked at us with haunted eyes. After a moment, he said,
“Compadres, please, help me get my son-in-law into the house. He must be
given his own measure of respect. It appears that our birthday celebration
has turned into a wake. Please, if you could help me, amigos.”
“Of course,” a man said, as he stepped out of the crowd to help.
“Claro que sí,” another whispered as he too stepped forward.
“At your service,” came the replies of several male guests as they stood
beside Inés’s father.
As six men lifted the body of the drowned man and started to carry him
toward the house, the people around us started asking us questions. How
did we know Gabriel? Why did it take him so long to return? Where had he
been all these years? Was he involved with our mother, our aunt, our sister?
In response to the last question, we shook our heads. But other than that, we
kept our mouths shut. I was glad the girls were heeding my advice not to
embellish because at that moment nothing we could have said would have
made things better for them.
Instead of talking to the guests, we walked up to the porch and stood
waiting to hear from the family. They would probably have more questions
for us than the guests, and it would be rude of us to leave without filling
them in on what little we did know. Besides, we were in a foreign country,
and we needed help finding a place to stay for the night.
 It seemed like an eternity before anyone came out of the house. In the
meantime, Juanita and I sat on an old bench with Pita between us, while
Delia and Velia clung to a pillar, trying their best not to wet their pants.
Eventually, the old man came out of the house and spoke to everyone.
“Amigos,” he said to the crowd. “It is my sad duty to inform you that
the festivities are over. Inés and I have some delicate business to attend to.
Gabriel’s body must be prepared for burial. You may return in the morning
for the velorio, the viewing, which we will hold here. Please, feel free to
take home as much of the food as you like. You are welcome to it.” Then he
turned around and spoke to the mariachi on the other side of the yard.
“Señores músicos, thank you for your service. You are free to go.
Señoritas,” he said, turning to address us. “If you will follow me. My Inés
would like to speak to you.”
The body of Gabriel Pérdido was laid out in full view on top of the
dinner table surrounded by the soft glow of dozens of gloomy candles. We
peered at it as we were escorted into the house. Inés Pérdido was sitting up
primly on the edge of a cushioned chair in the parlor area directly across
from the dining room next to an older woman who looked a lot like her.
Inés’s hands were clasped in front of her, clutching a rosary. She had taken
her pink party dress off, and was now wearing a modest black sheath that
covered most of her body, except for her forearms, hands, and ankles. She’d
looked prettier in her party dress.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t been properly introduced,” Inés said, as she
extended a hand to us. “I am Inés Pérdido, and this is my mother,
Zaragoza.”
 We all shook hands. “Glad to meet you,” I whispered as we sat down
before the two women. “If we’d known about the quinceañera, we would
have waited.”
“We’re so sorry,” Velia began, but Inés waved the apology away. She
pressed an embroidered handkerchief against the corners of her eyes and
looked away.
“Where has he been?” she asked, when she had composed herself
enough to manage the words.
“We don’t know,” I said. “He was already dead when we found him.”
“Floating in the river,” Delia interjected.
It only took a few minutes to tell Inés everything we knew. After she
heard the extent of our story, she sat still, quietly blinking away the tears, a
lifetime of pain running down her pretty face.
“He sent a letter,” she finally said, her voice low and deep with
emotion. “Many years ago, saying he wouldn’t be back.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “We didn’t know.”
“I sent him a letter too, begging him to come home — for his children’s
sake. They missed him so much. But he never wrote back. For a while, I
thought maybe he had married again, like so many men who go up north
do,” Inés whispered, looking down at her hands as she spoke, as if the
memory of it was too painful to speak of in a normal tone of voice. “Then
the authorities came. They said they had found the remains of a body in his
vehicle in the Chihuahuan desert. They thought it might be him, but they
couldn’t be certain. The car was registered in his name and there were other
signs — a gun and two rifles he had bought several months before which
were in the trunk. I don’t know who that man was, but it never felt right,
them declaring Gabriel legally dead when they couldn’t identify his body.”
“At least now you know he is gone for sure, m’ija,” Inés’s father said as
he stepped into the room.
“Gabriel was never really here,” Inés continued, in her trancelike voice.
“He was always roaming, always wandering. I think some men are just
meant for the road. They have no sense of place or belonging, no concept of
family. Anyway, he’s home now, finally, and I thank you for that.”
“I’m sorry we ruined your daughter’s special day,” Juanita said,
hanging her head and looking down at her hands.
“Don’t be sorry,” Inés said, patting Juanita’s hands. “You have brought
peace to my home.”
Peace — exactly what we had hoped to bring. Her words confirmed it,
but her face denied it. And we could all see it. She was miserable.

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 PART II
THE INITIATION
How my sisters and I had to leave the house of the drowned man in a hurry.
How we were enchanted, and with La Llorona’s help, were able to flee from
the sorceress Cecilia, and sought advice from the old fortune-teller, Teresita.
How we were warned about, encountered, and escaped from the clutches of
a wily nagual, a coven of scheming lechuzas, and a blood-thirsty
chupacabras, to end up at the hacienda of our paternal grandmother — a
grandmother we hadn’t seen more than twice in our lifetimes.

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EL ÁRBOL: “Debajo de un árbol reposan
mis lindas mariposas.”

THE TREE: “Under a tree rest my

beautiful butterflies.”

We’d wanted to stay at a motel, but Inés and her family insisted on
boarding us for the night. In the small kitchen at the back of the house, we
ate traditional birthday fare. Inés and her mother served us plateful after
plateful of enchiladas de mole. The chocolaty sauce of the chicken
enchiladas spilled out of the rolled-up tortillas and mixed in with the rice
and beans, making the dish extra delicious. We gorged ourselves till we
thought we’d pop. Then for dessert the women brought us generously cut
slices of pearly white cake. It was moist and creamy and absolutely too
much for our already bursting stomachs, but it was scrumptious. So we had
two slices each.
During the meal, however, the Spanish Inquisition began. We had to
think of some quick answers because even though we’d expected a full-on
interrogation, we hadn’t planned anything that came out of our mouths.
Luckily, the girls remembered our little talk about having Juanita and I
“explain” things without giving out too much information. For the most
part, they remained silent and didn’t contradict or add anything to whatever
we said.
 “But where is your Mamá?” Inés’s mother asked as she passed out the
frothy white cake slices.
“She’s at home,” I said, putting a forkful of cake in my mouth to stop
myself from having to give out any more details than were absolutely
necessary. Our number one rule about answering inopportune questions
from strangers was “don’t add too much cream to the tacos.” In other
words, keep the answers simple and plain. Like Mamá always says, nobody
needs to know all of our business.
“At home?” Inés’s mother crinkled her eyebrows together, and I
concentrated on my next bite of cake.
“Working,” Delia said, acting nonchalant. “She’s married to her job.
She hasn’t been able to take a vacation in years.”
“So who takes care of you?” Inés asked, turning her attention to Delia.
“Who drove you here?”
“I did. I’m old enough,” I said, quickly jumping in before anybody else
said anything too outrageous.
“Sí, of course.” Her eyes said she didn’t believe me.
“And how old are you?” Inés’s mother asked. “You don’t look older
than fourteen.”
“I’m actually eighteen,” I said, concentrating on my cake again. “The
women in my family look younger than we actually are. We take after my
grandmother. She’s seventy-one years old, but she doesn’t look a day over
fifty.” Not that I’d seen my abuela since I was ten, but it was the only
justification I could think of.
“I see,” Inés said, looking to her mother again. “And where does your
abuela live?”
 I yawned and stretched and made a show of being ready for bed. “Not
too far from here,” I mumbled.
“Really?” Inés’s face changed then. She looked more interested, more
alert, like a squirrel when she lifts herself on her hind legs and sniffs the air
with instinctual intelligence.
“Yes. We’ll be seeing her in the morning,” I said without really
knowing why. Maybe it was nervousness that made me say it, or maybe the
decision had already been made and it had just been sitting there in my
mind, in my heart, waiting to be put into words. I didn’t understand how or
why, but somewhere between the enchiladas and the birthday cake I’d
decided to honor La Llorona’s request, to run the course of our journey and
try to find true happiness for my sisters and myself. And that meant going
to visit Abuelita. It seemed to me that we had been through too much to not
finish what we’d started.
Around the small round table, every one of my sisters stopped eating,
stared, and then smiled at me. Their joy was evident in the way they nodded
and grinned while they resumed shoving cake into their mouths with
reckless abandon.
Zaragoza made her way around in the tight little kitchen to sit between
me and Inés. “Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking on my feet. “Mamá told her about the body we
found and she wanted to help. After they talked it over, Abuelita told us
how to get here. It was really very easy.”
“Super easy,” Delia interjected, shoving another forkful of cake in her
mouth.
 “Well, we should call them and thank them. Let them know you arrived
safely. We don’t want either of them to worry,” Inés’s mother said.
“She doesn’t have a phone,” Velia said, joining the conversation with
the same conviction as Delia and I. “I mean, my mother does, but . . . ”
“What she means is that our mother doesn’t answer her cell phone at
work, and she’s on the night shift right now,” I interrupted, coming to
Velia’s rescue. She was always the worst at keeping things from strangers.
She was just too candid. “It will be all right,” I continued. “We’ll call them
tomorrow, after Mamá gets home from work and Abuelita is awake.”
“I think we should try to get in touch with someone tonight,” Inés
insisted. “Don’t you, Mamá?”
“No!” I said emphatically, hoping they would listen to us.
“Why not?” Inés asked.
“Because . . . because . . .” I tried to think of something else to say,
something totally convincing, but nothing came to mind. I started to panic,
and I realized I was holding my breath. Then, remembering La Llorona’s
words and the effect the ear pendant had on the duty officer at customs, I
reached up to my left ear and flicked my index finger against the nestling
orbs. They tinkled lightly and I could feel them twirling around each other,
humming against my cheek. I turned my face slightly toward Inés and her
mother to call attention to the spinning argollas, as I whispered the
enchantment. “Aztec queen, Tonantzin, Holy Mother of all mankind, give
us your magical assistance. Make these women believe and help us leave!”
“What is going on?” Juanita leaned close to me to look at my whirling
ear pendant. The rest of the girls did the same from around the table. “Why
is your earring spinning? And what was that you said?” She reached over to
touch La Llorona’s magical gift.
“Don’t touch it,” I whispered. “It’s a prop to help me hypnotize them.”
“Since when do you know how to hypnotize people?” Delia asked, a
frown of disbelief furrowing between her brows.
“Who cares? It’s working,” Juanita said, putting a finger over her lips.
“Look at their eyes. They look like cats.”
“I like your earrings,” Zaragoza said, reaching for them. “They look
very old, like something the ancient Aztecas used to wear.”
“They were a gift,” I said, trying not to deviate too far from the original
lie I’d told the border patrol agent early that morning.
Zaragoza took another sip from her coffee. “Oh, who gave them to
you?”
“Abuelita Remedios,” I lied, relieved to see that the women had
dropped their concerns. “She’s very generous.”
“Of course.” Inés’s pupils were perfectly dilated, giving her a dazed
expression. Her mother’s pupils were dilated too. The spell was working.
“I’m glad you’re going to a relative’s house. It’s not safe for you girls to be
traveling in Mexico alone.”
I kept my voice even, willing the spell to keep them charmed by our lies
for as long as we remained in their house. “Well, like I said, our
grandmother lives down the road, about twenty miles away, between here
and Ejido la Paloma. This was more like a quick stop along the way.”
It wasn’t a total lie either. Hacienda Dorada was technically located
somewhere in the wilderness between El Sacrificio and Ejido la Paloma.
There were a series of unmarked roads that led to Hacienda Dorada from El
Sacrificio. Papá had outlined them on his road map when I was ten years
old, to show me where we were going the last time we visited Abuelita
Remedios. Juanita had looked it up while I was driving earlier today.
“So, you’re going to visit your grandmother. That’s nice. I bet you’re
excited about that,” Inés’s mother exclaimed. She smiled at Pita, who was
shoveling cake into her mouth without saying a word. Pita was all bug-eyed
and big-eared, nodding like a ratoncita, nervous as a little mouse sitting
precariously on the edge of a wooden trap.
By the time we were done eating and answering questions, it was
almost midnight. We sat at the table yawning in front of our hostesses, who
were cleaning up after the party. When they saw us practically falling out of
our chairs, Inés insisted that we follow her down the hall.
“First, we’ll get you all cleaned up,” Inés began. “You can take turns
showering. Your little sister can go first. I suggest you don’t take longer
than five minutes each. Otherwise you’ll run out of hot water.”
“Oh, we don’t want to use up all your water,” I said, feeling more and
more like we should just get out of the house, maybe go find a cheap motel
room in the nearest town.
“Well, let’s not worry about that,” Inés said, as she put her arm around
my shoulders and walked me back down the hall. “The water will be warm
again in the morning.”
Half an hour later, Delia was busy combing out Pita’s wet hair. Pita
looked refreshed with their hair slicked back. The twins looked revitalized
too. Their hair was still wrapped in thick towels, and they were wearing
their long shirts from home. Their legs were long and slim, and I wondered
why they weren’t cursed with the big-boned frames Juanita and I had
inherited from Mamá.
“Are you almost done in there?” I called to Juanita, who was obviously
taking her time in the shower. I was dying to scrub the grit off my arms and
face. “I’m so dirty, you could take a spatula and scrape the filth off my
skin.”
“You’re telling me,” Delia said, looking at me with disgust. “You smell
like a chiva.”
“Thanks.” I lowered the toilet lid and plopped down on it, upset at the
idea of smelling like a billy goat. “I love being one of your analogies.”
“It’s a simile. I didn’t say you were a goat, I said you smell like a goat.
Didn’t you learn anything in English class?” Delia pulled the towel off her
head and started finger-combing her hair absently.
Delia pushed Pita toward the door. “I’m outta here. Let’s go to bed,
Papita Frita. Looks like we’re sharing piojos tonight.”
“Stop calling me that!” Pita pulled away from Delia and grabbed the
side of the sink to anchor herself. “I’m not sleeping with you. You’re
mean!”
“Suit yourself, but there’s only one bed, and I’m calling the left side.”
“There’s only one bed?” I asked, watching Velia pull her right eyelid
down to check her eyes in front of the mirror.
“Yup,” Velia said. She opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out to
look at it. “I’m sleeping on the window sofa. Inés said I could. It’s just long
enough for one person, if I curl up real tight. Besides, I’m too tired to share
a bed with Pita. She kicks like a wild horse.”
 “I know,” Juanita chimed in from behind the shower curtain she was
using to cover up while she dressed for bed. “I’m taking the blankets out of
the car and sleeping on the floor.”
“On the floor?” I asked, mortified. My back ached just thinking about
it.
“It’s better than being all crunched up in that bed with the three of you.”
“I guess the floor’s not so bad,” I admitted. “I mean, compared to
having Pita punching and kicking at you all night long.”
“Do whatever you want. Shower’s all yours,” Juanita said. Then she
pushed back the curtain and stepped out of the bathtub in her pink
pajamas — she had dressed in the shower because she was much more
modest than the rest of us.
“There’s probably enough room for three of us on the bed,” I said
hopefully.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. By the time I got out of the shower
and dressed, Delia and Pita were asleep, fully stretched out on what would
have been my side of the bed. Delia was awake, but just barely. I tried to
shake her, so she could give me some room, but she moaned something that
sounded like, “Lotería!”
“Odilia, it’s not very comfortable, but you can sleep down here with
me,” Juanita whispered from her place on the floor by the window seat.
“Velia and I are awake.”
“I wish we had more cushion down here. Why didn’t you take the
comforter from the bed?” I asked.
“Delia called it, and she wouldn’t give it up. But that’s okay. I have my
San Marcos blanket. It’s not so bad. You’ll get used to it.”
 Suddenly angry, I grabbed the edge of the comforter and yanked it off
of the girls on the bed, leaving them with only the thin blanket underneath.
Pita whined out an incoherent sound, and I smiled as I walked away with it
without feeling even a little bit guilty. They were lucky I didn’t push them
off the side of the bed — selfish brats.
“So what’s the plan for tomorrow? When do you want to take off?”
Juanita asked in the darkness. I settled in beside her on the floor by the
window seat, and we snuggled under the comforter together.
“I don’t know what time the family is going to wake up.” I took a deep
breath and let it out slowly. “But we should hit the road as soon as the sun
comes up. This whole thing has gotten too complicated for my peace of
mind.”
“I know,” Juanita said. “Today didn’t turn out the way we pictured it at
all, did it?”
Velia turned over on the window seat to face us in the dark. “Who
would’ve thought this guy had abandoned his family?” she said, joining our
conversation. “He looked so happy in the picture. I thought for sure they’d
be waiting for him.”
“Nothing’s ever the way it seems, is it? I mean, look at Papá,” Juanita
whispered at no one in particular. She sounded distant, sad.
I hated hearing the pain in their voices when my sisters remembered our
missing father. “Let’s not talk about him,” I said.
“Okay. But I’m very disappointed,” Velia continued. “I thought for sure
this guy was different. I thought he cared about his family.”
“I thought they’d be happy to see him, and us.” Juanita pulled the
comforter up and covered half her face with it. The thought of Papá had
made us all gloomy again despite the refreshing showers.
“You’re telling me,” Velia whispered. “I thought we’d be heroes.
Instead, I feel like the grim reaper. You were right, Odilia. We should have
left well enough alone.”
I turned away from Juanita and settled into a comfortable position on
the floor. “Well, what’s done is done. No use lamenting it. Let’s get some
sleep,” I said, yawning. If I had been more like Juanita, I might have said,
“I told you so,” though.
“Odilia, are we really going to see Abuelita tomorrow?” Velia’s voice
was quiet from her spot on the window seat, as if she was afraid to ask the
question. “Please say yes,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said, and to my surprise the rest of the girls on the bed sat up
and hollered with happiness.
“Yay! Yay!” they hollered. I shushed them and reminded them we
weren’t at home.
“People are mourning here,” I chastised them. “Now settle down and go
to sleep before I change my mind.”
After the girls fell asleep, I lay awake for some time listening to their
soft breathing, thinking about going to Abuelita’s house and what might
happen once we got to Hacienda Dorada. There were so many scenarios
running through my mind, I was completely overwhelmed by them. Would
Papá be there? And, if he wasn’t, would Abuelita know where he was?
Would she even recognize us?
The truth was, I didn’t know what to expect. After the day we’d just
had, I realized we had no way of knowing what tomorrow would bring.
What if Abuelita wasn’t home? How could I keep the girls from getting
their hearts broken if she didn’t even live there anymore? Worse yet, what if
she had passed away and nobody had bothered telling us?
I went to bed feeling utterly conflicted and, for the first time in years, I
was scared for us. But even as bad as I felt that night, it was nothing
compared to the shock I received the next morning.
It all started well enough, with us waking up to the aroma of homemade
flour tortillas wafting through the house. As we rolled out of our makeshift
bed and looked around the sunlit room, we found our clothes washed,
neatly pressed, and laid out for us. We scrambled into them gratefully, and
as we entered the kitchen, our hostess turned to smile at us.
“Good morning, señoritas,” Inés said, her smile curling over her lips
and creasing the corners of her eyes. “Would you like some breakfast? I can
make some chilaquiles. It will only take a second.”
“That would be amazing,” Velia and Delia sang out, simultaneously,
even as they scrambled into the nearest chair.
“Odilia, would you do me a favor?” Inés asked, as she turned on the
stove and put a black iron skillet over the bright blue flame. “Can you
please run down to the puestecito at the corner and get me today’s paper?
Just tell Don José to put it on my tab.”
“Sure,” I said. But as I left the house, I told myself I should be quick
with the errand. We really needed to get out of El Sacrificio before the spell
was broken and someone decided to call the authorities.
At the store, I picked up some chips and sodas for the road, walked up
to the counter, and laid everything down in front of the cashier. The
newspaper fell open before me, and I froze as I read the headline over the
top of the front page.
 ¡DESAPARECIDAS!

The one word said it all: MISSING. Plastered across the width of the
paper was a giant picture of us — my sisters and I huddled together under
last year’s scrappy little Christmas tree, happy as mariposas, our bright
smiles belying our alleged situation.
We were officially missing children.

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LA SIRENA: “¡La Sirena — la mujer que se quiere
llevar a tu Papi! ¡No! ¡No la dejaremos!”

THE MERMAID: “The Mermaid — the woman who wants

to take your Papá away! No! We won’t let her!”

It wasn’t easy getting out of Inés’s house without letting her know what was
going on. First, I had to buy all the newspapers at the puestecito and put
them in the trunk of our car so nobody else would see them. After I got
back to the dead man’s house, I told Inés they were all out of newspapers,
then we ate breakfast in record time. We split before any of the neighbors
had shown up for the wake, leaving behind most of the dead man’s money
inside the container of sugar on the table, tightly wrapped in its plastic bag,
like a great big tip for our hostess. I only kept enough for us to buy food
and gas for the trip home after visiting with Abuelita.
“We’re in trouble. Big trouble,” I told Juanita and the twins once we got
down the road in my father’s beat-up Nova.
“What do you mean?” Juanita asked. She was sticking her head out the
window, admiring her new hat in the side mirror. Inés had given it to her at
breakfast, when Juanita had complained about how much her skin hurt
because she’d gotten too much sun on the way down to El Sacrificio. It was
one of those fancy white summer straw hats you see brides wear at their
wedding receptions. Only this one wasn’t so fancy, with a clump of saggy
old silk flowers hanging off to the side. It was so big on her, Juanita had to
hold it on with both hands. But she didn’t care that it was old. In fact, she
loved it.
“Here,” I said, keeping an eye on the road as I reached under the seat to
pull out a copy of the day’s newspaper. “Look for yourself. We’re all over
the front page. I bet by now every channel on TV is running the story about
our abduction. ‘Cinco hermanitas, the Garza girls, taken from their home in
their own father’s car.’ ”
“Where did you get this?” Velia asked, snatching the paper out of my
hands and sharing it with her twin in the backseat. Juanita turned around
and leaned over the front seat to read along.
“‘¡Desaparecidas!’ Ay, Dios mío! What are we going to do?” Delia
pulled at a corner of the paper to get a closer look.
“We have to go home,” Velia whispered, horrified. “Poor Mamá. She
must be worried sick about us.”
“I’m sure she is,” I said, keeping my hands on the wheel. “But Mamá’s
got problems of her own.”
“Is she all right? What happened to her?” Juanita’s voice trembled
almost as much as the sad-looking flowers on her hat.
“Cálmate. She’s all right,” I said. “Nothing’s wrong with her, at least
not physically.”
“Oh, thank God!” she said, putting a hand to her chest and breathing out
gratefully.
“You know, I can’t take you seriously with that ridiculous thing on your
head,” I said, looking sideways at her. “You look like the Mad Hatter.”
Juanita took the frumpy hat off and threw it out the window. “I don’t
care about the stupid hat. What happened to Mamá?” Behind us, the hat
spun out into the morning air in a white blur, like a miniature flying saucer,
and landed right smack in the middle of the highway.
I watched it get smaller and smaller until it disappeared from sight in
the rearview mirror. “Litterbug! You know that’s against the law, don’t
you?”
“Stop stalling!” Juanita ranted from her seat at the far end of the car.
“What’s going on with Mamá? Why did you say she’s got problems of her
own?”
“Mira.” With one hand on the wheel, I took the paper from Velia in the
backseat and handed it back to Juanita, pointing at the newsprint at the
bottom of the front page. “It says it right there. She is a person of interest in
the investigation of our disappearance. As of last night, she’s not allowed to
leave the country, so she can’t come to Mexico to look for us. Papá’s in
trouble too.” I’d never seen a newspaper back home say such things about
people possibly involved in crimes who hadn’t been arrested, but Mexican
papers were quick to report speculations. They took information from
anyone willing to talk and didn’t hold back crucial details the way US
papers sometimes did.
“Papá?” Delia and Velia asked simultaneously, looking at me in the
rearview mirror. “What’s he got to do with this?” Velia continued.
“He’s a person of interest too,” I explained.
“How? Why?” Juanita inquired, her eyes widening in disbelief.
“Read the story,” I said. “It’s right there in the second to last
paragraph.”
Juanita unfolded the paper and began to read. “The authorities are
looking for Ernesto Garza, the father of the missing girls. He is wanted for
questioning in the unexplained disappearance of his daughters. Local police
are also hoping to recover Garza’s vehicle, as it might provide crucial
evidence as to the whereabouts of the girls.”
“They think we’re dead,” Velia said, “and that Papá had something to
do with it.”
I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could make eye contact with her.
“Not necessarily. They always investigate the parents first.”
“Look at this,” Juanita said, after flipping through the paper. “There’s a
story about Papá on page two.”
I glanced at a picture of Papá but had to keep an eye on the road, so I
couldn’t read the article beside it. “What does it say?”
“Local singer wanted for interrogation in the case of missing children.”
Juanita showed the paper to the twins in the backseat. “They used his
publicity photo. The one of him in his mariachi suit. He’s going to hate
that!”
“Nah. He’ll be glad they used that shot. It’s a good picture of him,”
Velia said.
Delia leaned in to look at the picture. “I forgot how handsome he is.”
“Oh, he’s handsome all right,” Juanita’s tone of voice told us exactly
how she felt about him. She didn’t need to explain what she meant with that
comment, but she did anyway. “Muy guapo, and he knows it too. Look at
him mugging for the camera, like a possum with a mouthful of worms.
Funny how I never noticed before how conceited he really is. Do they know
where he is?”
“No. But they’ll find him. Now that the FBI is involved,” Velia said
after reading silently to herself for a few minutes.
 “The FBI?” Delia whispered in disbelief.
“Yup. According to this, the National Center for Missing and Exploded
Children is looking for us,” Velia continued reading on.
“Exploited,” I corrected.
“What?” Velia asked, looking at me like I was confusing her.
“Exploi-t-ed, not exploded,” I explained. “The National Center for
Missing and Exploi-t-ed Children.”
“Whatever,” Velia said.
“So what are we going to do? Turn ourselves in?” Juanita asked. She
took the newspaper from the twins and took her turn reading it.
“Well, we have to get back as soon as possible,” Delia told her. “To get
Mamá out of trouble.”
Velia slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms. “It’s our fault. We
should have left her a note or something.”
“Too late for that,” Delia said. “The best thing we can do now is get to
Abuelita’s house and call her from there. If we don’t call home soon,
they’re going to arrest her because I bet you a million dollars they’re not
looking for us down here.”
“Oh, yes they are,” Juanita said, shoving the paper at Delia. “It says
here the FBI is working with both the border patrol and the Mexican
Federales to try and find us.”
The girls had the right idea. Calling Mamá and telling her we were alive
and well and visiting with our abuelita would solve her problem. But there
was still getting there. The way I figured, we couldn’t be very far —
somewhere between twenty or twenty-five miles off.
If I could find the exit.
 The biggest challenge was there was no official marker on the country
road that led to Hacienda Dorada. We just had to follow an unpaved road
beyond El Sacrificio, travel about twenty minutes, watch for the crooked
fork in the road, and turn into it. From there, it was another fifteen miles on
a dirt path — a straight shot to Hacienda Dorada.
“Why are they going to arrest us?” Pita asked from the backseat. “I
don’t want to go to juvie. That’s a really bad place.”
“They have no reason to arrest us,” I told Pita, making eye contact with
her through the rearview mirror. “We haven’t done anything wrong, so we
have nothing to worry about. At least not so far.”
“We found a dead body and didn’t report it,” Delia whispered, more to
herself than to the rest of us. “We should have reported it, saved ourselves
and Mamá a lot of trouble.”
I pulled over on the side of road, reached up, and pulled Papá’s road
map off the visor. Unfolding it over my lap to read it better, I glanced at the
mileage gauge and made a mental note to use it to measure our progress. If
we traveled more than twenty miles ahead and we hadn’t found the exit,
we’d most certainly passed it. I’d have to turn around and look for the fork
in the road again.
“We took Papá’s car without permission,” Velia said, looking over at
me.
“Well, if he was so interested in the car, why didn’t he take it with
him?” Juanita wanted to know.
“He didn’t take it because it’s older than dirt,” Delia said. “I’m
surprised the thing still runs.”
 “We should turn ourselves in,” Pita said, touching my shoulder from
behind to get my attention. “We wouldn’t go to jail, would we?”
“None of those things are bad enough to get us arrested. Trust me,
we’ve broken plenty of laws, but I don’t think we’ve done anything that
would make us go to jail,” I said, maintaining a normal tone of voice with
the hope of reassuring them. “The best thing we can do right now is get to
Abuelita Remedios’s house as soon as possible and ask for her help. I think
it’s about time we let an adult handle this.” We knew last night we’d gotten
in over our heads when we’d crashed the quinceañera, but with the police
and the FBI thinking we were kidnapped or dead, I wasn’t sure we weren’t
in big trouble.
I started the car and got us back on the road, but my mind kept churning
it over. Juanita had first noted it before we left, and Delia had reminded
us — failing to report a body was punishable by law. The question was,
who would they punish, us or Mamá? Adults had a funny way of seeking
justice. Would they go after Mamá? Could they make her responsible for
this? If our actions had damaged our family in any way, I would never
forgive myself.
Juanita’s thoughts seemed to be on the same track as mine. “We took
the drowned man’s money,” she admitted quietly. Then she put her hands
over her face so we wouldn’t see her crying.
“But we returned it. Most of it, anyway,” I said, keeping my eyes on the
road.
Velia pulled out a small wad of folded bills from her pocket and handed
it to Juanita. “Yeah, but we still have some of it, and who knows where it
came from. Who it really belongs to.”
 Juanita threw the cash on the dashboard and turned away to look out the
window at the tall desiccated trees that seemed to loom over us as we drove
on. “It’s probably blood money.”
Her words silenced everyone in the car, and for a while nobody said
anything. I thought about La Llorona then and wondered if she knew how
much trouble this journey would cause. She was from another place,
another time. What made sense in her world did not make sense in ours.
Why had I listened to her? I should have thought this thing through.
As apprehension spread into every pore of my being, I did the one thing
I could to quiet the guilt in my mind. I turned the radio on. But even with
the sound of loud music reverberating through the car, I could still hear my
conscience nagging at me. You could have stopped this, all of it, it
whispered. This is more your fault than anyone else’s. You’re the eldest. You
should have known better.
Disgusted with myself, I quieted my thoughts and concentrated on
driving the car. The sun was in full bloom, blinding me as I tried to look for
a crooked fork in the road ahead. To make things worse, the air was hot and
blistery, burning our cheeks as we drove on.
We drove like that for a few more miles, everyone keeping her thoughts
to herself, when suddenly I smelled something humid and foul. Actually, I
tasted it before I smelled it. But then I saw it: the white smoke puffed out of
the front of the car and crept in through the vents on the dashboard,
penetrating my lungs and causing me to cough uncontrollably.
“¿Que diablos? What the hell-icopter is going on?” Velia sat forward in
her seat and stuck her face out the window to get a better look. The
whiteness of the smoke was blinding. I could barely see the side of the road
and nothing ahead.
My first reaction was to press down on the brake with all of my weight.
The car screeched to a stop on the side of the road, and I flipped the
gearshift into park. But even without raising the hood of the car, I knew
what was wrong. When water started pouring from the front of the car onto
the pavement, creating a buzzing puddle inches away from our feet, I knew
we were doomed. I’d seen this happen to Papá before. The radiator was
busted.
“What do we do now?” Pita asked. She was standing next to me, while
the others stood back behind me, fanning the smoky steam out of their eyes.
I looked at the mileage gauge. We were only about fifteen miles down
the road from where we’d started in El Sacrificio, but it was far enough that
going back there wouldn’t be too smart. It might call more attention to us,
the missing children, and fifteen miles was a long, long way to walk.
Longer than just walking the rest of the way to Abuelita’s. At least, I hoped
it was.
“We walk,” I said, fighting the sense of despair that was slowly seeping
into my heart. “Because this piece of junk isn’t going anywhere without a
mechanic.”
“Walk where?” Velia wanted to know.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Delia finished her twin’s thought.
I looked around and saw nothing. There were no houses, no animals, no
major roads. Stretched before us in every direction, there were only miles of
mesquite and huisache trees and tall brown grasses too dry and thin to feed
to animals. If we turned around now, it would take us more than half a day
to walk beyond El Sacrificio and up to Highway 57 on foot, but that’s
where the nearest gas station was. I didn’t even know if that gas station had
a tow truck, though we could use the phone there. It was better to just keep
moving forward, since by my calculations, we were closer to Abuelita’s
house. The trek was going to be hard on us, especially without water to
fight off the searing heat that was already burning through my clothes. I
wished I’d thought about getting water instead of sodas at the puesticito
before setting out this morning.
“To Abuelita’s,” I said. “Take whatever you want out of the car and let’s
get a move on. No use standing around here. We have a long way to go
before we reach Hacienda Dorada.”
I dug Papá’s map and the envelope with my earrings out of the glove
box and stuffed them into my bag. With our backpacks, purses, and the few
provisions we still had in the car in tow, we started down the road heading
east. We left the blankets behind because we didn’t want to exhaust
ourselves with too much to carry. Mamá would probably want to kill us for
leaving them, but there was no other option. Perhaps we’d be able to return
for the car and the rest of our things with Abuelita’s help.
The morning sun grew hotter by the minute, and we were sweating
profusely within half an hour. Several times along the way, Pita cried that
she was either tired or thirsty and we had to stop and sit on the side of the
road under a mesquite or a huisache tree, trying to make the trek without
succumbing to heat exhaustion.
Two and a half hours later, we were huddled together on the side of the
road, shoulder to shoulder under the full shade of a large cluster of scraggly
trees, when we heard it — a woman’s voice, sweet and melodic, coming
from the brush behind us. She sang of flowers and gardens and sweet, sweet
nectar oozing from every petal and leaf.
“What’s that about?” Juanita asked, turning to look at me.
My heart quickened. “Never talk to strangers.” Mamá’s warning rattled
around in the back of my head. We hadn’t seen any houses along the dirt
road.
I scrambled to my feet and stood listening for a moment. The woman’s
voice was engaging and lovely. She sounded nothing like La Llorona, and
my apprehension began to subside. “I don’t know. But we should be
careful.”
Ignoring Mamá’s rule, the rest of the girls scrambled to their feet and
ran to see where the enchanting voice was coming from.
“Hello!” Velia hollered into the dense thicket. She squeezed between
the trunks of two mesquite trees in an attempt to avoid going around.
“Hello!” Delia chimed in, louder and more desperately than her twin
sister. She had been complaining about being dehydrated for at least an hour
and human life meant the possibility of water.
“Who are you? Who’s there? Who’s singing?” My sisters all hollered in
the general direction of the woman’s voice.
“What are you girls doing out here?” the woman’s voice asked from
somewhere behind the brush. The lady who emerged was lovely and petite.
She wore a flowing, bright yellow dress, and her blonde hair was perfectly
coiffed in a thick chignon.
“Our car broke down,” I said as she came closer. “Can you tell us how
far it is to the next town?”
 Immediately, the enchanting woman began doting on us, like a tiny
yellow butterfly, fluttering about. Her words flittered up and down and all
around us as she fretted, taking our reddened faces in her hands and looking
into our eyes, inspecting each of us in turn for signs of heat stroke. “Where
did you come from? Ay, María purísima, but you look dreadful. You must
be absolutely parched, melting away in this heat.”
“We need to get to Hacienda Dorada as soon as possible,” I said when
she pulled out an embroidered handkerchief and swabbed at Pita’s small
face in a concerned, almost motherly manner. “Can you give us a ride?”
“I wish I could,” the woman said, “but I don’t have a car. Oh my, but
you must be parched by now; you look like wilting flowers. You need
something to drink. Come with me, I have just the thing.”
She invited us onto her property, a desolate piece of land we would
have never imagined was inhabited, set far enough back from the road that
we hadn’t seen it through the trees. I was so relieved to see someone,
anyone, that I didn’t question her sudden appearance. She was a godsend; I
was grateful for the sight of her. Besides, she didn’t look like she could be
part of a gang or some kind of kidnapper ring, so we followed the sweet-
voiced woman as she led us deeper and deeper into the brush.
Past a wasted field and through a graveyard of fallen mesquites we
went, listening to her melodic words as she led us away, until we came to
what can only be described as an oasis in the desert. Whereas the land we’d
just crossed had been populated by huisaches and scrub, her house was
large and impeccably landscaped, like the houses in the more affluent
neighborhoods of Eagle Pass, with a beautiful garden of flowering plants
and herbs. I recognized the orange bursts of Butterfly Weeds and the tall red
Indian Paintbrushes, but there were so many beautiful plants in the garden
all I could do was smile with joy and serenity. The woman’s house was
beautiful too, with wide, resplendent windows reflecting the daylight on
every side, making it glitter and shine majestically. I thought for a moment
we were in a fantasy world — a magical land, a dream come true.
The vivacious woman took us through her spacious living room and
into a splendid, sunlit kitchen where we were asked to sit at a long
mahogany table while our hostess poured us glass after tall glass of ice-cold
lemonade. When she had quenched our thirst, she brought us platters full of
sweet bread: pumpkin empanadas, pan de huevo, cuernos, and the most
delicious marranitos — dense pastries shaped like piggies made with sweet
molasses and full of spicy richness in every morsel.
We ate so much sweet bread and consumed so much tart lemonade, we
felt gluttonous, but sinfully content. We listened to the lady of the house as
she entertained us with her life’s story feeling delightfully blessed.
Our enchanting hostess was named Cecilia. She was a viuda, a long-
suffering widow. Her husband had been a police officer, a detective, who
had lost his life in the line of duty, she said as she served us more and more
of the delicious sweet bread. She was glad for our company because she
lived too far from the nearest town to entertain visitors. Since she was self-
sufficient, relying on her garden and animals for sustenance, she didn’t
know anyone in town. Having no other family to speak of also meant she
hadn’t had visitors since the days of her marriage. Her only contact with the
outside world was her supplies delivery once a month.
Our long hot day in the sun was too much to contend with, and soon we
felt sleepy and tired. We’d made pigs of ourselves. Now we wanted nothing
more than to take a nap in the afternoon heat.
“You look tired,” Cecilia said, pulling the trays of pastry off the table
and placing them back on the counter behind her. “Perhaps you should rest
awhile.”
I watched her with half-closed lids as Cecilia moved about the room
with slow, gentle movements that mesmerized me. “We should go,” I
whispered, more to myself than to her.
“Come on now,” Cecilia said, as she turned off the lights in the kitchen.
“I have the perfect spot for a nap. My husband built this cozy little den just
for me. Come on. It’s right through here.” Being so happy to have us in her
home, Cecilia made us comfortable in a small nook just off the kitchen,
away from the sun and the heat of the day. Like a fairy godmother waving a
magical wand, she tapped open cabinet doors and pulled out extra fluffy
pillows so that we might rest comfortably on the sofas and recover from our
arduous expedition.
Those hours resting went by very fast. We slipped in and out of
wakefulness, wincing at the soreness in our muscles, and thirsting for more
of that tart lemonade. Finally, we slept so deeply, that we were shocked
when we awakened to find the landscape outside the windows in complete
darkness. It seemed we had slept the day away and nighttime had descended
upon the spacious house like an unexpected guest.
“What happened?” Velia asked, yawning as she stretched on a satiny
divan chair.
Pita’s face was illuminated by the light of the moon from an open
window. Her cheeks were flushed a bright crimson, sunburnt from our walk
this morning. “Where is she?”
 “Do you think she knows who we are?” Velia asked as she got up and
went to peer through the open door into the darkened kitchen. I wondered
myself if she got the paper all the way out here.
“I hope she doesn’t get us arrested,” Pita whined scooting over to sit
next to me on the plush sofa. Suddenly, the familiar pangs of guilt hit me
again, and I winced. I hated seeing them so concerned. They were little
girls. They should be at home, fashioning bracelets out of old aluminum
cans or just sitting at the kitchen table playing Lotería with Mamá.
Juanita pushed herself off the couch and stood looking out the window
at the darkness outside. “Do you think she’s gone? She wouldn’t have left
us here alone, would she?”
“Girls? Are you awake? Come in here!” Cecilia’s musical voice made
us all jump, startled. We followed her voice into the living room, where she
was sitting before a giant old-fashioned television that must have been
brought in from somewhere else in the house because it was so fat and
bulky, there was no way we could have missed it when we first entered.
“How was your nap?” she asked, lifting a silver platter full of tiny,
delicately decorated sweets.
“Whoa! What are those?” Pita’s eyes sparkled with delight; she was all
but devouring the baby cakes on the platter.
“Petit fours,” Cecilia said, smiling indulgently at the expression on
Pita’s face. “Try a chocolate one. They’re my favorites.”
I thought about asking Cecilia if she had a phone we could use, but the
reporter’s somber face on the television screen caught my attention. “What
are you watching?” I asked. I popped a creamy petit four into my mouth. It
melted away too quickly, leaving a soothing minty aftertaste that made me
want more.
“Oh, listen to this. It’s coming on again.” Cecilia turned up the volume
on the television. “They’ve been running your story on the news all day.”
At her words, the girls abandoned the tray of petit fours and scrambled
to sit in front of the television set. I fell onto the nearest couch and listened
as the words “STORY IN DEVELOPMENT” scrolled across the screen in
Spanish and an ominous tune began to play in the background.
The first segment of the news was an interview with Inés and Zaragoza.
Both women seemed horrified at the idea that they had been deceived by
the five little sisters who seemed to be so generous and pure of heart. They
kept telling the reporter they didn’t know why they believed us that our
mother knew where we were, and felt terrible for not calling the authorities
or at least getting in touch with our mother. They talked about the dead
man’s return and the bride’s hat they had given one of the girls as a token of
their appreciation. But most of all, they worried about our safety and hoped
we would be located soon.
Feeling the blood rushing from my face, I looked around for a phone in
the room, but I couldn’t see one. I was just about to ask Cecilia if she even
had one when the tray of petit fours started making its way around the room
again. I took two and ate them absently. I knew I had to do something, call
someone, but my mind was suddenly blank and I couldn’t think what it was
I needed to do. I couldn’t even talk.
In the second news segment, after a brief commercial break, a female
reporter pointed to a wide-brimmed hat stuck on the branch of a tall
mesquite while she informed the viewers that the missing girls’ broken-
down car had been abandoned less than a mile down the road from the
location of the discarded hat. She reported that at that time, only terrible
conclusions could be reached because there was no sign of the sisters. Our
previous plan to return for Papá’s car evaporated when we saw it being
towed away on television. According to the newscaster, it was being taken
in for forensic analysis.
The third segment of the story was a previously taped interview with
our mother. On the screen, Mamá was crying and blowing her nose with a
tissue. She wasn’t making any sense, but she kept repeating the same thing
in Spanish. Over and over again, she begged, “Please, please, if you have
my daughters, please let them go. Let them come home. They’re all I’ve
got.”
At the sight of Mamá completely undone on the news, Pita broke down
and started crying silently.
“Oh, I know you miss your mami,” Cecilia cooed as she reached out to
pull Pita beside her on the couch. “Come here, darling. Everything’s going
to be okay. I promise.” After Pita settled down and stopped crying, we were
all able to concentrate on the rest of the news broadcast. The fourth and
final segment of the “Story in Development” was a live interview with the
chief of police in Piedras Negras. Arnulfo Jiménez disclosed that the
drowned man, Gabriel Pérdido, was a known drug dealer and fugitive. The
Federales were investigating his death and the culprits behind it. Chief
Jiménez speculated that the girls might have been abducted by the same
individuals who killed Gabriel Pérdido. They believed the suspects were
operating under the assumption that the girls knew more than they really
did about the dead man’s drug dealings. They suspected the abductors were
manipulating the girls’ actions as they traveled through Mexico to return the
body to his family in El Sacrificio.
“The kidnapping might have all been part of a ploy to flush out
Gabriel’s cohorts. We don’t know for sure. Anything is possible,” Chief
Jiménez said, claiming it was imperative they find the missing girls and
bring them home safely. He assured the reporter that his men were working
night and day on this case, and he was positive justice would prevail.
By the time our news story ran through, the local newscast was over.
They had dedicated an entire show to us, a fact that mesmerized us into
complete and utter silence.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Cecilia said, shutting off the
television set with one click of her remote control. “That Jiménez is a
corrupt anaconda. His position on the force is just a front. He’s suspected of
being in business with the mafia. Only, he’s so cunning, so sly, no one can
connect him to any of their crimes. But everybody knows he’s working both
sides.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “If he’s such a bad guy, how can he
say he wants to bring us home?”
“Of course he wants to bring you home,” Cecilia said, leaning out over
the coffee table to be close to us. “Don’t you see? He wants to find you
because he thinks you know more than you should about the drug dealer
you brought home. It’s a trick. You should avoid him at all costs.”
“I’m scared!” Pita slid off the couch and scooted over to me on the
floor.
“Oh honey, don’t be scared,” Cecilia said, leaving the comfort of the
couch to slide down on the floor between Pita and me. “He can’t hurt you.
Not as long as you stay with me. I promise. Why — you’re trembling!
Here, have some more petit fours, sugar for my sweet one. There you go.
Feel better?”
Pita bit into a tiny sweet morsel of cake and nodded even as she sniffed
back her tears. Noticing the twin’s fearful faces, Cecilia slid the tray of petit
fours toward them. Soon, we were all sitting on the floor, sharing the
enormous tray of petit fours. Funny how distress takes away one’s appetite
for real food, but when sweets are involved, all bets are off. Or maybe it
was just us, because we sat there and ate every last petit four offered to us
as we looked guiltily at each other for eating so greedily while everyone
worried about us back home.
“At least Mamá is home and not in jail,” Velia whispered close to my
ear, so the others wouldn’t hear.
“I’m not sure that’s any comfort to her right now,” Delia said from the
other side of the coffee table. “She looked pretty torn up. Maybe we should
call her.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you if you have a phone we could use,” I
said, turning to look at Cecilia.
“Freedom is always a comfort,” Cecilia said, ignoring my request and
thrusting a chocolate petit four into my hand. “Your mamá is lucky to be
free, after neglecting you all the way she did.”
“What do you mean? Who says she neglected us?” I asked, suspicion
creeping into the corners of my mind even as I put the chocolate treat in my
mouth. I shook my head, trying to remember if any of us had spoken rudely
about Mamá, but my thoughts were cloudy, eerily void of memory, a fact
that stupefied me. Biting into a tiny sugar-covered cake, I gave each of the
girls the evil eye, letting them know Mamá was not a topic that we needed
to discuss, not with a perfect stranger like Cecilia.
“I mean, I don’t know exactly what’s happened or why you are
traveling alone,” Cecilia started, blinking nervously as she spoke. “But I
know if you were my daughters I’d never part with you. If you were my
daughters you’d be safe at home, eating delicious things I’d baked, and
wearing nice, beautiful clothes I’d made. I sew the most exquisite dresses.
If you were my daughters, I’d dress you up like pretty little China dolls.”
“Well, we’re not the dress-up types,” I said, picking up another sugary
petit four and biting into it to stop myself from defending Mamá’s honor to
the point of being rude to our hostess.
After we ate, we started to drift into a sedate sleepiness again. All I
could think is that we were so emotionally drained from listening to the
news and worrying about Mamá that even sugar wasn’t able to pick us up,
and so we drifted into that deliciously dreamy stage before falling
completely asleep. Seeing us lolling our heads like droopy violets, Cecilia
told us to go upstairs and pick out a bedroom to sleep in.
“Go on now,” Cecilia insisted. “You need your rest.”
“We really need to get going,” I said, my eyelids resting heavily over
my eyes. “We need to get to our abuelita’s house.”
“What you need is a long, relaxing bath. Come on. It will clear your
heads.” Cecilia got up and started for the stairs.
We bathed in luxury. Cecilia, singing harmoniously as she went, filled
all three tubs in the upstairs bathrooms with bubbles. We dozed blissfully in
the scented water until we looked like prunes, and then, because we could
hardly walk from the drowsiness brought on by those hot, delicious baths,
we headed right to bed. Pita slept with Juanita in a lusciously decorated
pink bedroom, while the twins shared a sunny yellow room. I picked a
heavenly blue master bedroom with a king-sized bed and French double
doors. All those little windows in the French doors allowed the shimmer of
moonlight to come in and kiss everything in the room with a glittering
silver dust.
After my bath, I slipped between the soft, crisp bedsheets, happy and
content. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t pray for Papá to come
home. I didn’t pray for Mamá to start paying attention to us either. I didn’t
even pray for my sisters, because somehow, I knew we were all going to be
all right. For the first time in a very long time, I thanked God for a warm,
comfortable bed in a nice, safe home.
I awakened in the middle of the night. Moonlight streamed in through
the window, and though my vision was hazy, I could see the curtains
billowing back and forth as the mal aire came into the room in mischievous
gusts of wind that toyed with my senses as they entered my lungs and
played with my sanity.
“Going . . . never again . . . home is an illusion . . . home is where
you’ve never been . . . never again . . . never again. . . .” el mal aire said as
it spoke to me, whispering and sighing, murmuring incoherent things,
jumbled words, rambling thoughts I could not understand. Remembering
where I was, I tried to get up to go look for Cecilia, but I couldn’t focus,
much less keep my eyes open. When I tried sitting up, my head spun and I
fell back on the bed, dead weight on my pillows. That’s when I finally
understood what was going on.
 “Something’s wrong,” I whispered. I went through the events of the day
in my mind and realized that Cecilia never promised she would help us get
to Hacienda Dorada. She’d acted so kindly toward us, but her lack of
interest in our plight, our need to get to Abuelita’s house, frightened me.
But wasn’t it a given? She knew what we were going through — she
showed us the TV news. Right?
I tried to clear my head. “Wake up. You have to get out of here.” But
my voice sounded like a distant storm dying, waning in my ears. I tried to
pick up my hand, to touch my head, to reach the ear pendant. But my hands
were made of lead. My arms were wooden.
“Llorona?” I called out in a breathless voice. “Can you hear me,
Llorona? Something’s wrong. Llorona . . . please . . . help me . . .”

OceanofPDF.com
LA ARAÑA “Una araña entre más
hermosa más ponzoñosa.”

THE SPIDER: “The prettier the spider,

the more poisonous it is.”

I passed out even as I called out to La Llorona. She awakened me what I

guessed to be a few minutes later, not with ghoulish wails as might be
expected, but as a mother would wake up her beloved child. She sat at the
edge of the bed and called my name softly, gently, as she stroked my hair.
“Odilia, wake up, m’ijita,” she whispered with maternal warmth.
“I can’t,” I said, opening my eyes slowly. They felt heavy and swollen
with sleep.
“You have to,” she said softly. “It’s important that you get up and purge
yourself from this sweet emptiness.”
My stomach was aching dully, and my head felt like it was wrapped in
layers and layers of gauze. “Something’s wrong. I don’t feel well,” I
complained. Everything around me looked foggy and dark.
“Odilia, I need you to drink this.” La Llorona lifted my head off the
pillow and put a warm glass to my mouth. “Drink, child, your life depends
on it.”
It took all of my strength to open my mouth and sip the warm liquid in
that glass. It was bitter and tasted like rancid grapefruit juice. Cringing, I
started to spit it out, but La Llorona coaxed me until I swallowed the rest of
it down.
Suddenly I felt it, the need to puke. I flipped the sheets aside, jumped
out of bed, and ran into the adjoining bathroom. My rubbery legs almost
giving way under me, I reached the toilet just in time to empty the vile
contents of my stomach into it.
“What did you give me?” I asked. I turned on the bathroom light and
rinsed my mouth in the sink. I was so weak, I had to rest my upper body on
the vanity. “I’ve never been so sick in my life.” I felt like something ill was
festering in my stomach, and my head felt like a piñata stuffed with cotton
balls.
“It’s Cecilia’s sweetness,” La Llorona explained. “It took control of
you. The goddess sent me to give you a little bit of help to make you expel
it.”
“We need to wake my sisters.” I made my way back to the bed and sat
on the edge because the room was still spinning a little. “Where can I get
more of that stuff you gave me?”
“Come, follow me,” La Llorona commanded from the doorway. Now
that I could notice more than my own sickness, I saw that her hair was not
white anymore, but dark and just as disheveled as it had been when I’d first
seen her on the riverbank. Her eyes were deep hollows, and her cheeks were
gaunt, but she wasn’t scary. She just looked like a tired woman again. With
a wave of her hand, the door opened and La Llorona went through it. She
was the only one who could help me now, so I followed her out of the
bedroom.
 She walked down the stairs without making a sound. My own feet felt
as light as feathers as I stepped over the floorboards, and I wondered if it
was her miraculous tonic making me feel so weightless and swift.
Quietly, we made our way through the spacious living room and past
the formal dining room, guided by the bright light coming from the far end
of the house. La Llorona stopped just short of entering the kitchen. We
stood hidden in the shadows of the hall, La Llorona in front of me, with me
looking over her shoulder.
Someone was moving around in the kitchen. “Who’s that?” I asked
quietly, so as not to be heard.
“Cecilia, en su gloria, in all her spectral splendor,” La Llorona
whispered as an ancient, haggish woman walked into view. “This is her true
form. The woman you see by day is an illusion reflected by the sunlight. It
is created by the potions she mixes in this kitchen and then secretly adds to
her special treats.”
It seemed unreal to me, but the woman in the kitchen was wearing the
same clothing Cecilia had worn that morning. Her hair, however, was as
gray and dusty as moth wings, and her sagging wrinkled skin almost hung
off her face like a worn leather sack. She was grinding out something hard
in a big black three-legged mortar. The molcajete’s legs kept thumping
against the table, making an ominous rhythmic sound. Her discolored
tongue poked in and out of her prunish mouth, and she puckered and
twisted her craggy lips as she ground a coarse white substance into powder
with a big fat pestle just like the one Mamá uses to make her homemade
salsas.
“What is she doing?” I asked.
 “Getting ready for tomorrow,” La Llorona whispered, pushing me
deeper into the shadows of the hall. “Cecilia is baking for you and your
sisters. You have become her special pets.”
But that wasn’t any ordinary baking Cecilia was doing in there, because
unlike Mamá, she wasn’t swallowing any of the powdery concoction herself
as she tasted it. Instead, every so often, she would test its consistency by
rubbing a pinch of it between her thumb and forefinger, put a little on the
tip of her tongue, and immediately spit it out. When she was done grinding
the unusual ingredient, she spooned its fine white particles into a miniature
sieve and dusted the top of four freshly baked pies with it.
“What is that? Some kind of sugar substitute?” I asked, touching La
Llorona’s shoulder to get her attention.
“To be sure,” La Llorona whispered, turning to look at me. “Its
sweetness comes from the seeds at the heart of the chinchontle plant. It is a
sedative more potent than any sleeping pill you can buy at a farmacia.”
“Do you mean — ” I started.
“Yes, Odilia,” La Llorona whispered more quietly than before. “She is
medicating you and your sisters, sweetening your thoughts, dusting your
dreams with a sugar sedative so sweet and satisfying you’ll never want to
wake up for fear of never feeling this happy again. Those pies are meant to
keep you here forever.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. I couldn’t believe it. I had put my sister’s
lives in the hands of a witch. It was like something out of a storybook, like
Hansel and Gretel finding the gingerbread house in the woods. I should
have remembered Mamá’s advice and been more wary. I should not have
accepted food from a perfect stranger. But in this day and age, who would
have thought fairy tales could come to life? Even those tales of razors in
Halloween candy are just urban rumors. No one would have suspected
Cecilia, not Mamá, not me, but especially not my sisters. They relied on me
to keep them safe, and now I had to do just that. “We have to do something.
We can’t stay here.”
“For now, all we can do is wait,” La Llorona said. “She will be done
soon. Come, we must hide and wait for her to leave.”
We hid behind the French panels in the living room and waited. La
Llorona was right, Cecilia was done within minutes. She turned off the
lights and left the kitchen. When she was gone, and we were sure she
couldn’t hear us, we crept into the kitchen.
La Llorona removed the lids from the footed pie dishes, picked two of
them up, and pointed to the others for me. I took the third and fourth pies,
and we snuck outside quickly. Quietly, we walked across the lawn, all the
way to the back of the yard, past an old orchard, where we came across a
long row of pig pens lined up behind a small, weather-beaten barn.
“Pig slop,” she said as she emptied the pie dishes into the trough inside
the first pen. “Go on. They won’t bite.”
“Won’t they get sick?” I asked, still holding the pies in my hands.
“Not any more than you did. The potion’s not meant to kill, just keep
you loopy and happy all the time,” La Llorona whispered, taking the pies
from me and throwing them next to the others herself. “The worst that can
happen is they’ll sleep through the day tomorrow. Now, about your sisters.
They’re going to be groggy in the morning, and probably won’t want to get
up. You’ll have to give them some jojotle juice.”
 I followed La Llorona along the garden paths that meandered around
the backyard, winding in and out and around each other. “That bitter stuff
that made me throw up?” I asked.
“Sí.” She bent over to examine a dark, spidery plant growing along the
fence to the left of the house. “You only need a few leaves, this much.
You’ll have to soak them in warm water for an hour. Then, when the water
turns purple, you take the sprigs out and make your sisters drink the potion.
They only need a few sips. It’s a strong remedy, so don’t let them ingest too
much.”
“But what if I do it wrong?” I asked. “Why can’t you stay and give it to
them yourself?”
“You have to have faith, Odilia,” La Llorona said, putting her hand on
my cheek in a motherly caress. “You come from a long line of curanderas,
healers of the people. Your Abuelita Remedios has been using her gift all
her life. When the time comes, you’ll know exactly what to do with this.”
“Abuelita Remedios is a curandera! I remember now. She showed me
her garden once,” I said, taking the sprigs of jojotle, turning them over in
my hands, and bringing them up to my nose for a quick whiff. “This looks
like yerbabuena, only it’s darker and more potent by the smell of it.”
“Yes,” La Llorona said, smiling at me. “It’s a primitive herb, dating
back to an ancient time, before the fall of our beautiful Tenochtitlan,” La
Llorona said. “It is what we gave our escuincles, our little ones, when the
mal aire had crawled in through our windows at night and bewildered them.
But that was before the river ate my children, before the arguments with
Hernán, when we used to be a family.”
 “I’m sorry,” I whispered. My heart suddenly ached for her, and I
wondered if this sadness, this pain that seemed to overwhelm La Llorona,
was what Mamá felt after Papá left, when she went to bed at night and cried
alone in the dark. Did she miss having a family then? Was it the family and
not Papá she had mourned? Had we misjudged her sorrow? I knew she was
missing us now, afraid she would never see us again. The guilt of it stabbed
at my heart as I considered all these new facts, and I felt a great pain in my
chest. Standing next to La Llorona in the darkness, I suddenly felt ashamed.
“Come,” La Llorona said, rubbing my arm with her cold, dead hand.
“There is no time for regrets. The beautiful dawn, la aurora, will be here
before you know it. You must prepare yourself for the confrontation that
will ensue with her arrival. It will take more than cleverness — it will take
courage to get away from the sorceress.”
La Llorona walked away from me then, and I watched as she
disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly cold, I ran back up to the house
and tiptoed upstairs to the bathroom in my room. I put the sprigs of jojotle
in a glass of warm water, hid it under the sink, and then slipped back into
bed in the blue room.
I didn’t go to sleep though. I stayed wide awake, staring up at the full
moon outside the wide, arched windows next to the bed. I’d never noticed it
before, but the silhouette of a woman was outlined in the brightness of that
moon. Her hair was flowing in the wind, and she appeared to be looking
back at something or someone behind her.
I felt I could learn something from the woman in the moon. From now
on, I would look over my shoulder at every turn. I would make sure I knew
who or what was lurking around me, waiting to harm us when we least
expected it. For many people in this world were not who they claimed to be,
and evil dwelled where you least expected it. It had certainly been that way
with Cecilia, the beautiful butterfly who had turned out to be a poisonous
wasp.
The moon made me think about Mamá too, looking over her shoulder,
crying for her loss, waiting for the day when she would see us walk through
the door again. I knew she was frightened for us, because even with as
much crying as she had done over Papá the last few months I could tell this
crying was different. When she looked into the camera in that interview and
begged for our safe return, I could see how much not knowing where we
were or if we were even alive was killing her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the moon before I closed my eyes and cried
for Mamá as I faced my guilt.
A few hours later, when the dawn started breaking over the horizon
outside my window, I did as La Llorona advised. I tried waking up the girls,
but they were dazed and disorientated and wanted only to be left alone, to
linger in bed a little longer. I forced them to drink the jojotle juice. They
coughed and complained about the bitter taste before they ran one by one
into the restroom and threw up the nastiness in their stomachs.
After the initial side effects wore off and they had stopped cursing my
name, I told them what I had discovered the night before. I made them
promise not to listen to anything Cecilia said to them. Then we all got our
things together and made our way downstairs to face the bruja.
Cecilia, looking like a vibrant mariposa in a purple tunic, her hair
blossoming with sprigs of lavender, was fluttering about the kitchen looking
confused and agitated.
 “What’s the matter?” I asked, as if I didn’t know what was wrong.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, smiling nervously. “I woke up late, and I just
don’t know what to make you for breakfast. How about some more of that
sweet bread from yesterday? I think there’s still some left.”
“No, thank you,” I said, trying not to let my emotions show on my face.
“We have to get going. Our grandmother is waiting for us.”
“Here it is,” Cecilia singsonged as she pushed a tray of day-old sweet
bread across the counter.
Delia pushed the tray back toward Cecilia. “We’re not hungry.”
“Here Pita, have a piggy. It’s delicious,” Cecilia said, picking up the
front end of a piggy and waving it in front of the girls while she made cute
little snorting noises. Pita tried to step back, but she faltered in her
resistance. Cecilia took her face in her hand and tried forcing the sugary
treat into her mouth. Pita flayed her arms and grunted from behind clenched
teeth, resisting the witch’s poison.
“Let her go!” Velia screamed.
“She doesn’t want any!” I shrieked, pushing the tray of sweet bread off
the table. It clattered to the floor, startling Cecilia, who turned around to
look at the mess with wide-eyed amazement.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Cecilia’s voice suddenly changed. It
was no longer sweet and melodic but menacing and intimidating. I had a
feeling the rest of the girls were about to meet the real Cecilia, and it wasn’t
going to be pretty.
Pita ran into Juanita’s waiting arms, and we all stepped back. I stood in
front of the girls, ready to protect them from the witch’s rage.
 “You’ve ruined everything!” she screeched as we huddled together in
the corner of the kitchen closest to the door. “Now pick it up and eat it! Or
else!”
“Or else what?” I asked. “You’ll put us under a spell? Do you have
some magical words, some curse you plan to use on us now that we won’t
eat your medicated sweet bread?”
“Are you crazy?” Cecilia asked innocently, her face twisted into an
indignant expression that was too fake to be effective.
“That’s right! We know what you’re doing,” I said, my voice cracking
momentarily. “But we’re too smart to be lulled to sleep by your lies
anymore. I saw you baking last night. I saw what you put into those pies.
But we’re wide awake now and we’re not going to eat anything you try to
feed us. That’s why we gave those tortas to the pigs. You don’t believe me?
Go see for yourself. Your pigs are probably snout down in the mud by
now.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Cecilia scoffed. “I didn’t put anything into
the sweet bread. Now clean it up, before I get really mad!”
“No! You clean it up! We’re not your slaves!” Juanita yelled.
Cecilia lifted her left arm with her palm wide open, ready to slap her.
“What, are you going to hit her?” I asked. “Not while I’m alive!”
Then, to make my point, I unsheathed a butcher knife from its marbled
stand and wielded it in front of her face. “Now listen carefully, and don’t
interrupt me. If you don’t help us get home, we’ll go straight to the cops
when we leave here and make you wish you had. You see, Pita here is very
good at crying. She can make anyone feel sorry for her. Not that she would
be pretending to cry. She’s scared enough as it is.” Pita was sobbing even
now into Juanita’s embrace. “And there’s enough evidence in this house and
in our veins to prove that you were drugging us.”
Braced against the counter, Cecilia eyed the knife and then us, taking in
our determined faces. She slumped back, defeated. “What do you want me
to do?”
“We need the keys to your car,” I demanded.
“I don’t have — ” Cecilia began, but I didn’t let her finish her thought.
“Don’t mess with me,” I threatened. “This is a very nice house you’ve
got here. Too nice to belong to a lowly police officer. Your husband had
money. So I’m sure there’s a car parked somewhere.”
“And if there isn’t?” Cecilia’s eyes were brimmed with tears, and
suddenly she looked ancient. I resisted feeling sorry for her. What if this
was another of her tricks?
“Like I said, we’ll call the police. We’ll tell them we were abducted and
brought here where we’ve been fed chinchontle powder until we were
almost out of our minds.”
“I’m sorry,” Cecilia said, hanging her head. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I
was only doing it because I have no family, no husband, no children to play
with. It was my dream to have daughters, many of them. But things went
wrong for us long ago. My husband angered the ancient ones and I’ve been
paying for it ever since, doomed to dwell in this empty shell of a house.
When you leave, you will see it for what it really is, a ruin from the past. As
for a vehicle, I don’t have one. Really, I don’t. I don’t have any money
either. Everything I need, everything I have, I have carved out of the dirt
with these tired old hands.”
 “She’s lying!” Velia said from behind me. “Don’t believe anything she
says.”
“Let’s just go,” Juanita said, her jaw firm. “She’s not going to help us
anyway.”
“Oh yes, she will,” I said, reaching up to spin La Llorona’s ear pendant
almost violently before Cecilia. “Aztec queen, Tonantzin, Holy Mother of
all mankind, give us your magical assistance! Make this witch tell the truth
so we can get to Abuelita’s house!”
At my words, Cecilia fell under the spell of the spiraling circles of the
earring. Her pupils were so dilated that her eyes glittered and shone,
becoming giant orbs of darkness.
The witch’s eyes and head bobbed side to side, following the light
emanating from the ear pendant much like a cobra follows the movement of
a charmer’s flute. “That’s some talent you’ve got there,” Velia whispered.
“I just hope it works,” Juanita said, pushing the twins back. They all
backed up, widening the space between us and Cecilia, and I advanced on
her.
I turned my head to the side so that the revolving rings could work their
magic to their full potential. “Tell us how to get back home,” I demanded of
the witch.
“I can’t help you,” Cecilia said. “The ancient ones have decreed it. I
cannot leave this place. I am to dwell on this island in the desert for the rest
of time. It is my fate, my doom. But I know someone who can help you.
The old fortune teller, Teresita. She lives up in the cerro, the hill behind the
house. She has the gift. Even though she has cataracts, she can see beyond
our limitations.”
 “Is this a trap? Are you sending us to another sorceress? Is she evil, like
you and your kind?” I pushed the tip of the butcher’s knife against her
jugular vein. The movement felt foreign to me, but we needed to know. I
didn’t like the harshness in my voice, but I was desperate to save my sisters,
and the faster we got out of there, the better. “Tell the truth, old witch, or I’ll
cut your throat and then you won’t have to dwell here anymore.” Even as
the cruel words left my mouth, I felt terrible about their callousness.
“No. It isn’t a trap. The best thing you can do is see her. Teresita won’t
hurt you. She works only for good. It is her wisdom that finds the lost and
turns the wicked.”
“If she’s a witch, how can she help us when you can’t?” Delia asked.
“Teresita is not a witch,” Cecilia protested. “She is a prophet, a seer.
She’ll know what to do. If anybody can help you, she can. You must go,
take the white goat in the barn, the young cabrito, as a gift for her troubles.
She will be glad to receive it. Walk along the empty bed of the dry creek;
her house is two miles beyond the crest.”
There was a moment, just after we’d tied a rope around the goat’s neck
and were pulling it out of the barn, that I wondered if we wouldn’t be better
off just walking to the next town. Sure, it was hours away, but then we’d be
sure we were in the real world and not some wacked-out fairy-tale
wormhole. Nevertheless, this felt right to me, like I was taking the path I
was meant to take to bring my family together, the one La Llorona had told
me about just two days ago at the river. I don’t know how I knew it, but I
was sure of it.
Cecilia didn’t lie about one thing, at least not after I “hypnotized” her
and forced her to tell us the truth. When we walked away from her house
and started to climb the hill with the goat in tow, we dared to turn around
and look back at it. What we saw was not the same house we had believed
we had inhabited if only for a day. The dwelling at the bottom of the cerro
was an old shack beyond repair. Just a few dry, weather-worn boards
leaning haphazardly against a crooked frame, showing daylight through to
the cracked furniture within.
For a moment, I felt sorry for the old, broken-down woman whose
loneliness had turned her into a bruja — a fate worse than death, a fate I
wouldn’t wish on anyone, least of all Mamá. But then the earring’s spell
must have broken, because Cecilia, looking as old and wretched as her
house, hobbled out of her shack. Thrusting a fist to the sky, she screamed
that we would pay for threatening her.
“What happened to her?” Velia asked, pulling on Delia’s arm and
pointing at Cecilia.
“Whoa! Someone got a wicked makeover!” Delia said, bursting into
peals of laughter.
Cecilia let out another horrific scream before she yelled back at us,
“Don’t laugh at me! You horrible brats! You have no respect for authority!
But don’t think you’re going to get away with this!”
“Shut up, you nasty old witch!” Juanita screamed back, bending over at
the waist to shout as loud as she could. “You deserve everything you got!”
“Run, run, as fast as you might!” Cecilia yelled at us. “But you won’t
get far. No one leaves here without my permission! And no one —
absolutely no one — is allowed to mock me!”
“Oh, we’re so scared!” Velia and Delia taunted. “A craggy old witch is
after us! Whatever should we do? Wherever should we go?”
 La Llorona’s words of warning echoed in my ears. “You and your
sisters must remain pure of heart on this journey, Odilia. Be courageous but
remember to also be noble and everything will be all right.” I hope it
wasn’t too late for me to heed her warning. I had to minimize the damage
we might have already done.
“Stop it!” I said, grabbing each of the twins by an arm and pulling them
back to follow me. “There’s nothing she can do to harm us now. She’s a
broken old woman. No need to torment her.”
“Come on, old woman, what are you waiting for?” Juanita yelled from
behind me, to which Cecilia responded with a bloodcurdling wail that made
us all stop. “Come on, give it your best shot!”
“Children of the dark, children of evil! Your mother has been
humiliated! Come to me now, come back home. Punish these insolent girls!
Unleash your wrath upon them! Make them suffer! Avenge my wounded
pride!” Cecilia hollered. She lifted her arms to the sky and screeched. The
act made thunder explode in the distance and lightning flash all around us
as sinister black clouds began to swirl directly overhead. It was enough to
make us all run away as fast as we could, up the hill without looking back,
for fear of the evil Cecilia had set upon us.

OceanofPDF.com
LA GARZA: “Parada en una patita, la garza
mira y admira a mis gemelitas.”

THE HERON: “Standing on one leg, the heron

watches and marvels at my twins.”

By the time we arrived at Teresita’s house, towing the bleating goat by a

mecate, an old rope, tied in a sailor’s knot around its neck, the sun was
completely out. I figured it was eight or nine in the morning. Already the
heat blazed down on us with a vengeance, and we were so dehydrated our
tongues felt like thick, dry parchments in our mouths.
We didn’t have to call out. An old man with a sun-weathered straw hat
and faded overalls unbent himself from his chores in the garden to nod our
way as we walked up to him. We couldn’t talk, we were so winded and
fatigued from the long trek. Seeing our state, the old man walked over to a
well, unhooked a tin pail, and dropped it carefully down into the water.
“You look dried out,” he said, as he pulled the pail back up by the cord
attached to the handle. “Come have some water. This is the best well in all
of Mexico. It’s so cold and fresh, it could wake up the dead.”
For a moment, I was wary of the old man and didn’t take the cup of
fresh water. Instead, I looked down the well and saw nothing but the dark
river water flowing freely, appetizingly on its way to some unknown
destination.
 With my sisters standing a few feet away from us, looking scared but
hopeful, I took the cup of water and sniffed it. It smelled like nothing and
everything. It smelled like the freshness of spring and all the joy that it
could bring. It smelled like a promise. Gingerly, I tasted it, letting the
coolness of the water sit on my tongue while I decided if it was okay to let
the girls have some. It tasted better than it smelled. It tasted like summer,
like fun, like innocence in the Rio Grande; so I swallowed, and the purity of
it was divine.
We drank greedily from the pail, not bothering to talk or even look up at
the old man, who seemed to be enjoying the scenery while he waited for us
to get our fill.
“That will do you,” he said, dumping out the rest of the water into the
cement trough attached to the well. The splash scared off a scorpion who’d
been sunning himself in the morning light.
“We’re the Garza girls. We’re here to see Teresita,” I said as I wiped my
mouth with the back of my hand. “Is this her place?”
“What took you so long?” he asked, waving to the front door of the
shack. “Come in. She’s been waiting for you for ages. ”Teresita was not
who we expected. For starters, she didn’t look like a woman. She looked
like an old man dressed up like an old woman. There was just nothing
feminine about her. Her floral print cotton dress hung on her rail-thin body
like a discarded flour sack. She looked like a praying mantis, bent over,
sitting at her table, rubbing her hands together. When she waved us in, we
saw that her hands were big and bony with huge knuckles. The tips of her
fingers were blunt, squared off, and tapered like those of a working man.
Her nose, too, was unusually masculine. It was big and swollen and riddled
with crevices and white, scarred blemishes. It hung like a bulbous
mushroom in front of her face.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst of it was her small, naked
head. Except for a few gray strands of hair, she was as bald as a baby
pigeon, which gave her the appearance of being a very old man with
enormous, wide eyes. The only feminine thing about her was the huge pair
of silver earrings, which hung so low on her thin, elongated earlobes, they
touched her shoulders.
“Come here. Let me look at you closely. My eyes are not as good as
they used to be, thanks to these miserable cataracts,” Teresita said, her
skeletal fingers waving us in, urging us closer. As we neared the table, we
saw what she meant. Her pupils were clouded over, opaque, and she seemed
to not know exactly where we were standing in the room.
“Cecilia said — ” Juanita said, pulling the bleating goat behind us.
“I know,” Teresita said, a genuine smile lifting the sides of her thin,
shriveled mouth.
“We brought you this cabrito. For your services,” I said.
“Sí, sí, gracias,” Teresita said, taking the goat and untying the knot at
its throat. She picked it up, stroked it, kissed it, and then let it go. The goat
ran off and made her way out the open door, bleating happily the whole
way. “Sit down, sit down.”
I sat down on the only other chair at her little table. Juanita scooted in
beside me, and the rest of the girls huddled behind us.
“You want to know how to get to your abuelita’s house,” Teresita said,
picking up an old deck of cards with unusual images on them.
“Lotería!” Pita cried, exultantly. “Oh, goodie. Can I play?”
 “Not quite,” Teresita said, waving the cards in front of us before
shuffling them expertly in her manly hands. “These cards are more ancient
than your Lotería. More powerful. They will help you reach your
destination, the home of your ancestors.”
“Our car broke down,” I said, being careful not to divulge too much
information.
“I know,” she said, leaning forward and looking at the deck spread
before her. “You’re going to have to travel by foot the rest of the way.” She
picked up a card and almost pressed her globular nose to it to look at it
closely. Then she did the same with five other cards before she straightened
up and sighed.
“How much farther is it?” I asked.
“It is a difficult road you’ve taken, one riddled with hardships and
painful ordeals, but then again, you are difficult children.” She smiled as
she said it, pointing a crooked index finger at us. “Unfortunately, the road
ahead is full of trials and tribulations. You have angered the witch and now
you must pay for your transgressions.”
The doom of her words dragged me down, anchored me in misery at the
knowledge that I could have avoided what was coming. “Pay?”
“Yes,” Teresita said, looking at me closely now. “But then again, you
knew that already, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?” Juanita asked, turning back and forth between me and
Teresita, waiting for answers that we were both reluctant to disclose.
“Cecilia has called upon evil to plague you,” Teresita proclaimed,
putting her hands over three of the cards on the table before us. “They are
coming this way, the children of the night, traveling forth from the ancient
world, coming from far and wide to avenge their mother.”
“Cecilia has children?” Velia asked, leaning down to look at the cards.
“But she said she didn’t.”
“Not children like you.” Teresita turned the three cards on the table
upside down and leaned over to get a better look at them. “Adopted
children. Immortal children crafted by the devil himself and loosed upon
this earth to aid in its destruction. Cecilia is a crafty, skillful sorceress. She
has survived through the ages by cultivating that which lives and breathes
in the darkest part of our fearful minds. In her greed, her need for power,
she has cultivated three of our greatest nightmares, nurturing their dark
souls and sustaining their evil spirits by feeding them only malevolence and
sin. In a way, she is more their mother than their own creators, and that is
the problem. Your arrogance and conceit has called upon her wrath and now
you must face that which she has beset upon you, the Evil Trinity.”
Velia put her hand on my shoulder to get my attention. “And you knew
about this?”
“Why didn’t you warn us?” Delia demanded.
Petrified in my seat by Teresita’s horrible prediction, I could only blink
away my fearful tears. “I didn’t know she was real,” I finally admitted. “I
met La Llorona at the river. She warned me about all this, but I was too
skeptical to believe her.”
“Wait a minute. La Llorona is real?” Juanita asked.
“Yes, but she’s not evil. She’s actually trying to help us,” I continued. “I
tried telling you about it, but you didn’t believe me. So I dismissed her
warnings — until this morning, when you started taunting Cecilia and I
heard her curse us. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should have told you
everything from the start.”
“I wanna go home,” Pita cried, reaching for Juanita, who took her in her
arms and kissed her forehead like Mamá soothes us.
“You can’t run away from this,” Teresita said, touching the cards and
looking at the ceiling blindly. “This time you have to face your
nightmares.”
Teresita was right. If only I’d warned my sisters of La Llorona’s caution
to be humble and good, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Now it was up to me
to contend with whatever evil I had brought upon us. I had to protect my
hermanitas. “Isn’t there anything we can do to stop them? La Llorona gave
me this amulet, these earrings. She said I could use it five times, once for
each circle on its orbit, but I’ve already used it three times.”
“What Cecilia has beset upon you is just the beginning. You must save
the ear pendant’s remaining gifts. Use them sensibly, for there is so much
more to life than nightmares and demons in the dark. In order to go home,
to be truly happy again, you must face the worst enemy of all, the monster
that lives among you. But you’ll need your magical gift to get there, so save
your good fortune — use it wisely.”
“Can’t you help us?” I peered across the table trying to get a better look
at what was coming after us.
“I can’t stop them,” Teresita said. “It is not within my power. All I can
do is perceive and forewarn. But there are other ways I can help you. I can
see into your future and advise you, caution you. Tell you how to defeat that
which dwells in the mystical realm. Those are things I am familiar with,
things within my sight.”
 Teresita went back to looking closely at the cards. I waited anxiously,
signaling to my sisters to be quiet as she pondered.
She pointed to a card. “El nagual.” Then she rested her fingertips on
two other cards sitting close together on the table. “Lechuzas, lots of them.”
“Witch owls?” Juanita cried out. “Where? When?”
“¿El nagual?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Un brujo, a devious warlock. You will meet him first, but he will not
show himself as who he really is. He will come in disguise, asking for help.
But don’t be deceived by his helplessness; he is wily and ruthless. At first,
you won’t know it is him. But once you discover his evil plot, you must
sing and chant. Sing the song of the moon and the cave, the song of the
birds and the rain, the song of your childhood. It will invoke the Mother and
he will be much afraid.”
“But we don’t know the song of the cave,” I said, looking around at my
sisters for confirmation of our ignorance. Their faces were as confused as
I’m sure mine looked.
“The lechuzas will be more difficult to escape,” she continued. “They
are evil beyond compare. Their tongues are made of the fifth element, and
their words are sharp metal talons that can cut through even the cleverest of
men. To avert the paralyzing effect of their punishment you must pray
seven Padres Nuestros and seven Ave Marías while you tie seven perfectly
spaced knots on a silk thread. Only then will you be able to escape the
flame in their eyes.”
“Flame in their eyes? Are you kidding?” Juanita asked, the tone of her
voice told me she’d had enough of Teresita’s riddles. I had already met La
Llorona and listened to her cryptic message, so my own dismay was not as
great as that of my sisters.
“Juanita, please,” I whispered, pinching her arm under the table.
“Well, what does she mean by that?” she asked, rubbing her arm
absently. “I mean, what kind of advice is this? Cave songs and knots on
stupid strings?”
“Don’t be rude.” Juanita’s lack of respect to the elderly Teresita
embarrassed me. Teresita was only trying to help us get out of this mess
unscathed. I thought. Of course, given our experiences with Cecilia, I
wasn’t sure I could believe everything Teresita had to say, so I kept my ears
and eyes open for suspicious behavior from the old soothsayer. Even if
Cecilia had been under a spell and forced to tell the truth, I couldn’t help
but worry about my sisters. But if she was telling the truth, she was giving
us answers we needed to pay attention to, even if we didn’t understand them
right now.
“No. It’s all right,” Teresita said. “It is this girl’s fire that will keep you
safe as you face the last of the malevolent trinity — the wretched
chupacabras.”
“¡El chupacabras!” Pita wailed, terrified.
“There is no such thing! I’m outta here,” Juanita exclaimed, jumping
out of the chair and heading for the gaping door.
“Believe me, child,” Teresita’s husband said, stepping out of the
darkness that suddenly seemed to overcast the room. He stood in front of
the door, impeding Juanita’s progress. “The chupacabras is very real. I saw
it with my own two eyes, and I don’t have cataracts.”
 The twins had started for the door too, but like Juanita, they stopped to
listen to Teresita’s husband. “Where?” Delia asked, crossing her arms in
front of her chest.
“When?” Velia demanded, mimicking her sister.
“A few months ago, out there, at the base of the cerro. It was sucking
the life out of one of my goats. It hissed at me, when I came upon it. Its
prickly coarse hair stood up like a sharp razor along the length of its back. It
snarled and flew at me, the scrawny little thing. But I wasn’t scared. I
picked up my rifle and shot at it.”
“You killed it?” Pita asked, sounding relieved.
“No,” Teresita’s husband said, looking a little chagrined yet firm at the
same time. “But I injured it. Shot it through its left eye. Bullet went right
into its head. It howled like a rabid dog. I’ve never seen anything like it
before or since.”
“That’s the good news,” Teresita said, leaning in to grip my hand with
her clawlike fingers. “It’s been injured by human hands, so it will be wary.
But don’t be fooled by its meekness. Its heart is pure evil. There is no
humanity left in him.”
“But how . . .” I started, feeling completely overwhelmed by everything
Teresita had said. Questions ran through my head. How would we recognize
el nagual? Juanita had a point — what was the song of the cave? It felt as if
Teresita had given us more questions than answers.
“Don’t show the chupacabras any mercy,” Teresita’s husband advised.
“Take the nearest tree branch and pound its head in.”
“But what if it . . .” Pita started to speak, but fear devoured her voice
and she didn’t finish her sentence.
 “It won’t,” Teresita assured us. “It is all in the spread of the cards. You
can save yourselves, but only if you are brave and cunning and stick
together through these nightmares. You must never falter in your faith. It is
the only way you will make it alive to your Mamá’s house. You were never
meant to die on the way. There are too many demons yet to be faced, too
many tears yet to be shed.”
I wasn’t sure I heard Teresita right. Was she trying to tell us that there
were more demons waiting at home? If that was so, our journey was going
to be longer and more worrisome than I’d been led to believe.

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EL ALACRÁN: A los que pica el
alacrán, el cuartazo dan.”

THE SCORPION: “Those who get stung

by a scorpion end up on the floor.”

As Teresita explained how to get to Hacienda Dorada, her husband drew up

a sketchy map of the terrain for us on an old piece of linen, a shortcut,
explaining it as he went along. “I’ve circled the areas I know to be dark.
You need to avoid those bad places. Now this square is an old abandoned
barn. You can rest there, get out of the sun, if you must. You’ll have to
travel about twelve or thirteen miles up and down those hills today, but you
can get there this evening if you stay away from those monsters,” Teresita’s
husband said.
They gave us a sack with provisions: a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a hunk
of goat cheese still in its thin cloth casing, a stack of flour tortillas, and
water. Most importantly, Teresita gave us a short piece of silver silk thread.
As we trotted away, the old couple waved to us from their door and
watched anxiously as we took the worn path down the hill. We walked
along the dirt path for miles in the heat of the morning, resting often and
drinking from the three huge gourds of well water Teresita’s husband had
given us. Velia, Delia, and Juanita argued often, especially over the amount
of water any one person should drink. Sometimes, they got so nasty with
each other, I threatened to blister someone’s behind with my chancla if they
said one more mean word to each other.
By late afternoon, I had them walking in pairs, a good ten feet apart
from each other. Pita did nothing but complain, even when we sat in the
shade, so I paired her with Juanita since she couldn’t seem to get along with
anyone else.
By the afternoon we realized we needed to get out of the sun for a
while, so we started talking about looking for a shady place to rest. It was
while we were looking for a safe place to settle down that we saw it: A
lame donkey harnessed to a dilapidated old wagon was making its way
down the road toward us.
“Eeyore!” Pita screamed and started to walk toward the cart.
“That’s not Eeyore!” Juanita said pulling Pita back by her sleeve.
“Well, I didn’t mean the real Eeyore,” Pita explained. “Just one like
him. Look, he even has a ribbon on his tail.”
“That’s not a ribbon,” Juanita corrected. “It’s a dirty rag.”
Pita ran up to meet the donkey, who had come to a complete stop before
us. “Whatever. I don’t care what you think.”
The donkey hung its head, looking pathetic. As I got closer to the cart
and inspected the poor animal, I had to admit it did look a bit Eeyore-ish. It
had big sad eyes and his lips turned down at the corners, like it was a little
depressed.
“Don’t touch it,” I said, slapping Pita’s hands away as she came up to
pet the beast.
“He says he’s tired.” Pita stroked his neck and face. “And thirsty.”
 “And covered in fleas,” Juanita interjected. “You’re going to get piojos
if you keep petting him.”
I moved to examine the animal’s head. Pita was making kissy-faces at
the donkey and cooing at him. “I said not to touch it.” I tried to pull Pita
away from the beast, but she shook me off.
Delia came up and joined Pita in petting the donkey. “You two are
weird. You’ll touch a dead man, but you won’t touch a living, breathing
animal. Something’s definitely wrong with you.”
“I’ll touch it if it’s not all dirty and gross,” Juanita said.
“All right, that’s enough,” I said, pushing them all out of the way. The
donkey’s foreleg looked swollen at the ankle, so I crouched to inspect it.
“Is it hurt?” Juanita wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t tell what’s wrong, but it was limping. I
wonder who it belongs to?”
Pita shushed everyone and cocked her ear at the donkey, who was
braying loudly. “Listen to him! He says he’s all right. He’s just tired and we
should give him a little time to rest.”
“You’re nuts. You know that, right?” Juanita told Pita, who ignored her
and turned her attention back to the donkey.
“Leave her alone,” I said absently. I looked down the road, trying to
figure out where the animal had come from. Maybe we had missed a
ranchito somewhere along the way. It might be worth our while to
backtrack a little and investigate, because we were running low on water.
“Well, she is,” Juanita complained. “She’s having a conversation with a
donkey, for God’s sake.”
“She is not,” I insisted. “She’s just pretending.”
 Pita put her ear to the animal’s mouth like she was listening to him
speak. Juanita grabbed our little sister’s arm and pulled her away. “Pita,
don’t do that. It could be sick, mamita.”
I scrambled onto a boulder and looked down at the horizon as far as I
could see. With my hand shading my eyes, I surveyed the circumference of
the area looking for a dwelling, a farm or a ranch house where the donkey
might belong, but there was nothing out there but brush and huisache trees.
As far as I could tell, he’d come out of nowhere. I couldn’t help but wonder
what happened to his owner.
“His name is Charrito,” Pita said, interpreting the beast’s thunderous
brays. “He says he’ll take us to Abuelita’s house. He knows the way. We
should just wait a little while, while he catches his breath.”
Pita’s words, her conviction that the donkey could speak and she could
understand him, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to alert. La
Llorona’s warnings, Teresita’s reading, they all came back to me.
“So let me get this straight,” Juanita asked Pita as my mind raced
through the warning signs, trying to remember the things I should be
looking for. “This is a talking donkey, and it wants to give us a ride. Is that
it?”
“I’m all for that.” Velia jumped on the rickety wagon and looked around
for a way to navigate the newfound vehicle. “Odilia, do you know how to
drive this thing? Where’s the steering wheel?”
My mind back on the present, I hurried to the front of the wagon.
“There is no steering wheel. And you should really get down from there.” I
reached up to help her get off the wagon, but Velia ignored me.
 “He says you don’t have to use the reins. He knows where we’re
going,” Pita said, pressing her cheek against the animal’s cheek and
smoothing down the tuft of hair at his forehead.
“Sure. Whatever.” Juanita looked at me and circled her index finger
around her ear to show me what she thought of Pita’s interpretations.
Juanita paused and scrutinized the wagon. It was big enough to hold all of
us, and though it was old, it seemed sturdy enough to take us all the way to
Abuelita’s house. “Listen. This might not be a real talking donkey, but using
the wagon to get to Abuelita Remedios’s house is not a bad idea. Okay,
everybody up.” Juanita suited her own words and climbed up herself.
“No, no, no,” I said, taking the reins in my hands. Juanita reached for
them, but I stepped out of her reach on the driver’s seat. The other girls
stood half-ready to climb up, but scuffed their feet in indecision at my
vehemence. “We didn’t agree on this. This animal should have an owner
nearby. I mean, where’s the driver here? Farm animals aren’t tethered to
wagons twenty-four seven. It’s obvious something happened to its owner.
He probably fell, or, worse yet, the donkey might have gone psycho and run
off without him.”
At that moment, something struck my core and Teresita’s words came
back to me. Slowly, quietly, they echoed in my mind. “A devious
warlock . . . he will come in disguise . . . asking for help.”
“Girls, listen to me,” I pleaded, holding onto the reins and standing my
ground. “Remember what Teresita said? What if this is him, the nagual?”
“Odilia,” Juanita interrupted. “You didn’t really believe everything that
old lady said, did you?”
 I leaned in toward Juanita, losing my patience. “Look, I’m not making
this up. I really did speak with La Llorona at the river, and she said it too.
This world is different. Here, things are not always what they appear to be. I
have a bad feeling about this, Juanita. Something about this creature just
gives me the creeps. Let’s leave him here and get back on the way to
Hacienda Dorada.”
“I agree,” Juanita said, looking down at me from her seat in the front of
the wagon. “We should get back on the road to Abuelita’s house. And this is
the fastest and safest way to get there. So stop being so mulish and get up
here. Come on, everybody up.”
Delia, who had been wandering off toward the back end of the wagon,
looked at me remorsefully for a moment and then climbed up next to Velia.
Pita, being so attached to the donkey, was too busy petting it to climb up, so
Juanita whistled at her and said, “You too, Christopher Robin, up on the
wagon.”
As I watched Pita climb onto the driver’s seat, Juanita reached down
and yanked the reins out of my hands. As soon as they were all aboard, the
animal started walking, pulling the wagon up the road in the same direction
we had been heading.
“I can’t believe this,” I shouted, trying to keep up with the wagon. “If
Mamá were here, she’d be doling out the spankings by now. I just hope we
don’t end up paying for this in a major way.”
I walked beside the wagon briskly, always keeping an eye on the
donkey, looking for a sign that he was not what he appeared to be. I could
only hope I was wrong about this, even with as looney as Pita was acting —
she kept conversing with the beast as we made our way down the road. But
at least we were traveling in the right direction.
After a while, the girls celebrated their good fortune by breaking into
the provisions. Juanita passed out the hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and tortillas.
I was still mad at them, so I refused to partake, but they fed like kings,
throwing eggshells off the side of the wagon like they were gold coins
meant for peasants.
After the feast, the girls seemed to settle down. They sat back and
enjoyed the rhythmic ride, mesmerized into a weary silence by the fullness
of their stomachs and the steady movements of the wobbly cart. I trailed
behind them at a slow but steady pace. We traveled for about an hour before
I stopped to catch my breath. The sun was beating down furiously on us and
I was ready to pass out from heat exhaustion.
Juanita looked back to talk to me. “You sure you don’t want to get up
here?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I just hope we reach Hacienda Dorada before
nightfall.”
“Oh, we will,” Juanita said, turning back to look at the road ahead of us.
“It’s so peaceful here. This is what life is all about. No cell phones, no
iPods, no cars driving by polluting our lungs.”
“I know. This is how our ancestors must have felt,” I said as I sped up
to walk beside the wagon. The sun continued making its way westward in
the sky and was almost directly above us now. “Unhurried, relaxed, and
grateful for what they had.”
“Sure. No running water!” Velia interjected.
 “No indoor plumbing!” Delia continued sarcastically. “No deodorant!”
As if to accentuate their cackles, the donkey let out two lungs full of
vociferous braying.
“He wants to know if we want to drink some water and rest,” Pita said.
“There’s a running creek up there on the left. Do we want to stop?” She
leaned over and almost tipped out of the wagon.
“Be careful, Pita!” I pushed her back onto the safety of the cart with all
my might.
“You hurt me,” she complained, rubbing her arm where it had scraped
the side of the wagon.
“We’re already in all kinds of hot water,” I said, refusing to apologize.
“I don’t want to have to explain to Mamá how I lost one of her daughters.”
The business with Pita took all of my attention, but I did notice that the
donkey had pulled the cart off the trail and stopped. I was grateful for it
until he took off again, speeding up ahead of me, bearing left, crossing a
field full of daisies and heading up a hill at a trot too fast for me to keep up.
“Whoa!” Juanita called out, pulling on the reins. In her distraction,
Juanita had obviously given him too much rein. He must have been
instinctively just going off in search of something good to eat — right?
However, my fear that this was the nagual Teresita warned us about kept
me on edge. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, keeping an eye on them
as I went, and hoped the donkey wouldn’t take them too far astray. I just
worried that my legs wouldn’t take me very far after all the walking we’d
done today and yesterday, after the car broke down. And all the while, as I
ran, I tried to remember the song Teresita said we must sing if we came
upon the warlock — the song of the birds and the rain. But my mind was
blank. I had no idea what the song might sound like. Not even a single lyric
came to me as I dashed after the girls in the cart.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Juanita kept calling, but no matter how loud she called,
the beast just kept cantering along, ignoring her. They pulled so far ahead I
worried they’d disappear over the next hill and I’d never see them again. I
considered the ear pendant, but there was nothing to use it on, and Teresita
had said to save it for our most dire circumstances. I would have to use my
wits. I kept running, but even as I ran I couldn’t help but notice the beast
was running awfully fast for a lame donkey.
Finally, after about five minutes, he slowed from a canter to a steady
trot — slower, but not slow enough for me to catch up. It was also fast
enough that none of the girls could jump off the wagon safely. Even though
they weren’t saying much, their faces reflected the horrifying recognition
that even if this wasn’t the nagual, they might be in great danger. When the
donkey did finally stop, it was so abruptly that my hermanitas lurched
forward and caught themselves against the rails in order not to fall off.
“Holy guacamole, that was a close one,” Velia said, jumping off the
back of the wagon and walking around as if her legs were going to give out
from under her. My legs felt like soggy fideo noodles too from all the
walking and running. After running almost a quarter of a mile, I caught up
to the wagon and stood with my hands on my waist trying to catch my
breath. I needed that breath so I could give the girls a piece of my mind.
“Where are we?” Juanita asked as she helped Pita off the edge of the
old cart. We looked around and saw that the creature had brought us to the
mouth of a small cave on the side of the hill. “What is this?”
 “I don’t know, but it looks scary,” Delia said from her seat in the
wagon. “We should keep going. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Don’t go . . . in there,” I started, winded to the point of stuttering.
“Stay away . . . from it. . . . We don’t know . . . what’s in there.” Where had
I put the map that Teresita’s husband had given us, warning us of places to
avoid? I had a creepy feeling this place was on that map. I searched through
my pockets and found it, but before I could gather my thoughts, Pita
interrupted us.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Charrito says it’s a good cave, and we
should rest here. Night’s coming.”
I looked up at the sky and realized that she was right. The sky was
darkening, but the girls had been so content just letting the donkey pull
them up the dirt path, and I’d been so distracted by having to keep up with
them, that we hadn’t even noticed dusk was upon us. A dark, foreboding
feeling took hold of me then. I had failed to convince my sisters to stay
away from the creature and now we were being invited into his cave. I
could feel it — something terrible was about to happen. If only I could
remember the song of the cave, but it was useless. I had no idea what it was.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Velia said. “I’m not sleeping in a cave. There’s
probably vampire bats in there.”
“Velia’s right,” I said. “We should get back to the dirt path and try to
find the next mark on this map. Teresita’s husband said the path led to an
old abandoned barn. We could rest there.”
“Listen to the child,” a deep male voice said, and we all turned around
to look at the animal, who turned around to look at us. I couldn’t help but
notice the bit was no longer in his mouth and he was not hooked up to the
wagon anymore.
“Donkeys shouldn’t talk,” Velia whispered, stepping away from the
beast.
“The barn’s no good. The roof leaks and it’s out too far.” The creature’s
lips were moving and the words were coming out of its mouth as he moved
toward us.
I pushed Pita behind me and shoved Juanita out of the warlock’s way.
“It’s the nagual! Velia, Delia, get our things!” I said, slowly stepping away
from the donkey. “Listen, whatever or whoever you are, we don’t want any
problems.”
“Aramés, aramás, todavía nada más, ven aquí, ven acá.” The donkey’s
words stirred up something fierce and feral in me and I grabbed the nearest
stick I could find on the ground. It wasn’t big enough, but I could wield it
like a sword to the eye if I had to.
“Let’s go! Move it,” I told the girls as they cowered behind me.
“Let me go!” Pita squealed, as she squirmed inside Velia’s locked arms.
“You’re being stupid. He wants to help us! I know he does. He told me so.”
“Pita,” I said, pulling her into my arms. “You have to stop being so
childish. He isn’t a storybook character. He’s an evil man, a sorcerer, not a
donkey, and he’s trying to trick us. We have to get away from him before he
hurts us.”
“Aramés, aramás, todavía nada más, ven aquí, ven acá, aire frío, aire
mío, aramés, aramás,” the nagual continued, even as his eyes rolled into
the back of his head and his long ears perked up and flapped loudly.
 Suddenly, the last rays of sun disappeared from the horizon and
darkness descended upon us like the shadow of malevolence. The night air
grew thick and sulfuric around us. Our breathing became shallow, and I felt
sick and lightheaded.
“We have to get out of . . .” I didn’t finish my thought. My tongue was
twice its normal size, and I couldn’t make out the words.
“Aramés, aramás, todavía nada más, ven aquí, ven acá, aire frío, aire
mío, hazlas mías, cinco hermanitas, cinco estrellitas serán mías, aramés,
aramás . . .” The nagual kept chanting different verses of the same spell,
and before we knew it we were all on the ground, weakly looking at the
donkey as he shifted from animal back to his human form and stood — a
dark-clad figure looming tall and menacing above us. Regret was the last
thing we saw in each other’s eyes before we all passed out.

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LA MUERTE: “Jugando con la muerte,
nadie tiene suerte.”

THE DEATH: “When playing with death,

nobody has any luck.”

It was dark in the cave. I tried moving but my arms were aching. Then I
realized my hands were securely tied behind my back as I lay on the dirt
floor in a corner of the cave. Juanita was still passed out beside me.
Looking around, I saw that all of us were in the same predicament. Every
one of my sisters was tied up on the floor beside me.
All around us, on the dirt, lying sideways over jutted rocks and tangled
in the dusty threads of the telarañas, the webs of a hundred black widow
spiders, lay the corpses of our beloved friends, the snout-nosed butterflies.
Their delicate winged bodies, prone and limp, were snarled in the girls’
hair, attached to their clothes, even stuck to their bare arms and legs, like
dried pressed flowers.
No longer disguised as a domesticated donkey, the nagual, dressed in a
soiled black robe, was standing over a huge bubbling cauldron. His long,
white hair hung from his face in a stringy disheveled mess along the sides
of his lean, angular face. He moved slowly and hunched over the cauldron
like he was a hundred years old. I watched him without making a sound as
he chanted something vile and wicked, something that made my heart flinch
in my chest.
 “Well, hello. Welcome back, preciosa,” the nagual said, showing his
green-gray teeth as he grinned at me. “I see you’re ready.”
I rocked myself into a sitting position. My head was spinning from the
effort, but I managed to sit up on my knees and face him. His eyes were two
small, dark slits that glittered with amusement as he watched me struggle.
His skin was so sallow and dry, he looked like an old rattlesnake. I half
expected him to lick his lips with a forked tongue. “Ready for what?” I
asked.
“This. The final stop on your journey,” he said, stirring the contents of
his cauldron so furiously that it spun like a whirlpool. The fuming
concoction sent swirls of steam up to the cave ceiling, where bats flapped
their wings, clinging upside down from their claws, and pit vipers uncoiled
themselves from thick iron hooks.
“And what is that?” I asked as I tried in vain to loosen the ropes at my
wrists.
“This? This is my masterpiece,” said the nagual. “My own personal
recipe, perfected over the last four centuries. A potion so strong, so
powerful, you won’t feel a thing as you perish. Once I put you inside and
close the lid, you’ll cook almost instantly. Then you can take your place in
my favorite collection, the lovely bones of a thousand children, sacrificed
with Cecilia’s blessing. Your death will release me from this curse. No
longer will I have to dwell in a cave. No longer will I have to wander the
earth in the shape of a beast. With you — las cinco hermanitas, las cinco
estrellitas — as my sacrifice, I will become more powerful than that cretin
Huitzilopochtli ever was.”
 As he said those final words, talking about someone with an ancient
sounding name — an Aztec deity perhaps, the nagual reached up to caress
the collection of bones, both long and short, thick and thin, hanging from
the wall behind him. Horrified, I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them
before. Their shapes and sizes made it impossible to mistake them for
anything else — they were obviously human remains. His fingernails
tickled their dry ivory exteriors, making the bones clang against each other
with a hollow sound that echoed through the cave. It was the sound of death
looming over me and my sisters, who were still unconscious on the ground
beside me.
I tried rousting them by leaning into them and whispering, “Velia,
Delia, wake up. Wake up girls,” but they were out cold, so I closed my eyes
and prayed. And as I prayed, I thought about Mamá sitting outside looking
up at that full moon, wondering where we were. I thought about Papá sitting
somewhere oblivious of our misfortune. I thought about Teresita and her
husband, who warned us about the nagual and tried to tell us how to get
away. Why didn’t we pay more attention?
What was it she had said? Sing the song of the rain, the song of the
cave, or was it the song of the butterflies? I tried to remember if Mamá used
to sing to us in our youth, but it was no use. Nothing came to me now. If
only I could remember, everything would be all right.
I shut my eyes tightly and concentrated. The song of the cave, the song
of the birds, the song of the rain . . . My inner voice repeated Teresita’s
instructions again and again, but nothing made any sense. My mind was
empty of songs. I couldn’t even remember if Papá, who was a músico, had
ever put us to bed with a lullaby. It must be a spell, I told myself. The
nagual must have wiped my mind clean when we first met him.
I watched the warlock move about the opposite side of the spacious
rectangular cave. He ignored us as he inspected jars filled with dark
disgusting liquids and dirty sprigs of herbs on the shelves behind the
cauldron, deciding what else to throw in the concoction simmering within.
And all the while I wrestled with the tight ropes at my hands, working them
loose slowly, carefully, until I was able to free my right hand. I was about to
peel the loosened ropes off my left hand when I felt the warlock’s grip upon
my shoulder. It was disarming how he’d disappeared from the corner of the
cave only to reappear directly in front of me in the beat of a second.
“Oh no, you don’t,” the nagual said, using my elbows as leverage to lift
me from the ground.
My head spun like a carnival ride, but I twisted myself out of his grip
and pushed him away. He grabbed at my free hand, but I turned around and
kicked him in the stomach with such force that he fell to the ground. He lay
on his side entangled in his own robes, struggling to get up.
I spun La Llorona’s ear pendant with a dramatic flick of my hand.
“Aztec queen, Tonantzin, Holy Mother of all mankind, lend me your
magical assistance!”
“Noooo!” the nagual screamed, reaching for me.
For a moment, I thought he might be casting another spell, but no
power stopped me, so I called to Tonantzin. “Sing to me, Mother Queen,
sing me the song of the cave,” I chanted as the ear pendant quivered against
my cheek.
 At my words, the earring began to hum as it spun. The humming
became louder and more rhythmic. I watched the nagual, fascinated by his
inability to move. He lay on the ground helplessly paralyzed by the musical
notes emanating from the pendant.
“Juanita, Velia, Delia,” I called to my sisters, who were still lying prone
on the ground around me. “Wake up, girls. Wake up and listen.”
Suddenly, from within the fogginess of my mind, something resonated.
A fragment of a chord, a familiar tune came to the front in the form of a
tiny sequence of notes.
“Girls! Girls! Wake up,” I begged ecstatically. “Wake up and sing our
tune!” The hum grew louder, and I joined in to sing.
“Que llueva, que llueva,
La Virgen de la cueva,
Los pajarillos cantan,
Las nubes se levantan . . .”
As I sang the ancient tune quietly to myself, I realized it was the refrain
Mamá had sung to us to soothe our nerves on dark, rainy nights when we
were very young. The rest of the song came to me, and I sang it, quietly,
almost whispering it. I heard my sisters stir beside me, muttering as they
woke, and I knew it was working.
“Que llueva, que llueva
El cóndor está en la cueva
Los pajarillos cantan
Las nubes se levantan . . .”
Louder and louder I sang, and when my sisters shook the fogginess
from their own minds, they sat up and joined me in the chorus of Mamá’s
lullaby.
“Que sí, que no,
Que caiga un chaparrón.
Que sí, que no,
Que caiga un chaparrón.”
“Stop! What are you doing? Stop it! Stop singing!” the nagual was
screaming. He sat up and began to retreat, crawling on hands and knees to
the far end of the cave to get away from us, and so we kept singing. Louder
and more forcefully we sang. And when I loosened the ropes from my
sisters’ hands, we all stood in the center of the cave, joined hands, and sang
louder and with more delight than any group of young girls ever sang
before.
“Que llueva, que llueva,
La serpiente está en la cueva,
Los pajarillos cantan,
Las nubes se levantan,
Que sí, que no,
Que caiga un chaparrón,
Que sí, que no,
Que caiga un chaparrón.”
All around us the desiccated corpses of the butterflies glittered and
shone. Their tiny bodies quivered in the dust. Their wings fluttered and
wavered as they trembled back to life right before our very eyes. Then a
celestial light illuminated the door of the cave. Its radiance entered the room
and pooled before the wily nagual, who was cringing in the farthest corner
of the cave.
 As if newly emerged from their chrysalises, the butterflies gathered
their strength and began to fly. They flittered up into the air, dancing around
the light, thousands and thousands of them, fluttering together, dancing to
our song.
There were so many of them joining in the dance that soon they moved
as one. Their bodies became a collective, a tapestry of wing and wind that
fluttered with life, transforming into the figure of a young woman with dark
hair and dark eyes. She was dressed in a shimmering tunic of gold and
green jade. She looked like an Aztec goddess, but her face was that of a
Mexican girl, the face of our many friends and cousins, a teenager, like us.
“Who are you?” Delia asked, dropping Velia and Pita’s hands and
stepping forth to take a better look at the apparition.
“What are you?” Velia didn’t move, but she let go of my hand too.
Juanita fell to her knees and bowed her head in recognition. “La Virgen
de la Cueva,” she whispered as she pulled on the hems of our shirts trying
to make us follow suit.
“Tonantzin! Madre Santa, forgive me,” the nagual begged, as he
cowered away from the radiance of the goddess. “I did not know they were
under your protection.”
“How could you not,” the youthful goddess asked in her childlike voice.
“Cinco estrellitas — five stars, five little sisters, traveling through my
domain in the sky. A warning for all to see, to let them pass unharmed. You
are not dumb. You are not blind.”
“Oh but I am. I am,” the nagual muttered, his lips quivering. “I wasn’t
going to harm them. I promise I wasn’t.”
 “Then what spews from your cauldron?” the youthful goddess
questioned. “A stew? Or maybe it’s a special offering for us. Stir it, man,
before it sticks to the pot.”
“It is of no consequence, your holy . . .” the nagual began.
“Stir it, I say!” the goddess ordered. Her command was emphasized by
the roar of thunder somewhere out in the distant sky. “Stir it before I take
my leave. I want to make sure you do your job as well as I do mine.”
“No, please,” the nagual begged, inching along the wall. He reluctantly
made his way toward the cauldron. Suddenly, as if in slow motion, he
turned sideways and made a dash for the mouth of the cave. In his great
haste, he tripped on the hem of his robe and ran right into the cauldron he
had been boiling for us. Unable to stop, a victim of his own momentum, he
fell into the roiling mess. The liquid in the giant kettle gurgled and
splattered as it ate away at his flesh, and he screamed in what must have
been excruciating agony.
Instinctively, I reached over to block Pita’s sight with my hands, but she
pushed me away and stood staring at the gore before us without so much as
a single tear in her eyes. “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m not a
baby. Besides, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Within seconds, a foul stench thickened and permeated the cave. The
rest of my sisters and I ran for the mouth of the nagual’s cavernous
dwelling. The Great Mother had saved us, and we escaped without looking
back. We ran like venadas, frightened deer, fleeing all the way down the hill
toward the safety of foreign woods and eerie dirt paths. Juanita and I
brought up the rear, making sure our hermanitas escaped ahead of us. I
looked back, wondering if I should have thanked the goddess before we ran.
 “What do we do now?” Velia asked when we finally stopped at the base
of the hill to catch our breath and slow our galloping heartbeats.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you have that flashlight, Juanita? I want to
look at the map.”
“Yeah,” Juanita said, pressing a hand to her side. “It’s in my bag.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just ran . . . too fast. I’ll be . . . all right . . . in a minute.”
Juanita got the words out between labored breaths, and I knew what she
was talking about. I too had a nasty stitch pinching at my side.
I looked around for some kind of landmark. “The best thing to do is
keep moving.” We’d been passed out so long in the cave that night had
fallen, but the woods were thick and the full moon was somewhat
obstructed. I could barely see my hand in front of my eyes.
“I think I’m done with adventures. From now on, I’m staying as far
away from Mexico as possible,” Delia declared.
Mamá’s rain song came back into my head, and, without knowing why,
I started to hum it as I pulled the map Teresita’s husband had given us from
inside my pocket. “Vámonos,” I told the girls. “Let’s sing the song of the
birds and the rain and stay away from the dark places on this map. With any
luck, we’ll get to Abuelita’s house before dawn.”

OceanofPDF.com
LAS JARAS: “Qué precisas plumas tienen
que tener las jaras para poder volar.”

THE ARROWS: “What precise feathers

the arrows must have in order to fly.”

To say that we found our way quickly would be to lie. It took us hours to
get back on the right path, or at least, the path we hoped was the right one.
“Who was that, do you think? Another witch? A sorceress?” Delia
asked as we plodded along the moonlit path.
“That was the Great Mother, Tonantzin,” I said. “I’ve been using her
amulet, this ear pendant, to call on her for help along the way. La Llorona
gave it to me. She was right when she said we’d need it.” I peered at the
map in my hand by the flickering light of our waning flashlight. It was hard
enough not being able to read the map without having to worry about
missing the landmarks altogether, but with the moon hiding behind a cloudy
sky, they were both impossible.
“You mean she’s the one who gave you these earrings?” Velia asked,
reaching up to touch the ear pendant hanging against my right cheek.
“We have special protection,” Juanita said as she ran up to join our
conversation. “Isn’t that cool?”
“Yes it is. But there’s more. La Llorona said we have to remain noble
and kind. If we do that, everything will be all right,” I said, relieved that she
finally believed me. Then, remembering La Llorona and all that she had
done for us so far, I began to wonder why she had not been the one to come
to our aid. Had the nagual been too powerful for her? If that was so, had
she asked the goddess to help us herself? Was La Llorona ultimately behind
our salvation?
“I wonder if Mamá knows what the song is really for,” Velia said.
Mamá had sung that to us so many times I couldn’t count. Now that the fog
of the nagual’s spell had lifted, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made the
connection sooner.
“She probably doesn’t. I mean who would have thought that some
supernatural being was going to show up and save us because we sang her a
song?” Delia asked, stating the obvious.
“I always thought Mamá’s lullabies were magical,” Pita whispered.
“When we were young and Mamá used to sing to us I felt special inside.”
“I know what you mean,” Juanita said, wrapping her arms around Pita.
“Her voice was so sweet, so loving, I always felt like we were more than
her children. I felt like we were her life. It’s almost as if she knew someday
her lullabies would keep us safe from harm, so she made sure she sang to us
every night. It’s a wonder we forgot that song.”
“Oh boy, it’s getting deep out here!” Velia said. “What makes you think
Mamá knows anything about Tonantzin coming to save us? Because, I’ll be
honest, I didn’t know what the heck was going on when the goddess
showed up.”
“Whatever,” Juanita retorted, letting Velia’s negative comments slide
right off her back like cold butter off a warm tortilla. “All I’m saying is
Mamá knows the song for a reason. Someone taught it to her. It’s a lullaby,
right? So it’s been passed down from generation to generation. Mothers
must have been singing it to their children since the time when Mamá’s
ancestors, the Aztecas, were overpowered by the Spaniards.”
I folded the map and shoved it back in my backpack. “Well, the bottom
line is La Llorona gave me the earrings to invoke her, and Teresita kind of
let us know Tonantzin would come to our rescue, and she did. But now it’s
time we moved on.” I pulled my backpack over my shoulders and started
hiking through the thick brush of the overgrown path.
“That’s not true,” Velia complained as she began to follow me and
Juanita through the woods. “Teresita never said anyone would help us. She
just said we had to sing the song of the birds. I know. I was listening, and I
have a photogenic memory.”
“Photographic, genius,” Juanita spit out angrily at Velia, who had
caught up and was now walking between us. “It’s called a photographic
memory, and anyway, I don’t see how that would help you remember what
was being said since photographic memory deals with sight — not
hearing!”
“Okay, stop it! Both of you. I don’t want to have to separate you again,”
I yelled, moving between them as we made our way through the shrubbery
and into a clearing.
“Well, Teresita didn’t tell us we were in danger of being boiled alive in
a cauldron. So forgive me if I don’t put too much stock into what that old
bag of bones had to say,” Velia complained, hiking her backpack higher up
over her shoulders before she stalked ahead of us.
“I have a feeling there’s a lot Teresita didn’t tell us,” Delia said,
stopping to take a swig of water from a gourd.
 “She did warn us about the nagual. She just wasn’t very specific,”
Juanita said, turning back to face the road ahead.
“Yes, but there was more,” I said. They knew what I was talking about.
“You mean the coven of lechuzas,” Juanita whispered, looking at me
sideways.
“We’ve got to find a place to hide for the night, before they find us,”
Velia said, looking to either side of the dirt path.
“Well, what do you know. Ask and you shall receive.” Delia punched
my arm and pointed to the right of the path. I peered into the darkness, but
all I could see was the faint outline of far away mountains against the dusky
horizon.
“What is it?” I asked, giving up on my poor eyesight.
“A barn!” Pita screamed. She ran up in front of us and jumped up and
down in place with excitement.
“Now hold on,” I said, putting my hand on Pita’s shoulder. “Settle
down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“What?” Velia wanted to know as she joined our united circle. “What’s
wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing’s wrong. We just need to make sure it’s
okay to go in there. We need to be cautious, that’s all.”
“Teresita’s husband said we could rest here. Why do we have to be so
careful?” Delia asked, joining us as we faced the barn.
“We just have to, that’s all. Well? Who’s coming with me?” I asked,
looking around for volunteers. Not surprisingly, nobody said anything.
“You guys are like gallinas cluecas, puro guato, a bunch of clucking
chickens, all talk and no action.”
 I started across the grass, heading for the barn on my own. Although I
was scared, I wasn’t going to show it. I was the eldest. It was my job to
bring them to safety. Of course, leaving them alone on the side of a dirt road
in rural Mexico wasn’t my idea of protecting them, but I didn’t have much
choice either.
“Wait!” Juanita ran after me. “Do you really think it’s safe in the barn? I
mean, what if the lechuzas are in there?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Lechuzas don’t hide in barns at night.
Owls are nocturnal predators. You should know that. You’ve seen every
animal documentary on the Nature Channel.”
“Oh yeah, ever heard of a barn owl?” Juanita taunted. “What do you
think a lechuza is? It’s an owl, genius. Try keeping up.”
“Whatever, Ms. Gifted-in-Everything. I’m going to check it out. Are
you coming with, or are you going back to cower with the rest of the
broody hens?”
“I guess I’m coming with — ” Juanita said, but she didn’t sound too
sure of it.
“Good,” I said, starting off again. “Let’s get on with it. I’m tired, and
judging from this humidity, it’s going to rain soon.”
Side by side, we hiked through the overgrown meadow off the beaten
path. We had to be very careful because the field was full of burrs and sting
weeds. So we traveled slowly, stomping the tall grass down as we went.
When we finally got to the barn, we found an old oil lamp hanging just
inside the door. I jiggled the compartment in the underside of the tin relic
and found two long thin matches. While Juanita held a flashlight over me, I
lifted the filthy cobwebbed glass and lit a match. To my surprise, the wick
lit right up and, after shaking it a bit, I could hear that there was enough
kerosene in it to keep it going for a while, maybe even all night. That would
help keep Pita from getting scared.
“We should conserve what’s left of the battery.” I turned off the
flashlight and stuffed it back in Juanita’s backpack.
Looking around the barn, we saw that it was most definitely abandoned.
There were some old rusted tools lying about and some desiccated straw
lined the far left corner, but half the roof was either missing or about to fall
off. Nevertheless, we decided it was in good enough shape to offer us some
semblance of security for the night, however pitiful it might be.
The girls were delighted to hear the news. Once inside, Pita walked
around the poorly lit barn for a while, playing with an old rusty rake and a
pitchfork she’d found in a stall. The rest of us emptied the contents of the
backpacks and lay on several rumpled layers of clothing. Unlike Pita, who
was still playing with the rake, Juanita, the twins, and I had no desire to
expend any more energy than we already had. It had been a hot, tiring two
days of walking since we’d left El Sacrificio, and our journey was far from
over. If Teresita’s husband’s hand-drawn map was even sort of accurate, we
hadn’t covered half the ground we’d intended to today. We were just
content to rest our feet and curl up in a semicozy place.
I got Pita to finally settle down beside me. But even after everyone else
fell asleep, I lay wide awake, looking up at the stars through the wide hole
in the ceiling. We had traveled so long and so far from that first night, when
I had seen that series of stars fall from the sky like a meteor shower, that I
wondered if we’d ever get back to that life again — back to those long,
playful days without danger or witches or warlocks. At the thought of
Mamá crying every day, fearing for our lives, tears started to prick at my
eyes and I wiped them away. It was then that I saw several tiny figures
flying in and out of my field of vision over the barn.
“Bats?” I asked myself quietly, sitting up to get a better look.
“No,” Juanita whispered as she too sat up. “They look too big to be
bats.”
“I know,” I said. Keeping my eyes on the creatures above, I shook the
other girls awake.
“What?” Velia mumbled, half asleep. “Leave me alone.”
“They’re here,” I whispered, because by then I had figured it out.
Velia sat up so fast she stirred Delia beside her. “Who?”
“Mamá?” Delia sprang up into a sitting position beside her twin, and
her eyes went to the doors on the other side of the barn.
“No,” I whispered, pointing at the creatures. They had stopped flying
and were now perched side by side around the hole on the ceiling, peering
down at us from the darkened heavens.
“¿Lechuzas?” Velia asked, searching the sky above.
“There’s six of them,” I said, nodding. “I counted them twice.”
“Then it’s not them,” Juanita said, putting a hand to her chest, still
scared but sounding pretty relieved. “You need thirteen to make it a true
coven. They must be regular owls if there’s fewer than that.”
“Maybe the other seven are dead,” Velia whispered.
“Or maybe,” Delia interjected. “They split up and the others are on their
way.”
I remained frozen, unsure of whether a reaction would startle the
lechuzas into an attack. “Regular owls aren’t that big, and they don’t travel
in broods,” I said. “No. It’s them.” I reached for my backpack slowly, trying
not to show fear.
“Parliament,” Juanita whispered from beside me on the nest of clothes.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“A group of owls is a parliament, not a brood,” she explained. “That’s
chickens — hens, actually — ”
“Oh, like that matters right now.” I started to move my hand slowly,
toward the tiny front pocket of my shorts, pulling the piece of silk string out
of it without drawing too much attention to myself.
“Sorry,” Juanita said. “Do you have the string?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I put it in a safe place as soon as Teresita handed it
to me, but I need you to wake Pita up without scaring her. Once everyone’s
awake, you’ll have to form a protective circle around me, so they can’t get
to me while I tie the knots.”
“Okay,” Delia and Velia whispered in unison.
I could hear the lechuzas whispering menacingly above me, up on the
roof, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I unzipped the tiny
front pocket of my shorts as slowly as possible, trying not to draw attention
to myself. But the minute I pulled out the piece of marked silk thread, the
lechuzas launched themselves off the roof and flew into the barn, wailing
and screeching.
Startled awake by the lechuzas’ bloodcurdling screams, Pita sat up and
screamed almost as loudly as the winged witches. From that moment on,
everything happened very fast. The lechuzas descended upon us with all
their fury. As they came at us, I saw that they were as big as vultures, and
their wingspan was twice their length. Their long, scraggly hair streamed
behind them like raggedy, moth-eaten capes as they flew at us. But the most
horrific parts of them were their faces. They looked like dried up pieces of
fruit, desiccated human faces — witches with metallic beaks for lips.
The coven of lechuzas squawked and screeched as they flew in and
grabbed at us with steel talons, pulling out chunks of our hair, shredding our
clothes, and scratching our arms, hands, and faces as they flew by. One at a
time, they soared up into the rafters and swooped down to do it all over
again. If they had been less aggressive, less calculating, we might have been
able to defend ourselves. But they were so fierce and erratic in their attacks,
we never stood a chance.
“¡Niñas malas!” said one in Mamá’s voice.
“¡Malcriadas!” said another in La Llorona’s voice.
“¡Egoístas!” said the one with Cecilia’s voice.
“¡Arrepiéntanse!” said another in Teresita’s voice. According to them,
we were evil children, spoiled rotten and selfish. We should repent.
They kept chanting over and over again as they scratched at us with
their sharpened talons. “Repent! Repent! Repent!”
“Stop!” Juanita screamed as she swatted them away with her hands.
“Stop! Stop!” we cried as we whacked at them. But no matter what we
did or how much we begged, they wouldn’t stop. If anything, their
viciousness grew even more intense. As they started to abuse us, the rain we
had been expecting started to pour down on us through the holes in the roof.
There was no escape from the feathers and the rain. The wind picked up and
I could hear thunder in the distance.
I remembered the piece of silk thread and realized I was still clutching
it. But no sooner had I looked at it than one of the lechuzas clawed it out of
my hand. I tried to hold on to it, but the evil bird was too strong. She
flapped her wings in my face, slapping my head with her sharp, bristly
feathers. I was tugging against her, holding on to the string for dear life,
when one of her feathers pricked me right in the eye. An intense pain shot
through my eye like a bullet, and I let go of the string.
Taking the string with her, the lechuza flew out of the barn through the
hole in the roof, into the darkness and rain. And just when I thought things
couldn’t get any worse, Velia and Delia rolled away from the rest of us.
Screaming, they made a mad dash for the door at the other side of the barn.
With two lechuzas at their backs, they busted out of the barn as if their heels
were on fire, never once looking back. Had they abandoned their
hermanitas?
I looked at the barn doors noisily slapping back and forth with the force
of the storm, and I couldn’t help but feel powerless. The twins’ desertion
shattered any hope I had left of defeating the malevolent witches. And for
the first time on our journey, I wanted to cry.
But there was no time for that. With the twins gone, the remaining
lechuzas concentrated on the rest of us. Two of them dived so fast and hard
into me that they knocked me over. One of them sat on my chest. Another
one had Juanita pinned faceup against the pile of clothes we had used to
make ourselves a nest. Pita was pressed against the wall, shivering, while a
lechuza pecked gently at her head, as if it were picking nits out of her hair.
“You like eating sweets, don’t you?” The lechuza with Cecilia’s voice
pulled Pita in close until their faces were almost touching. “That’s because
you’re a piglet! A little piggy with a piggy nose and a piggy mouth and a
piggy stomach. You’re a chubby baby, but give me time. I’ll put some real
meat on your bones, thicken you up, and get you ready to be eaten. My
sisters and I haven’t eaten much lately. Your big brown eyes look delicious.
I bet they’d taste sweet slathered with jalapeño marmalade.”
“How do you like your adventure now, you arrogant little twit?” a
lechuza with Inés’s voice asked Juanita as she caressed her face with the
bristly feathers of her left wing. “What? Do you think you’re smarter than
them? Well, you’re not. You dragged them all into this mess with your self-
righteousness.” Juanita sniffed and hiccuped as she tried in vain to stop
herself from bawling. “Oh, what’s the matter now? Why are you crying?
Are you sad? Maybe you should have listened to your older sister. Maybe
you should have stayed home and cleaned and cooked like your mother,
instead of thinking you’ve got brains.”
“You think you can fool me?” the one with Mamá’s voice asked me.
She was sitting on top of me, kneading into my chest with her claws like a
cat, laughing when I winced in pain. “Answer me!” she screamed. But
instead of talking, I looked straight into her red fiery eyes with what I hoped
was disdain.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you afraid? Want to run away?” she asked,
and when I didn’t answer she dug her sharp talons deeper into my chest.
The pain was horrendous, and I wanted to scream out, but I held my breath
instead. “Of course you do . . . I know how much of a coward you really
are. I know how irresponsible you can be. Who’s the one who relinquished
the piece of thread? Who’s going to protect your sisters now? Who? Who?
Who?”
She was shaking me then, grabbing me by my shirt collar and rattling
me like she wanted to loosen the last breath out of my chest. I closed my
eyes and started to pray, silently at first and then with more courage and
conviction, but my prayers were useless against her. Instead of getting off
my chest, she started to laugh, a deep cackling laugh that vibrated inside my
head and made me lose my place in prayer.
“You, that’s who,” whispered the lechuza, her rotten breath caressing
my neck like a dirty rag, penetrating into my every pore. “You! You! You!”
she kept screaming in a parody of Mamá’s voice, spitting putrid saliva on
my face. “You dressed like me! You took them away! You left me crying!
You lost the thread!”
Her words, spoken in Mamá’s voice, pierced through my heart and I
screamed in agony. “No! No! It’s not true! It’s not . . .”
Just when I thought all was lost, Velia and Delia burst through the barn
doors wielding what could only be described as giant metal baseball bats. I
don’t know what kind of tools they were or where they came from, all I
know is they looked absolutely dangerous.
“Die!” the twins screamed as they charged in our direction. The
lechuzas screeched angrily, let go of us, and scattered themselves around
the room. One by one they flapped their wings and took flight, soaring
above us, cursing our names and threatening to take their revenge.
“You take the pitchfork. I call the rake,” I told Juanita. I scrambled to
my feet and rushed to the other side of the barn where Pita had abandoned
the rusty old tools.
“You can’t hurt us. We’re the avengers. The devil’s playmates,” the one
with La Llorona’s voice screeched.
“You’ve caused too much heartache and pain. You disrespected Cecilia,
humiliated her, and now you have to pay,” the one with Teresita’s voice
yelled from the rafters.
“You’ll never get away,” the one with Mamá’s voice screamed, as she
descended upon me.
With all my strength, I batted at her with the brittle rake. She flew
around me to avoid getting hurt, but she wasn’t completely successful. I’d
clipped her right wing and she screamed in rage — or maybe it was pain. I
shook the feathers out of the rake and prepared myself for the next attack.
“Just draw her close.” Velia whispered. She and Delia inched
themselves toward Juanita and me.
“We can take these bit — I mean, witches,” Delia announced.
“Watch your mouth,” I warned out of habit. Although, this time, I had
to agree with her colorful language. These creatures were more than
wicked — they were downright malevolent!
“Repent! Repent! Repent!” the lechuzas screeched as they swooped
down on us like a squadron of fighter planes. We stood side by side, all four
of us, defensively holding up our weapons like ninja warriors, while Pita
huddled behind us, defenseless without a weapon to wield.
Claws, feathers, and hair flew everywhere during the first onslaught.
But through it all, we never quit. We batted and struck and clubbed and
raked, and as we did, one by one the lechuzas flew off our weapons, hit the
barn walls, and fell to the ground, squealing like stuck pigs.
When Juanita pierced through one of them with her pitchfork, it
screamed out, convulsed, and then lay lifeless. So that’s how we got rid of
most of them. The twins and I clubbed and raked them until they were
stunned and dazed, and Juanita finished them off by staking them.
 By the time we were done, the place was a bloody, feathery, eerie mess.
We stood side by side, looking past the settling debris, not daring to talk in
case we were dreaming wide awake. I knew I should be shocked, horrified
even, that we had just slaughtered a group of beings — not human perhaps,
but living, breathing beings in their own right. But my blood was pumping
furiously through my body, washing away any remorse I might have felt.
Maybe it was the danger they had posed, or maybe I was just becoming
psychotic, but I didn’t feel guilty at all. I felt strong and powerful and
vindicated as I kicked a blood-splattered feathery lump out of my way and
headed for our nest in the corner of the barn.
“You did it!” Pita squealed and jumped for joy beside me. “You saved
us!” She shook fuzzy remnants of feathers out of her hair and spat them off
her face.
“Wow,” Juanita whispered, still caught in a dreamlike state. “We killed
them all. Can you believe it? We won. We defeated them.”
“No, we haven’t,” I said, looking up to the hole in the ceiling above our
nest. “The rest of them are back.”
Up in the sky, behind the rest of the perched, cackling lechuzas, there
was a tinge of pink on the purple face of night. Dawn was coming soon.
“The sun’s about to rise,” I said. “If we ever want to be able to sleep
again without fearing for our lives, we have to finish them.”
I’d lost the silk thread, though. How could we do what Teresita told us
would defeat the lechuzas?
I was bemoaning our plight internally again when I saw Pita, disheveled
in her best Sunday dress, and realized we’d had the solution all along.
“Come here, Pita.” When she came closer, I grabbed the tiny bow at her
collar and yanked it off her dress with one hard tug.
“What are you doing?” she wailed. “Give that back!” I’d ripped it off
cleanly, without damaging the dress. But that bow was the thing Pita loved
most about that dress. She was understandably upset and reached for the
bow.
I held it out of her reach until I could untie the bow and smooth it out
between my fingertips. “I need it, Pita. It’s silk,” I explained, ripping it so I
could pull out a single piece of thread.
Pita touched her collar and mourned. “This is my favorite dress.”
“Shh! We’ll get you a new one once we’re back home! Watch my
back,” I whispered, stepping back to stand between Pita and Velia. Delia
and Juanita closed the gap in front of me and stood wielding their farming
tools before them, ready for the next attack.
“Padre Nuestro que estás en los cielos . . .” I started to say the Lord’s
Prayer in Spanish. Only this time, I was smarter about it. This time I held
the thread tightly against my chest. Since there was no way of marking it, I
would simply make every knot sit tightly against the last. Teresita hadn’t
said the knots had to be set apart by any particular amount of space. She
only said they had to be evenly spaced. So putting them side by side was, in
my opinion, perfectly spaced.
With every word I spoke, it seemed the rain began to wane. Less and
less of it fell in through the roof. As the first prayer ended and I closed the
first knot, the rain stopped completely and the rest of the lechuzas screeched
in pain and flew into the barn. They soared over us, ranting and raving and
angrily flapping their wings. They circled and circled, creating a whirlwind,
a dirt devil of debris and dark moldy hay that swirled all the way up to the
ceiling. The miniature storm swirled and stood before us like a charmed
snake, flicking our hair into our faces, wrapping it around our necks,
choking us — stealing our breaths. But all the time, I stayed focused and
prayed. Knot after knot I tied. Prayer after prayer I prayed, seven Lord’s
Prayers and seven Holy Marys, and it seemed that each one of those knots
took away just a little bit more of that whirlwind’s strength.
Shorter and shorter it got, and slower and slower the lechuzas flew, until
finally, as I tied the last of the seven knots, a whisper of daylight broke
through the roof and the whirlwind died away. The seven remaining
lechuzas fell to the floor, dead. Their eyes closed, their feathers dulled, and
their faces had become clean slates. Then the lechuzas, all thirteen of them,
vanished into thin air, leaving only downy feathers floating innocuously in
the rays of the morning sun.

OceanofPDF.com
EL DIABLITO: “Nomás baila y brinca
el diablito cuando anda alborotadito.”

THE LITTLE DEVIL: “The little devil only

dances and jumps when he’s agitated.”

I’m tired,” Velia said, and she fell into the nest of clothes we had built
ourselves the night before. It appeared to be clean despite our tussle with
the lechuzas. There was no sign of the struggle or the mud of last night’s
rain.
“Me too,” Delia chimed in, joining her in the nest.
“Listen, Odilia, I think we should rest,” Juanita whispered, eyeing the
twins, whose eyes were closed in genuine exhaustion.
I stared at them for a moment, debating. “Okay,” I conceded. “But just
for a little while.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Pita whined as she watched me and
Juanita making ourselves comfortable on the bed of clothes. “What if the
chupacabras comes to get us?”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s daytime,” I said, reaching for Pita.
She let me pull her down and lay next to me, burying her face into my side
the way she does when we’re at home.
“That’s right,” Juanita said, rubbing Pita’s back for a moment. “We’ll
take a short nap and then move on. See, look at the map. We’re here and
there’s Hacienda Dorada. We’ll be there before the chupacabras has a
chance to get us. Because he only comes out at night, you know.”
I watched as Juanita pointed at the short distance on the map. I didn’t
have the heart to tell them that an inch on the map was a lot of miles on foot
and we might not make it there before nightfall. I’d been overconfident in
our ability to walk so many miles at once in such rough terrain when we left
Teresita’s.
After the girls handed it back to me, I looked at the map more closely
and I saw once again that there were no houses or farms between us and
Hacienda Dorada. Teresita’s husband had drawn many hills and even a
creek along the crooked path, but no other signs of human life were
depicted on the map. It was both disheartening and worrisome to know we
were out here alone with no hope of coming across someone to help us.
“Odilia, are you scared?” Pita asked, lifting her head to look at me.
“Not right now. No,” I said.
Pita rested her face on my arm and let out a long breath. “Me either.”
“I don’t think the chupacabras stands a chance,” Velia said from beside
Juanita. “We’re a force to be reckoned with, you know.”
“We are!” Delia chimed in, sitting up on her elbow to make eye contact
with us. “¡Cinco hermanitas! Together forever!”
I flipped to my side and wiggled myself into a more comfortable
position. “If we’re going to sleep, then we should go to sleep.”
Nobody said anything after that. Even though nobody was admitting it,
I knew deep inside we were all still worried about the chupacabras.
However, we were so emotionally and physically exhausted that we fell
asleep almost instantly and slept for hours without stirring.
 When I first opened my eyes, I didn’t have to look at my watch to know
it was high noon. The sun was peering down at us from the center of the
gaping hole in the roof. However, it wasn’t the sun that had awakened me.
There was something else, something inherently evil had drifted into my
wakeful consciousness, a bad dream of some kind — a warning, perhaps.
“Juanita,” I whispered, reaching for her.
“El chupacabras?” she asked, jolting up to a sitting position.
I listened to the distant sound. “I don’t know.”
“I hear bleating and singing,” Delia said, sitting up slowly. “It’s a boy
for sure, and he has animals with him. A shepherd?”
“Or maybe a goatherd,” I said, shaking the others awake. Velia woke up
right away, but Pita stretched out on the nest and groaned with her eyes still
closed. “C’mon ladies, get up. Someone’s coming! Get up!”
Juanita and I clung to the wooden slat barring the barn door. She looked
too afraid to open it, and after what happened the night before, I didn’t
blame her. “Who’s out there?” I called.
“He can’t hear you,” Velia said, shoving Juanita aside and pushing up
the wooden slat.
“What are you doing?” I asked, alarmed. “We can’t let him in here. He
could be dangerous.”
“More dangerous than what we encountered last night? Please. He’s
probably a ranch hand from some isolated ranchito out there. He might
even be from Hacienda Dorada,” Velia said, and opened the door.
“He has goats!” I said. “It would be like baiting the chupacabras!”
Juanita got up and tucked her shirt into her shorts. “Hello. It’s daylight.
The chupacabras only comes out at night. Besides, if he has goats, he has
water. Let’s just hope he can spare some.”
“And food!” Delia said, running to help her twin push the other tractor-
sized door open.
Pita followed us out into the bright sunlight. “Oh, I do hope he has
food! I’m so hungry I could eat a donkey right now!”
“Of course you could, Pita-Chalupita,” Velia said. “Some things never
change.”
“Whatever. Make fun of me. I don’t care,” Pita retorted, shoving at
Delia’s back.
I took a hold of Pita’s arm and pulled her behind me as Delia and Velia
peered out into the sunlight. “I’m not so sure we should be making new
friends right now. He could be dangerous.”
“Don’t assume the worst,” Velia said as she poked her head through the
doors. “He looks like a very nice boy. See?” I couldn’t see what Velia was
talking about at this angle. I needed to get outside now, before the girls
rushed headlong into another nightmare brought on by a lack of caution.
How many times would Teresita’s warnings have to come true before they
believed the seer?
Once outside the barn, Pita stood behind me, staring at the sorriest sight
we’d ever seen. A small, bedraggled boy was coming up the hill toward us
with a small herd of goats following behind him. His threadbare clothes
were filthy and shredded to the point that I couldn’t tell what his T-shirt
used to say. His hair was long and stringy. Whole sections of it were clumpy
and clung to his head like matted fur, and the parts of it that hung over his
eyes and covered both his ears were wispy. Looking at him, it was hard to
believe he was a human being. He reminded me of a mangy dog. But he had
been singing, and even though we couldn’t see his eyes for his shaggy hair,
his shy smile confirmed it for us: he was human.
“Buenos días, señoritas.” The boy looked up at us from behind a lock
of that fuzzy black hair, and then shyly looked down again.
“Hi,” I said from a safe distance.
“Hello.” The girls greeted him the way they would have greeted a stray
dog, with trepidation.
“Cresencio Aguilar, at your service,” the boy said shyly, pushing his
hair aside to get a better look at us. The one eye we could see under all that
matted hair, his right eye, was warm and friendly, and his smile was
genuine, so the twins reached out and shook hands with him. I stepped
forward to get a better look at him and regretted it almost immediately,
because his hands were grubby and he reached over to offer me a
handshake. At close proximity, I also noticed he had too much body hair for
a boy who couldn’t be more than twelve years old. His forearms were hairy,
and he even had tiny hairs on his knuckles. This fascinated me in a
repulsive kind of way, and I couldn’t stop looking at his hands.
“We are the Garza girls,” Juanita said, stepping forth and offering him a
welcoming hand. “Glad to meet you.”
“You can call me Chencho,” the boy said, nodding in greeting to Pita,
who eyed him from her usual safe place directly behind me. “What are you
ladies doing out in this heat?”
“We’re heading to Hacienda Dorada,” Pita said with surprising
confidence. She stepped out from behind me and met Chencho’s gaze as she
spoke to him directly. “But we’re running low on water. Do you know how
far the nearest creek is?”
 “I would say you are about eight miles away from ojito verde, more or
less. It’s the nearest source of water in these parts. But you can have some
of mine if you like,” he said, looking sweetly at Pita, who had obviously
caught his attention.
Pita took the canteen Chencho offered and drank from it greedily. Then
she passed it to the twins, who took turns finishing it off.
At first, I thought it was kind of strange that Chencho seemed to be
attracted to the youngest among us. Most boys reacted to the twins because
they’re so pretty, but watching Pita interact with him with such self-
assurance made me realize she was growing up before my very eyes. Soon
she would be getting taller, shedding her baby fat, and wanting to wear
lipstick. She looked both like Papá and Mamá, but she seemed to have
inherited the best features from both, so she would be beautiful some day.
The image of her looking more and more lovely every day made my heart
tighten in my chest and I had a moment of sisterly, almost maternal, pride.
But even as I marveled at my baby sister’s potential, I couldn’t shake
the nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right with the boy in front
of me. He was more than strange-looking, and his sudden appearance set off
all kinds of red flags in my head. Looking at his hairy hands again, I
suddenly felt the urge to get away from him.
Juanita shook the empty canteen, frowned disapprovingly at the twins,
and handed it back to the boy. “Where are you from, Chencho?”
“Oh, I’m from Puerto Vallarta originally, but now that I’m all alone, I
live out here by myself,” Chencho said.
“You mean you live out in the woods?” Pita asked. Her eyes grew wide
with shock, but a glint of admiration twinkled in their depths.
 Chencho grinned shyly as Pita questioned him. “Oh, yes,” he said.
“There’s all kinds of places to sleep in the wild. Out here, nobody bothers
me and I don’t bother anybody. I only go into town when I need to buy
supplies. The countryside is the best place to be for someone like me.”
“Well, thank you for the water,” I said. “Sorry we can’t stay and chat,
but it’s late and we have to get going.” Then I turned around to talk to the
girls, shutting him out.
“Why are you traveling on foot?” he asked. “Where are your parents?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, not bothering to explain. “Let’s go, ladies.”
“Bueno pues, you can travel with me if you like. I’m heading in that
direction. I don’t have a wagon, but I have plenty of water, two more
gourds, and some bread and goat cheese. It’s not much, but I don’t mind
sharing,” the boy said, smiling that shy, genuine smile again. At close
range, and with his choppers showing, I could see he hadn’t seen a
toothbrush in quite some time, perhaps maybe never. His teeth were beyond
yellow. They were downright blackened, and I wondered how long he’d
been out here “in the wild” without parental supervision.
Chiding myself for being so shallow, I concentrated on being polite.
“Thank you. You are very kind, but we don’t want to slow you down. It’s
better if you continue alone. We’ve got some business to take care of before
we head out. Have a nice day,” I said. Then I turned around and started to
push the girls back into the safety of the barn. Pita started to go in, but Velia
and Delia wouldn’t budge.
“What’s wrong with you, Odilia?” Velia demanded, glaring at me as I
tried to push her into the barn. “You’re being awfully rude, you know.”
 “I’m not trying to be rude,” I said, gritting my teeth and keeping my
words low enough not be overheard by the strange little boy standing only a
few feet away from us. “I’m just trying to keep us safe.”
Velia yanked my hand off her arm. “You’re being stupid right now.”
“No, I’m not,” I whispered. “How many more monsters are you going
to invite into our lives before you learn your lesson? I’m tired of you
putting us all in danger. Now, you either stay here with me or head out
alone, because I’m not going anywhere until I’m good and ready.”
“Listen to her, Velia.” Delia leaned in and whispered in her twin’s right
ear. “She’s got a point. We can’t be too careful.”
“Fine. Whatever. But I think you’re both overreacting.” Velia pushed
me out of the way. Delia followed her twin sister into the barn, but not
before she gave me an apologetic smile.
“Well, have a nice day,” I repeated as I waved at the little goatherd.
With Juanita by my side, I looked out to make sure the boy was leaving as I
pulled the barn door shut. The disheveled boy waved one last time, looking
confused, before he headed up the road. I slammed the latch down to lock
us in.
Juanita helped me pick up the clothes from the barn’s dirt floor. We
shook the old hay off them, folded them up, and put them back in our bags.
“You really think he was dangerous?”
“No telling,” I said. “But I’m not taking any more chances. From now
on, we do things my way.”
I waited a full hour, keeping time on my thrift store watch, to make sure
we were far enough behind the goatherd to not meet up with him again.
 But all my efforts were for naught. As we made our way down the dirt
path later that day, he called to us from a cluster of boulders by the side of
the road. In a moment of weakness, I decided to let him join us as we
continued on our journey. He was nice enough to the girls, offering us water
from a different canteen than the one the girls had emptied earlier.
“Why is your goat tied to your wrist?” Pita asked him, as she sidled up
to walk beside the boy up ahead of us.
“Oh, do you mean this halter?” Chencho asked. “See that bell on his
neck? He’s the leader. Wherever he goes, the others follow. But he’s a
wanderer, and if I don’t keep him close, he’ll take off on me. Then I’ll lose
the entire herd. I can’t afford that. They’re my source of food. So I keep
him right here, by my side.”
“You mean, you only eat goat meat?” Pita asked, scrunching up her face
in disgust.
Chencho threw back his head and laughed. “No. I didn’t mean that. I eat
lots of things, but goats are my — well, they’re my livelihood. They sustain
me.”
“Oh. But he’s so big. Don’t you get tired of pulling him along?” Pita
asked, as she watched the boy tug at the goat.
“Yeah,” Chencho said, laughing. “He’s a billy goat. They’re stubborn
sometimes. But I’m a bigger mule than he is. Have as much water as you
like. We can refill it on the way, when we get to ojito verde.”
The girls had been passing the second canteen around, taking small,
careful sips from it. But at his request, they drank greedily.
We walked all afternoon by the goatherd’s side. He was quiet and shy,
but he seemed to enjoy listening to Pita. She flittered around him like a
pesky gnat, glad to have someone eager to listen to everything she had to
say as she recounted our adventures on the banks of the Rio Grande.
Every now and then, Chencho would turn around to check on us. At
those times, the rest of us smiled and let him know that we were doing
okay. No, he wasn’t going too fast, and no, we didn’t need to stop. We had
to get to Hacienda Dorada before day’s end.
It wasn’t until I saw the sun kissing the horizon that I realized we were
in trouble. I looked down at the map anxiously and tried to make sense of it.
My wobbly legs were telling me we had traveled far, but in actuality, the
landmarks showed that we weren’t even halfway there. Going up and down
hills on rough terrain was taking a lot longer than I’d anticipated, which
meant we still had about seven or eight more miles to go before reaching
Abuelita’s house.
Looking at the two hills to the left of us, depicted as twin fists almost
touching each other on the map, I wanted to cry. The tiny space on the map
between the twin fists and Hacienda Dorada told us we were close, but I
knew better. Half an inch on paper meant we were not going to make it
there before dark.
“We’re going to have to stop and find shelter,” I said, breaking Pita’s
joyful stride with my somber words.
“What?” Pita wailed. “But you said . . .”
“It’s going to get dark soon,” I continued. “And we need to find a nice,
safe place to rest.”
Juanita tore the map out of my hands and flipped it around looking at it
from all angles. “No. We can’t stop. We’re almost there. It can’t be that
much farther.”
 Chencho tugged at the billy goat’s rope. “Your sister’s right.”
“But what about the chu — ” Pita started.
“Hush!” I said, frowning a warning at her. “We’ll look for a cluster of
trees or maybe an abandoned cabin. I’m sure we’ll find a safe place to rest
for the night.”
“An abandoned cabin?” Chencho asked, stopping to look back at us. “I
know a good place to rest, up in the cerro. It’s an old sod house from the
days of Pancho Villa. Of course, now it only has three walls, but it still has
most of the roof. I sleep there all the time. Nobody’s ever bothered me
there.”
“Three walls?” Velia’s disbelief showed in her face and I sympathized
with her.
Chencho’s face suddenly turned red. “Well, it’s old, a relic.”
“Come on,” Pita said, taking Velia’s hand and giving it an encouraging
tug. “It’ll be like camping, only nicer because there’s a roof. Well, except
that we don’t have our sleeping bags. But we can make another nest with
our clothes like we did in the barn.”
“We don’t have any other options, do we?” Juanita asked, and the girls
hung their heads, defeated.
I tried thinking of ways to get out of this. After all, we didn’t know
anything about Chencho. He seemed harmless, but I couldn’t shake the
feeling that his accommodating manner, his eagerness to help us, was
masking something unpleasant, something more sinister in him.
He didn’t look like the chupacabras. The chupacabras was demonic in
appearance, not human, so he couldn’t possibly be it. But my suspicious
mind kept telling me not to trust him too much, to be extra careful around
him. We’d already gotten into trouble too many times when we didn’t heed
Teresita’s warnings. Did she say something I’d forgotten that might help us
to ward off the chupacabras? Whatever he was, whether a demon in
disguise or just a simple goatherd, it didn’t matter. I vowed to keep my
sisters safe from the evil chupacabras. I wasn’t going to get any sleep that
night.
Chencho’s place was worse than expected. There were three walls all
right; three broken-down sides to what must have been a stone house
ravaged during la Revolución. The windows were gaping, crumbling holes.
The place was infested with sting weeds and scurrying field mice. And to
make things worse, spiders and scorpions peeked out at us from under
jutting rocks and fallen pieces of roof. It’s one thing to step on them or
jump out of their way when you’re walking by them, but it’s a totally
different ball game to have to sleep among them.
Velia and Delia went around kicking debris out of the way with
Chencho, who seemed to know exactly where everything was. He pushed
aside an array of mesquite branches to reveal the furniture: remnants of a
filthy old mattress, two metal stools, and an ancient, rusty pot-bellied stove.
He smiled and jiggled a spotted blue coffee pot. “Who wants coffee?”
“That sounds lovely,” Velia said sweetly, sounding like a heroine in one
of those historical pieces on the arts channel instead of a modern-day girl
stranded in the ruins of the Mexican countryside. Chencho made a fire in
the center of the sleeping area, to keep us warm after dark. The twins and I
drank the coffee and we all sat among a herd of twelve goats and ate the
loaf of bread with goat cheese, swearing it was the best darned cheese we’d
tasted in our entire lives.
 “It’s nice to have company,” Chencho said. He leaned back against the
third wall, snuggled under his poncho, and smiled proudly at us as we
huddled together on the mattress.
A lone coyote howled somewhere in the dark, and we froze
momentarily. Several of the goats that had settled around us lifted their
heads and listened to the coyote’s call. Then, hearing it again, they bleated
and inched closer to each other. We inched closer to each other too.
I looked at Chencho and wondered what had brought him here. What
could possibly make him think this was a better life than the one he had
before? “So tell me, why are you here all by yourself?” I asked.
Chencho’s voice was small, quiet, like he was. “It’s easier for me, being
out here.”
I couldn’t help but think there were things he wasn’t telling us, so I
pressed on. “What happened to your parents? Don’t you have brothers and
sisters? Aunts? Uncles? Someone who could take you in?”
“No,” Chencho said. “My mother died when I was seven years old. I’m
all alone in the world now. Nobody wants to take care of an orphan and I
don’t much care for the street life. Sleeping on sidewalks, fighting for trash
and scraps, that’s no kind of life. I’d rather be out here, raising goats,
camping out every night, sleeping under the stars. It’s peaceful.”
“Don’t you get scared out here?” Delia asked Chencho, curling up
closer to her twin sister.
Lifting his arm in midair, Chencho flexed his muscles and pointed to his
puny right bicep. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he answered
confidently. “Chencho’s here.”
“What about the chupacabras?” Pita asked.
 Chencho didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the coffee pot and poured
the last of the old coffee into the grass, turning away for a long moment.
Finally he turned back to look at us again. “Oh, well, there is that,” he said,
sounding less sure of himself.
“Have you seen it?” Pita wanted to know. “The demon?”
“Seen him? Yes. We’ve had our — disagreements,” he whispered.
“Once or twice, to be sure.” His words sent chills up my spine and I had the
sudden urge to flee, to take my sisters and make a mad dash for it. But
where? There was nowhere to hide from the demon if it were to show up
here.
“Did he attack you? What does he look like?” Velia wanted to know.
Chencho threw another log on the fire before us and then looked at the
twins sitting beside him. “I’ll never forget him,” he whispered, sounding
more and more morose by the minute. “His eyes are the color of burning
coals, and his fangs are bigger and sharper than a javalina’s tusks. But his
claws are just as dangerous. He can rip out your heart with them.”
Pita leaned forward to peer into Chencho’s face. “How do you know
about his claws?”
“He took my eye,” Chencho said, lifting the lock of hair from over his
left eye to reveal a deformed eyelid fused together by thick scars.
At the sight of his missing eye, Teresita’s husband’s voice crept into my
head, “I injured it. Shot it through the left eye. Bullet went right into its
head. It howled like a rabid dog. I’ve never seen anything like it before or
since.” Suddenly spooked, I sat up to inspect Chencho’s missing eye. “The
chupacabras has a missing eye,” I said suspiciously. “A friend of ours shot
him.”
 “That’s great!” Chencho said. He put the empty coffee pot aside and sat
forward, giving me his undivided attention for the first time since we’d met
him. The bloodthirsty look in his right eye told me he was glad to hear the
news and wished the chupacabras was just as dead as we did, and for that
reason I started to believe he was who he appeared be. “I just wish it had
been me who shot it. Oh, how I wish he’d disappear for good.” Like us, he
had reason to fear the chupacabras. That was probably why he’d brought us
to this miserable place, to keep us safe from the beast.
“Is he really a bloodsucker? Did he try to bite you?” Juanita asked,
leaning into our intimate circle from the other side of the campfire.
“He’s like a vampire,” Chencho said, patting his hair down over his
deformed eyelid. “He’s bitten my goats and taken several of my kids. He’s a
thief, a miserable beast, forced to suck on the necks of animals to satisfy his
unnatural thirst for blood. Because of his sins against mankind, he will be
hunted by humans for all eternity.”
Velia’s eyebrow rose. “A vampire?” she asked, disbelief edging her
words.
Juanita stood up and paced around the fire before she came to sit
between me and Chencho. “Well, if he’s really a vampire we can kill him,”
she said.
“Nobody can kill it,” Chencho said. “God knows I’ve tried.”
“No, listen,” Juanita put her hand on Chencho’s shoulder. “We can do
this. I read this library book once about vampires and werewolves. It was
written by an expert on demons, and I remember everything it said about
how to kill a vampire. All you need is holy water and a stake.”
 “Holy water and stakes?” Chencho looked astonished. “We don’t have
those things here! Besides, he can’t be killed. The chupacabras is
immortal.”
“So were the vampires in that book,” Juanita insisted. “I’m telling you,
we can do it. We can get rid of this demon for good.”
“We have to at least try,” Delia said. Velia and Delia jumped up to join
Juanita at the foot of the mattress. “We can’t just lie here, waiting for that
beast to get us in the middle of the night. Not when we know how to kill
him.”
I wasn’t as convinced that the chupacabras could be defeated with
stakes and holy water. After all, a chupacabras wasn’t exactly a vampire.
But Velia took up where Delia left off, and the girls’ confidence grew.
“What was it Teresita’s husband said? ‘Don’t be afraid, take the nearest
branch and bash its head in!’ Even Teresita herself told us we could defeat
it. She said all we had to do was stick together and be brave. Besides, we
have you to help us now. That makes six of us. We can take him.”
It didn’t take long for everyone to jump up and join the twins in their
resolution to kill the chupacabras. Even Pita, with her newfound courage,
was up in arms. My skepticism remained, but to be honest, I figured their
enthusiasm would wear out soon enough and they’d all fall asleep
eventually. As for me, I would continue to keep vigil throughout the night,
hoping, praying that the chupacabras wouldn’t find us before dawn.
But before I knew it, our entire party was sitting around the campfire
like a gang of renegades in an old Western. Chencho was keeping the fire
alive by throwing another log in and poking at the base of it, but Juanita and
Delia were carving away at branches with two small pocketknives from
Velia’s tool belt. Velia and Pita were pulling leaves and sprigs off the
branches that were still to be made into stakes before piling them neatly
next to the whittlers.
Juanita put the knife down and shook a cramp out of it in the
semidarkness. “My hand feels like it’s going to fall off.”
“Here, I’ll do it,” I said, taking the branch out of her hand. I picked up
the knife and sliced off sliver after sliver of wood until the rest of the
branches had been whittled into weapons. After we had finished carving out
as many stakes as we could, Juanita placed the finished ones strategically
along the walls so that everyone had access to them.
It felt weird, preparing for what might happen to us in the night. I felt
like we were in a different world, a magical realm, where everything was
larger than life. Did I think we could really kill the mythical chupacabras?
Normally, I would have said not on your life, especially since we weren’t
even sure if he was a vampire. But my skepticism had mostly worn off,
because I figured this was as good a plan as any to protect ourselves. Stakes
were weapons, and having weapons was better than being defenseless.
Besides, there was something about being in those ruins in the Mexican
countryside that made anything possible, because that night I believed in
us — cinco hermanitas, five little sisters, together forever. No matter what.
We must have stayed up most of the night, putting log after log on that
fire, waiting for the chupacabras. Velia and Delia huddled together on my
left while Pita balled herself into a fetal position on my right. Juanita lay on
the other side of the twins with a baby goat in her arms. I don’t know
exactly when it happened, but despite all their talk and my resolve to stay
awake, we all fell asleep before dawn. I was dreaming something bizarre
and twisted, but I couldn’t wake up.
In my dreams, Pita lifted Chencho’s hair and looked into his empty eye
socket. I tried to stop her, but she pushed me away. Chencho’s face around
the missing eye was big and swollen as if it were infected. I smelled
something vile and repulsive. And somewhere, far away from me, I heard a
girl let out a bloodcurdling scream.
I turned around and around in a foggy, dreamlike state, looking for the
source of that scream, but only darkness surrounded me. I was lost in the
woods and I couldn’t find Pita or Chencho anymore, but I could smell his
putrid eye socket.
I ran, bleary-eyed and blind, searching the night for my absent sister
and the boy with the missing eye, but I couldn’t find them. They were lost
to me. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t dreaming anymore and Pita wasn’t so far
away but right beside me — screaming her lungs out.
I peered into the darkness and saw a red eyeball glowering at me. It was
the chupacabras, clutching and sucking on Pita’s right leg — right there, in
front of me!
“Get away from her!” I yelled, flapping my arms, but the horrendous
thing quivered with rage. The long, sharp quills running along its back
stood straight up and it expanded its shoulders menacingly. Then it lifted its
head, opened its bloody mouth, and hissed at me. Its breath was so potent,
so toxic, and it swirled up my nose to make me gag. Pita screamed again.
She squirmed and gripped my arm, trying to kick the disgusting thing away.
“Chencho!” I screamed for help, but as I looked around, I saw that he
was gone. “He left us! Juanita! Delia! Get up!”
 Beside me, the girls lifted their heads. They were groggy and confused,
so I didn’t wait for their help. I reached behind me, grabbed the nearest
stake, and stabbed at the chupacabras. The spiked branch barely brushed
over the long spinal quills quivering along his arched back, and in my haste
I let go of the stake. The chupacabras let out a deep threatening growl
before he bit down into Pita’s leg again with his razor-sharp fangs.
Pita bawled in agony and clung to my arm. I reached for another stake.
This time, I didn’t drop it. This time I stood up and stabbed at his face with
all my might. The stake went into his right eye, piercing through his
glowering red eyeball. But I didn’t stop there. As the chupacabras let go of
Pita’s leg, I shoved the stake deeper into his skull with the full weight of my
body behind it. Wielding their makeshift weapons, Velia, Delia, and Juanita
surrounded the chupacabras.
The beast grasped the stake, pulled it out of his eye socket, and cried
out, a wounded, demented howl that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Seeing the glowing eyeball gutted out and spiked on a stake made the girls
back away in disgust. Even I was horrified by my gory accomplishment.
Sitting up on his hind legs, the beast howled and threw the stake aside.
His eye socket was gushing, and he clawed at it frantically. He shook his
head and shrieked and clawed and hissed, but he was blind, so he couldn’t
see us.
Keeping another stake aimed at the chupacabras, I leaned down and
inspected Pita’s leg. The bite didn’t look too bad. She had three bloody
puncture marks above her right ankle, but there didn’t appear to be any
missing flesh. “Are you okay?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Be careful. He might be blind, but he’s still dangerous,” I told the girls.
 They closed in around him again. Velia jabbed at him first, stabbing
him in the back.
“Kill it!” Pita screamed from behind me. “Don’t let him get away.”
“Por favor, señoritas, don’t kill me,” the chupacabras cried out in a
thick, animalistic voice. “Please, please, don’t kill me.”
“He can talk?” Velia asked, looking at me for answers. She didn’t back
down from her fighting stance.
I shook my head, confused. The pathetic creature knelt before us,
quivering as he pressed his paw against his wound. I jabbed at his side with
a sharp stake. “Who are you?” I demanded.
Juanita stabbed sharply at his arm with her stake. “What are you?”
“Please,” the chupacabras said between sobs. “Please don’t hurt me. I
am Chencho, the boy who helped you. I am your friend.”
“Chencho?” I asked. The beast shook as he transformed himself back
and forth between his goatherd self and the grotesque form of the fiendish
chupacabras. “Is that you?”
“Yes. It is me. Chencho,” the semidemonic boy said. He rocked himself
side to side trying to control his form, which was weakened one minute and
strengthened the next, constantly shifting between beast and boy. “I beg you
not to hurt me. It is not my fault. I am not myself tonight. Please, let me go.
I promise. I won’t hurt you again. I promise.”
“Who did this to you?” I asked, poking him in the chest with the sharp
tip of my stake.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” the chupacabras whined.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Juanita asked, poking him in the
back. “How did this happen to you? Is it some kind of spell? Can it be
undone? Tell us, maybe we can help you.”
“Nobody did this to me,” the chupacabras said, his voice low and
pained. “This is just what I am, what I have always been. I try to control it,
but sometimes the beast inside me takes over and I am overcome by the
need to feed.”
“Well, you weren’t trying very hard tonight,” Pita said. She pushed
herself back with her good leg, scooting as far away from the chupacabras
as she could get. I reached down to help her.
When she was sitting at a safer distance, I came back to the
chupacabras and started circling him while my sisters kept their stakes at
his throat and back. Taking a good look at the quills on his back, I ran my
stake along them to test their sturdiness. The action made the chupacabras
arch his back like a cat and he hissed again. “You lied to us,” I said. “You
told us you were an orphan. That your mother died.”
“I didn’t lie about that,” the chupacabras said. He turned his head
sideways, following the sound of my traveling voice. “My mother was like
me, the only other one of our kind I knew. We used to live in the jungle, in a
cave high up in the Sierra Madre, happily minding our own business, until a
group of hunters tracked us down. They set a trap for her. The metal gear
almost cut off her leg. I stayed with her until the last breath left her body. I
wanted to go after them, to kill them, but she made me promise that I would
leave the jungle. She wanted me to try to live a normal life, to control my
beast and behave like a normal boy. But as you can see, that is easier said
than done. “
“So you’re some kind of wild animal?” I asked. “Why didn’t the
hunters come after you? Why didn’t they kill you?”
 Chencho shook his head and cried. His whole body trembled as he
spoke and his quills quivered with his sobs. “I don’t know. They didn’t see
me. I left before they came back for her,” Chencho said, crying and
covering his face with his hands. “Please, please, let me go.”
Velia pushed a stake at the chupacabras’s throat menacingly. “What
should we do with him?”
I put a hand on Velia’s shoulder to stop her from doing something
drastic. “We can’t kill him,” I said. “We’re not murderers.”
“We have to do something though,” Delia said. “He’s still dangerous.”
“Please, please, let me go,” Chencho begged as he crouched on the
ground before us. “I am blind. I cannot see you, so I can’t hurt you
anymore.”
“He attacked Pita. We have to kill him,” Juanita said, lifting her stake
high in the air, ready to deliver the final blow.
“No,” I said, resolutely. “He can’t hurt us anymore. Let him go.”
“But — ” Velia began.
“—we can’t,” Delia finished her sister’s protest.
“Let him go!” I said, more firmly than before. “Look at him. He’s just a
little boy. Wounded and blind. The virgen wouldn’t approve. We have to let
him go.”
“What about what he did to Pita? Doesn’t that count?” Juanita wanted
to know.
Remembering La Llorona’s warning, I firmed up my resolve. I wanted
revenge just as much as my sisters did, but my blood was cooling now, and
I knew we needed to do what was right. “If he comes back, we won’t have a
choice, we’d have to kill him then, like the lechuzas. But for now, we have
to let him go.” I looked around, making eye contact with every one of my
sisters.
Velia and Delia were shaking their heads in disagreement, but Juanita
straightened her shoulders and lifted her weapon away from the beast.
“Odilia is right. We’re the Garza girls, cinco hermanitas, five little sisters
under the protection of the goddess,” she said, holding the stake in front of
her with both hands and anchoring the sharp point of it on the ground.
“That’s right,” I said. I looked down at Pita, who was clutching her
ankle, wincing. “Remember what I told you? La Llorona said we must
remain noble and kind. We should grant mercy when it is asked of us.
Besides, we’re armed and dangerous. He knows not to mess with us
anymore.”
“Gracias, señoritas,” the chupacabras said, looking more like Chencho
the goatherd than the demon. “Gracias.”
“Go!” I yelled, and without hesitation the chupacabras jumped up and
ran off. We stood, side by side, four little sisters, holding our weapons at
our sides ready to defend our baby sister as we watched him disappear into
a new dawn.

OceanofPDF.com
LA DAMA: “Una dama es dama en el
vestíbulo y en el campamento.”

THE LADY: “A lady is a lady in the

vestibule as well as the campsite.”

Things changed after our encounter with the chupacabras. Suddenly, my

sisters and I became more focused. I used the water from Chencho’s
abandoned canteen to clean Pita’s wound. I could see by the light of the
campfire that her leg was obviously getting infected. The chupacabras’s
mordida had left three ugly lacerations two inches above her ankle, on the
outside of her leg, so both her ankle and calf were swollen to twice their
normal size. I did my best to keep it clean by wrapping it in one of Pita’s
short-sleeved shirts.
Velia, Delia, and Juanita were too worried to sit around watching me
treat Pita’s wounds. Instead, they scurried around like little sugar ants, busy
hormiguitas, gathering the materials to create a sturdy device in which to
carry our wounded sister, because her leg hurt so much that she couldn’t
walk.
I was surprised at how helpful and cooperative everyone was with each
other. Even the twins were being polite. I didn’t mention how nice it was to
see them working together or praise them in any way, for fear of breaking
the spell. But I was proud of them nonetheless.
 By sunrise, the girls had built a stretcher by tying old pieces of wood
and broken branches with torn strips of cloth from a pair of Juanita’s old
shorts. It wasn’t pretty, but it was strong enough to hold Pita.
Velia and Delia picked up the stretcher from the front, while Juanita and
I took the back. With Pita gratefully resting on the makeshift gurney, we
continued our journey toward Hacienda Dorada.
We traveled slowly, stopping often to rest because our arms were not
used to carrying so much weight for so long. By the middle of the
afternoon, we stopped by an ojito, a spring bubbling out of a rock wall, and
drank water straight out of the spouting hole. Our sleep-deprived night
could be seen in the circles under our eyes, and our stomachs rumbled with
hunger, but we felt for the first time that our ordeal might soon be over.
“It won’t be far,” I said as I stood rubbing the pain out of my wrists.
“How much longer, do you think?” Juanita asked, looking at the map.
“Because it looks like we should be right on it.”
“Just over that big hill.” I checked on Pita’s leg. Carefully, I peeled back
the dressing and saw that, although the wound wasn’t oozing, her entire calf
was purple now. Pita seemed to be in too much pain to talk, because she
wasn’t complaining anymore. Instead, she drifted in and out of sleep for the
last leg of our trip. Her lethargy worried me, so I took her temperature with
a thermometer in the twin’s toolkit.
I was so afraid of Pita losing her leg, I considered using La Llorona’s
gift. I was sure its magical properties could do the job well, but I also
worried about misusing the amulet’s last gift when I knew that in less than
an hour, in the time it would take to walk the last few miles of our journey,
Abuelita would be able to take care of her.
 Our grandmother was, after all, a curandera. She knew how to use
natural herbs to cure almost anything. The memory of her treating a
farmer’s ulcerated arm the last time we visited her was still fresh in my
mind, so I decided to wait and see what she could do for Pita’s leg. The ear
pendant would still be there if I needed to use it later.
“She’s running a fever,” I said. Juanita shook her head in dismay. Velia
and Delia cursed under their breaths and knelt beside Pita. Delia touched
her face and forehead and asked her if she wanted some of the water they’d
been saving just for her.
“No,” Pita whispered weakly. “I’ll be all right. Let’s just keep going.”
“You heard her. Let’s go,” I said. Pita closed her eyes to the sun and
rolled her head to the side as if she didn’t care what we did.
We lifted the stretcher and started walking again. Up the hill we went,
on and on, until our arms and legs hurt so much that we kept losing our
footing. We walked so far and for so long, we almost dropped Pita a couple
of times before we reached the crest of the cerro.
I knew it the minute I saw it from the top of the hill. The girls didn’t
recognize Hacienda Dorada, but I did. “Pita, we’re here. You’re going to be
okay, mamita,” I said as we stood staring down at our destination.
Pita lifted her head long enough to look down the cerro. “Oh, thank
God,” she whispered before she lay back down and closed her eyes again.
Exhilarated by the sight of our paternal grandmother’s home, we
walked hurriedly down the hill toward the pink stucco building within the
corral-like fence, being careful not to jostle Pita too much in the stretcher.
The lilac jacaranda tree by the gate, leaning backward over the fence as if
the wind had made it laugh, was exactly as I remembered it. The abundant
crepe myrtles and pink bougainvilleas that dotted the courtyard were also as
beautiful and lively as I recalled.
“Look at all those flowers,” Pita said, looking at Hacienda Dorada as if
she’d never seen anything more exquisite in her life. She probably didn’t
remember playing there among the flowers the last time Papá brought us to
see his mother so long ago.
“Forget the flowers,” Velia whispered. “Have you ever seen so many
mariposas?”
As we got close enough to see the multicolored array of butterflies
flittering in the courtyard of our grandmother’s house, Juanita answered,
“Not so many different kinds in one place.” The girls kept marveling at the
sight as we neared the gate.
“Forget the butterflies,” I said, interrupting their rapture. “Let’s find
Abuelita. Pita’s leg isn’t going to cure itself. How are you doing?” I looked
down at Pita’s face as we moved along. She was so flushed, I just knew she
was getting worse.
“Fine,” Pita closed her eyes and sighed. She was trying to be brave, but
I could tell she was still in pain. “I’ll be all right once we get inside.”
“Hold on,” I said. Velia and Delia banged on the gate with a stick and
called out for help.
It didn’t take long for someone to notice us. Looking up from their
chores, two men dropped their garden tools and hurried over to open the
gate for us.
“What is the matter? ¿Qué pasó?” they asked.
“We are here to see Remedios Garza,” I said, still holding on to the
stretcher. “We’re her granddaughters.”
 “From los Estados Unidos?” the first man asked. He took the front of
the stretcher and the other man took the back.
“Yes, from the United States,” I confirmed as I relinquished my end of
the stretcher gratefully.
The younger of the two men hoisted the stretcher and began walking
backward toward the main house. “Oh, what a great surprise,” he
exclaimed. “Your abuela will be very happy to see you, but she will not be
happy that one of you is hurt.”
The older man walked forward holding his end of the stretcher before
him. “This way. Follow us, please.”
Abuelita Remedios looked exactly as I remembered her. Her white-
streaked hair was perfectly coiffed into a bun, and her blue eyes were sharp
and fierce, centered over a long aquiline nose. Yet her mouth was wide and
generous as she turned around and smiled at us.
“Dios Santísimo,” Abuela Remedios crossed herself and kissed her
thumb before she reached out for us, welcoming us. “Is that really you?
¿Mis niñas? ¿Mis nietecitas?” she asked happily.
“It is us,” I said, stepping forward to receive a hug. “We’re all grown up
now, Abuelita.”
“Sí. I would say so! Mira, pero what has happened to you?” Abuela
Remedios asked as she took hold of Pita’s head in her hands and looked at
her flushed face. “Arturo! Roberto! Take her inside, to the sala rosada.
Quickly now! She has a fever!”
The two men, who looked too alike not to be related, hurried ahead of
us. “Come in, come in,” Abuelita said as we entered the house behind the
men and followed them into a pink receiving room. “Have a seat. You look
like the zopilotes, those nasty good-for-nothing vultures, beat you up and
plucked every feather off your pretty wings.”
Once inside, Arturo, the younger man, picked up Pita’s limp body and
transferred her over onto a cushioned wooden bench. Abuelita Remedios
put one arm around me and another one around Juanita and gave all of us a
group hug.
“We’re okay,” I told Abuelita. “It’s Pita we’re worried about.”
“What happened to her?” she asked, inspecting Pita’s leg as our sister
lay with her eyes closed on the rustic bench.
“Something bit her,” I said, not sure how much to disclose — not
because I didn’t trust Abuelita, but because I wasn’t sure she’d believe me.
Abuelita’s eyebrows furrowed with worry. “But this is not an ordinary
dog bite.” She knelt at Pita’s leg to examine it closely.
“It wasn’t a dog,” I said, fighting the urge to go ahead and tell her what
really happened. Having Abuelita think I was crazy would only complicate
matters. “But it’s infected,” I continued, trying to provide a little more
information without sounding like a lunatic.
“I can see that,” Abuelita Remedios whispered. She turned Pita’s leg
sideways to get a better look.
Pita took in a sharp breath at Abuelita’s touch. It looked like her leg was
painful to move at this point. “It happened late last night,” she said,
wincing.
“It’s not a snake bite either, is it, Roberto?” Abuelita declared, as she
showed Pita’s ankle to the older of the two men. “See here? Three puncture
wounds.”
 Roberto crossed himself, horrified at the sight of Pita’s leg. “¡El
chupacabras!” Looking back at us, he asked, “Did you see the thing that bit
her?”
“Yes,” I said. My voice cracked as I tried my best not to cry, because for
the first time on the trip I was worried about one of us not making it back to
Mamá.
“It was the chupacabras,” Velia exclaimed. “But he didn’t get away
with it. We took care of him.”
“What do you mean?” Arturo asked, his dark brown eyes penetrating as
he looked at me for answers. “You saw it?”
“Saw it? We did more than that. We blinded him. He won’t be attacking
anyone anymore,” Delia said, sounding quite proud of herself.
“You did?” Roberto asked. “That’s incredible.”
“Odilia did it,” Juanita said, looking at me with an appreciative gleam
in her eyes. “She’s fearless.” She would have proceeded to recount the
whole thing if I hadn’t interrupted.
“Well, at least he’s not likely to hurt anyone else. Not without his other
eye,” I said, trying to play the whole thing down a bit. Not only did I not
like being the center of attention — that’s a job better suited for the
twins — but I also felt bad for inflicting pain on Chencho, even though I
had been suspicious of him. But more importantly, I still worried about
what he did to Pita. We didn’t have time for stories right now.
“Unfortunately, the damage has already been done,” Abuelita said as
she checked Pita’s pulse. “We have to treat her immediately. Arturo, get me
my bulto, my medicine bag. It’s in the hallway, in the broom closet, up
high. Hurry! We don’t have much time.” Abuelita Remedios waved to the
younger man, who ran out of the room in a fright.
“You mean she’s going to turn into one of those demons?” Velia asked,
her voice high like a scared little girl.
“No, of course not,” Abuelita said, turning around and patting Velia’s
hands to reassure her. “That’s not possible, not when you’re dealing with
the chupacabras. His bite is very dangerous, but he’s not contagious. What
I mean is that his saliva is tainted. It has contaminated her blood. She’s
fighting the infection, but she’s so young, it’s hard to tell how much damage
it has done.”
“I knew it,” Delia said, tearing up at the terrible thought. “I knew it. We
should have killed that rotten little mongrel.”
I don’t know what I’d envisioned, but Abuelita Remedios’s medicine
bag was nothing like what I remembered. The “bulto” was just that, a bulky
remnant of thick, white cloth tied together at the top in a vagabond’s knot.
And when she opened it, I wasn’t as surprised as I was curious. Inside, she
had all manner of herbs, seeds, sprigs, and plant roots. The contents of
Abuelita’s bulto looked like it may have belonged to El Niño Fidencio, the
famous curandero of olden times, and I watched in awe as she sorted the
ingredients for Pita’s treatment.
“Shouldn’t we send for a doctor?” Juanita asked, eyeing the medicine
bag suspiciously. “She needs antibiotics.”
“What do you think these are?” Abuelita Remedios took her bulto to the
coffee table and started to grind dried leaves and sprigs together in a
miniature white mortar with a tiny white pestle.
 “Herbs.” I explained to Juanita. “Like the ones pharmaceutical
companies use to make medicines in the United States.”
“Sí,” Abuelita Remedios said. “But regular medicines are useless when
it comes to treating a wound like this. A bite from the chupacabras is ten
times deadlier than any viper’s. These, however, are the finest herbs in all
of Mexico. People from all over the country come to my garden to harvest
these medicines.” Abuelita picked up a desiccated brown sprig between her
fingertips. “This one is for the pain. This one is an anti-inflammatory, and
this” — she said proudly, as she picked up a tiny blue glass bottle and
shook it in my direction — “this is stronger than any anti-venom in the
world. It is my secret potion, the power and the glory of potions, made from
the blood of the lamb and agua bendita, sacred water from Texcoco Lake.”
We watched in awe as Abuelita Remedios lanced, compressed, and
flushed Pita’s wounds one at a time before applying her concoction liberally
to each laceration. Because she was heavily sedated, Pita slept through the
lancing and compressing and didn’t come back around until Abuelita
Remedios was done wrapping her leg with a pale thin gauze.
“Am I going to die?” Pita asked when she regained consciousness.
I caressed her forehead and pushed her hair out of her face. “No. Of
course not. You’re going to be just fine. You just need to rest. Okay,
mamita?”
“That is a fact,” Abuelita Remedios said, feeling Pita’s forehead and
pinching her cheek affectionately. “You and your sisters all need to rest.
You’ll stay here with me for as long it takes you to get your strength back. It
will give us an opportunity to get to know each other again. I’ll call your
mother and let her know you’re okay. She will be glad to hear from us.”
 “We don’t have a phone. I mean, it’s been disconnected, so there’s no
way to reach her,” I whispered. I hated myself for lying to my own
grandmother, but I silently promised the virgen I would come clean soon. I
just had to sit down with Abuelita tomorrow and explain why we couldn’t
afford to call the café and let Mamá know where we were yet. If Mamá
tried to leave the country to come get us, she could get in trouble with the
police, and that’s something I couldn’t live with. I hoped Abuelita would
understand.
“Well, that’s the least of our worries. We’ll find a way to get in touch
with her when the time comes.” Abuelita waved her hand as if to dismiss
the issue. “For now, I think we need to let your sister rest. Come. Let us go
to the kitchen and get you all fed. You look like scarecrows who’ve lost
their stuffing.”
Because we hadn’t eaten since the night before, sharing the cheese and
loaf of bread with the chupacabras, we ate everything Abuelita Remedios
put in front of us that afternoon. First, she brought out plates of spicy
tamales and borracho beans, and when that was gone, she brought down a
fruit basket. There were ripe, sweet figs and fleshy pears and a fragrant
papaya that Abuelita sliced through and splayed out for us on a serving tray.
We drank the most delectable agua de tamarindo, sweet-tart juice made
from tamarind, and ate and ate and ate.
After dinner, Arturo pulled bucket after bucket of water out of the well
in the courtyard to fill up the enormous bathing trough in the laundry room.
While we bathed, Abuelita looked in on Pita and informed us that her fever
was going down.
 After our baths, we sat, all five of us, on an enormous carpet around
Abuelita’s bed telling her the tales of our adventures along the bank of the
Rio Grande. She laughed at our jokes and teased us when we couldn’t comb
through the knots in our ratted hair. But she was kind and generous and
braided our hair for us before we went to bed.
Eating, sleeping, bathing, laughing, talking, helping, and tending to
Pita’s every need, that is how we spent the next few days at Abuelita’s
house. In the mornings, Juanita and the twins helped Abuelita with the
feeding of the animals. But when they went back in the house to take care
of the household chores, I helped Abuelita in the herb garden. We watered
the delicate plants and pulled weeds and Abuelita named each plant as we
went along, telling me what they were good for: yerbabuena for a belly
ache, manzanilla to soothe the nerves, and milenrama to heal wounds or
stop hemorrhages. She described different features of each plant and
explained the best way to remember them.
In the afternoons, however, we sat in the courtyard while Pita lay out in
the sun on a wrought-iron bench, recuperating among the myriad of colorful
mariposas that abounded in that heavenly place.
By the end of the week, Pita got up and hobbled about the courtyard of
Hacienda Dorada, clapping and laughing at the girls as they chased
mariposas around the wide, robust bougainvilleas. Abuelita Remedios
walked over and took a good look at Pita’s sparkly eyes and pink cheeks.
She touched her forehead and a small smile made her thin lips curl up at the
edges. “Bueno,” she said. “I think you’re well enough to go home now.
Girls, we leave at dawn.”
 As we sat cross-legged on the rectangular carpet in her bedroom the
evening of the fifth day, Abuelita proclaimed, “It’s time you got back to
your Mamá, but before you do, we have to talk.”
“Yes!” Juanita exclaimed. “There’s so much more we want to know, so
much you haven’t told us yet.”
“Like what?” Abuelita asked, pinning Juanita’s long thick braid to the
back of her head in a circular pattern.
Pita looked at Abuelita with adoration. “What was Papá like when he
was our age?”
Her question startled me. We’d been so focused on our little sister’s
recovery that we hadn’t given Papá a single thought since our arrival. The
realization baffled me, since that had been primary on our minds when we
left — the be-all and end-all of our journey, the reason for leaving Mamá’s
side.
“Your father hasn’t changed,” Abuelita Remedios said, pausing to look
at us with much sadness. “As a child, he was exactly as he is today.”
A long moment of silence followed. “We haven’t seen him in a while,”
I said. “He’s been gone for a long time.”
“I know,” Abuelita whispered. “He left about this time last year.”
As far as I could tell, none of us had divulged that bit of information
yet. “How do you know that?” I asked in surprise. “Who told you?”
“He did,” Abuelita Remedios whispered, her brows furrowed worriedly
over her eyes. “He told me he’d left the last time I saw him. I urged him to
reconsider, but he said it was already done.”
My chest suddenly felt tight and constricted. I pressed my hand against
it and let out a long-held deep breath. “So he’s been here?” I asked, choking
back the tears of relief and something else, something deeply rooted,
something wounded and mad. “Well, at least we know he’s alive. We
haven’t heard from him in so long, I was beginning to wonder.”
“You were?” Juanita asked. “You never told me that.”
I covered my face for a moment to stop the tears from coming, and
when I uncovered it, Abuelita was leaning forward, looking into my eyes.
She took my hands, kissed my knuckles, and then squeezed my fingers
tightly between hers. “Oh yes. He’s alive,” she said, nodding. “At least he
was a few months ago.”
“A few months ago?” I asked, the anger within me growing as it
devoured the hurt and the pain the knowledge was causing.
“Did he tell you why he left?” Juanita asked, her eyes narrowing
intently.
“He did,” Abuelita said. “But that is not for me to discuss. That is for
your parents to explain.”
“But why?” Pita whined. “Why can’t you tell us? We told you
everything. We even told you about the dead man’s body and about La
Llorona and the nagual. Why can’t you tell us what’s going on with Papá?”
Pita started to sob softly.
“Ay, mi niña. Please don’t cry,” Abuelita Remedios said, wiping a
runaway tear off Pita’s cheek with her right thumb. “Listen. I’m not trying
to keep secrets from you, and I’m glad you’ve been so honest with me. I
needed to know those things. So I am going to tell you one thing. Your Papá
left because he is selfish. It’s our fault really, mine and your abuelito
Reynaldo’s, God rest his soul. You see, we spoiled him. We made him think
that because he was so talented, because he could sing so well, he was more
important than everyone else in the world, and for that, I am deeply sorry.”
“You spoiled him?” Juanita asked, confused.
“And yet, he never spoiled us,” Velia said.
Juanita reached over and smacked Velia’s arm. “Yes, he did. He spoiled
us all the time.”
“When?” Delia asked indignantly.
“I don’t remember that,” Velia agreed.
“Spoken like a couple of spoiled brats,” Juanita said, giving them the
evil eye. “When we were younger, he wasn’t performing, so he had a
regular job in Houston and used to come home on weekends with his arms
loaded with presents. It was like Christmas in April, or July, or August, or
whatever month it happened to be. He always brought us presents when he
came home.”
“I remember!” Delia exclaimed. “He brought us dolls and board games,
and those little plastic jewelry sets with the giant rings and matching tiaras.
Don’t you remember, Velia? He even brought you a special present once
because you saw a game on TV and called him begging for a basketball.”
“Oh yeah, the basketball incident. You all hated me for that,” Velia said,
twisting her face with the effort of recollection.
“We had so many toys, we didn’t even play with most of them,” Juanita
said, remembering how good life used to be before Papá stopped coming
home regularly and only showed up every now and then.
“And now we have to make our own bracelets out of used aluminum
cans. Way to go Papá!” Velia drew her knees up to her chin and stared off
into space, pouting.
 “I like our bracelets better. Besides, I’m not so sure Papá was spoiling
us. I think he felt guilty, for being gone so much,” I said. The picture of
Mamá crying on the television because of us came to my mind, and my
throat tightened. “And there are worse things than not having him around
anymore.”
“Like not knowing where your daughters are?” Abuelita asked as if
she’d read my mind. “Or if you’ll ever see them again?”
Velia sat up on her knees to face us. “I’m sorry, but am I the only one
who thinks maybe Mamá deserves it a little? I mean, think about it. After
Papá left us, Mamá literally stopped taking care of us. She didn’t listen to us
anymore. She didn’t even know where we were half the time.”
“Velia!” I exclaimed. “Nobody deserves this.” I thought of what terrible
daughters we’d been, how the cries of the lechuzas were not far off. We’d
been bad too, and Mamá still loved us.
“I think Velia has a point.” Delia intervened in a strangled voice. “The
truth is Mamá was just as bad as Papá, muy descuidada, very neglectful of
us.”
“That’s not fair!” Abuelita Remedios exclaimed. “I know your Mamá.
She’s a decent woman, with good morals and values. She’s always been a
good mother and wife. I want you to understand one thing. Your mother
didn’t do anything wrong. Your father left because he’s a louse, a good-for-
nothing who cares more about himself than his own wife and daughters.
He’s up to no good. Otherwise, why would he be trying to divorce your
mamá?”
“Divorce Mamá?” Juanita asked, her eyes wide with sudden
understanding.
 I left the floor and sat up on the bed next to Abuelita. “Did he tell you
why?” I asked turning my full attention to her.
Abuelita looked disgusted. “He wants to reinvent himself! He says he
wants a new life. It’s a common story. You hear it all the time around these
parts: men go work up North, and after a while, they forget their families
because they’ve started a new life en los Estados Unidos. But I never
thought my own son would do this. Not to your mamá. Not to Rosalinda.”
“He can’t do that,” Pita said, choking on her words as she wiped the
tears from her eyes.
“I’m afraid he’s already filed the papers. I probably shouldn’t have told
you, but you all are señoritas now. I think you can handle it,” Abuelita
Remedios said.
Juanita blinked, fighting back her tears as she looked up at us. “There’s
no hope, then. He’s gone for good?” she asked. “Why didn’t Mamá just tell
us what was going on? Did she think we were never going to find out? How
long did she think she could keep this a secret?”
Abuelita patted the mattress beside her, signaling my sisters to join us
on her bed. She scooted back to let us all snuggle up to her. “I’m sure she
thought she was protecting you,” Abuelita explained, putting her arms
around us as far as she could.
“Things are never going to get better, are they?” Juanita asked.
“Mamá’s never going to get over this. And there’s nothing we can do to
change it. Not if he’s never coming back.”
Abuelita pulled Juanita into her arms and held her tight. “Oh, that’s not
true. Eventually, your Mamá will get over him.”
“But I always hoped that he would . . .” Velia trailed off.
 “ — come back and make things better,” Delia mumbled, finishing
Velia’s thought.
Both girls looked absolutely crushed. Papá’s slow, painful abandonment
had wounded us deeply at first, but we had managed to get beyond it by
telling ourselves we were free spirits and nothing could ever destroy us.
However, looking around the room, I could see that wasn’t the case at all.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had never given up on him, because
we were all openly crying now.
“Well, I can only pray he reconsiders,” Abuelita Remedios said, looking
at us like we were her own daughters. “Lord knows I tried talking some
sense into him.”
“But he hasn’t done it yet, has he? He hasn’t divorced her?” I asked,
wondering how Mamá was able to keep her sanity with everything that was
going on with us. How awful we had been to her!
“There is that,” Abuelita said, reaching out to caress our faces one by
one, listening to our unhappy sighs.
“Ay, pobrecita Mamá!” Juanita wailed, giving in to her tears. “What she
must be going through.”
Velia’s eyes were suddenly full of rage. “Papá can be such a jerk!”
“I’m ashamed of being his daughter,” Delia added.
“We have to get back to Mamá,” Juanita whispered, looking to the rest
of us for support. “Mamá is in a lot of pain right now. She needs to hear that
we still love her. Think about it. When was the last time you reached out to
her?”
“Well, it’s hard to get close to her when all she does is yell at us or go to
her room and cry,” Velia said defensively.
 “Well, hello? She’s been abandoned!” I pointed out emphatically. “And
what did we do to make things better for her? Were we concerned? Did we
make things easier for her? No. We abandoned her too. We stole Papá’s car
and took off. No note. No phone call. No explanation.” I paused, wondering
if I should voice my previous thoughts aloud, then charged ahead.
“Maybe . . . maybe Cecilia and the lechuzas were right about us. Maybe we
are wicked children.”
“We are. We took advantage of her state of mind,” Juanita concluded,
biting her lip nervously.
“We stopped doing our chores and ran wild and did whatever we
wanted when we should have been taking care of her,” I pointed out with
disgust.
“We should go home and ask her to forgive us,” Velia whispered,
hanging her head.
“For being as selfish as Papá,” Delia finished her twin’s thought.
“We should take her some flowers or something,” Pita said, looking at
Abuelita Remedios for approval. Her face was scrunched with
wretchedness.
“Yes, we have to go home and find a way of making things right for
Mamá,” Delia concluded.
Delia wiped away her tears roughly with the back of her hand. “I think
it was actually all our fault,” she declared. “Papá left because we’re
pesadas, too much to handle. He left because we didn’t listen to him half
the time and we’re always getting in trouble with Mamá. And, well, I think
he was just sick of hearing about it.”
 Pita used the bottom of her shirt to wipe at her eyes. “You mean he
doesn’t love us anymore?” Pita asked.
“Would you? If you had us for daughters?” Delia asked Pita, looking at
her sister resentfully.
That’s when I realized the evil of what the lechuzas said about us. We
had been bad, yes, but was what Papá did our fault? “Yes, I would still love
us,” I said, angry with myself for not realizing the twins had been blaming
themselves for Papá’s absence all this time. “The way I see it, we didn’t fail
Papá, he failed us. He’s the adult here.”
Abuelita reached into her pocket and handed Pita a handkerchief. Pita
took it and blew her nose into it indelicately. “Now, you listen to me,
muchachitas!” Abuelita Remedios’s eyes darkened with emotion. “The
truth is, adults don’t always make sense. They don’t always do what’s right.
Sometimes, they are like children themselves, doing whatever they want.
Cada cabeza es un mundo, they have a mind of their own. Do you
understand?”
“I think so,” Velia whispered, nodding her head.
“Sometimes, men leave, for whatever reason,” Abuelita continued.
“Nothing you did or could have done differently would have changed that.
So I want you to stop blaming yourselves or your Mamá for the choices
your father has made. Instead, I want you to continue taking care of each
other the way you’ve been doing so far. I’m so proud of you for standing up
for your hermanitas against those evil creatures. I’m sure having to do that
has taught you how important it is to stick together and love one another
more than anything else in the world.”
 With those words, Abuelita Remedios gathered us closer around her.
We went into her arms and let her hold us. She held us tight and said,
“What’s done is done. The best thing you can do is go home and let your
Mamá know you’re all right. You’re all she cares about right now.”

OceanofPDF.com
 PART III
THE RETURN
How my sisters and I were trapped in Mexico, but with the aid of the ear
pendant, we were transported across the border and were taken home by the
FBI. How we encountered, rejected, and sent Papá away. And how we
eventually gained happiness with Mamá.

OceanofPDF.com
EL NOPAL: “Ay, qué nopal tan regio,
coronado con tunas moradas.”

THE CACTUS: “Oh, what a regal cactus,

crowned with purple prickly pears.”

Shortly after breakfast the next morning, we stuffed our belongings into our
backpacks and headed home. Abuelita Remedios was sitting at the table
drinking coffee when we went into the kitchen. Sitting next to her hand, on
the table, was a small pile of tiny homemade envelopes. She took them and
placed them in my hand when I sat next to her. “Something to get you
started,” she said, closing my hand over them.
“What are they?” I took the sealed rectangles and turned them over to
read the hand-printed labels.
“Semillitas — from my garden to yours,” Abuelita said.
I looked through the assortment of seed packets she had put together for
me and almost burst into tears. “I’m going to miss you, Abuelita
Remedios.”
“Me too,” my grandmother said, pulling me close for a hug.
“I’m going to miss you too,” Delia chimed in.
Abuelita let me go long enough to hug Delia. I put the seed packets in
the left pocket of my shorts and wiped my eyes. “I wish we could have
stayed longer.”
 Our grandmother pulled a handkerchief out of her dress pocket and
dabbed at her eyes. “I know. Me too.”
“Don’t be sad, Abuelita.” Pita squeezed in with us and put her arms
around our grandmother’s neck. “We love you. You’re the bestest grandma
ever. You are, Abuelita. That’s why we love you so much.”
Velia let out a disgusted groan and rolled her eyes. She looked down at
Pita, and declared, “You’re such a kiss-up!”
Abuelita smiled. “Oh, I know you love me, Pita, just like I know you
love your mother. That’s why it’s important you get back there. She is going
through a very difficult time right now; she needs you as much as you need
her.” She patted our cheeks, kissed our foreheads, and caressed our hair
before she continued. “Besides, now that you know where I live, you can
start visiting me more often — only maybe you can drive with your Mamá
next time. You and your Mamá are welcome to come stay with me
whenever you want, for as long as you want, especially at Christmas time.”
“Oh yes! We’ll bring presents, and eat tamales, and stay up every
night,” exclaimed Pita, not at all sounding like a kiss-up, but like her true
generous self, the Pita that Mamá knows and loves and babies more than
the rest of us.
“That sounds like a plan,” Abuelita Remedios said, hugging each of us
in turn again. “We’ll do that then. Every Christmas. Every holiday. But
especially in the summertime.”
I hated to break up this moment, but it was getting late. “We should get
going,” I whispered.
Immediately after breakfast, Abuelita drove us in an old four-door
ranch truck. She hadn’t driven in almost ten years, she said. Mostly, she
kept the vehicle for emergencies. Everything that needed to be driven to and
from the hacienda was taken care of by either Roberto or his son, Arturo,
who loved to go into town. But today she’d decided to drive us to the
border herself because there was only room in the pickup for six people.
Her driving was a little rusty, which made for an interesting ride.
Sometimes she’d veer out of her lane for a second or slow down so much,
she’d be driving way below the speed limit. But all in all, I felt confident in
her ability to get us to the Frontera safely.
During the ride, the girls were somber, almost distant, but Abuelita
Remedios was full of spunk. She talked all the way up Highway 57, giving
us advice about how to handle questions we might encounter about our
adventures in Mexico. She didn’t believe in lying — was against it in
fact — but she also didn’t feel we should go around telling people things
that would make them think we were fibbing.
“Nowadays, people are too cynical and don’t believe in magic
anymore,” Abuelita Remedios said as she drove us down the road. “Best to
keep all those supernatural experiences to yourselves. No use trying to
convince people of things they can’t understand, much less believe.”
It was good advice, and we all agreed Mamá would be the only one
who would ever believe us. Because to be honest, if I hadn’t lived it myself,
I wouldn’t have believed it either.
Halfway up to the border, Abuelita stopped to buy us new outfits before
we drove on. She said she didn’t want Mamá to see us dressed like
limosneras and think we’d taken to begging for food in the streets during
our stay in Mexico. We slipped into our new clothes in the dressing room of
a quiet little dress shop on the outskirts of Monclova. Pita was especially
joyful to be wearing a new dress, although she rejected the one with a silky
red bow at the collar, saying she was too old to wear moños.
We all smiled gratefully and thanked our grandmother when she pulled
the tags off our new outfits, handed them to the saleslady, and said, “They’ll
be wearing these out.”
After the morning’s shopping, Abuelita Remedios bought us some
lunch. We stood on the sidewalk on Avenida 4 in Monclova eating taquitos
off an old vendor’s cart. Looking around the busy streets with their modern
buildings, I thought Mamá would be enamored of this place. Monclova
looked as beautiful and as cultured as any large city in the United States. I
relaxed and ate jícama dusted with chili powder from a tall fruit cup and
told myself we could move here if Papá never came back and we lost the
house.
Soon after that bittersweet moment with our newfound grandmother, we
got back on Highway 57 North and drove straight through Sabinas and
Nueva Rosita. We stopped in Allende for some aguas frescas at a
puesticito, but other than that, we stayed on the road.
We arrived in Piedras Negras at three in the afternoon. The sun cast
golden rays lazily upon the quieting city from its low point in the sky.
Abuelita pulled over and parallel parked in front of the Santuario de
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. She got out of the vehicle and stretched her
legs as she looked around.
“Now who wants a raspa?” she asked, eyeing us with mischief in her
eyes. “Well come on, don’t be shy.”
After Abuelita Remedios treated us to raspas and campechanas, those
delicious puffed pastries we all loved so much, we walked back to the truck.
We sat in the pickup and tried to enjoy our last moments with our beloved
grandmother.
“Well, girls. It’s time we say good-bye. I wish I had a green card, or
even a worker’s visa, but I haven’t had much need for those things, not with
my own place to run. So this is as far as I can go with you. You’ll have to
take a taxi across. Here,” Abuelita said, reaching into her purse and handing
me a small wad of American bills. “Where are your papers? We’ll have to
show them to the driver.”
The question, like a hit to the temple, jostled something loose in my
head, and suddenly my heart was in a panic. “Papers? Wait a minute! Did
any of you bring your birth certificates? I know I didn’t.” I’d run out of the
house in such a panic to stop Juanita driving away that the thought never
occurred to me.
“Yeah,” Juanita said. “I got all of them. They’re in Velia’s backpack.”
Velia put her hands on the bench seat beside Juanita and pulled herself
forward in her seat. “No they’re not.”
“What do you mean? Where are they?” Abuelita asked, turning
sideways to give Velia her full attention.
Juanita stopped eating her raspa. “What are you talking about? I gave
them to you, when you were getting ready. I sat them right there, on your
dresser, next to your clothes.”
“Juanita,” Velia whined. “I never saw them!”
“You mean you didn’t bring them?” Juanita asked, putting a hand to her
forehead and shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh my God. I can’t believe
this.”
 Velia slid back into her seat like a turtle trying to get back in its shell.
“I’m sorry! We were so focused on leaving that I didn’t even notice them.”
I picked Juanita’s backpack off the floorboard, unzipped it, and started
pulling everything out of it. “Are you sure you didn’t put them in here?”
“I’m sure,” Juanita said, pushing her hair out of her face in frustration.
I unzipped every zipper and looked through every pocket of Juanita’s
backpack, making sure no documents were hiding there. “Delia? Pita? Did
you bring anything else? Your school IDs, anything that might prove we are
who we say we are.”
“School IDs aren’t going to help us. You need state IDs or birth
certificates to get across,” Delia said. “And, no, I didn’t bring mine either.”
I dumped Juanita’s backpack onto the floorboard and sat with my back
pressed against the truck’s door, looking at Abuelita as I rubbed my
forehead. Suddenly, I had a massive headache. “I can’t believe this. After
everything we’ve been through, and now we can’t go home.”
“Now hold on, let’s not get melodramatic,” Abuelita said. She pointed
behind me, to the other side of the plaza. “All we have to do is go in there,
to the aduana offices, and tell them everything. Well, not everything,
remember what we talked about. None of that magical, mystical stuff. We
don’t want to lose credibility. Anyway, they’ll get in touch with the
authorities on the other side and someone will get a hold of your mother. It
will take some time, but they’ll sort it out. It’s in their best interest to get the
matter resolved as soon as possible, especially with all the media attention
you’ve been getting, so I’m sure you won’t be waiting too long. You’ll be
home sometime tonight. I’m sure of it.”
 Pita sat forward on her seat and poked her head over Abuelita to look at
us. “Do you really mean tonight? Where would we wait while they cleared
things up?”
“Oh, I’m sure they have some kind of facility where we can wait,”
Abuelita began.
“You mean like a detention center?” Delia’s high-pitched voice echoed
the horror in her wide eyes.
“Oh, I’m not staying in a detention facility on this side of the border,”
Velia said, shaking her head. “Cecilia said the police are corrupt, and
you’ve heard the stories! People have to pay huge bribes just to see their
family members when they’re detained on this side of the border. Mamá
can’t even afford to pay the phone bill. There’s no way she’d have the
money to get all five of us back.”
“Not all rumors are true,” Abuelita said, a frown marring her forehead.
“Not everyone is corrupt.”
“Let me see that,” Juanita reached back and pulled on Velia’s backpack
until Velia wiggled her shoulders out of the straps and handed her the bag.
Frantic, Juanita rummaged through Velia’s bag like her life depended on it.
“Regardless, I don’t think we should take any chances by going to the
authorities. Even if they were to do right by us, the whole thing would
create an international incident. The media would catch wind of it and
things could really get out of control then.”
She had a point. It was already bad enough that we’d gotten all the
media attention we’d gotten so far. The police couldn’t let that kind of thing
slide if a reporter were to wonder who was at fault and maybe call for
someone’s punishment. “Child Protection Services would probably get
involved,” I said. “Mamá would definitely be in trouble then.”
Juanita pushed her fists into the empty backpack on her lap, which
deflated as she leaned over like she was going to be sick. “It’s no use.
They’re not here.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. I opened the door to step out of the truck,
looking up at the building we’d parked beside. “I can’t believe it! The
answer has been sitting right here all along.”
“What are you talking about?” Abuelita asked, joining me on the
sidewalk.
The rest of the girls left the truck to cluster around us. Juanita followed
my gaze and stared up at the santuario. “What’s going on?”
“This is it. The Virgin’s sanctuary, her home,” I said, taking in the
beauty of the ancient cement building with its stained-glass windows and
tall central tower.
“So what are you saying?” Velia asked. “You think we should pray?”
I turned to Abuelita Remedios, put my arms around her, and squeezed
her with all my might. “Thank you!” I said. “You couldn’t have brought us
to a more ideal place. Ladies, we’re going to do more than pray. We’re
going to go in there and ask for a miracle.”
“A miracle?” Pita straightened her clothes as she stared at the church.
“Yes.” I let go of Abuelita and started off for the wooden doors of the
santuario. “Come on. I have one more spin left.”
Inside the dark, empty church, I walked to the nearest pew, held onto
the edge of the seat, dropped to one knee, and crossed myself. Then I turned
left, intentionally passing the replica of the body of Christ. I touched the
glass of the ancient display case and said a brief silent prayer as I continued
to make my way to the altar of the Virgen de Guadalupe at the front of the
church.
Like little ducks, the girls mimicked my every move until we were all
standing in front of the virgin’s altar, crossing ourselves, one right after the
other. Abuelita reached into her pocket, pulled out a worn leather coin purse
and deposited six coins into the slot of the metal box in front of the iron
candleholder. Then she took a long wooden stick, borrowed flame from a
burning wick, and lit a new candle. She passed the stick around and we all
took turns lighting our own candles.
“Ready?” I whispered as I took Juanita’s hand on one side and
Abuelita’s hand on the other. “Get in close.”
I watched the rest of the girls take each other’s hands until we were all
standing in a semicircle, joined in prayer before the Virgen de Guadalupe,
la Madre de México, our Holy Mother standing on a bed of roses.
“Here we go,” I whispered. “Bow your heads and close your eyes.”
Everyone did as they were told. I let go of Abuelita’s hand long enough
to give the ear pendant a spirited flick. It spun to life, humming a joyous
tune as I took Abuelita’s hand back in mine and started to pray out loud.
“Virgencita Santa, Holy Mother, we have done as you asked. We delivered
a man to his wife and children and tried our best to stay humble and kind
and gave mercy when it was asked of us. Aztec queen, Tonantzin, Holy
Mother of all mankind, lend us your magical assistance one last time.
Please help us cross the Rio Grande, deliver us home to our Mamá.”
At my words, the ear pendant whizzed and whirled like a top, sending
thousands of tiny, exquisite vibrations to every nerve in my body. Then my
body jolted and my eyes flew open, as if I’d been suddenly awakened from
a nightmare.
Even as I blinked to focus in disbelief, I knew the vision before my eyes
could not have been anything else but a dream. For we were all standing
huddled together before a serene sky. A foggy mist swirled around us and
before us lay a moonlit path that led straight up to the stars.
Pita opened her eyes and her mouth dropped. “Whoa!”
“What is in the — ” Velia began to say something, but she was so
shocked by her surroundings, she couldn’t finish her thought.
“What is this?” Delia asked. “Some kind of hallucination?”
I put my foot in front of me and took a tentative step forward. My
sisters moved around, prodding and testing the moonlit path with each
footstep as they milled around. “No. It’s real,” I said. “Come on. This is
going to make your sopapillas curl up.”
As if mesmerized by the sound of some celestial being softly beckoning
to us, we followed the moonlit path to the heavens, silently walking on
stardust and moonbeams until we reached the summit of a hill and stopped.
A brilliant dawn broke through the morning dew, caressed every shadow,
and lifted the fog to reveal a floor of white clouds dotting an azure sky.
Before us stood a giant cactus patch, each pad covered with budding prickly
fruit that sparkled in the light, like tanzanites.
At the top of the hill, a youthful Tonantzin, the Goddess of Sustenance,
the girl who had saved us from the nagual, lifted her arms to welcome us,
her beloved daughters. And when I looked around, I saw that a flurry of
magnificent mariposas swarmed around us as we stood waiting on the
summit of the hill, awed by the surreal beauty that surrounded us.
 “Are we dreaming?” Juanita asked.
“Dreams are revelations,” Tonantzin said, smiling down at us from her
altar of cacti. “You have come far, my children. And I am proud of you.”
“We shouldn’t have come,” I said, hanging my head. “My sister got hurt
and we’ve put our mother in a bad position. She might never trust us
again.”
“The mother is the earth, the creator. Every part of her is alive,”
Tonantzin said. “She is the river, the flower, the bud. She is the regenerator.
Her faith in her offspring is always alive.”
“What did she say?” Pita asked, her face screwed up in confusion.
Abuelita put a finger up to her closed lips to show Pita she should be
quiet and pay attention to what the virgen had to say.
“Hijita mía, youngest of my daughters, la más pequeña de mis
Mariposas,” the goddess said, turning her attention to Pita. “Do you have a
question?”
“We all do,” Velia interrupted.
Abuelita Remedios reached up and wrapped her arms around Velia and
Pita’s shoulders protectively. “Forgive them, Great Mother. They do not
mean to disrespect you or question your judgment. They are good girls, but
they are also curious — inquisitive to a fault. It’s what makes them brave.
But you knew that already, I’m sure.”
The Virgen smiled at Abuelita, and her radiance shone brightly upon us
as she said, “Yes. That is why I chose them.”
“You said Mamá is a flower, so she is basically good to us,” Velia said.
“But what about Papá? Why did he leave us?”
 Delia, upon hearing her twin sister’s question, pushed her way to the
forefront to stand between me and Abuelita. “Forget that. When’s he
coming back?”
“Your father is like the sun, splendid to behold, but he must descend
and let darkness rule for a time.”
“I don’t get it,” Pita said.
The virgen stepped down from her throne and touched Pita’s face.
“Without night there would be no rest, no room for growth. It is just the
way things are,” Tonantzin explained in a serene voice.
“You speak in riddles, like Llorona,” I accused her. “I don’t get it. If
dreams are supposed to reveal things to us does that mean we’re dreaming
now? And if we are, then how come I’m more confused than I ever was?”
“I know you don’t understand what is happening with your family,”
Tonantzin said gently. “But you will, when the time comes. A new dawn is
approaching, but you are very clever, very brave. You will not be blinded by
his light.”
“So why did you set us on this path?” I asked. “What were we supposed
to accomplish? Can you at least tell us that much?”
“Odilia, you are here because I needed your assistance,” Tonantzin said,
fixing me with her gentle gaze. “And you’ve been very helpful. You might
not realize it yet, but you’ve learned many lessons along the way, about
your Mamá and about life. However, there is one more thing you must do to
complete your task. I need you to remind the mother that she is the flower,
the bud, the giver of life. She needs to be honored with love and
redemption.”
 I let out an exasperated sigh. “Honored with love and redemption? How
am I supposed to do that when I don’t even understand what you are
saying?” I didn’t want to disrespect the virgen, but this explanation just left
me more confused.
Tonantzin placed her hands on my shoulder and suddenly I wasn’t so
overwhelmed. Her gentle smile, her luminous eyes, her rose scented
perfume filled me with an inner calm, and I felt blessed. “Soon, you will
understand everything.”
Mesmerized by her glory, I reached out and touched the sleeve of her
emerald gown. “Go on,” the goddess said, extending her arm out to my
sisters, who all touched the sleeve of her garment and oohed and aahed
when it came to life, glittering at their touch, infusing us with sunlight and
warmth. “When your journey is over everything will make sense and you
will live joyful, productive lives. But first, you must pick the rosas de
castilla,” Tonantzin said, pointing behind me.
I turned to follow her hand and saw the clouds lifting and the earth
rising up to meet us. Up and up it came, until we were standing in our path
in the woods by the Rio Grande. There, at the bottom of a hill, off the
beaten path, amidst a cloud of glorious mariposas, a patch of rosebushes
began to break through the ground, bursting to life one right after another,
until the hill was covered in white rosebuds that bloomed in the morning
light.
Tonantzin began to walk toward the rosebushes. We followed her down
the path, and as we did, I noticed her feet were bare. But she walked
without regard to burrs or thorns, for as she stepped forth the ground
beneath her became carpeted with fluorescent rose petals.
 “They’re beautiful,” Juanita whispered as we came upon the cluster of
blooming rosebushes.
The Virgen reached over, plucked a perfect blossom from the bush and
handed it to me. I took it and instinctively brought it up to my nose. Its
heady perfume overwhelmed my senses and I felt dizzy for a moment.
“Give the roses to the mother,” Tonantzin said. “They will remind her of
who she is, who we are, and what we are all meant to become.”
“Roses,” I said, trying to imprint her instructions into my mind. “On the
hill. When we wake up. Okay. I can do that.”
“They will bring light into her eyes,” Tonantzin continued. “They will
transform her.”
“The mother?” Velia asked. “Is she talking about Mamá?”
“I think so,” I said as Tonantzin turned away from us. We followed
Tonantzin as she walked back up to her altar. She stood on the cacti, her feet
unharmed by the prickly pears and thorns.
“So this is what it’s all about?” I asked, as we stood before her again.
“Giving her flowers?”
“She has earned them,” Tonantzin said. “Paid for them with tears of
gold. Give her the roses and you will bring her back to life. If you do this,
you and your sisters will be blessed forever. You will look up at the sky and
know that you played your part in creating new life in our universe. But to
end, you must begin. It is time for you to go.”
“Pick the flowers. Give them to the mother,” I whispered to myself.
And even as I said it over and over again, reminding myself of what had to
be done, I wondered why Tonantzin kept referring to our mother as “the”
mother. Her word choice seemed odd and old-fashioned, almost regal in a
way. Ancient kings used to refer to themselves as “we” and “us,” so it was
probably common for the ancient goddess Tonantzin, the Holy Mother of all
mankind, to use the word “the” to refer to other mothers in her care.
As I pondered this, the silhouette of the goddess began to change. The
light that had surrounded us faded into darkness and Tonantzin slowly
disappeared into the night. The stars began to shine all around us, and the
path of stardust and moonbeams reappeared beneath our feet. We walked
down the moonlit trail toward a dark and misty shore, a surreal place, a
place somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

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LA CHALUPA: “Lupe, Lupita, pasea a mi
Pita chiquita en tu chalupita.”

THE CANOE: “Lupe, Lupita, give my little

Pita a ride in your little boat.”

The marshy lake stretched far and wide before us was covered in a misty
haze. The sky above me was a deep purple-gray, and on the horizon I could
see the first rays of light pushing through, announcing a new day.
“Where are we?” Velia and Delia asked in unison.
“Not where, but when,” Juanita said.
As we wandered along the shallow shore, the mist dissipated, exposing
an entire community of canoes being steered by both men and women on
the surface of the lake. Fishermen stood on their bobbing vessels, throwing
nets across the dark, still waters. Native Mexican women dressed in pale
tunics slid their paddles into the lake and rowed slowly, serenely across the
water toward what could only be described as densely vegetated islands
floating on the water. And as the sun’s rays peeked out of the horizon,
turning the sky into an amethyst haze, the canoe people sang in a language
I’d never heard before. Their songs were filled with pleasure and warmth
and life.
“What time is it?” Juanita asked. “It looks like the sun wants to come
out but it can’t.”
 Abuelita looked at the watch on her wrist, tapped it, put it up to her ear
and shook her head. “I can’t tell. This old thing’s stopped ticking.”
“Now what?” Velia asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Since we met La Llorona, I never know what to
expect.”
I was wondering what we were supposed to do when a young woman
paddled her canoe to shore and docked it right in front of us. “You wish to
go across?” she asked.
“Across?” I asked, looking at her canoe closely. It was not large, but it
was big enough to carry us all together if we chose to go aboard.
“To the other side, to your worlds,” she said, smiling. “The Great
Mother has ordered it so. She has sent me here to help you. I am to take you
back to your mother and your abuelita to Hacienda Dorada.”
“Yes,” Juanita said. “Yes. We all have to get home.”
The beautiful woman moved a bouquet of calla lilies out of the way and
placed it over a basket full of fresh tomatoes, squash, and chiles to make
room for us. We all scrambled onto the small vessel. Then we watched as
she anchored her paddle against the murky lake’s floor and pushed the little
boat away from the shore.
“My name is Ixtali,” the beautiful young woman said as she rowed us
out toward the middle of the quiet lake. The sky above us was blushing with
the promise of sunrise. My eyes had adjusted to the meager light and I
could see details now. The men wore white tunics and pants that stopped at
their ankles, with no shoes. The women wore tunics too, the length of
dresses, but their hair was braided intricately and adorned with flowers and
little stones I did not recognize.
 “We are the Garza girls, and this is our Abuelita Remedios,” Juanita
said, pointing to the rest of us. “Ixtali, can you tell us where we are? Why
are we traveling back in time?”
“You are not traveling back in time,” Ixtali said. “You are moving
forward, gliding across Texcoco Lake, where your mother’s people made
their home.”
I looked at the islands of vegetation fenced in within the clusters of
willow trees creating the illusion of a heavily forested swampland. “I’ve
never seen so many little islands in a lake,” I said.
“They are chinampas, the floating gardens that feed us. They provide us
with everything we need to sustain our families. They are our livelihood.
We are tenders, cultivators, nurturers. But this is more than a way to survive
for us. It is our way of life.”
I reached out and touched the end of a muddy wooden stick, a digging
tool of some kind, sitting next to a small wooden hoe beside me on the boat.
“So you’re a farmer?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ixtali said, rowing slowly, carefully, as she watched the other
boats around us, making sure we were not in their way. “But I also harvest
flowers, fragrant blooms to decorate the palaces, the houses of the nobles
on the mainland.” She lifted her paddle and used it to point to the left of us.
I followed the gesture and gasped at the sight of a beautiful city that
seemed to be floating in the middle of the lake, encircled by a magical mist,
bedazzling us with its towering splendor. Complex clusters of stone
buildings, so tall and imposing they looked like gods rising out of the water,
reached for the sky.
 “Tenochtitlan,” Abuelita said, looking in wonder at the great city
looming over the swampy lake. “The Aztecs decided to build it here, on the
lake, when they saw the sign — an eagle sitting on a cactus, eating a snake.
It was the center of a great empire, the home of our ancestors.”
I watched Ixtali row and row, taking us away from the city. “Why are
we so far away from home?” I asked.
“This is the goddess’s gift to you,” she said. “A vision, to always
remember who you are, where you came from, as you develop a better
future.”
As Ixtali rowed on, we passed a fisherman pulling up a turtle in his net
and two women picking fresh vegetables from a floating garden. “It’s
beautiful, your way of life. Thank you for showing it to us.”
“And for giving us a ride,” Pita said, inching closer to me. I put my arm
around her and pulled her in beside me.
“You are welcome,” Ixtali said, as she rowed away from the city and
toward shore. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder what language we were
speaking. We just understood each other.
We spent the next few minutes watching the fishermen pull up their nets
in the subtle darkness before dawn. As I sat holding Pita close to me,
listening to the soft songs of our ancestors working in the waters of Texcoco
Lake, I wondered what time of day it would be when we woke up from this
wondrous dream. A chilly breeze picked up around us, and I saw the rest of
the mist lift off the water, exposing a familiar shoreline.
“Look!” Juanita said, pointing to the land coming closer and closer. “It
looks just like . . .”
 “Our swimming hole!” Velia and Delia jumped up in the boat with
excitement as they finished Juanita’s thought. The canoe rocked severely,
and before Abuelita could pull the twins down beside her, it capsized. We
all fell overboard, landing in the waters of our very own eddy in the Rio
Grande.
“We’re home!” Pita screamed as she tried to stand up in the water. Velia
and Delia scrambled across the water to help her as Juanita, Abuelita, and I
helped Ixtali drag her canoe to shore.
Juanita helped our grandmother out of the water. “I’m sorry about this,”
she told Ixtali, who was standing on the riverbank wringing the water out of
her dress.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Ixtali said, looking up from her dress. “It’ll dry out
before I get home.”
“Thank you. Thank you,” the twins kept chanting as they held Pita up
between them, her arms wrapped around their shoulders for support.
“Thank you for the pleasant company,” Ixtali said.
As the girls helped Pita sit down on a huge flat rock a few feet away
from the shore, I held my grandmother’s hand in mine. She was looking at
Ixtali’s boat, and I could tell she didn’t want to get back in it.
“One last hug,” Abuelita said. Her voice cracked and quivered with
emotion as she leaned down and hugged me tight.
“I’ll see you soon,” I said. At my words, Juanita, Velia, and Delia
convened around us, trying to get one last hug out of Abuelita.
“We’ll visit you soon!”
“We’ll take the bus and come see you!”
 “We promise. We promise,” they all said as they hugged her. Even Pita
from her place on the shore was calling out similar promises. Our
grandmother leaned down and hugged her before heading back to join Ixtali
in her little boat.
By the time she settled into her seat, Abuelita was crying so much she
was rendered speechless. All she could do by then was wave at us.
“It has been an honor bringing you home,” Ixtali said as she waved
good-bye. Then she anchored her paddle against the bed of the river and
pushed her chalupita off. They were gliding away as Ixtali said, “May the
Great Mother be with you in all your travels, and don’t forget to pick the
flowers.”
“The flowers? Oh, yes. The roses for Mamá,” I yelled back. “Thank
you. Thank you for reminding me.”
We walked out of the water then, and stood on dry land watching Ixtali
row away from us until she and Abuelita Remedios were nothing more than
a memory in the thin mist that still hung over the Rio Grande.
“Let’s go, girls. You heard the lady. I have roses to pick,” I said.
The twins shouldered Pita between them and they hollered and hooted
all the way up the hill as we left the riverbank behind. Our bodies were
worn out, but we didn’t let that stop us. We hiked through the sparse woods,
making our way carefully down the beaten path we had created that
summer, the summer of the mariposas. Only there were no butterflies
anywhere. Maybe they were asleep and would awaken with the sunrise, a
sunrise that seemed to elude us as we walked along.
Pita looked more than tired. The twins were doing their best to steady
her by hoisting her arms around their shoulders and bearing most of her
weight, but she still looked like she was ready to keel over. We had been
walking slowly, carefully, for at least twenty minutes as the woods became
more dense, pushing the hackberry bushes and hierba de zizotes out of our
way, when we saw light breaking over a hill to the left of us.
“Well, look at that, the sun’s finally coming out,” Delia said, stopping to
admire the new dawn.
“No. That’s something else.” Juanita stepped forward to take a better
look at the wooded area being illuminated. “I think it’s your roses.”
“Let’s go,” I said. I headed into the woods in the direction of the glow.
We were barely over the cerro when we saw them to the right of us, in a
clearing, on yet another hill: hundreds of snout-nosed butterflies hovering
over dozens of rosebushes. The rosebush clusters bloomed joyously, their
blushing white crowns illuminating the darkness we had endured for so
long.
The joy of finding the roses was short-lived as I realized all our
belongings were still in Abuelita’s truck, sitting in front of the Santuario de
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, right where we’d left it before we were
transported here. “I don’t have anything to cut them with,” I said.
“Oh. I do,” Velia said, reaching into her pocket and unfolding a blade
out of a complicated gadget that looked like twenty tiny tools in one. She
handed me the small contraption. “Here you go. Can I come? I can hold
them for you.”
“Okay.” I looked at the others and smiled. “This won’t take long. I
promise.”
Juanita took me by the shoulders, pointed me toward the hill, and gave
me a tiny push to get me going. “Go on. We’ll wait here. Pita needs to rest,”
she said.
Velia and I walked all the way up the hill, the bright morning light
illuminating our steps as we trampled through the brush. When we got to
the roses, we both gasped. Their pale complexions blushed with an
iridescent splendor that made them look almost magical.
Velia touched one of them, her eyes sparkling with admiration.
“They’re beautiful.”
“Yes, they are,” I said. “Come on. Let’s not waste time.”
Velia stood just behind me as I started to cut the roses. When I handed
her the first one, she untucked her shirt and pulled it forward, creating a bed
for the blossoms. I carefully pressed the thorns off their stems with my
forefinger and thumb before laying them on the cradle of her shirt. Their
wide leaves trembled delicately as they lay one on top of the other.
Velia folded her shirt over the ten roses I’d already given her. “You
almost done there?”
I pricked my finger on a thorn and winced at the pain. “¡Ay! See what
you made me do? Be patient. I’m almost through.”
“I don’t care if you take all day, but we don’t have that kind of time,”
Velia continued.
“What do mean?” I asked, sucking on my throbbing thumb.
She tapped my shoulder and pointed down the hill. “I think our ride is
here.”
I turned around and saw them coming too, two border patrol trucks
rolling up the hill with their headlights full force on us. “Oh, thank God,” I
said, relieved. “Now we don’t have to walk.”
 “Well, I wouldn’t be so happy right now. Or did you forget?” Velia
asked, turning to look at me with a furrowed brow.
“Forget what?” I asked, annoyed. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“Hello!” Velia retorted. “We don’t have our papers with us. And Pita is
hurt. They’re going to call CPS on us for sure.”

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EL CORAZÓN: “Sin aliento y sin calor,
un corazón sin amor no palpita.”

THE HEART: “Without breath or warmth,

a heart without love cannot beat.”

The border patrol called the police, the police called the FBI, and they all
sat in front of us at a small table in a nice little office at the International
Bridge Customs Station. They asked us the same questions over and over
again. The FBI agent was the nicest one. He was tall and well-groomed, but
most impressively, he was Mexican-American. His name was Special Agent
Gonzales, and the girls were in awe of him. They thought he was brighter
than the moon.
They were very nice to us. However, no matter how many times they
asked us the same questions, we always stuck to the same story; we found a
body and went to Mexico to deliver it. On the way back our car broke down
so we had to abandon it. We walked to Abuelita’s house and she drove us
back, but when we realized we didn’t have our papers with us, we swam
back across. When they asked us how we made it across the river if grown
men were known to drown in it, we said we were great swimmers. We’d
been swimming back and forth across that river all our lives.
“Oh yeah.” Special Agent Gonzales leaned in to speak to Pita directly.
“So what happened to your leg?”
 “A stray dog bit her, but she’s all right now. Abuelita gave her some
antibiotics and cleaned the wound for her,” Juanita said, jumping in to save
Pita from having to explain. Abuelita Remedios would probably forgive us
for that one white lie, given that there was no other way to explain a
chupacabras bite. When Special Agent Gonzales continued to question us,
we all followed Abuelita’s advice and stuck to the more realistic part of our
story.
We hadn’t been there very long before Officer Lopez, a young woman,
came into the room and said, “Gonzales. The mother’s here.”
“Mamá!” Pita said, almost jumping out of her chair.
Juanita stood up and looked at the door behind the officers in the room.
“You mean our mother?”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Can we see her?” the twins asked, standing up to flank Juanita and
Pita.
“Bring her in,” Special Agent Gonzales said, nodding toward the door.
And so it was that on the twelfth day after our departure, we were
finally reunited with Mamá. I’ll never forget that moment when the door of
the office first opened and Mamá stepped timidly into the room. One look
in our direction and her eyes lit up like stars, and pure, unrestrained joy
glittered and shone in them. She was more than happy. She was ecstatic. As
soon as she saw us, Mamá ran around the table to reach us. Her purse fell
out of her hands and hit the floor with a muted clank as she put her arms
around Pita. Tears rolled down her face as she hugged and kissed us one at a
time, again and again, like she never wanted to stop. She was so
overwhelmed with such relief, such joy, she could hardly talk.
 “I love you! I love you!” she kept saying as she kissed us repeatedly
and held us tight.
“Please sit down,” Special Agent Gonzales said, watching Mamá
surrounded by the love of five grateful daughters. “Would you like
something to drink? We have coffee. The girls had soft drinks while we
waited.”
“No. Thank you, I’m fine,” Mamá said. “When can I take them home?
They’re drenched. I can’t believe they swam all the way across the river.”
Special Agent Gonzales smiled, a sincere smile that made his full lips
curl up softly at the corners. I noticed that his eyes shone more when he
made eye contact with Mamá, like he was genuinely happy for her. “We’ve
asked the girls what happened so we can file our report. I’m sure Officer
Lopez has already informed you of the details, but I can go over my report
with you if you like. You’ll get a copy of it before you leave here today, of
course. But if you have any questions, any concerns, you can always call
me.”
Mamá turned around to look at Special Agent Gonzales without letting
go of Pita. “I appreciate that. I’m forever grateful to you.”
“Well, we didn’t do much,” Officer Lopez said, standing behind Special
Agent Gonzales across the table. “The girls got themselves home. Oh. I
almost forgot. They brought you a gift.”
“Yes. We have roses for you,” I said, turning to look at Mamá. “Officer
Lopez was kind enough to put them in a vase so they would stay fresh for
you.”
Mamá took my hand and squeezed it, her eyes suddenly misty. “Roses?
For me? Whenever did you find the time to get me roses?”
 “They are a gift,” I said, clinging to Mamá’s warm, loving grip.
“Officer Lopez will get them for you,” Special Agent Gonzales said,
and the young officer left the room in a hurry. “Now, there’s one more
thing. The girls were concerned about Child Protective Services getting
involved.”
Mamá’s grip on my hand suddenly slackened, and I squeezed it tightly,
letting her know silently that we were not going to let anything happen to
our family — that we were going to be there for her. “CPS . . .” Mamá’s
voice trailed off and she stood rigid, waiting for Special Agent Gonzales to
continue.
“Yes,” Special Agent Gonzales said. “It is procedure to report any
incident involving children to them. Someone from their office will make
contact with you soon. Now, I’ve explained to the girls that they should tell
the CPS investigator exactly what they have told me. Personally, I don’t see
a problem here, not as far as you are concerned. But they have their own
procedures to follow and my report will indicate that I see no evidence of
neglect on your part. If you should need my assistance in any way or have
any questions that I might be able to answer, I am here to help you.”
As Mamá processed the information, Officer Lopez walked back into
the room carrying the vase. “Here you go,” she said.
I took the vase from her and speculated on the luminous white roses.
The Virgen said they would transform Mamá, and I wondered how the
change would manifest itself. Would the presence of others affect Mamá’s
transformation, or would it be instantaneous? Not knowing what to expect, I
hesitated.
 “These are for you,” Velia said, taking the vase out of my hands and
presenting them to Mamá, who gave us a watery smile and took them with
great appreciation.
“Thank you. They’re beautiful,” Mamá said, putting her nose into the
bouquet and smelling them. “I love them almost as much as I love you.”
As the white rose petals caressed her face, I held my breath, waiting for
that glorious moment, the moment when she would become more than
ordinary, when she would be touched by the divine. However, the only
thing that happened was that Mamá put the vase down on the table and
turned around to wrap her arms around us again.
“Well, we won’t take any more of your time.” Special Agent Gonzales
held out his hand for Mamá to shake. “Señora Garza, we thank you very
much for your patience. If it would be okay with you, I’d like to personally
escort you home in our unmarked units. It would make things easier, more
private for you.”
Mamá accepted Special Agent Gonzales’s proposal and we were all
driven home in a couple of dark sedans. The vehicles pulled up to our
driveway and we jumped out and stood on the sidewalk waiting for Mamá
to come in with us.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for us,”
Mamá said, her eyes misting over again, as she stood just inside our fenced
yard, shaking Special Agent Gonzales’s hand.
“We were glad to help,” Officer Lopez said, extending her hand to
Mamá and then giving her a small, friendly hug. “And remember, if you
should need anything, we’re a phone call away.”
 No sooner had they left than the girls were all over Mamá. They
clustered around her in the front lawn, pouring so much sugar on her that
she looked downright mystified.
I walked up to the house and stood on the front porch holding Mamá’s
roses, waiting for them to start walking up the driveway. I rubbed a
translucent rose petal between my fingertips, wondering why they had
failed to transform her. Looking sideways at Mamá, I could see that nothing
had changed about her. She looked as pretty as she ever was, but not in any
way different, not enchanting, not bedazzling in her daughters’ eyes, at least
not in mine.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Mamá.” Juanita stood in the driveway at the far right corner of the
house, looking at something the rest of us couldn’t see. “Whose car is that?”
“What car?” Mamá asked.
Juanita pointed toward the back of the house. “The blue Honda parked
in the back.”
Mamá walked over to look down the driveway. I stayed on the porch
holding the roses with the twins and Pita around me, waiting. “¡Ay, Dios
mío!” Mamá said, and she glanced around the neighborhood nervously, like
she was expecting someone to step out of their house and attack us. Then
she turned around, stepped onto the porch, and hurried up to the door, but
she didn’t open it. She just stood staring at it, blinking and looking
confused, as if she didn’t know how to open her own front door. “It’s all
happening so fast. I didn’t see it coming, and on the same day — all at
once.”
 “What are you talking about?” I asked, but Mamá’s eyes were
glistening with unshed tears and her hands were trembling as she held the
keys in a tight grip.
“Girls. I have to tell you something.” Mamá’s voice suddenly cracked,
and her forehead creased with worry lines. She took a deep breath and
stammered on. “Things have changed. Nothing’s ever going to be the same
again for you . . . for me . . . for us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s changed?”
Mamá let out a short, heavy breath, and she pressed her fingertips
against the frown that puckered her brow together. “Maybe we should just
go inside,” she whispered, as if she were suddenly afraid the neighbors
would hear us.
“Okay,” Juanita said, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head to let
me know she had no idea what was going on.
As soon as I walked through the door, I set the vase down on the coffee
table in the hallway to the left of the front door and turned around to hug
Mamá tightly. I had missed her so much. She had been absent from our
lives far longer than the twelve days we’d been gone, and I was thankful for
the comfort of her love.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into her ear as she held me in her arms.
Mamá squeezed me tightly. “It’s okay. We can get through this.
Whatever happens, I promise you everything’s going to be all right.” Being
in her arms gave me the feeling that everything was going to be all right.
But just when I was beginning to feel at ease, the most startling thing
happened.
 We heard footsteps — cowboy boots, unmistakably loud and clear as
they walked on the linoleum. Letting go of Mamá, I turned toward the
source of the footsteps to see the figure of a lone man standing at the
threshold of the kitchen door. Papá paused, then stepped into the hallway.
We didn’t react immediately. Instead, we stood there, all five of us, shocked
at the sight of him after all this time.
“Papá.” The word left my mouth in a thin breath that barely touched my
lips, because I couldn’t believe he was really there. Yet, as he waited there
at the end of the long hallway, all the way past four bedrooms and a
bathroom door, something small and fragile twisted inside of me, my
tattered heart shrinking away from him.
We’d been so happy to see Mamá, so overjoyed at her loving, genuine
reception, that we had, for a moment, forgotten we had a father. Being
chased by witches and warlocks, battling monsters, even defeating demons,
was nothing compared to the task of facing the reality of our father’s
abandonment.
Instinctively, Pita left our mother’s side and wrapped herself around me,
as if I and I alone could protect her from the stranger Papá had become. I
draped my arms around her small shoulders and filled my lungs with air,
waiting for his explanation. But instead of explaining himself, my father did
the same thing he had always done when he’d come home from working
out of town. As if his long, unexplained absence had been nothing more
than another one of his trips, he took a small step forward, and with little
fanfare, he opened his arms to us in a wide, welcoming arc and said,
“Chiquitas, I am so glad to see you. Come, come, give your Papá a hug.”
 The minute she heard his words, Pita unfurled. Like a dandelion
seed — se desprendió de mí — she pushed me off and flew at him, almost
knocking him backward as he went down on one knee to receive her into
his strong, protective arms.
I have to admit for a small, deranged second, my erratic heart jolted in
my chest and I almost did the same thing. I almost ran into his open arms.
But then I remembered what Abuelita had revealed to us and I knew Papá
had not come home to be reunited with us. He was probably here to finish
what he’d started when he first abandoned us. Maybe he was picking up the
rest of his stuff. He might even want to know why we’d taken his car. But I
knew, I just knew, he wasn’t there for us.
“Papá! Papá!” Pita squealed, calling out to him over and over again.
Her voice filled the room with a heartbreaking desperation not unlike the
twittering of a nest full of orphaned sparrows.
“Delia. Velia,” Papá whispered, his eyes imploring them to go to him,
even as he hugged Pita to himself like she was his lifeline. “Please. It’s been
so long. Come give your Papá a hug.”
The twins looked sideways at each other, but didn’t budge. They turned
to look at Mamá. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. But instead of
saying anything, she pressed her lips together, swallowed hard, and looked
away.
“Mamá?” Juanita stepped forward and put her hand on our mother’s
shoulder.
“What is going on?” Delia and Velia’s words mingled together in the
air. They touched Mamá’s arm, and our mother did what I feared she might
do under the circumstances. She waved her hand toward Papá as if to say,
“Go. Go. I give up.”
“Don’t do it,” I muttered as I fought the urge to scream, “He’s faking
it!”
“Papá? Please say — you’re not leaving,” Velia and Delia’s plea ripped
through my heart and I wrung my hands, wishing there was a way I could
expose Papá for the wretch that I feared him to be before the girls got too
attached to him again.
“Mis cuatitas, my precious twins. No. I won’t leave again. I love you
too much.” At his loving words, the twins took a step toward him. I
couldn’t stop them, but I also couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
“You’ve been gone for almost a year. Where was this love all that
time?” I asked, tasting the bitterness as the words left my insolent mouth.
“Odilia, hija mía, love doesn’t go away from one day to the next. Not a
father’s love. It clings to our hearts and holds on so tight, it keeps us awake
at night. Please. Don’t be so hard on your Papá.”
Pita wrapped her arms tighter around Papá’s neck and she kissed his
cheek, while Delia and Velia stood their ground with their arms crossed
over their chests. The twins’ eyes were blank, cold. But not me. No, I was
so enraged, I wanted to slap Papá hard across the face. I wanted to break
him, make him beg forgiveness for having left us without letting us know
where he was or if he was even alive. But instead of hurling myself
violently at him, I did the only thing I could do. I questioned his devotion.
“Is that true? Or is it just a line from one of your songs?” My spiteful
words delivered their poison, and my father flinched. He blinked nervously,
and for a moment, he was at a loss for words. Pita let go of Papá’s neck and
turned to look at me, her eyes full of fear, and something else — doubt, I
think.
“It’s not a line. I don’t even sing anymore. I left the band. I’m home for
good,” Papá finally answered, tightening his hold on Pita as if to mark his
words. “Odilia, I am your Papá. I could never stop loving you. Ever. Your
faces are embedded in my heart.”
“Our faces? Really?” I moved slowly, deliberately toward Papá as I
continued. Accusations roiled inside of me, swirling in my head like furling
tornado clouds, until I thought I might explode if I didn’t let them out.
“What about our feelings, Papá? Did you ever think about what your
disappearance would do to us? It seems to me like you think being gone for
almost a year without even one phone call to let us know you’re alive is
perfectly all right — but it’s not. It’s not all right at all.”
Mamá, standing behind me, was crying openly now. Her face was
covered in tears, and her body shook as she hugged herself.
“Trust me, muñecas,” Papá continued. “Delia, Velia, Juanita, I have
never stopped loving you, any of you. Not even for a second.”
His words were meant to charm, and the twins were wavering. Their
lips were quivering. They were getting closer to each other in that
connected way of theirs, as if trying to make up their minds. Then,
suddenly, they broke the bond and rushed to hug Papá, who let go of Pita to
hug them.
The twins huddled around him, towering over him. They’d grown so
much in the time he’d been gone, yet they were still little girls, clinging to
their childhood and their need for his love. I wondered if I’d ever been that
innocent. I felt numb inside.
 “Come on,” Juanita begged me, inching herself toward the familial
scene before us. She grabbed my hand, but I shook my head. Something
inside me was wounded. The pain speared my heart and the threat of tears
blinded me, so I tightened my grip on Juanita’s hand, fighting the urge to
scream, to cry, to run away from it all.
Then, just as reluctantly as the last leaf of autumn falls off a desiccated
branch, Juanita’s hand slackened and fell away from mine. She walked
away from me, leaving me alone with my anger and resentment. Papá’s
arrival had done what Cecilia and her Evil Trinity could not accomplish.
His empty promises broke the code of the cinco hermanitas. We were five
little sisters, together no more — cinco hermanitas torn completely apart.
“Just promise you’ll never leave us again,” Juanita requested, and
hugged Papá. His eyes misted with love as he broke free of the others and
took her into his arms as if she was the most beloved of his daughters.
“You are my family,” he whispered, kissing the crown of Juanita’s head.
“I would never tear us apart. We were a family once, and we will be a
family again. If it kills me, I will never again leave your side.”

OceanofPDF.com
EL MÚSICO: “El músico no es torero,
pero sí sabe tocar y torear.”

THE MUSICIAN: “The musician is not a bullfighter,

but he does know how to play and deceive.”

I listened to Papá’s words with a suspicious ear. He seemed so sincere, so

committed to us, that I almost put aside my reservations and allowed myself
to be sucked into his whirlwind of affection. But I held back instead.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something didn’t feel quite right.
Perhaps it was my intuition that kept me away, the suspicious nature I’d
developed since our journey in Mexico. More than likely, though, it was
that solitary figure of Mamá holding herself together, alone — apart from
my sisters, apart from Papá, apart even from me, her firstborn daughter, the
closest thing she had to an ally. I was pondering my resistance, when
suddenly the twins’ bedroom door flew open.
Papá froze, took a deep breath, and then turned to look at the door to his
left.
“What’s going on?” he asked, releasing my sisters to stand up.
Two pasty-faced girls walked out of Velia and Delia’s room. They
couldn’t have been much younger than the twins, but they were shorter and
very plump. Their dirty blonde hair was frizzled out, like unraveling kite
strings dragged through too many hands, but they didn’t seem to be
concerned about what they looked like. They were too busy carrying a huge
plastic sack between them.
“Daddy,” one of them whined. “We don’t know what to do with this
stuff. It smells bad.”
“Yeah, like cockroaches or something,” the first girl blurted out, her
muddy brown eyes settling on us for the first time.
“What in the hell-icopter . . .” Velia started.
“ . . . were you doing in our room?” Delia finished her twin sister’s
thought, looking at Mamá for an explanation.
“Sarai!” Papá called out to someone who came rushing out of Juanita’s
bedroom to the left of us. Shock ran up my spine and jolted me into
awareness as I watched a tall, narrow-hipped blonde woman walk past us in
the hall like she owned the place. She went to stand next to Papá in front of
the kitchen door and clung to his arm as if to show that she had possession
of him now.
“Ernesto,” the woman said, her eyes glittering with something like
malice or spite as she looked at each of my sisters and then settled on
Mamá. “There’s no use dragging this on. Por favor, diles — just tell them
what’s going on and be done with it, amor.”
Papá’s eyes made contact with mine, and then he cast his gaze
downward to the floor, as if he were embarrassed. “I thought we talked
about this,” he said quietly, almost inaudibly. “Now is not the time.”
Suddenly, I understood everything: the arguments with Mamá, his
inappropriate riddle for La Sirena the last time we had played Lotería as a
family, the disconnected phones, his unexplained disappearance, it all made
sense now. Papá had been having an affair with this woman, and now he
had brought her here — to our house!
Looking at her dispassionate face, I wondered how Papá could’ve
traded our sweet, loving Mamá for this cold woman. What hold could such
a manipulating woman have on him?
Thick, molten hot anger welled up inside me as I waited for an
explanation. “Now is not the time for what?” I asked Papá in a terse voice,
barely suppressing the rage simmering inside me.
“Now is not the time for this.” Papá pointed toward the woman’s
daughters, who were still holding the huge plastic sack between them. “We
have to talk about the situation, let everyone get used to the idea,” Papá
snarled at the blonde woman from between clenched teeth, the way he
always did when he was running short on patience.
“I know. I told them, but you know how they are,” the woman
whispered into Papá’s ear, smiling slyly at Mamá, who put a hand over her
mouth and shook her head in shock — or maybe it was disbelief or
embarrassment. I couldn’t tell which.
“Girls, please put that back,” Papá asked.
“But we’re cleaning our room. There’s too much stuff in there,” the
little one said, pointing to Velia and Delia’s room.
“What?” Velia said.
“You mean this is our stuff?” Delia demanded, reaching for the huge
plastic sack and yanking it away from them.
The girls held onto the sack while Velia and Delia pulled with all their
might. The tug of war ended almost before it began as the sack ripped and
articles of clothing spilled everywhere.
 “These are my clothes,” Velia said. Disgusted, the woman’s daughters
threw the ripped sack on the floor in front of the twins. Velia gathered up an
assortment of jeans, shorts and shirts, holding them in front of her like they
were misplaced treasures.
Delia pointed to the sandaled feet of one of the girls. “Hey, those are
mine! Why are you wearing my chanclas? Take them off, you fat little
thief!”
“They were in my room, but you can have them!” The girl slid the
pretty white sandals off and tossed them with her feet in Delia’s direction.
The sandals landed in front of Delia with a thud. Without taking her rabid
eyes off the thief, Delia kicked both sandals aside. I could tell by the violent
nature of that kick that she would never wear those chanclas again.
Juanita stooped down and picked up the rest of the clothes from the
floor and handed them to Velia. “You can’t stay here. This isn’t a hotel!”
“Ladies,” Papá said. He disentangled himself from the blonde woman
and came to stand between the twins and the woman’s daughters. “Let me
explain.”
“Yeah. Tell them, Daddy. This is our house now!” the older of the two
sisters said, tossing her disheveled hair back with a flick of her hand.
“It is not! This house belongs to us!” Velia stepped behind the strange
girls, threw her clothes inside her room haphazardly, and closed the door to
her bedroom to punctuate her words. “Stay out of there if you know what’s
good for you.”
“You have no right to be here,” Delia said, kicking at the girl nearest to
her. She didn’t make actual contact, though, because Papá put his hand on
her shoulder and held her at bay.
 “Your house stinks like a lice farm,” the older of the strange girls said.
No sooner had she spoken, than Delia slipped out of Papá’s grasp, and both
Delia and Velia threw themselves on the invading sisters, who were
knocked to the floor. Papá reached in to stop them, but the twins were too
fast for him.
Raining blows, como molinos, Delia and Velia were two demonic
lechuzas shrieking out their outrage in Spanish and cursing the intruders for
their transgressions.
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” Papá yelled, taking each of the twins in
turn and peeling them off the two other girls, who were wailing miserably
on the floor.
Mamá, who up to now I assume had been too embarrassed to speak,
was suddenly standing right in the middle of things. She was holding Velia
and Delia in front of her, arms wrapped around them, securing them. “Girls,
I’ve told you before. No matter how mad you are, fighting doesn’t solve
anything.”
“They started it,” Delia spat out, straightening her shirt.
“Yeah,” Velia continued. “They mess with our stuff, they mess with us.”
Mamá let go of the girls and made the twins turn around to face her
before she spoke again. “Please apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” Velia mumbled to no one in particular.
“Sorry,” Delia whispered halfheartedly as Mamá stroked her arm and
held her and Velia close.
“Delia, Velia,” Papá’s tone of voice was downright stern. “You can’t
mistreat Alison and Ashley like this. They’re going to be part of our family
from now on, and we don’t hurt our family.”
 “What are you talking about?” I asked. “What do you mean they’re
going to be part of the family? Are they . . . yours?”
“They’re my stepdaughters, or they will be as soon as the divorce goes
through,” Papá said. He took the strange girls into his arms and hugged
them to himself. His words, delivered so swiftly and with such disregard for
our feelings, cut through me like the blade of a guillotine. My stomach
lurched and tightened and lurched again. Abuelita said that Papá was
divorcing Mamá, but she didn’t mention that he had another woman and
two other daughters. She told us he wanted to start a new life, but she
neglected to inform us that he had a whole other family that did not include
us.
“Now let’s try this again,” Papá cooed into the two pasty girls’ ears as
he kissed them and then turned around to look at us. “Ladies, this is
Ashley,” he said, placing his hand on the younger girl’s head. “And this is
Alison,” he continued, referring to the older girl. “They are going to be your
stepsisters, your hermanitas, and we’re all going to live here together, so
please, try to be nice.”
“Live together?” Juanita’s eyes sparked with derision. “Here? You
mean you all, us, and Mamá? Who do you think we are, the freakin’ Brady
Bunch?” The whole thing was beyond ridiculous. Even the Brady Bunch
only had one mother and one father.
The girls’ mother stepped forward and reached for my hands, as if she
and I could ever be friends. “I know this must be very hard on you girls.”
“Hard?” I asked, feeling the boiling anger rising up in me again. I
pulled away before she could touch me and moved back to stand next to
Mamá, who had retreated from the familial scene and was standing by the
front door, looking more and more like a ghost of a woman. “Lady, this is
beyond hard. This is absurd. What did you think, that we were going to just
hug and kiss and act like this is all right? No. No. It’s not all right. None of
it. Not the surprise reunion, not the home invasion, and certainly not the
fake sisterly love. And what about Mamá? Where does she fit into this
picture-perfect story of yours? Where is she supposed to live, Papá?”
“Well, we can’t very well all live here,” Papá said, looking at his new
woman. The intimacy of that look made my stomach tighten again. They
had secret plans — plans that didn’t involve Mamá!
“You’re such a — ” I started, but then I had to stop because the tears
were rolling down my face so heatedly that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able
to control myself. I needed to be in control of my emotions if I was going to
help Mamá not get thrown out of her own home.
“Say it,” Papá taunted, his fists at his side, as if ready to strike. “Don’t
be afraid to say it. I’m such a what, Odilia?”
“You’re a jack-a — a jack-a — ” Velia began, stumbling on the word,
too upset or maybe too hurt to spit it out.
“A jack-o-lantern!” Delia yelled, her face stained with tears as she
backed away from the scene. She stood with her back pressed against the
paneled wall of the narrow hallway between her bedroom and the kitchen.
“You have that big old grin on the outside, but inside you’re all hollow and
empty.”
I was proud of the girls for not cussing, but I was even more proud of
them for hitting the nail right on the head this time. “She’s right,” I said.
“You have no heart.”
 Papá froze for a moment, and then he hung his head and shook it from
side to side, as if to show his disappointment. But the twins were beyond
caring. They were disgusted, and it showed in the way they looked at Papá,
as if they wanted to shoot him.
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Papá said, looking only half in control
of his own emotions. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. “I
am the man of this house. I say who goes and who stays, and I say your
mother has to go. You’re my daughters, and as your father, it is my duty to
do what’s best for you. Her mothering has not served you well. Look at you
all. You look like vagrants. Even street urchins are cleaner than you are.
What have you been doing, Rosalinda? Sending them out to beg for
limosnas? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
We looked fine to me. We’d had a little dunk in the river this morning,
but other than that, we were radiant. “You’re the one who should be
ashamed of yourself, coming here and acting like you have any right to us
or to our home,” I said, my voice trembling with pent-up emotion. “Tell me,
did you ever have any intention of coming back here? If we hadn’t gone
missing, would you have returned to us? Were you ever going to tell us
what was really going on?”
Papá stood perfectly still, his eyes cold, distant even as he held hands
with his new woman.
“How long have you had two families? Is this your Sirena? La mujer
from your riddles? The one who wanted to take you away? I thought you
said you wouldn’t let her,” I taunted.
“That’s quite enough!” Papá said, putting his hand out as if to stop me
from going on. “What’s done is done. The important thing is that I’m home
now, and things are going to change around here.”
“Change?” I walked over to him, blocking him from Mamá and the rest
of my hermanitas, getting into his face. “We’re not tortas you can take out
of the oven and set aside to cool off while you dillydally with a whole other
life. Families are supposed to be important, and that’s one thing you never
did: Make us important. And now you want to take away the only real
parent we’ve ever had? Well, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to
let you get rid of Mamá.”
I moved away from Papá and went to stand between Mamá and the
twins. I took her hand in mine and held it tight. My hermanitas gathered
around us, clinging to Mamá. “This is our house. You don’t live here
anymore. You never did. Everyone knows it. The whole neighborhood talks
about it. You’re a desaparecido, a vagabond, a lost cause. So why don’t you
do what you do best — why don’t you just get lost!”
“Yeah, leave!” Velia said.
Delia crossed her arms. “We don’t need you anymore.”
“I thought you said they were nice?” Papá’s woman said, turning her
nose up at us as she reached for her two sniveling daughters and pulled
them close.
“Oh, you haven’t even begun to see just how ‘nice’ we are, lady,”
Juanita broke in, her Amazonian frame blocking Papá as she stood in front
of my sisters protectively. “But you’re about to find out.”
“Rosalinda!” Papa’s voice was clipped, enraged. “Say something. I
can’t believe you let these girls act like this, como demonias. You’re a
disgrace as a mother.”
 “I might be a disgrace as a mother, but you’re not winning any Father of
the Year contests, either — traidor!” Mamá said, confidence creeping into
her voice. “The girls have a right to be mad at you. You’ve done nothing but
put them aside all their lives. And now you have the gall to bring this
usurper into our home, to parade your new family in front of us like we
were less worthy of your affection. How dare you!”
Mamá’s eyes flashed, her nostrils flared, and her mouth was set into a
straight thin line, like a she-wolf snarling fiercely as she protected her cubs.
She was beautiful to me, everything we’d wanted her to be since Papá left.
“And what am I supposed to do, Rosalinda?” Papá asked, lifting his
hands palms up, helpless. “Stay with you? I don’t love you anymore.”
Papá’s words punched me in the gut. Instinctively, I turned to Mamá,
half expecting her to cry. But to her credit, she didn’t budge. She stared
coldly at Papá like he was a stranger to her. Shaking her head, she smiled
and spoke to him again in that strange, even tone she takes when she’s dead
serious.
“You heard them,” she said. “Leave.”
“Yeah,” Delia and Velia said. “Leave!”
My sisters kept repeating each other’s words, over and over again, as if
once or twice just wasn’t enough. “Leave! Leave! Get lost!”
“Fine. I’ll leave,” Papá said, turning to his woman and her children
huddled behind him. “But don’t come crying to me when you don’t have
money to buy groceries, and there’s no food on the table.”
“Ernesto!” Papá’s woman balked at his retreat. “We can’t go. You said
we’d live here. That this house would be ours.”
 “But this isn’t his house,” I said. “And he has no claims to us. We are
five little sisters, cinco hermanitas, together forever. No matter what!”
“And who’s going to take care of you?” Papa’s voice was deep now,
regretful, almost. “Who’s going to provide?”
What a question for him to ask, when he hadn’t sent us anything for
almost a year. I had a feeling that a court would make him pay child
support. But even if the law didn’t make him do the job he wouldn’t do on
his own, I knew something he didn’t. “The Virgen will provide,” I said,
pointing at the flowers sitting in their vase on the coffee table beside us. “La
Virgen de la Cueva, our Mother in Heaven, the protector of women and
children, will take care of us. She has been with us all along, guiding us,
protecting us. All we have to do is have faith and believe.”
“You’re as crazy as your mother!” Papá’s woman said, pushing Juanita
out of her way as she tried to get past us to get to the front door.
“Don’t you ever lay a finger on my daughters again!” Mamá howled,
her anger propelling her into action. Papá’s woman didn’t know what hit
her — before she knew what had happened, she was flat on her butt on the
floor in front of Mamá.
“Ernesto!” Mamá screamed. “Get this piece of trash out of here, before
I drag her out de las greñas!”
“This isn’t the way I wanted things to go,” Papá warned as he helped
his woman up. “But it’s not the end of it either. You’ll be hearing from my
lawyer.”
“Good,” Mamá said. She went to the front door and opened it in a swift,
determined pull. “I hope you have a good lawyer, because you’ve definitely
got a fight on your hands. I’ve already filed for custody of the girls and the
right to keep my house — the house that my father built for us, for me and
my daughters, before he died. Rights? You have no rights here! Go on then!
Go! Have a nice life!”
It took Papá less than a minute to move, to make his decision. But I
could tell by the way he walked out, without looking back, that he wouldn’t
return.

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LA ROSA: “Es muy bella y deslumbrante,
Rosa, mi linda esposa.”

THE ROSE: “She is beautiful and dazzling,

Rosa, my lovely wife.”

It didn’t take the media long to find out we were home and make a three-
ring circus out of it. By Saturday afternoon, just two days after our return,
Mamá had to call Special Agent Gonzales to come deal with the media
crews. They had been spinning themselves into a frothing, famished frenzy,
like bloodthirsty piranhas, in front of our house all morning.
It wasn’t easy getting rid of them though. We actually had to give an
official interview to get rid of the lot. One local news crew was allowed to
set up their camera equipment in our living room. Special Agent Gonzales
guided the discussion. Looking like he belonged in our house, he sat right
next to Mamá on the couch, their hands almost touching as they answered
questions about our disappearance and return.
Seeing Mamá acting so coy and proper on the sofa next to Special
Agent Gonzales had been enlightening to say the least. We’d never seen
Mamá act so feminine with anyone else other than Papá. He probably
wouldn’t have liked seeing her act so demure. But what was even more
surprising was finding Special Agent Gonzales waiting for us outside of the
Sacred Heart Church the next morning.
 I saw him before he saw us. Standing at the church door in his white
pinstriped shirt, with his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks, he looked
like a male model straight out of a Sears catalogue, sexy in an older man
kind of way. Nothing any of us would have found exciting, but definitely
someone nice and suitable for Mamá.
We were cutting across Williams Street at San Luis Elementary when
he turned around and saw us. He waved, and Pita absolutely lit up as she
waved back at him. He left the doorway to come meet us halfway up the
sidewalk, and Mamá, looking beautiful in her blue Sunday dress with the
ruffled neckline, seemed surprised to see him there. She took the hand he
offered and shook it modestly saying, “Buenos días, God be with you.”
Velia nudged me as we followed the crowd inside close behind them.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep my voice to a soft murmur.
Velia ribbed me again. “I guess he goes to church here now.”
“I think he likes Mamá,” Delia whispered.
I tried not to read too much into perhaps the most promising thing to
happen to us in a very long time. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
“A coincidence?” Juanita asked from behind us. “Maybe, but quite
fortuitous. Don’t you think?”
“Speak English. I didn’t bring my dictionary,” Delia warned, turning to
Juanita.
“Shush,” I said, as we entered the church doors and took in the sights
and the sounds of our local parish. We hadn’t been to church as a family in
a very long time, so it made sense that we didn’t know Special Agent
Gonzales was part of our neighborhood’s congregation. Given our recent
journey, and Mamá’s assurance that we were indeed under the protection of
the Virgen, we had a newfound appreciation for the religious relics that
surrounded us, making the experience doubly profound for us.
Juanita, the twins, and I were especially drawn to the statue of the
Virgen de Guadalupe displayed in a nook to our left. We left Mamá
standing just inside the door, holding Pita’s hand, chitchatting with Special
Agent Gonzales. Together, we paid homage to the Virgencita, our Mother in
Heaven, and our very own protector, by lighting five small candles, one for
each of us.
Remembering the warmth and love she had bestowed upon us on the
hill, I reached up and caressed the Virgen’s glorious blue garb, tracing the
embroidered stars delicately with the tips of my fingers. She had done so
much for us, but I suspected there was still unfinished business between us.
I knelt beside the twins at the cushioned pew before the Virgen and said
a special prayer just for Mamá. It was then that I noticed them: the white
blushing roses sitting in a clear crystal vase among an array of their colorful
counterparts.
Red, yellow, pink, and orange roses, all in their own simple vases, were
kept fresh by the older ladies of the neighborhood who spent their days at
misa dusting the many altars and freshening up the flowers. But even with
the knowledge of the special care those ladies took with the flowers, I could
tell these white roses where not grown in one of their own gardens.
No, these roses were special. They were too crisp, too fresh, too pure
and white to be anything but from the same rosebush as the ones I’d given
Mamá. But they weren’t hers. I’d touched the petals of Mamá’s bouquet as
we’d left the house that morning and marveled at how fresh and perfect
they still looked even after three days of sitting in a vase at the kitchen
table. No, someone else in this congregation had been blessed with these
roses, and as a tribute, they had brought them here and presented them to
the Virgen.
I stroked the petals of the white roses and wondered if this was what I
was meant to do with mine. But it didn’t make sense. Tonantzin had given
me specific instructions to give my rosas to Mamá. It was important that I
do it, because they were meant to transform her.
“I’m confused,” I mumbled to myself. “Please, tell me what to do. Was
there something more? Something I forgot?”
The twins stirred beside me, but they kept their heads bowed and their
eyes closed in prayer. I lifted my head, and the Virgencita’s eyes met mine.
Shocked, I turned to the twins, but they were too engrossed in prayer to see
what I was seeing. When I looked up again, the Virgencita’s gaze was fixed
again, so I bowed my head and prayed for inspiration. I needed wisdom to
honor the Virgencita’s request.
Juanita shook me a bit as she stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Go ahead,” I whispered, “I’m not done yet.”
I must have knelt there for at least fifteen more minutes before mass
started and I had to join Mamá and my sisters at their seats. I listened to the
sermon and ran through all the procedures of mass, only half involved
because I kept going back to the sight of those roses at the altar of the
Virgen de Guadalupe, wondering what went wrong.
Outside the parish, we spoke to neighbors and friends, but only
momentarily because Special Agent Gonzales came over to offer us a ride.
When Mamá reminded him we only lived two blocks away, they both
laughed about it a little too long. It was weird, almost awkward, watching
Special Agent Gonzales and Mamá acting like teenagers around each other,
but it was also kind of cute.
After we walked home, we spent the afternoon in the backyard. The
girls helped weed out Mamá’s vegetable garden and picked fat zucchini,
ripened tomatoes, and spicy serrano peppers, which they bundled together
in delicate netting to give away as gifts to Mamá’s comadres. I spent my
time planting the seeds Abuelita Remedios had given me in large ceramic
pots. When I was done, I lined them up in a row along the edge of the back
porch, where Mamá said they’d get the most sunlight in the mornings.
In the evening, we worked in the kitchen, a group of almost grown
young women talking and laughing with their Mamá, cheerful and
deliriously happy. We made pollo con calabacita for dinner. The chicken
and zucchini casserole was so comforting and so delicious that we stuffed
ourselves until we couldn’t move.
Afterward, the girls entertained themselves by playing Lotería and
watching telenovelas on the Spanish channel while Mamá and I cleaned the
kitchen. We finally sat down with the girls to watch a rerun of the 1967
rendition of Corazón Salvaje. By the time the final credits rolled on the old
movie, we were more than ready for bed.
“Buenas noches,” Velia and Delia said, pushing themselves off the
couch and hugging Mamá.
Mamá embraced first the twins, then Pita, and finally Juanita. “Buenas
noches, muñecas.”
The girls all filed out of the living room and made their way to their
bedrooms. I sat on my knees on the floor in front of the coffee table as I
gathered the Lotería boards and playing cards to put them back in their
basket.
“One more game,” Mamá said. “Just you and me.”
“Okay,” I said, rifling through the basket to find my favorite board, the
one with La Luna, the moon, in the right corner block. “Which one do you
want, Mamá?”
“You know which one,” she said, her eyes twinkling, daring me to
figure it out. I sorted through the thin stack of boards, trying to remember if
I ever knew which one was her favorite, but I couldn’t think of it.
I stopped to show her the board with La Rosa on the corner block. “Is it
this one?”
The Virgencita’s roses were still on my mind. Only the solitary rose on
the board was pink, not white, and there was no magic manifesting itself in
this house, or in Mamá, and I worried that I had misused the great gift
Tonantzin had given us.
“Come on,” she said, with a soft, patient gleam in her eyes. “You know
which one.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and offered her the Lotería boards. “No, I
don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, because I can’t figure it out.”
I realized I sounded curt, but I couldn’t help it. The whole situation with
the roses was really bothering me. I didn’t want to disappoint the
Virgencita. She’d given me the roses to give to Mamá and I had failed to
deliver them in time, because somewhere along the line they had lost their
magic.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying not to lose it in front of Mamá.
 “What’s wrong, cariño?” Mamá asked, leaning over to stroke my hair
and lift my chin up. “¿Qué pasa? What’s going on with you tonight?”
I rubbed a telling tear off the corner of my left eye with the heel of my
hand and looked away. “I just can’t figure it out that’s all,” I said. Before I
could stop them, a shower of fat, ugly tears started rolling down my face.
“Can’t figure out what?” she asked. “Because I know this isn’t about
the Lotería.”
I clutched the wrong board card in my hands. “La Rosa,” I said. “I
thought that was yours. I thought roses were your favorite flowers. I
thought roses always made things right.”
Mamá pulled out the board with El Corazón, the human heart, in the
corner block out of the basket and showed it to me. “Oh, honey. This is my
favorite one,” she whispered. Then she sat on the floor beside me to hug me
close to her. “Roses are beautiful things. They are. But that’s not what
moves me. The most important things in life are not items people can give
us. No. The most important thing in life is what’s in your heart.”
“So you didn’t like the roses?” I asked, trying to figure out why they
had failed to transform her.
Mamá took my hand in hers, kissed it, and rubbed my knuckles with her
thumb. “No, I loved them. I really did. But it wasn’t the roses that made my
day. It was seeing your faces again, looking into your eyes, and knowing
that you still love your mamá. The love in your hearts fills mine. It’s what
keeps me going. The roses were nice and very much appreciated, but it was
you and your sisters, my children, that I needed to hold. Without you, I
would be nothing more than a ghost of a woman, a spirit wandering this
earth with no purpose, no direction — un fantasma with no one to love.”
 Goose bumps popped up on my arms and chills ran down my spine,
shaking me to the core. “You mean like — La Llorona?”
Mamá crinkled her brow and looked at me like she wasn’t quite sure
what I was talking about. “La Llorona? I suppose so — yes.”
“Oh my God — you’re right!” I exclaimed. I hauled myself up and out
of her arms. “Thank you, Mamá. Thank you for loving us so much!”
I ran into the kitchen, plucked the roses from the vase, and headed for
the front door. “Odilia, hija?” Mamá called after me. “Where are you
going?”
“I’m sorry Mamá, but I have to deliver these to the right person,” I said.
As I left the house, the screen door slammed itself shut behind me and I
yelled, “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

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LA CORONA: “La corona más grande y preciosa
le pertenece a una reina humilde.”

THE CROWN: “The biggest, most precious

crown belongs to a humble queen.”

Telling a woman who had just gotten her daughters back not to worry was
like telling the river not to roll, but I couldn’t help leaving. I finally
understood what I was supposed to do with las rosas Tonantzin had
bestowed upon me.
There was only one person who needed to be reminded of who she was,
and that was La Llorona. Her sadness, her grief over her lost children,
overwhelmed her. Maybe the roses were a token from the Virgencita, a
small light in her otherwise gloomy existence, a gift to brighten her spirits.
Although how they were meant to transform her, I had no idea. All I knew
is that she was definitely the only other mother the Virgencita could have
been talking about. She was, by her own account, responsible for the death
of her own children. If anybody needed a magical remedy for her plight, it
was La Llorona.
As I pedaled my bike down El Indio Highway in the stillness of the
dark summer night, I could feel the magical power of the roses propelling
me toward the Rio Grande. Lying sideways within the basket attached to the
front of my bike, the rosas shimmered in the moonlight like fallen stars, and
I took special care not to ride too fast for fear of having the roses fly off or
fall onto the road.
I pedaled down our soft dirt path through the woods, all the way down
to the river’s edge, where I hoped I might find her. I stopped, still straddling
my bike, and at first all I could hear was the river, its waters churning out an
eerie lullaby. Then, as the reverberation of my own heartbeat stopped
hammering loudly against my eardrums, I heard her. Hers was a distant,
unending sob echoing the mournful song of the ancient river as it passed by.
I picked up the roses and dismounted my bike, letting it fall to the
ground as I walked toward the water. My legs felt like thin fideo noodles
from pedaling so hard, but I didn’t let that stop me. Slowly, I made my way
through the brush toward the place we’d met that first time. There she was,
a spectral figure illuminated by a sad, wavering light.
“I think these are for you,” I said, holding the roses toward La Llorona.
“¿Rosas?” she asked, bemused by the white, blushing petals glowing
magically in the dark. She didn’t reach for them. “For me?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “A gift from the Virgen de Guadalupe, for all
you’ve done for us.”
“I was only honoring a request,” she whispered, still not taking the
roses. Her longing was almost palpable. “I was merely following orders
given by One who is wiser than you or I. It is part of my penance.”
“You were following more than orders. You were following your heart.”
I deposited the roses into her arms. She took the bundle and cradled it
lovingly in her embrace, as if it were a fragile baby.
“Gracias,” she whispered. The thin rivulet of a tear fell quietly down
her pale cheekbone, disappearing into the darkness.
 “You deserve them.” The tearstain on her cheek began to glisten. The
shine spread across her skin inch by inch. Then right before my eyes, her
tired middle-aged face regained a bright, youthful complexion. The skin of
her bare arms and face glowed with health and vitality, but her skin was not
the only thing transformed. Her entire facade changed, until the ghostly La
Llorona became as radiant and alive as a young woman bronzed by the sun.
Behind her, a newly emerged brood of tiny snout-nosed butterflies
crawled out from under the spiny hackberry bushes and began to creep
upon her. They fanned their wings in slow motion as they made their way
up her long, pale dress from the hem up to her neckline, forming an
intricate floral pattern. Once in place, they sat perfectly still for a moment,
and then the fabric of her gown came alive. Delicate silver and gold threads
unraveled and wove themselves into the fragile wings of the frozen
mariposas, converting the tiny creatures into magical designs stitched
meticulously into the bodice of La Llorona’s gown.
To crown her beauty, a floral wreath appeared on her head,
transforming her into an Aztec princess. The metamorphosis was
bedazzling, and I was mesmerized by her exquisite face, her dark luminous
eyes, her appreciative smile. It was so breathtaking, the change in Llorona,
that it rendered me speechless. Then out of the corner of my eye, a light
swirled and unfurled beside us. I took a step back as la Virgen de
Guadalupe. Tonantzin, materialized. Shocked by her appearance, both La
Llorona and I dropped to our knees and bowed our heads.
“Great Mother,” La Llorona said, as she knelt before Tonantzin. “We
are grateful for your divine presence.”
 “It is I who am grateful,” the Virgen said in her serene, heavenly voice.
“Rise, my most cherished children, mis Mariposas.”
“The Virgin Mother is kind and generous.” La Llorona remained
kneeling, clutching the roses to her chest. “She honors me with this
transformation.”
“You have done well, my daughter. Your migration through the voyage
of pain and sorrow has been hard, but you are at the end of your journey.
The Ancients have waited a long time for you to emerge, to spread your
wings, to take flight. And now, they are ready for you to come home.”
The Virgen lifted her right arm and opened her hand. Millions of tiny
specks of gold flew out from the center of her palm. The iridescent particles
soared above La Llorona and fell over her in a divine shower that bathed
her in what I can only describe as sunlight. Lighter and lighter La Llorona
grew until she was more than translucent; she was a silhouette of radiance.
“Rise, Malitzin. Rise, faithful daughter,” Tonantzin commanded. “It is
time for you to be reunited with your loved ones, time for you and your
children to claim your place among the stars.”
Beside me, La Llorona’s silhouette began to disappear until she was
completely gone. Then, to my amazement, I heard distant but distinct
sounds, a whisper of music and something else, the laughter of children
coming from high up in the sky. In the heavens, five bright blue stars
climbed out of the horizon and up into the studded sky. They circled each
other playfully before settling to the right among a cluster of smaller stars,
forming a new constellation just below Ursa Major — woman and her two
children, forever reunited in the sky.
 “So this is what it was all about, a new constellation — new life in the
universe,” I whispered, overwhelmed by the magic my sisters and I had
helped the goddess create.
“Yes, restoring that which was once lost. You have done your part, my
tiniest of butterflies,” Tonantzin said, turning to me. “Odilia, you are a true
princess, and you’ve made your ancestors very proud. The courage and
wisdom you have acquired through this ordeal, this odyssey, will serve you
well as you grow into womanhood. You will have a very prosperous life.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” I said meekly, and then because I
couldn’t help it, I had to ask. “But what about Mamá? At first, I gave her
the flowers. Then when nothing happened, I realized they were intended for
La Llorona, so I delivered them to the right person. But I’m still worried
about Mamá. Will she be all right without Papá?”
“Your Mamá is Mariposa too, tenacious and fierce, but generous with
her love,” the Virgen assured me. “She will be transformed soon enough.
From this pain, she too will gain the strength to fly. But now, it is time for
me to take my leave. Thank you once again, for letting your heart be your
guide.”
With that, the Virgen de Guadalupe, Tonantzin, our Great Mother in the
sky, disappeared. Her splendid image dissolved into the brush, and I was
left standing by myself in the shadow of a thin, waning moonlight.
“Will we ever see you again?” I whispered, trembling all alone in the
darkness. “Will you ever come back to help us if we need you, or must we
face things alone from now on?”
“Only the sun is alone in the sky,” the Virgen’s voice answered me from
beyond the shadows of the night. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel
her presence all around me. “I am with you every day. I am the moon, the
stars, the sky. I am the river. I am the morning sigh. Remember, mi
Mariposa pequeña. You are one of many. You are one of us.”
At her words, a swarm of butterflies fluttered out of the hackberry
shrubs and flitted around me, dusting me with delight. With her voice still
echoing in my ears, I got on my bicycle and pedaled home. A brood of
cheerful, incandescent snout-nosed butterflies trailed behind me, glistening
in the moonlight — like fireflies, like hope.

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LA LUNA: “La luna todo lo ve,
pero nada dice.”

THE MOON:“The moon sees everything,

but says nothing.”

It surprised me quite a bit that we should miss Papá. After all, he’d been out
of our lives for almost a year before his return. Nevertheless, for weeks
after the incident, the girls sat around discussing it, wishing things could
have been different. That he had loved us more. That we had been enough
of a family to keep him home.
Not me. I kept my feelings for Papá tucked away, like a tiny rosebud
hidden within the pages of an old forgotten book. Back in the darkest corner
of my heart it lay, so well pressed that its fragile edges might chip, break
off, even disintegrate if I tried to touch it.
Some days, however, for no apparent reason and without my awareness,
sorrow would crack my resolve. I’d be tending my herb garden, clipping
sprigs of fragrant leaves or replanting tender roots, then all of a sudden, a
single tear would fall down my face without my awareness, surprising me.
Perplexed, I would touch it and wonder what had happened to bring it forth.
The answer was always there, tucked away within the brittle pages of that
closed book — Papá.
After a while, however, my wounds began to heal, and I found that I
didn’t cry unexpectedly anymore. My heart had accepted the loss, and like
my sisters, I too began to move on. School started up again, and we all went
willingly, even gratefully, back to a normal life. I tended my herb garden
every day and when Mamá cut her hand peeling nopales, I put milenrama
on it. When she saw that it had healed quickly, Mamá suggested I might
become a doctor someday. I think I like that.
The weekend after Easter, we celebrated my birthday with a Sweet
Sixteen party. The event was strange and unusual to us. Our friends and
loved ones were used to attending debutant balls, but since I didn’t have one
the year before, this party was like my make-up quinceañera.
It was a beautiful reception. Mamá had taken extra care to decorate the
backyard with white ribbons. There were calla lilies at every table, and the
deck was shining with the twinkling of white icicle lights that trailed over
trees and shrubs to create the illusion of a fairyland, a garden for mariposas.
Juanita and the twins were my official damas, my female attendants,
and each of us had been assigned a nice, handsome dancing partner, a
chambelán. We’d fretted about finding boys to be our official escorts, but
Mamá had a lot of comadres and they had a lot of sons from which to
choose. She did a nice job, because I was assigned the handsomest boy in
the neighborhood. His name was Mario Cortés, and he had big green eyes. I
liked him very much.
The night of the party was soft and dreamy, with a warm breeze drifting
in and out of our backyard. The girls and I danced with our escorts until the
balls of our feet hurt, and we were forced to slip off our heels and dance in
our bare feet. Mario kept stepping on my toes, so I had to jump back every
time he got creative. It was silly, but we laughed about it most of the night.
 By midnight, I was still keeping an eye on his shiny shoes when I saw
something moving behind the trees to the left of our house. At the rustle of
leaves, I froze and Mario bumped into me head-on, almost knocking me to
the ground. He grabbed at my corsage to try to keep me from falling.
“Ouch,” he said, releasing me suddenly.
“Are you all right?” I asked, keeping an eye to the left of me, trying to
figure out who was hiding in the foliage. For a second I thought it might be
Pita looking for fireflies, but she was standing at the cake table, digging into
her second helping.
“I cut myself on your corsage,” Mario said, sucking on the side of his
index finger.
“Let me see,” I said, examining his hand. “It’s just a pinprick. You’ll
live.”
“Oh yeah, tell that to Sleeping Beauty,” Mario protested teasingly.
A man stepped out of the shadows into the well-lit yard. “Oh my God!”
I whispered.
“What? What’s going on?” Mario asked, following my gaze.
Papá stood in front of our two lime trees, looking across the dance floor
with his hands in his pockets. However, it wasn’t me he was looking at, but
Mamá, who was dancing at the other end of the yard with a man in a
pinstriped shirt and navy blue slacks, a man we had all come to know and
love.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, leaving Mario to wonder what was going on.
As I walked toward him, Papá turned to look at me, and his face broke
into a rueful smile that didn’t quite match the sadness in his hazel eyes.
 “It gladdens my heart to see you like this, Odilia. All grown up,” Papá
whispered as I leaned in and allowed him to give me a small, reserved hug.
I had not expected to see him that night, but the mildness in his voice told
me he had not come to make trouble. “Feliz cumpleaños, m’ija.”
“Thank you. You look handsome tonight,” I said, returning his rueful
smile.
“Thanks,” he said, fiddling with the boot slider on his bolo tie and
looking at the ground nervously. “I didn’t want to embarrass you on your
special night.”
“Right,” I said, not sure of what else to say to him.
“I know you probably weren’t expecting me, but I just needed to come.
I wanted to talk with your Mamá. I had hoped . . . well, that she and I . . .”
He looked sideways toward Mamá, who was still dancing, oblivious to us.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly understanding.
“She looks happy,” he said.
I turned around just in time to see Special Agent Aaron Gonzales spin
and twirl Mamá to the beat of a fast paced cumbia. Aaron had been right
about CPS. After a brief investigation, they decided there was nothing
wrong with our little family, but the experience deeply affected Mamá. It
had taken a long time, months and months, but Mamá changed. She had
inched herself into the process, like a caterpillar. First, she had changed her
work schedule so she could go to night school. Within months she’d taken
her GED test and received her certificate. After that, she started to attend
community college and got a new job as a clerk in a private school, where
her boss didn’t mind if she kept a close eye on her daughters. She had
grown in many ways, but especially in love.
 In Aaron, Mamá had found a strong heart, and she’d attached herself to
the offered hand slowly, cautiously, making sure he was the right man with
whom to start a new life. But when she’d emerged from the safety of her
cocoon, Mamá was happier and more radiant than we’d ever seen her. In
our eyes, she was reborn into beauty — celestial, divine. And we couldn’t
be happier for her.
“She’s like a butterfly — radiant,” I said, letting out a long held breath.
“Everything’s all right now.”
“Listen, about what happened . . .” Papá began, his voice suddenly full
of emotion, and I felt kind of sorry for him because I knew what he was
about to divulge.
Stories about him and what had transpired after he left our house that
last time were everywhere in our neighborhood. My sisters and I couldn’t
go anywhere without someone giving us the latest gossip, filling in the
holes where someone else had left off. The rumor mill had it that six weeks
into his marriage, his new wife ran off with a rancher who had a big house
on a hundred-acre spread in Nuevo Laredo. But that wasn’t the bad part.
She’d cleaned out his bank account before she left him, taking with her
every penny he’d ever saved from his years as a quasi-famous Tejano
singer. I heard he was singing again, but tonight I didn’t feel up to asking
him where or when. It seemed irrelevant, nothing more than idle chitchat.
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No. It’s not okay,” Papá continued. His voice was suddenly clipped,
terse, as if what he was about to say made him angry. “What I did was
wrong. I made a terrible mistake.”
 “Well, it’s over now,” I said, hugging him quickly, woodenly, trying to
pull myself away from the situation. “I should get back to the party.”
“Odilia.” Papá took my hand and tugged on it gently, pulling me in
closer to kiss me on the cheek and caress my hair. “You look beautiful.
Have a good time.”
“Thanks for coming,” I said, taking my hand out of his and turning
away from him.
“Okay,” he whispered. Then, taking one last look around the yard, he
turned around and walked away. As he disappeared behind the lime trees
lining the side of our house, I stood trembling in my bare feet, wondering if
we’d ever be close again, the way we were before he’d abandoned us.
Juanita came up behind me. She stood silently beside me, looking past
the trees and shrubs at the lone figure of a man moving away from our
house, crossing the street, and finally driving away in his car.
“And he didn’t even bring a present,” Juanita lamented. She put her
arms around me protectively and leaned in to kiss my cheek.
“He did,” I said, swallowing my tears. Her warmth engulfed me. “You
just can’t see it.”
I turned around and looked for Mamá. She wasn’t dancing anymore.
She was standing across the yard pulling the twins and Pita into her arms
and laughing at something. It was at that very moment that I knew with
certainty we would always be one, together forever, protecting our loved
ones, braving the wind and illuminating the sky.

THE END
OceanofPDF.com
 AUTHOR'S
NOTE

I have always been fascinated by the knowledge and wisdom of our

ancestors, the Aztecas. Their culture, their scientific observations, their
religion, their architecture, their language, their myths and legends —
everything about them is extraordinary. I wanted to write a story that
brought all the magic and wonder of my ancestors to my readers. I wrote
Summer of the Mariposas with the intention of showcasing both our modern
and ancient mitos y leyendas by juxtaposing them against one of the
greatest stories ever told, The Odyssey.
People ask me why I chose the horrible, much-feared La Llorona to be
the mystical mentor or spiritual guide for my beloved girls. I think it’s
because I’ve always believed La Llorona to be much maligned, and in a
sense I wanted to show her in a positive light.
I think of La Llorona in all her various mythological and legendary
forms, and I feel sorry for her. As Malitzin, the Aztec slave girl given to
Hernán Cortés, I find her to be one of our culture’s most controversial and
misunderstood historical figures. Legend says that when she became
Cortés’s interpreter and mistress she caused the fall of Tenochtitlan, and so
the people refused to call her by her given name and began to refer to her as
Malinche, the traitor.
However, while some defame Malitzin, she is celebrated by others.
They see her as a savior, the founder of Mexico, for without her assistance
Hernán Cortés would never have defeated the indigenous tribes of Mexico
and given birth to a new nation. Malitzin’s son by Cortés, Don Martín, was
one of the first Mestizos born in Mexico.
Over the years, history and legend blended and the truth became blurred
and smudged, but somewhere along the way Malitzin became associated
with the mythological figure La Llorona. According to the stories, Cortés
left Mexico to go back to court. There he became enamored of and engaged
to a Spanish noblewoman, so he returned to Mexico to retrieve his children.
It was that treacherous act that supposedly sent Malinche into such a rage as
to take her two children and drown them in the river to spite Cortés.
Somehow, I find that too abhorrent an act for any mother to carry
through. I’d like to believe that something else happened, something
horrible and unexpected and completely out of her hands. Why else would
she refuse to rest, to wail an eternal penance, to look for her children for
centuries? Why would she lose herself in her pain if she was anything but
innocent? I think it was just easy for people to villainize Malitzin and
believe her capable of killing her own children because she was so detested.
However, by presenting Malitzin in a modern setting, I am giving her
the occasion to tell “her side” of the story, to make us look into her heart
and know that a mother’s love is pure, not selfish or malignant. Using La
Llorona as a mystical guide afforded me the opportunity to redeem her.
After all, as parents, we all make mistakes and we all deserve a chance to
make things right, much like Mamá does at the end of this book when she
transforms herself.
Above all else, I wrote this story because I wanted to celebrate the
extraordinary bond between children and their mamás. Mothers are very
important. They have a special place en mi corazón.
Mothers are for love.

OceanofPDF.com
 GLOSSARY

abuelita (ah-bweh-LEE-tah): affectionate form of abuela (“grandmother”),

similar to “grandma”

aduana (ah-DWAH-nah): customs station at the United States entrance of a

Mexican border town

agua (AH-gwah): water

agua bendita (ah-gwah behn-DEE-tah): holy water

agua de tamarindo (AH-gwah de tah-mah-REEN-doh): cold drink made

from the tamarind plant

aguas frescas (AH-gwahs FREHS-kahs): cool drinks made from fresh fruit
juices

águila (AH-gee-lah): eagle

ahora (ah-O-rah): now or today

aire (AY-reh): air

al (ahl): to the

alacrán (ah-lah-KRAHN): scorpion

amigo (ah-ME-go): friend

Aramés, aramás, todavía nadamás, ven aquí, ven acá, aire frío, aire mío,
hazlas mías, cinco hermanitas, cinco estrellitas, serán mías, aramés,
arams: nonsensical phrases created to sound like a convoluted, mysterious
spell, translated as: “Arames, aramas, already nothing, come here, come
 there, cold air, air of mine, make them mine, five little sisters, five little
stars, will be mine, arames, aramas.”

araña (ah-RAH-nyah): spider

árbol (AHR-bol): tree

argolla (ahr-GO-yah): earring

arrepiéntanse (ah-rreh-pee-EHN-tahn-seh): repent

atarántala (ah-tah-RAHN-tah-lah): stun [her]

Ave María (AH-veh mah-REE-ah): Holy Mary

Ay (ay): Oh

Ay María Purísima (Ay mah-REE-ah poo-REE-see-mah): Oh, purest Holy

Mary

“¡Ay mis hijos!” (aye mees EE-hos): a saying credited to the mythological
La Llorona, “Woe to my children!”

Aztecas (ahs-THE-kah): the Aztecs

babas (BAH-bahs): slobbering fool

bebito (beh-BEE-toh): baby

bendita (behn-DEE-tah): holy

bien (bee-ehn): good, well, or very

bien águila (bee-ehn AH-gee-lah): very smart, clever

bobo (bo-bo): dummy

borracho [as in borracho beans] (bo-RRAH-cho): drunk [here: pinto beans

cooked with beer]
bruja/brujo (BROO-hah/ BROO-ho): witch/warlock

buen/buena/bueno (boo-EHN) (boo-EH-nah) (boo-EH-noh): good

buenas noches (boo-EHN-ahs NO-chehs): good night

buenos días (boo-EHN-ohs DEE-ahs): good morning, good day

bulto (BOOL-to): [here] a bundle, bulk, shape, shadow, a piece of luggage

cabeza (cah-BEH-sah): head

cabrito (cah-BREE-to): a young goat cooked in a ground pit

caca (CAH-kah): feces, excrement

cada (CAH-dah): every

caiga (CAY-gah): fall

calabacita (cah-lah-bah-SEE-tah): squash [here: zucchini]

calabaza (cah-lah-BAH-sah): squash [here slang: pumpkin-heads, dummies]

calavera (cah-lah-VEH-rah): skull

cállate (CAH-yah-teh): be quiet

cálmate (CAHL-mah-the): settle down

campechana (kahm-peh-CHAH-nah): flaky, buttery, honey-glazed sweet

bread

canícula (cah-NEE-koo-lah): dog days of summer

cantor (cahn-TOR): singer, also one who calls out the Lotería cards as they
are drawn in the game

canto (CAHN-to): song, melody

caso (CAH-so): consideration, concern

cazo (CAH-so): cooking pot

cerro (SEH-rro): hill

chambelán (chahm-beh-LAHN): male escorting a female attendant at a

quinceañera

chanclas (CHAHN-klahs): sandals

chaparrón (chah-pah-RRON): rain

chalupa (chah-LOO-pah): a canoe or small rowing boat

chalupita (chah-loo-PEE-tah): a small canoe, small rowing boat

chiflada (chee-FLAH-dah): spoiled brat

chilaquiles (chee-lah-KEE-lehs): breakfast food made with pieces of corn

tortilla, eggs, and other savory ingredients: usually tomatoes, onions, and
hot peppers (chiles)

chiles (CHEE-lehs): hot peppers

chinampa (chee-NAHM-pah) man-made island, commonly used during

Aztec times on Lake Texcoco to grow crops

chinchontle (cheen-CHON-tleh): fictitious plant used to sedate Odilia and

her sisters

chiquito (chee-KEE-to): little one, child

chismosa (cheez-MOH-sah): person fond of gossiping

chupacabras (choo-pah-KAH-brahs): mythological creature from Mexican

folklore said to kill goats and other farm animals by sucking their blood

cielo (see-EH-loh): sky

Cihuacóatl (see-wah-CO-ahtl) [Nahuatl]: Aztec Mother Goddess, goddess
of motherhood and fertility as well as midwives.

cinco hermanitas (SEEN-koh ehr-mah-NEE-tahs): five little sisters

claro que sí (CLAH-ro keh SEE): of course, yes

clínica (CLEE-nee-kah): clinic, medical center

cluecas (cloo-EH-cahs): brooding, slang for agitated or nervous

cola (CO-lah): tail

comadre (co-MAH-dreh): girlfriend, godparent

comercio (co-MEHR-see-oh): store

como (CO-mo): like

compadre (com-PAH-dreh): close male friend, sometimes also godfather

con (con): with

cóndor (CON-dor): condor, large vulture

corazón (co-rah-SOHN): heart

Corazón Salvaje (co-rah-SOHN sahl-VAH-heh): the title of a popular

Mexican soap opera which has been remade several times, most recently in
2009

coyote (co-YO-teh): coyote

cuando (coo-AHN-doh): when

cuatita (kwah-TEE-tah): twin girl

cueva (coo-EH-vah): cave

cumbia (COOM-bee-ah): a type of dance with Colombian roots, often
played at quiceañeras and other events where dancing is part of the
celebration

cumpleaños (coom-pleh-AH-nyos): birthday

curandera (coo-rahn-DEH-rah): healer, especially one who uses medicinal

herbs (feminine form)

dama (DAH-mah): lady, title given to a girl who is part of the royal court in
a quinceañera’s celebration.

dan (dahn): give

de (deh): of

del (dehl): of the

dejes (DEH-hehs): allow (past tense)

demonias (deh-MO-nee-ahs): female demons, slang for “brats”

desaparecida (deh-sah-pah-reh-SEE-dah): those who have disappeared

(feminine)

descuidada (dehs-coo-ee-DAH-dah): neglectful

desprendió (dehs-prehn-dee-OH): detached

diablito (dee-ah-BLEE-to): little devil

diablo (dee-AH-blo): devil

días (DEE-ahs): days

diles (DEE-lehs): tell them

Dios (dee-ohs): God

Dios Santísimo (dee-ohs sahn-TEE-see-mo): Holy Father

dorada (doh-RAH-dah): golden

egoísta (eh-go-EES-tah): selfish, egotistical

ejido (eh-HEE-doh): a system of communal or cooperative farming

El Sacrificio (ehl sah-kree-FEE-see-oh): a small town in Coahuila, Mexico,

off Hwy 57

El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (ehl sahn-too-AH-ree-oh

deh NWEHS-trah seh-NYO-rah deh gwah-dah-LOO-peh): Our Lady of
Guadalupe, a Catholic church in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico

enchilada (en-chee-LAH-dah): rolled tortilla filled with cheese and

sometimes beef or chicken and baked covered in red chili sauce

en su gloria (ehn soo GLO-ree-ah): in all her splendor/glory

es (ehs): is

escalera (ehs-cah-LEH-rah): ladder

escuincles (ehs-QUEEN-klehs): from Nahuatl itzcuintli (“dog”), meaning

little kid

está (ehs-TAH): is (refers to the speaker’s observation or perception of how

something looks, feels, tastes, etc.)

Estados Unidos (ehs-TAH-dos oo-NEE-dohs): the United States (of

America)

estás (ehs-TAHS): you are

estrella (ehs-TREH-yah): star

estrellita (ehs-treh-YEE-tah): little star

fajita (fah-HEE-tah): skirt steak, usually grilled

fantasma (fahn-TAHS-mah): phantom

farmacia (fahr-MAH-see-ah): pharmacy

Federales (feh-deh-RAH-lehs): Federal officers

feliz cumpleaños (feh-LEES coom-pleh-AH-nyos): happy birthday

fideo (fee-DEH-oh): vermicelli noodles cooked with chicken broth and salsa,
Mexican style

fiesta (fee-EHS-tah): party, celebration

frontera (fron-TEH-rah): border

gallina (gah-YEE-nah): hen

gracias (GRAH-see-ahs): thank you

greñas (GREH-nyahs): hair

guacamole (gwah-kah-MO-leh): avocado dip made with salsa and lime

guapo (GWAH-poh): handsome

guato (GWAH-toh): outburst, fit, making a show

Hacienda Dorada (ah-see-EHN-dah do-RAH-dah): Abuelita Remedios’s

fictitious ranch in the woods beyond El Sacrificio, Coahuila, Mexico

hago (AH-go): (I) make

hija (EE-hah): daughter

hijo (EE-ho): son

horchata (orr-CHAH-tah): cold drink made with rice, barley, sesame seeds,
and almonds

hormiguita (orr-mee-GEE-tah): little ant

huisache (wee-SAH-cheh): short, thorny tree with fernlike fronds, similar to

mesquites

Huitzilopochtli (weet-see-lo-POCHT-lee) [Nahuatl]: solar Aztec god, the

wizard god

jabalina (hah-bah-LEE-nah): peccary, javelina, skunk hog

jaras (HAH-rahs): arrows

jícama (HE-kah-mah): the spherical, elongated taproot of a yam bean

jojotle (ho-HO-tleh): fictitious medicinal remedy for grogginess or drug

overdose

la aurora (lah ah-oo-RO-rah): the dawn

La Laguna de Texcoco (lah lah-GOO-nah deh tehx-CO-co): Texcoco Lake,

Mexico City, Mexico

La Llorona (lah yo-RO-nah): the “Weeping Woman,” a legendary character

whose eternal penance for having drowned her children is to try to find
them, said to carry off children who misbehave

La Sirena (lah see-REH-nah): the siren or mermaid

lechuzas (leh-CHOO-sahs): barn owls, or in Mexican folklore, mythological

creatures said to have the body of a bird and the face of a witch, believed to
punish evildoers

levantan (leh-VAHN-tan): awaken

limosnas (lee-MOS-nahs): money attained from begging

limosnera (lee-mos-NEH-rah): beggar, street urchin

llores (YO-rehs): cry

llueva (yoo-EH-vah): to rain

Lotería (lo-teh-REE-ah): a popular board game in Mexico, played with

individual game boards called tablas and calling cards with images like La
Sirena, the Siren.

Lupita (loo-PEE-tah): nickname for Guadalupe

¡Madre de Dios! (MAH-dreh deh dee-os): exclamation, Mother of God!

mal aire (mahl AY-reh): bad air

malas (MAH-lahs): bad

malcriadas (mahl-cree-AH-dahs): spoiled

Malitzin [also known as Malinche] (mah-LEEN-tzeen): Aztec Princess who

betrayed her people and handed over the Aztec kingdom to the Spanish
Conquistador, Hernán Cortés

Mamá (mah-MAH): Mom

mamita (mah-MEE-tah): slang, little sister

mariposa (mah-ree-POH-sah): butterfly

marranito (mah-rrah-NEE-toh): dense pastry shaped like a piglet made with

sweet molasses and spices

mecate (meh-CAH-teh): rope

mía/mío (MEE-ah/MEE-oh): mine

migra (MEE-grah): slang, border patrol

m’ija/m’ijita(MEE-hah/mee-HEE-tah): term of endearment meaning
“beloved daughter”

milenrama (meel-ehn-RRAH-mah): yarrow (or acquilea, after Achilles), an

herb used to heal wounds and hemorrhaging

mira (MEE-rah): see

mis (MEES): my

mojarra (mo-HAH-rrah): perch

molcajete (mol-kah-HEH-teh): mortar

mole (MOH-leh): rich brown sauce made of chili peppers, spices, chocolate,
and peanut butter, usually served with chicken or turkey

molino (mo-LEE-no): windmill

Monclova (mon-CLO-vah): city in Coahuila, Mexico, off Hwy 57

moño (MO-nyo): a bow

mordida (mor-DEE-dah): bite

muchachita (moo-chah-CHEE-tah): little or young girl

mujer (moo-HEHR): woman

mundo (MOON-do): world

muñeca (moo-NYEH-kah): doll

músico (MOO-see-co): musician

muy (MOO-ee): a lot, much

nagual (NAH-goo-ahl): warlock

nietecita (nee-eh-teh-SEE-tah): little granddaughter

niña (NEE-nyah): little girl

Niño Fidencio (NEE-nyo fee-DEHN-see-oh): a famous Mexican healer, a

folk saint, unrecognized by the Catholic Church

nopal (no-PAHL): cactus

nuestro (noo-EHS-tro): our

Nueva Rosita (noo-EH-vah rro-SEE-tah): A village in Coahuila, Mexico,

along Hwy 57

ojito (o-HEE-to): slang for a stream or creek

Padre Nuestro (PAH-dreh noo-EHS-tro): Our Father, prayer

pajarillo (pah-hah-REE-yo): little bird

pájaro (PAH-hah-ro): bird

paliza (pah-LEE-sah): beating

paloma (pah-LO-mah): dove

Pancho Villa (PAHN-cho VEE-yah): famous Mexican revolutionary who led

the Northern division in Chihuahua during the Mexican Revolution

Papá (pah-PAH): father

para (PAH-rah): for

pasar (pah-SAHR): to pass

pequeña (peh-KEH-nyah): little

Pérdido (PEHR-dee-do): a play on the pronunciation of the word perdido,

meaning “lost”
piojos (pee-OH-hos): lice, bugs

pobrecita (po-breh-SEE-tah): poor little one

poco (PO-co): little, not much

pollo (PO-yo): chicken

por favor (por fah-VOR): please

preciosa (preh-see-OH-sah): precious

pues (poo-ehs): well then

puesticito (pos-teh-SEE-toh): little corner store

purísima (poo-REE-see-mah): purest

puro (POO-ro): pure, whole

puros (POO-ros): only

qué (keh): what

¡qué diablos! (keh dee-AH-blos): slang, “What in the world!”

¿qué pasa? (keh PAH-sah): What is going on?

¿qué pasó? (keh pah-SO): What happened?

quiere (kee-EH-reh): wants

quiero (kee-EH-ro): (I) want

quinceañera (keen-seh-NYEHR-ah): celebration of a girl’s fifteenth

birthday, usually a large party, that is her formal social debut; a quinceañera
is also a fifteen-year-old girl

ranchito (rrahn-CHEE-to): little ranch

raspa (RRAHS-pah): snowcone

ratoncita (rah-ton-SEE-tah): little female mouse; slang term for “petty thief”

remedios (rreh-MEH-dee-os): remedies

revolución (rreh-vo-loo-see-ON): revolution

rosada (rro-SAH-dah): pink

rosas de castilla (RRO-sahs deh kahs-TEE-yah): roses of Castile, originally

brought to the Americas from Castile, Spain, by missionaries and land grant
owners during the Spanish conquest of Mexico; is now an iconic symbol of
beauty and Mexican heritage

rumor (roo-MOR): rumor

Sabinas (sah-BEE-nahs): a city in Coahuila, Mexico, along Hwy 57

sacrificio (sah-kree-FEE-see-oh): sacrifice

sala (SAH-lah): living room, family room, or receiving room

santísimo (sahn-TEE-see-mo): holy

semillita (seh-mee-YEE-tah): little seed

señora (seh-NYOH-rah): lady, married woman

señorita (seh-nyoh-REE-tah): young lady; also a title given to an unmarried

woman of any age

serpiente (sehr-pee-EHN-teh): snake

sí (see): yes

sol (sol): sun

sopapilla (so-pah-PEE-yah): puffy pastry treat made from flour tortilla
pieces, fried and dusted with sweetened cinnamon or powdered sugar. It
puffs up with hot air and is often served with honey on the side.

sospechoso (sos-peh-CHO-so): suspicious-looking man

su (soo): your

tablas de Lotería (TAH-blahs deh lo-teh-REE-ah): individual game boards

for Lotería, much like bingo cards

taco (TAH-koh): often crisply fried tortilla folded over a variety of fillings
such as seasoned meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese

tamal (tah-MAHL): a specialty dish made from a corn based dough, filled
with spicy pork, meat, chicken, or other protein, wrapped in corn husks and
broiled. Served as a main dish. Dessert tamales are filled with a
combination of fruit and cheeses.

taquito (tah-KEE-toh): smaller version of tacos, tortillas filled with meat,

chicken, or any other breakfast or lunch protein and served as a main dish.

tarada (tah-RAH-dah): brainless, dim-witted

Tejano (teh-HAH-no): Texan, of or originating from Texas

telaraña (teh-lah-RAH-nyah): spider web

Tenochtitlan (teh-nosh-TEE-tlahn) [Nahuatl]: capital of the Aztec

civilization, now the capital of Mexico, modern-day Mexico City

tiene (tee-EH-neh): has

tlacuache (tlah-coo-AH-cheh): possum

tocar (to-CAHR): to play (instrument) or touch

Tonantzin (to-NAHN-tzin): Aztec mother goddess

torta (TOR-tah): pie

tortilla (tor-TEE-yah): thin, round bread made with flour or cornmeal, rolled
flat, and usually served hot with a filling or topping

traidor (trah-ee-DOR): traitor

tu (too): your

tuna (TOO-nah): prickly pear, cactus fruit

un (oon)/una (OO-nah): one

vago (VAH-go): vagabond or wanderer, lazy person

vámonos (VAH-mo-nos): let’s go

velorio (veh-LO-ree-oh): viewing of a body before burial, accompanied by

rosary prayers

venadas (veh-NAH-dahs): deer

verde (VEHR-deh): green

virgen (VEER-hen): Virgin

virgencita (veer-hen-SEE-tah): little virgin

viuda (veh-OO-dah): widow

y (ee): and

ya (yah): all right

yerbabuena [sometimes hierba] (yehr-bah-boo-EH-nah): a species of mint

[spearmint], used in teas to sooth body aches or stomach cramps

zopilote (so-pee-LO-teh): vulture

OceanofPDF.com
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I’d like to acknowledge my husband, Jim, who gets me as a writer,

but always manages to keep it light. Once, when I apologized for having to
write madly, passionately, and for long, exhausting periods of time, he said,
“Baby, you are beyond obsessed — you are possessed, but I love you
anyway!”
On crazy writing nights, he puts up with the punching of the keys while
he’s trying to sleep. On crazy writing days, he forgives me for not listening
to everything he had to say and brings Diet Coke and tacos to my computer
desk to keep the creative muse from starving or dehydrating me. On crazy
weeks-long writing binges (like Christmas break), he stays out of the
writing cave and fields all calls and lets me play in there all by myself
without being bothered.
Thank you for being my first reader, and looking at everything I write
with a critical eye and a kind heart, and for believing in me and my work.
Gracias, mi amor, for being a great father and soulmate, and for taking care
of so much while I chase this dream.
I’d also like to thank my editor at Tu Books, the talented Stacy
Whitman, who fell in love with my girls and helped me tell their story
honestly and with integrity while letting me be my poetic self. Thank you,
Stacy, for being a fantastic editor, a great teacher not afraid to use a red pen,
all the while asking a million valid questions and guiding me in absolutely
the right path. You taught me so much in such a short amount of time — I
am a better writer for it, and tremendously indebted to you.
I’d like to also thank Isaac Stewart for creating a magical, gorgeous
cover for Summer of the Mariposas. You are a genius!
I can’t forget to thank my sisters, Alicia, Virginia, Diamantina,
Angelica, y Roxana, for being themselves: sharing, arguing, caring,
fighting, hugging — but always in the most sisterly way. Your love,
courage, and sense of adventure inspired these characters — I am blessed to
have you as mis cinco hermanitas.
Once again, I’d also like to thank my McAuliffe family, my brothers
and sisters in education, most especially my writing cheerleaders, and
dearest friends: Veronica Huerta, Ceilia Bowles, Maria Ramirez, Rosalinda
Casillas, Nina Huerta, Gabriela Sandoval, Gayle King, and Mayo and
Amalia Caceres. Your encouraging words give me wings — thank you.

OceanofPDF.com
 ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

Guadalupe Garcia McCall received the Pura Belpré Award for her debut YA
novel, Under the Mesquite. She was born in Mexico and moved to Texas as
a young girl, keeping close ties with family on both sides of the border.
Trained in Theater Arts and English, she now teaches English/Language
Arts at a junior high school. Her poems for adults have appeared in more
than twenty literary journals. McCall lives with her husband and their three
sons in the San Antonio, Texas, area. You can find her online at
guadalupegarciamccall.com.

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Loved Summer of the Mariposas? Don't miss Under the Mesquite, also
by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.

When Lupita's mother falls sick with cancer, it is up to Lupita to keep

her family together as she discovers what it means to grow up. Winner
of the 2012 Pura Belpré Award and named one of the Top Ten Best
Fiction for Young Adults by the American Library Association.

Read on for an excerpt of Under the Mesquite.

OceanofPDF.com
chismosa
I thought I was being clever
by sitting just outside the kitchen window,
but I was wrong.

“¡Chismosa!” Mami chastises me

when she catches me eavesdropping
on her and her comadres.
Then she orders me to go scrub
the bathrooms, toilets and all.

After her friends leave,

Mami calls me into her and Papi’s room.
“You embarrassed me today,”
she says, sitting on the edge of the bed
with her arms folded.

I sit down cautiously beside her.

“Secretos should not be kept
from the oldest daughter,” I tell her.

“You may be the eldest, Lupita,

but there are some things
you are too young to understand,”
she says firmly, her face still angry—
disappointed.

“I know I shouldn’t have

been listening,” I admit.
 “But I’ve been worried about you.
Mami, I’m good for more than
changing diapers and putting little ones
to sleep. I can bear up when things
go wrong. You’re the one
who raised me to be that way.”

Mami puts her arms around me.

Then she kisses my temple
and rocks me back and forth
as if I were a baby.
But I haven’t been her baby
in fourteen years.

“It’s okay,” I whisper

against her cheek. “I know.”
My heart aches
because I have heard the word
that she keeps tucked away
behind closed doors.

“What do you know?” Mami asks.

We lock eyes,
and she knows I know.

“Don’t tell the others,” she begs,

and I hold her while she cries it out.

Read more in Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall! Available

in print and e-book. leeandlow.com

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