Each of Us a Desert

by Mark Oshiro

  I could see inside my own body. The stories were dark blotches in me, each of them with uneven borders and boundaries that collided with one another, over and over again. They were scrounging for space, pushing up against organs and bones and muscle, and each little battle stung and pierced me, sent fiery pain rushing up my body.

  Then the first of them got the idea, an infectious one, and it rammed into another, on purpose, crushing against it until the boundary broke, and the two stories became one. Whose were they?

  Omar.

  Ofelia.

  Lani.

  Lázaro.

  Lito.

  Marisol.

  Emilia.

  Soledad.

  Eliazar.

  Eduardo.

  The liars.

  The desperate.

  The abandoned.

  They fused, each embracing the terror and isolation of the others, and it was a comfort: they had found someone like themselves. They had discovered that they were not alone. And they had discovered this inside my body.

  They grew.

  They found Eliazar. His grief. His regret. It felt familiar to them. How much had each person lost? How much did they blame themselves for what had torn their lives apart? He joined them.

  They grew.

  There was Emilia’s story, her longing, her terrible desire to escape, and Marisol held her, told her that life aboveground was possible, and Eduardo knew what it was like to want more for yourself, and they embraced, all of them.

  They grew.

  And there was Manolito. His secrets. They all had them, and they all knew how badly they had wanted to keep the truth from the world. From themselves. When they took Manolito in, they offered him pity, then understanding.

  They grew.

  They grew inside me.

  I was ready to burst.

  Was a body meant to hold all of this? Was one person supposed to contain so many truths, so many stories? Or had I defied my design? Was I the first?

  Would I be the last?

  The guardians were right. If I did not return these stories …

  They would consume every last bit of me.

  * * *

  I awoke later in the morning, and the stories were coalescing, waging a war against my own sense of self.

  “I can’t make it,” I told Emilia, but before she could react, Amato had their paw on me.

  Look at me.

  I lifted my eyes to them as quick as I could, obeying the guardian.

  You are la cuentista, they said.

  “I am,” I replied aloud.

  Emilia trembled, grabbed my hand, and I surged again, tried to tell her that we were okay.

  You take stories.

  “I do.”

  They do not normally cause you pain.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never kept them so long before this.”

  Other cuentistas have. Why does this cause you so much trouble?

  I coughed. “Because I am not the others, Amato.”

  They regarded me as I tried to drink water. Even that was a struggle.

  There are many inside you. Too many.

  I nodded.

  They are consuming you.

  “Sí,” I said, and my voice faltered. “I know.”

  You don’t have much time. Perhaps a few days at most.

  I didn’t bother asking how they knew. “I am almost done,” I said. “I need to get home.”

  Home. They said the word as if they were tasting it, trying to determine its flavor. Such a strange concept. Why must you wait? Why can you not return the stories now? Would you not then experience relief?

  I couldn’t say it. Their breath was warm on my face as they snorted at me. I could sense Amato trying to will me to do it. To say the thing I had known but would not vocalize.

  “Xo, what’s happening?” Emilia asked.

  You refuse the truth.

  “I’m scared,” I said, and my voice broke.

  The longer you deny it, the worse it will get.

  “Please,” I said. “I am almost there. I am almost done.”

  You will have to face it, joven. It is now or later, but it cannot be changed. You must face the truth.

  “What about your truth?” I spat my words at Amato, and they reeled back.

  We are guardians of the truth, that which is passed on to us from Solís. Their voice was fiery in my mind as they spoke. We learned from Them, and we honor Them.

  “Is that why you destroyed Solado?”

  Emilia gasped. “Xo, no, we don’t have to do this now—”

  I cut her off. “When, then? When is a good time?”

  “Don’t you think I’m furious, too?” Emilia snarled. “My home is gone. Abandoned. Everyone I knew … they’re all dead or gone or somewhere else. I lost it all!”

  But Solado had to be cleansed, Amato said.

  “Did it?” Emilia shot back, and it was clear that Amato had allowed their voice in her head. “You couldn’t root out los pálidos and spare the rest?”

  Amato dropped their head down, and it was the closest thing to shame I had seen in one of the guardians.

  “You didn’t give them a choice,” I said softly, my throat raw and arid. “Just like no one gave me a choice about being a cuentista. No one ever let me choose.”

  Amato was silent for a long while, and we sat there in the paltry, useless shade.

  We had not thought of things like that, they admitted. We only knew one way.

  I grunted in response to them. Had anyone thought about what it was like to give an eight-year-old girl the power to take stories? Had anyone thought about how constrained and suffocating my life was?

  No.

  “Let’s get going,” I said, leveraging myself up with the paloverde trunk. “I want this to be over.”

  And I wanted to choose something different.

  I had not relaxed long. We continued, bound for La Reina Nueva.

  Time is short if we are going to make it today, Amato told me.

  “There’s no way I can make that journey in less than a day,” I said. “It’s not possible.”

  Not alone.

  I did not know what they meant until I heard the musical sound behind us.

  She whinnied to let me know that she was here. Emilia and I spun around, and she was beautiful, like the color of goat’s milk, with patches of brown the same shade of my skin. Her coat shone brightly in the morning light as she moved from side to side, her plodding anxious, eager.

  She is ready for you, they said. She will make an exception.

  “Gracias,” I said. “But I’ve never ridden a horse before.”

  Amato said nothing.

  I exchanged a look with Emilia, then shrugged.

  We had both seen stranger things in our lives.

  Emilia had ridden before, so she hoisted herself up, then pulled me up next. “Hold on to me,” said Emilia, and I gripped her around the waist, my face in her long hair, and she smelled of the earth, of sweat, of flowers.

  We begin, Amato said.

  I nearly fell as soon as the horse began to trot, and my distance from the ground was even more frightening once we were moving. I bounced up and down on the back of that beautiful creature, and Emilia laughed, an infectious, joyful noise. “You’re too tense, Xochitl,” she said. “Relax. Trust her. She knows what she is doing.”

  Your love is wise, Amato said. Perhaps you should listen to her.

  My love. Why would Amato say that?

  I braced myself first, not listening to their advice, but it only made it worse. I learned my lesson quickly. The earth passed in a blur, the wind whipping at my face, blowing Emilia’s scent into my nose, and I let my fear go. I leaned into her, still clutching her waist, and I watched the guardians, galloping all around us, their paws gracefully digging into the dirt as they ran.

  We thundered along, the only sound in the desert. From my vantage point, I looked out at the land, watched as the saguaros rushed by,
the tops of their tall hides covered in white flowers with yellow centers. All of them had bloomed, tiny beacons of hope and beauty that guided us south.

  I could see that beauty this time. I didn’t remember much of the surroundings from even days earlier, but with my feet off the ground, my hands locked around la poeta, I could take it in. I saw the long shadows cast from the saguaros, how they stretched across the ground as if reaching for one another. The dark bark of the mesquites we passed glistened in the sunlight.

  And her hair was so smooth, so shiny and perfect.

  The day before, this trip, from La Reina to las bajadas, had taken a quarter of a day. The crumbling wall came into view so much faster than I expected, and a nervous energy thrummed through me. We had left people behind, and I had accepted that we would probably not see them again. But there—to the east, tucked behind a pile of rubble—a head popped up, whistled, and then they came out, a few at a time, and then Rosalinda was there, her jaw dropped open, too, and I climbed down from our horse, hit the ground hard.

  “May I talk to them?” I asked the leader.

  Do not take long. We have far to go.

  I walked up to Rosalinda, whose hands were up to her face, and her eyes were red in the morning light. “Ay, niña,” she said. She gazed wide-eyed behind me. “What have you done?”

  This was not an accusation. It was a celebration. She pulled me into a hug, and I saw Felipe behind her, his own eyes wide in disbelief, too. I hugged him, too, held them both long and hard.

  “What is this, Xochitl?” she said. “Who have you brought with you?”

  “It’s time for me to go home,” I said. “To face the truth.”

  The children of La Reina Nueva gathered around, brought fresh nuts and prickly pear to us, and a fire was started. One of the girls had managed to catch a rabbit, and she wanted to gift it to us, the ones who had saved their guardians. I tried to explain that this was not the case, but she would not hear it.

  And I told them everything I could. I had to. It felt good to do so at first. The children listened intently, never interrupting once as Emilia and I took turns explaining what had happened on Las Montañas de Solís. We told them of the journey, of entering Solado, of finding Eduardo y Luz, and they all hung on to every word.

  “Did you find our parents?” Gabriela said, her eyes alight with hope.

  That part was the hardest. I held Emilia’s hand as we talked, as we took turns filling in the final gaps of the story, as we revealed that the guardians had cleansed Solado … and had cleansed everyone who lived there, too.

  I will never understand it, Solís. And it made me question it all. How was it fair that you had done the same thing so long ago? How many truly innocent people had you destroyed, just to make a point?

  A shame spread through me. I had believed your story so wholly, Solís, so willfully. And I saw that unwavering devotion and hope in those children, in how they expected us to succeed.

  But we didn’t. Their families were gone. And all we had for them was sorrow and pity.

  Some of them cried, perhaps Pablo the hardest. Others were numb, and yet others took this revelation as if we had merely told them something mildly irritating. Everyone grieves in their own way, and Rosalinda—who sat Pablo in her lap, caressed his hair as he sobbed—had a difficult job ahead of her. But she wanted it. She was made for this.

  “What will you and Felipe do?” I asked her.

  Rosalinda set Pablo down on the ground, and he scurried off. “We don’t know,” she said. “We have to discuss this with the children. Felipe wants to stay, but that’s a lot of work. A new aldea.”

  “Building one here?” asked Emilia.

  Rosalinda nodded. “Or we could make the journey together back to Obregán. Find new homes for them. But something tells me they won’t want to do that.”

  She smiled, then sent one of the children, a young girl with tight braids down her back, to wash herself. It was so natural for Rosalinda. And she had chosen this.

  And now it was time for me to do the same.

  “I am happy for you, Xochitl,” said Rosalinda. “What will you do when you return to Empalme? Will you continue to be a cuentista?”

  “I don’t know what else I can do,” I said. “It is the only thing I know. My whole life was decided for me.”

  “We all decided to come on this journey,” she reminded me. “You get to decide how to end it.”

  But did I want to end it? If I returned to Empalme, to home, and I performed the ritual, would I continue? Would I keep doing what I had been taught to do?

  My struggle with this was obvious. Rosalinda wiped her hands and stood. “Mija, you do not need to make these decisions now. You have time. Go home. I am sure your family will be overjoyed to see you. They will understand in time, even if at first they do not.”

  “And I will do what I can to help,” said Emilia. “If you want me to.”

  I considered telling them all the final thing, the one truth I couldn’t quite accept. But I smiled, and I told them that it was time to leave, that our guardians wanted us to go. I bade them goodbye—once again uncertain I would ever see them again—and we climbed upon our horse.

  Amato spoke briefly with Pablo, assured him that the guardians would all return shortly. That idea—that I would be done with everything so soon—sent a nervous energy through my body.

  You are conflicted, Amato said, staring up at me with piercing eyes.

  “I’ll make a decision,” I said.

  You do not have much time, they said. If you fail to act, you will die.

  We left La Reina Nueva as fast as we could.

  The dread hit me when I remembered what came next.

  I was taught as a child that all things rot, that we become a part of the earth as time passes. The first time I saw a dead body outside of Empalme, the coyote had perished many weeks before. Most of their bones had been picked clean by scavengers, but I never forgot the discoloration of what little fur remained, or how I could see remnants of what they used to be.

  Eliazar had not been dead nearly that long.

  I told myself to keep my eyes straight ahead, to avoid looking to the earth, because perhaps I would miss it, and I would not have to be scarred by the memory of his corpse.

  I would have missed it all if Emilia had not cried out, had not pointed to the east.

  There, not far from us, was a brilliant patch of green and yellow and pink, a burst of life in the soil that had not been there before, each of the prickly pear barrels vibrant in color, and, floating above one of them, some sort of pájaro, tiny and just as colorful, its wings beating so furiously that I could not see them.

  “Do you know what they call those?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. It landed on the top of one of the trunks of the prickly pear, leaned its tall, thin beak into a flower, drank.

  “Un colibrí,” she said. “They are a sign of good luck.”

  It sped off into the distance.

  I stared at the patch of prickly pear.

  It was the spot, wasn’t it? The last I had seen of it, it was covered in zopilotes.

  “Maybe he is in a better place,” she said, “and this is how he wants us to know.”

  I wanted her to be right. Was he at peace? Was he finally resting? Had he reunited with Gracia? I wished I knew what happened after we left your world, Solís.

  I wanted so many things at that point. I desired hope. I desired an answer. I desired rest.

  “Come,” Emilia said. “We must keep moving.”

  There was a part of me that wanted to stay there forever.

  But we moved on, and soon, in the midst of the hottest part of the day, our eyes found the bones of La Reina, of la ciudad that had been punished, wiped of life like the rest of the world.

  I thought of the dead that had followed us. Before, I had been terrified of them, had believed that they were ready to harm those of us who had not told the truth.

  But what if I h
ad gotten it all wrong? What if they wanted those who passed through La Reina to bear witness to what had happened to them? They were cleansed as Solado had been. They were full of stories that had gone untold for years and years and years.

  They awoke in me. A single mass. A single story.

  We slowed as we approached, and Amato could sense my hesitation.

  Why are you afraid?

  “I do not know what this place will show me,” I admitted.

  You survived it once. Surely this means it will be easier for you to face it again.

  The sun pressed on my skin. I held Emilia tighter.

  “Vámonos,” I said.

  We moved forward, tentatively at first, the guardians prowling serene at my side. Emilia sat tall and sure. “You will be fine,” she told me. “You have told the truth. You have nothing to hide.”

  She was wrong.

  Amato stopped. Our horse neighed softly and stilled. A prickle ran over my scalp, down my back, and I shuddered.

  “Xochitl?” She clutched one of my hands, the one pressed against her soft belly. “What is it?”

  He has arrived, Amato said, looking behind us.

  I twisted my torso until I saw him.

  The blood.

  The wound.

  The sadness.

  “I warned you, Xochitl,” he said. “And you went anyway.”

  “I had to, Lito,” I said, and I faced forward. I gave the horse a gentle kick, and she started moving.

  “I’m proud you did,” Lito said, and now he was walking to my right side. His stump still bled, his torso was still torn apart, and his face was a terrible mess.

  “But you haven’t admitted the truth, Xo,” he said.

  Emilia said nothing. Did not look at him. I don’t think she could see or hear him; she kept her eyes straight ahead.

  La Reina had something just for me.

  I was angry, resentful that this place had decided that only I deserved the truth. Images of Lito’s letters filled my mind, his anger at the rejection—

  No. That was … Ofelia, wasn’t it?

  I shook my confusion off of me.

  “There is not much time, Xo,” Lito reminded me, still shuffling alongside us. “You can’t wait.”