by Mark Oshiro
“Why would I do that?” I stood up then and I walked away from her, taking the goatskin bag with me. This was foolish, and despite how exhausted I was, I had to leave. There was no way this was anything other than a ploy to keep me distracted. Julio was bound for us, and I was not going to let him catch me. I would lose myself in Obregán, and I would leave this entire nightmare behind.
“I can help you.”
I scoffed at her. “No, you can’t. Not with what I need.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, her voice in a high, pleading tone. “What my father did to him. But that’s not what I meant.”
I packed up my sleeping roll but kept la pala close.
“I can help you with something else.”
Don’t listen to her, I told myself.
“I know someone en mi aldea who can take your power away.”
I stilled.
My breath was caught in my throat.
“She offered it to my papi before he chose his path. Before he became corrupted.”
“You’re lying,” I said, and I couldn’t control how shaky I sounded. The idea was offensive. “There’s no way that’s true. You can’t give this up! No one can.”
“I know it can happen,” she insisted, and she stood and came toward me, her hands up. “My friend Ivan used to be a cuentista. He is the one who gave the power to Julio.”
“No!” I threw my hands up in the air. “And he did so without dying?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Ivan fell in love with someone, someone who needed him, someone who understood him. So he sought out our curandera—Simone—and she did it for him. She said it could never be reversed. And Papi volunteered to take it on. He…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Her gaze dropped down, and her bottom lip quivered.
“He what?” I moved closer. “Emilia, what did he do?”
“I have to tell you my story,” she said.
“But I don’t know if I can!” I said, my face twisting in frustration. “You heard the truth back there.” I pointed to the south, toward Empalme. “Those stories … they’re all still inside me.”
“Please,” she pleaded once more, wiping at her tear-streaked face.
She was manipulating me. She had to be. If a pesadilla threatened her, then maybe I should leave her be, let it claim her for all the times she never bothered to stop the brutality of her father.
But it was so hard. This was what I had been told to do. It was all I did. And kneeling there, in front of someone who seemed so desperate, I didn’t know how to say no.
No matter how far I had run from Empalme, I was a cuentista. I knew nothing else.
“That is all I will do for you,” I said, and my voice was flat, threatening. “After I am done, you will tell me where to find Si- mone, and then I’m leaving.”
She nodded quickly. “It’s not a trap,” she said, and maybe if she hadn’t always been so cold, I would have felt pity for her. She sat up, her hair now tied in one long braid down her back, and she still trembled when she held her hands out. A panic threaded through my veins, and I told myself that if this was a trap, I was probably surrounded already.
Was I wrong to be curious? Was I wrong to want to know why she had followed me so very far, without any supplies that I could see?
I reached out. Put my palms faceup. Emilia put her hands in mine—they were wet with sweat, and now I could see that her arms were covered in a dark substance, dust and dirt caked on to it. Blood.
Whose blood?
“Are you ready?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“Tell me, Emilia. Why are you here?”
Let me tell You a story, Solís.
Emilia was born far, far to the north, in a place she was too young to remember, and then she was taken to a land of devastation when she was still an infant.
She grew up in Solado.
Julio never forgave himself for what had happened. They came at night, dressed in strange pale outfits with monstrous masks on their faces, and then, when Emilia’s family awoke, they were underground, in a new home, one that was forced upon them. Her family learned the hard way that this was how they took you: under the cover of night, while you slept, when you were most vulnerable.
They had a name, one given to them by the original inhabitants of Solado, those who had survived the initial attack:
Los pálidos.
The ones who wore the pale vestiments.
Emilia’s mother, Alegría, told her stories of where they had lived before: among los árboles, the cover of the leaves shielding them from the heat of Solís. Whenever she spoke of this place, her eyes sparkled. Emilia could tell she missed it.
It was nothing like the tiny room they inhabited in Solado.
All their homes were carved out of the underground passageways. They were cool and dark, which Emilia loved. It was all she knew. But her parents were haunted by the low ceilings, by the lack of sunlight, by los pálidos who now controlled their lives.
Julio believed that he had been weak not to defend his family, and it was not long before his time in Solado transformed to bitterness. He should not have been asleep, he reasoned, or he should have woken up when los pálidos came to steal them away.
No matter how often his wife, Alegría, or Emilia told him there wasn’t anything he could have done, he still believed with his whole heart that he could have saved them.
Alegría, however, adapted. She had a daughter to raise, and Emilia grew up with a mother who taught her many things, but of them all, the most important was how to thrive. “This is not enough,” she told Emilia once when she was little. “One day, I will get us out of here, mija. I promise you. But until then, you must feel alive.”
She taught Emilia weaving, which came naturally to Alegría, but Emilia struggled with it. Alegría made colorful, vibrant serapes, taking inspiration from the layers of rock and sediment they found deep below the ground. These caught the attention of los pálidos, the strange people whom they never saw without their ghastly outfits. It wasn’t long before they realized they could make money off Alegría’s work, and then she was given a privilege few enjoyed:
Alegría could leave Solado.
So Alegría was allowed back aboveground, and Julio despised his wife for the freedom. He felt he should be the one allowed out so he could begin to plot their escape. But Alegría assured him that this was meant to be, that she would find a way to free them all.
But Emilia’s father never truly believed her, and his acidic resentment grew and grew.
Alegría’s time was split: she would spend weeks weaving down below, then would go away for days at a time, only to return with stories of the land around Solado. “Solo era ceniza,” she told Emilia. “Solís took Their anger out up there. It really is poison.”
“How do you survive, Mami?” Emilia asked.
“Los pálidos give me their masks,” she explained. “They are uncomfortable. But they keep me alive.”
One morning, Alegría sneaked Emilia through the tunnels, past the crops and other homes and the large hall for meeting others. She showed her daughter the exit she always used whenever she left their underground world. She walked Emilia back slowly, forced her to memorize everything she passed.
“One day,” she told her, “you may need to leave. I want you to know how.”
Emilia did not understand, but she obeyed.
Alegría gave her daughter stories. She taught her about their old home, of the forests that seemed to stretch up to las estrellas, of all the growth that had sprung to life after Solís set the world on fire. “I miss seeing the sky,” she admitted. “The blue. The sun. The way the light filters through tall branches.”
“Is the sky not blue anymore, Mami?”
“Sí, mija, it still is,” she said, stroking Emilia’s hair. “I just don’t see it that much.”
“What do you see? What is above the earth?”
She told her. Of aldeas near an
d far, of those who lived aboveground in the sun and heat, who hunted water, who lived en las montañas. She told her everything she could.
She even said that the land above Solado was destitute, that Solís must have punished the original inhabitants with a unique fury.
Whenever Alegría was home, Emilia was inseparable from her. They weaved together; Emilia learned how to use a loom; Alegría taught her how to tie back her hair quickly and efficiently. They were constantly at each other’s side.
And Julio came to resent that, too.
Five years ago, Alegría disappeared. She was taken above-ground for a delivery, and she had kissed Emilia on the forehead before leaving. “Hasta pronto,” she said. “I’ll have a surprise for you when I return.”
One day became two.
Became seven.
Became a hundred.
Julio began to drink again.
Emilia clung to hope for a long time. Success kept Mami away, she reasoned. Each morning, she expected that when she opened her eyes, Alegría would be back at her loom, weaving a new, more colorful design, and she would welcome Emilia with open arms and a story.
But it never happened.
And Emilia sank deeper into her grief.
It was around this time that strange creatures began to haunt the passageways in Solado. Sabuesos, they were called. It seemed to be a rumor at first, but not long after Alegría disappeared, Emilia was certain she saw one in the fields, stalking behind rows of maíz. She tried to tell her papi about it, but … well, Emilia’s father had his own life to live.
This was how it went: He tended the fields during the day, harvesting food that mostly went to los pálidos. Then, Julio would leave in the early evening to go find his friends, and Emilia knew he would not return until he was even more drunk, even more resentful. He would come back and shower Emilia with kisses and affection in apology. Then he would gently pick at her, criticize her, remind her that she was not her mother, and then the yelling would begin. He hated that Alegría had left, he hated that he was not so talented as she, he wished he could have sold the serapes instead, and it happened over and over and over again.
Emilia missed her mami terribly, but it was not until Alegría was gone for over a year that she realized she also missed her best friend.
So Emilia stopped talking. What was there to say to Papi anymore? She could only apologize so much for something that was out of her control. So when the guardian appeared at her door—in the form of un perro, a long, lanky creature with dark, short fur, black spotted with gray—Emilia assumed the worst. Her mother was gone forever, and they had come to take her next.
But the guardian said nothing. They sat next to Emilia, curled up against her when she cried herself to sleep that night, and every morning, she awoke to the guardian at the foot of her bed.
Was she chosen? Emilia had no idea. But every day, that guardian—whom she named Luz—stuck by her. Luz accompanied her when she started to work in la huerta, a place deep in one of the caverns where children first began to pay their dues. It was the most time she spent around los pálidos, and it gave her a sympathy for her father. They were a miserable people.
“It’s why they wear those damn monstrosities,” Papi had explained after her first shift picking manzanas and carrying baskets full of them to another part of Solado. “Apparently, Solís punished them worse than everyone else, and the light of the sun is deadly to them.” He laughed at that. “They think they are owed the world.”
After weeks of the difficult labor, with only one day to herself, Emilia began to talk. She told Luz about what little she remembered of Alegría’s stories of their old home, then told her about her mami. Luz sat there and occasionally tilted her head as if she was listening. Emilia appreciated it, and so she told more stories, often while she was collecting fruit that had fallen to the ground. She shared her fears and her anxieties with Luz so frequently that years passed before she realized she had not sought out Ivan. Why would she need a cuentista when she was telling the truth to her guardian?
And then Emilia started making up stories. She imagined a life outside of Solado, outside of all this labor, outside of wishing for her mami to come home. As the years passed, she stopped thinking it was possible, but her stories kept alive the tiniest sliver of hope. Maybe her stories could come true.
It was less than a year ago that Julio burst into their home, panting and sweating. He said nothing at first. He bundled some of his clothing together, brought them up to his nose, sniffed. Stuffed them in a bag. He laughed, then looked up at her. “I am finally free,” he said, and Emilia’s heart sank. The joy dripped off him. “And we are leaving this wretched place.”
“Leaving? For where?”
“Didn’t you hear? Simone has given me a gift.”
Luz rose from the floor; the fur on her back bristling.
Tienes el poder de una cuentista, she said.
As long as Luz had been by her side, she’d said nothing to her; this was the first time Emilia had ever heard that voice, deep and sensuous.
“I do,” said Julio, and a wicked smile spread over his lips. “And I already used it, and now I know how to leave.”
Do not go with him, Luz said. He will corrupt everything.
“She is my daughter,” Julio sneered. “She will do as I say.”
“What do you mean by ‘using’ your power, Papi?” Emilia pushed herself up from her bed. “What have you done?”
He crossed the room quickly, unnaturally. “Don’t you get it, mija? No one has ever used it as I have.”
“I’m confused. How did you—?”
“Ivan,” he said. “Ivan wanted to be with his man, and Si- mone needed a volunteer, someone she could give the power to instead.”
Luz growled again. You are supposed to be pure of heart.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice giddy. “Because Si- mone believed me.”
He threw an empty bolsita at Emilia then and ordered her to pack. Emilia knelt and ran her hands over Luz’s head. “Luz, what’s happening? Is this real?”
Unfortunately. There was a chilling pause. Emilia, mi amor, you must not go with him.
Emilia clutched at her chest. She trusted Luz unconditionally, but she still could not believe that she was speaking aloud. She wanted to do as she was asked, but she found herself gazing up at her papi, lost in her confusion.
“Me and my men … we are heading south,” Julio told her, caressing her chin, and then he moved on to her clothing, started piling them on Emilia’s bed. She grabbed at him to stop him, and he swatted at her as if she were nothing more than an insect. “It is time for me to stop waiting around this place for your mother to bring us our fortune.”
Emilia was terrified, but no matter what Julio said about Mami, she stood up for her. “But how can you—?”
“I’m done waiting,” he said, and the smile he wore on his face cut her down.
“Papi, we can’t leave,” she begged. “What if the stories are true? What if the land above us is poison? What if we die because we don’t have protection?”
He ignored her, as he always did.
She held on to Luz as her father’s men—Emilia did not even know their names—came into her home. She screamed as they grabbed her arms and legs and yanked her out into the passageway. Luz began to howl, then leapt at one of the men, tearing at his forearm, determined to reach her.
The last thing Emilia saw of her home was one of those men looping a rope around Luz’s neck and holding her back. Her guardian pulled fiercely on the rope, yapping and howling and crying out, and then Luz was gone, lost around a corner.
Emilia was wrested from her home that night, and, under the cover of darkness, she left the land of devastation. Just before she was taken aboveground, her face was wrapped tightly in a rough cloth; she was told that this was for her protection. She could not see much at all, and her voice was gone from all the screaming, but she paid attention. She watched as they stepped out
into the arid land above. With each foot forward, the ground crunched underneath her. She listened to Papi talk to the others of what they could do now that they were free. What Julio would be able to accomplish as a cuentista.
They threw Emilia on the back of a pale horse, tied her in the saddle. She did not fight much. Where could she go? She tried to see what she could in the light of las estrellas, but the eerie glow filled the land with shadows. She passed out then, mostly from terror, her head against the horse’s neck, her eyes focused on those impossible twinkles of light above her.
Las estrellas.
She awoke in the back of a wooden cart, one that rumbled and bounced along a dirt trail, and the sun was just beginning to rise. She lifted herself up, and the sight of the desert made her gasp. The hills unfolded around them, the landscape stretched out in every direction, and panic filled her. She had lived her entire life trapped, enclosed, with ceilings and walls she could reach and touch at all times. There was a thickness in the air from Your heat, and she ran fingers over her arms, her face, down her legs, felt the moisture along them, the way sweat beaded on her skin, and she sucked the air deep into her lungs. It did not poison her. She did not collapse, she did not plunge to the ground and clutch her chest, she did not die.
She was still alive. What else had she been lied to about?
Emilia saw her father ahead of her on a light brown horse, but he seemed uninterested in her. They journeyed in silence, and she did not know what direction they traveled. South, as Julio had declared? West? East? How far had they gone to escape the land of ash?
By the time You were firmly in the sky, she had prayed to You. Asked You to tell her what was happening. But You said nothing. Julio and his men—she counted nine of them—instead spoke of what awaited them in each new aldea. Riches. Glory. Power. They spoke of a time long ago, centuries before La Quema, when there was a dignity in control, a respect gained from taking what you wanted. “That is what our masters taught us,” Julio said, riding alongside the cart. “We are done pleasing Solís, mija, so you can stop praying. We are done living by all these rules, in all this guilt, and we are done waiting for a god to speak to us. We will speak to Them.”