Each of Us a Desert

by Mark Oshiro

  Is that la poeta?

  No.

  No, it didn’t make sense.

  But they did seem to understand me.

  Can it be?

  There was a low growl behind me.

  Come, cuentista, Amato said, their voice reverberating in my skull. We have a final climb before us.

  I watched Ximen disappear.

  Solo quiero ser vista.

  I only want to be seen.

  Maybe that was them.

  And maybe la poeta wanted me to feel seen.

  And so we climbed.

  The road was wide, worn with ruts from the carts that had used it for years, but it narrowed as we pushed through las bajadas, squeezing us together, closer. I traced its path, up and up and up, and even if I could have followed it, even if it didn’t snake into ravines and rolling inclines, it was impossible to see the top.

  This is it, I told myself. One last climb.

  So much weighed on each of us. Emilia and I ascended side by side, panting in turn, and we continued in agonizing silence. We were pushed to our hands and knees when the trail became sharp and vicious, and I crawled upward, closer to you, closer to the truth.

  When we reached the first plateau, I dropped to my knees and threw my head back, gasping for air. I breathed deep as the muscles in my thighs twitched, threatening to cramp, so I drank water and rolled my fists over my legs, urging Emilia to do the same. I’d learned that move from Papá long ago.

  Papá.

  Was he worried?

  Disappointed?

  Had he already forgotten me?

  I bent over in a deep stretch, running my fingers over the muscles in my legs, digging them into the cords and tendons, the pain and soreness flaring in protest. I breathed in and out, tried to slow my galloping heart, then raised my arms above me. When I felt that I had regained control of my body, I opened my eyes, let your light pour into them, adjusted to the terrible brightness and—

  On the trail.

  Farther down.

  Right in the middle.

  Un sabueso.

  It didn’t move.

  I watched el sabueso’s lip curl up, heard the low growl that escaped it, and I tried to scramble away, but my feet couldn’t get a grip on the dirt road, and I slipped. I lashed out with both hands, desperate to hold on to something, but I slid down, down toward that gaping mouth, toward the bloody teeth, toward—

  “Xochitl!”

  Emilia had me under the arms, and it snapped me back, her terror flowing into me, and I stopped falling, stopped plunging into—

  It was gone.

  I blinked. Sweat broke out anew. I rubbed at my eyes, so sure that I was about to be devoured, but it wasn’t there.

  “Drink,” she said, and she held up her own water. As I gulped it down, washing away the bile that had risen in my throat, she asked, “What did you see?”

  “See?” I choked.

  “If you don’t get enough agua, Solís makes you see things,” she said. “Remember? You taught me that.”

  I swallowed more water, shame rippling over my face, heating it up. “It was nothing,” I said, even though I knew she was probably right. I had been walking for a long time; my last full meal was two days ago. “Nothing at all,” I added.

  Do you need help, cuentista?

  Amato came forward and pawed at me. I wondered if the guardians cared about me, too.

  It is important you make it to Solado, they said.

  I gave the guardian a brief scowl. Perhaps they didn’t. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Emilia?”

  She helped me up and steadied me, and a warmth coursed in my fingers, up to my shoulder, like what I felt before I took someone’s story. But it was gone as fast as it had arrived.

  Did she know the effect she had on me?

  I settled my pack onto my back, wiped the sweat that threatened to sting my eyes, and I began to walk.

  And I walked.

  And walked.

  And walked.

  You climbed in the sky.

  We climbed closer to you.

  And you punished me. That’s what I believed as my water got warmer. As the cramps throbbed in my lower back and at the bottom of my abdomen. As the stories stretched out and fought for room. As the summit stayed in the exact same spot, never moving, never getting any closer. Was every moment a penance I had to pay, a price torn from my skin and from my mind?

  I lost track of time as it stretched out, became everything and nothing all at once. My water was rancid in my stomach, but I knew I needed it. I became the desert, more vacant and alone than ever before, as if you had hollowed me out, replaced me with exhaustion and suffering. I was no longer whole. No longer real.

  I slowed again close to el mediodía. I thought I was better at this, and shame rippled through me. I poured hot water over my head, enough to soak my hair, and it ran across my scalp, gathered in the band of cloth around my head.

  “Are you as miserable as I am?” asked Emilia.

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I spoke. “It’s like everything has slowed down. I can’t seem to remember anything but walking.”

  “Ay, Xo, take a break,” she said, and she dropped her bag next to me. “Más agua,” she said.

  “Mine is boiling,” I said. “It’s too hot.”

  “Let me see,” she said, and I handed her my water bag. She tipped a bit of it into her mouth, then shook her head. “Xochitl—”

  “I know,” I said. “But I don’t have anything else, so it’ll have to do.”

  “No, it’s cold.”

  She took my hand, let some water trickle over my hand.

  It was cool.

  Rest, Amato ordered. You are getting worse.

  A spark of disagreement burst in me—was that Ofelia, deep down inside, her spite and ire ripping through me?—but my body simply would not move. I accepted it, and I lay back in your light, let the darkness rush in at the corners of my vision, then shut my eyes, granting the shadows a home inside me.

  I heard their voices—was it the stories? Was it Emilia?—swirling about, but I wouldn’t open my eyes. Couldn’t. I wanted to stay here, to stay in the darkness and rest and sleep and never return.

  Mamá was here. I heard her, then Papá, and was that Raúl’s laughter, too? Were they all here?

  “Xochitl!”

  My eyes burst open and light poured in. There was a pressure at the back of my skull, and it throbbed, pushing into the back of my eyes. I coughed again, and each outburst sent flashes of light into my vision.

  You must not fall asleep, not now, Amato said.

  Emilia was there, her hand behind my head, cradling it.

  “Where are we?” I blurted out.

  “We’ve pushed so hard,” said Emilia. “All of us. And it’s catching up to you. You closed your eyes, and then you were just … asleep.”

  My head was a hazy mess; it was as if I’d been under for days. I gazed at the guardians who rested around me, most panting in the unbearable heat.

  So it wasn’t just me.

  We were all suffering.

  Each of us a desert.

  I drank more water, then asked Emilia to help me up. My head did not spin when I did so, and it was enough to get me moving. I ate a piece of dried manzana at the urging of Amato. You need more energy, they said. It is not much longer.

  I craned my head. That didn’t seem true.

  When we began to walk again, Las Montañas taunted me. At first, the distance seemed impossible. After making a few switchback turns on the trail, the summit was closer, closer than before. Hope blossomed like the flowers that bloomed during the night, under las estrellas. Then it seemed to stretch away from me.

  You sank in the sky.

  My shadow reached toward the horizon where night would fall first.

  Amato stuck close behind me as Emilia led me up. She slowly undid her braids, let her hair fall back. The other guardians padded along in a procession, Emilia and I the head
of a strange serpent.

  Look, they said.

  I glanced up the trail.

  It widened.

  It ended.

  It crested the top of la montaña.

  I tried to take it as a good sign. We were almost there. Our future was on the other side.

  My future was there.

  Would I find what I was looking for?

  Nos estiramos por siempre

  We stretch forever

  I pushed harder and harder, ignoring all the signs that my body was ready to stop. The pain. The cramps. The needles in my stomach. The dread. The higher I ascended, the worse it got; the more that I wanted to get on all fours, push those stories out of me, expel that bitter refuse into the earth.

  But I couldn’t give them back. Not yet. I was too close.

  Emilia reached it first. She stood at the trailhead, hunched over, then she was suddenly upright. I propelled my body forward at the sight, my huaraches digging into the dirt, and I rounded the last switchback, and I stopped dead in that spot. It was too much. Terror. Panic. Rage. Elation. Grief. I no longer managed to differentiate between what was mine, what was theirs.

  Solado was so close.

  This would be over.

  The guardians rushed past me; their paws pounded in the dirt of the trail.

  I pushed myself over the last rise. A burst of wind hit Emilia, and that long hair of hers flowed toward me, as if she floated in water, and I reached forward, closed the distance, and our palms were sweaty, filthy, but we did not care. We were both breathing hard, my head light and airy, and my vision swam with dizziness.

  We had made it.

  We had made it.

  “Come,” said Emilia. “Just a bit more. Let me show you my home, Xo.”

  I let her guide me.

  The guardians fanned out on either side, and they all remained silent as we pressed forward.

  I saw the shadow first. At least, I thought it was a shadow, cast in the wake of something I couldn’t see. The darkness spread, and then the flatness of the top of La Montaña de Solís gave way, and my heart was in my throat, racing, throbbing, and I could not speak.

  The earth yawned before us.

  The landscape was blackened, torched, an endless vacancy of ash and destruction and decay. There was nothing in either direction: No árboles. No saguaros. No ironwoods or mesquites or paloverdes. No pájaros. No living creatures of any sort.

  It was all death, everywhere I could see.

  The stories of La Quema that I had grown up with were always that: stories. We were told of how fiercely you scorched the earth, but now I was seeing it for myself. I was seeing what you had really done to us.

  And it terrified me.

  “We have to go,” said Emilia. “Rest a moment, have some agua, but … we have to go.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just … need to take it in.”

  Emilia stood next to me as I tried to accept what my eyes were seeing. Everything within view was … gone.

  Everything.

  “This is actually the first time I’ve seen it in daylight,” she said. “I guess we both share that.”

  She made the sign.

  I did not.

  I couldn’t.

  Because standing there, looking at your judgment, I had one realization:

  There was nothing we could have possibly done to deserve this.

  We rested, and then continued.

  I cannot say that it was easier. As we descended into el valle de las cenizas, it began.

  All the stories woke up.

  All of them.

  I still wonder if you did that, Solís. Was it out of spite? Had you been silent this whole journey, only to finally speak up? Was this your means of communicating with me?

  It was like a war in my torso. I grimaced viciously as we descended on the trail, and thankfully, Emilia did not look back. I kept up a good pace, but those stories tore at me. Begged for attention. Begged for release. I couldn’t tell what they wanted. Companionship? Did they require other stories to latch on to? Or were they imploring me to drop to the earth and return them all to you?

  I thought I did not understand what was happening to me, but … I knew. I knew exactly what it was. How long had I known? Must have been a while. I had not admitted it out loud, but it was right there, all along.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  I kept the stories in.

  I kept walking.

  There was a point, more than halfway down, where we met the ashes. Whatever happened during La Quema had been so intense that a good third of la montaña was scorched, too. Each step sent ash up into the air. I briefly crouched and picked some up from the trail.

  They crumbled, then wafted into the air. No smell. Only a thin dusting of blackness in my palm.

  All that remained of those who had not gone underground, who had perished in La Quema.

  I pushed myself onward, wondering if I would survive this, too.

  Emilia led us down into el valle, but it was the guardians who led us into Solado.

  By the time we reached the flat expanse beyond las bajadas, light was still pouring over us, but the heat had waned. Shadows stretched longer and longer. Emilia told me that we should not stop, that we should get below ground as soon as possible, but the guardians stopped in front of the two of us, blocking our path.

  No, Amato said to me, the first they’d spoken in hours. You must tell her to follow us.

  Emilia shook her head as I relayed their message. “I’m the one who grew up here,” she countered. “Mami taught me how to leave, remember?”

  This place is not what she thinks it is.

  I twisted to stare at Amato, unsure if I should share what they just told me. “What do you mean?”

  You must trust me. The final piece is here.

  “What final piece?”

  Maybe I was too exhausted to entertain any politeness.

  Maybe I didn’t care about whatever mystical journey these guardians had planned for me.

  Maybe I wanted to find Simone and be done with this entire nightmare.

  “Why can’t you just speak plainly?” I yelled. “Are you afraid if you tell me the truth, I won’t want to follow you?”

  The guardian bristled, and its yellow eyes flashed red.

  You have known the truth all along, and yet you yourself deny it.

  “So why don’t you tell me the truth if I already know it?”

  My head throbbed on the last word, and a darkness grew at the edge of my vision.

  “Xochitl, what’s happening?” Emilia asked, her voice high and worried. “What are they saying?”

  “For some reason, this one insists that you follow them.”

  Emilia frowned. “Do they know about Simone? Maybe they mean to take you to her.”

  I looked back at the guardian.

  Please, Amato said, and for the first time, their voice in my head was soft, pleading. There is one last thing we need of you.

  One last thing. I had come so far to free myself of this curse and escape my life of isolation. Could I really turn back now?

  Your answers are here, Xochitl, Amato said. Please. Come.

  It was the first time Amato had spoken my name, had not referred to me by a title I had not asked for.

  “I think we should trust Amato,” I said, letting my breath out with the decision.

  And so we did. The guardians took us through the ashes. My feet sank to their ankles in them, and I did my best not to think of what they were before.

  How much farther was it?

  Was I close to Simone?

  What would the future be like?

  She fidgeted next to me, kept biting her bottom lip.

  “Emilia,” I said, as the guardians kept us moving forward.

  Her piercing eyes focused on me.

  “We can do this,” I said. “We have the guardians on our side. We will find Luz, we will find Simone, and then we’ll get out.”

  “I’m
not worried about that, really,” she said, and she twirled her hair around a finger. “I mean, I am. It terrifies me.”

  The ashes crunched beneath our feet.

  “Then what is it?”

  “You should ask them about los pálidos,” she said. “The people in the white cloaks. How are we going to get past them?”

  I took a step forward.

  Another.

  Another.

  My skin prickled all over, as though something were passing over me, and it caused me to shiver from head to toe, and then it, too, was gone.

  Emilia stepped up next to me. “You feel that?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  The guardians stilled in front of us.

  We are here, Amato said, and he must have said it in both our minds, as I heard the air leave Emilia.

  The guardians parted.

  And I stared into a gaping hole in the ground.

  It was about ten paces ahead, a terrible, dark thing, as if some huge being had reached down and tore the chasm out of the earth. The edges of it were jagged, and the maw opened to reveal …

  … darkness.

  Our fate is down there, Amato said. We will lead the way once more.

  “Wait!” I cried out. “What about los pálidos?”

  Amato’s reaction was brief. They swung their head, pawed at the ground. You will be safe. We promise.

  “What did Amato say?” Emilia said, her voice high in terror. “Are we going to be okay?”

  I nodded. “They said we will be safe.”

  “Xochitl.”

  My name dripped off her tongue, and Emilia shook next to me.

  “I don’t know what we will find down there.”

  Neither did I. And Solís, it terrified me.

  The guardians—all of them, their muscles rippling—poured into the hole, one by one, until the leader was left.

  Follow us.

  Then Amato was gone.

  I reached down, traced my fingertips over Emilia’s, and her hand opened. I took her fingers in mine, and we walked together into the darkness.

  It enveloped us, closed in, held us tight, and panic gripped me when I realized I could not see more than a few paces ahead of us.

  She gently tugged me forward, and our footsteps echoed within the passageway. My eyes began to adjust, and I could make out the edges of the tunnel. I ran my fingers along the cool rock, impressed at how smooth it was.