“Oh, boy.” She blew out a long, slow breath.
“Yeah, that feels good.” He smiled at her and nodded. “We should at least go say hello, right?”
“We kinda have to.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and, for the first time since they’d left Charleston weeks before, left her purse and everything else inside the RV. Somehow, it feels wrong to take anything with me. He followed and they stepped slowly out of the Winnebago that looked so strange parked outside a village in the middle of the jungle.
Birds squawked all around them, mixed with the buzz and hum of what sounded like incredibly large insects. A woman’s wail rang out from the center of the village, followed by laughter and numerous voices shouting, calling to each other, and spreading the news. The couple didn’t have to worry about what to do next. Rosalía and Filipe appeared from between the buildings. Each of them held a woman’s hand and dragged her along with them. She laughed and let them pull her, although they clearly would rather have been running although they moved at her more sedate speed. Tears fell from her eyes, and the trio was quickly followed by a tall, thin man who wore only shorts and jogged along behind them. The rest of the village poured out onto the packed earth toward the Winnebago, still lifting laughter and excited conversations into the air.
Lily smiled to see so much joy in so many faces as the twins stopped in front of her and Romeo. The woman pulled her hands free and opened her arms wide. “You!” She leapt toward Lily and wrapped her in a crushing hug. “Thank you. Thank you more than I could ever say.” She pulled her closer by her shoulders and left a wet, smacking kiss on her cheek. Without missing a beat, she released her and turned to Romeo. “Thank you both. This is—” She barked out a laugh and wiped at the constant stream of tears on her reddened cheeks. The tall man joined them and extended his hand toward the werewolf. When he took it, he jerked him closer and wrapped both arms around him, although he didn’t say anything. There were tears in his eyes too, and they finally started to fall when he reached for Lily’s hand and pressed the back of it to his lips.
“Lily and Romeo,” Rosalía said and raised her voice so everyone gathered around the newcomers could hear her.
“Call me Chalina,” the woman said, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and beamed at the couple who stood before her. She gathered the twins closer and pressed them against her.
“Aluino.” The man put his hand over his heart and nodded, his gaze intense as he looked at both of them. “You have no idea what it means to have our children home and safe.”
“They’re strong kids,” Romeo said.
“With strong friends, eh?” Chalina uttered another loud, hearty laugh and rocked her children vigorously by the shoulders. Rosalía and Filipe exchanged perfectly mirrored grins.
“Come with us,” Aluino said and waved the two strangers toward the village. “Please.”
“Yes! Come eat. Let us celebrate what you’ve done for us.” Weeping and laughing, Chalina turned and herded her children toward the cluster of houses.
The man smiled after her. “My wife and I want to thank you this way. Please.” A few other villagers echoed the same sentiments and shouted and beckoned the newcomers with waving hands, uncontained grins, and ceaseless nods. Lily saw tears in almost every pair of eyes.
She looked at Romeo and they both nodded at the same time. “We’d love to.”
“That’s really generous of you.”
Aluino waved them forward, then stepped aside and pressed a firm hand on Romeo’s back. “It will never be enough to show how grateful we are. But it is something.” The villagers crowded in around them now. All of them spoke at once and reached out to clap one or the other of them on the back or briefly touch their hands. When Romeo reached for Lily’s hand, she grabbed his tightly and let the villagers usher them between the buildings and into their home.
Fifteen
They were led in what felt almost like a parade toward a large building in the center of the village. It rose much higher on stilts than any of the surrounding houses, complete with a series of wooden steps leading to the entrance. The villagers separated into three different groups. One gathered the baskets of fruit on almost every porch, one had a large cookfire blazing to life with remarkable speed, and the third ushered their honored guests up the wide wooden steps.
“It’s cooler in here during the day,” one man said with a nod and gestured toward the large entrance at the top of the stairs. “You’ll be comfortable. And tonight, we can celebrate outside.”
Lily smiled at him and glanced at Romeo. “Something tells me we’re gonna be here for a while.”
“Well, maybe all this is part of making it better too, right? It’d be pretty rude to leave early, right?”
“Yeah. I think it would.”
Inside the giant building, they were led toward a large ring of woven mats around an empty metal dish. “Come. Sit with us.” Aluino gestured to the mats, and they chose theirs next to each other. It was much cooler in the building than outside in the sun, where the treetops had been cleared away to allow sufficient space for the homes. The structure also didn’t have a back wall, which allowed a pleasant breeze from the surrounding mountains into the large singular room but unfortunately didn’t make it any less humid.
Lily wiped the sweat from her forehead and hoped this was as much of a royal treatment as they’d receive there. I don’t know if I could handle anything else.
Chalina stood at the entrance, still wiping her eyes. “Go sit with your father,” she told the twins and hugged them again. “I’ll help Mali—”
“Stay.” Her husband stretched out his hand from where he sat on the mats. The woman’s small smile didn’t conceal her hesitation. “Chalina, our children have been returned to us. If it were anyone else’s children instead, you wouldn’t resent that family for wanting to stay together. They understand. Come and sit.”
With a little sigh, she released Rosalía and Filipe to sit on their own mats. The kids scrambled toward their father and their mother stepped gracefully forward to join them, lifting her bright-purple skirts, and lowered herself to the ground.
Aluino smiled at her, ran a hand down the back of her straight black hair, and turned toward their guests. “Any return of a child is cause for celebration. I would be as glad to see others come home again. We’ve had so many children taken from us, but this…this is the first time anyone has brought them back.” The man beamed at his children and slid his long arm around Filipe’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry?” Lily leaned forward over her crossed legs, shocked by what she’d heard.
“Rosalía and Filipe are not the first people to be taken from our village,” he repeated.
“They were kidnapped,” Romeo said.
“Yes.” Chalina nodded gravely. “And eleven others in the last three months. We haven’t found any of them. And we—” She stopped to lay a hand on Rosalía’s knee beside her. “We assumed the same would happen with our children.”
“Not only from our village.” Her husband frowned. “Our neighbors on this mountain have also lost people. No one knows who is doing this or why. We cannot stop them. They come in the night. Or they find who they want in Plan de Ayutla and take them without anyone seeing their faces. Villages like ours have been safe for as long as any of us can remember but something is changing this.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lily said. “Rosalía told us a little of what your people can do. The type of witches you are. Are these kidnappings by—”
“Other witches?” Chalina raised her eyebrows. “Magicals? Humans? If we knew the answer, we would tell you everything. But we simply do not know.”
“And we are not…equipped to stop it.” Aluino’s gaze fell to the floor in the center of the mat circle. “Our village and those around us are peaceful. Our magic relies on the earth and the earth needs us.” Those words made her look at Rosalía, who stared at her father with heartbreaking admiration. “But we cannot defend ourselves.”
“We do know how to create what we need from the land,” Chalina said and smiled at her family. “And we know of a place that has protected people in need since it was created.”
Her husband nodded. “Before our children were taken from us, those of us here with families decided to make this journey. I had hoped…” He swallowed and blinked quickly. “I believed that leaving would protect us. You came to our village at a good time. Now, I can go with the others to Ichacál with my entire family like we planned.”
Lily and Romeo shared another surprised glance. “You’re going to Ichacál? In Guatemala?”
“Have you seen it?” Chalina’s eyes lit up at the thought.
She shook her head. “Not yet. But we’re going there too.”
“You are Americans?” the woman asked.
Romeo nodded. “That’s right.”
“And you came all this way into Chiapas to find your way to Ichacál.” Aluino chewed on the inside of his lower lip.
“With a few stops along the way,” Lily added. “But yes.”
“We do not always know the reasons for why we choose a certain path. Or why it is chosen for us.” Chalina glanced at her husband. “I believe you came to Mexico to bring our children home. I believe this was your path to Ichacál.”
“I do not think you make this journey seeking protection.” Her husband narrowed his eyes at his guests. “What waits for you there instead?”
“Oh.” She looked at Romeo, who shrugged very unhelpfully. “We heard it’s a…powerful place for finding answers.”
“Ah.” He nodded sagely. “Knowledge is another form of protection. Yes.”
Once again, she found herself exchanging a pointed stare with Rosalía. “If it’s used the right way.”
“This is so.” The girl’s father looked at her too with a loving smile. “Today, our children come home. Tonight, we will rejoice. We will thank you, Lily and Romeo, with everything our village has to offer. Tomorrow”—he rested his hand on his wife’s knee and she settled her fingers over his—“most of us will leave for Ichacál. We would be honored if you joined us for all of it.”
“You mean to drive there with you?” Romeo’s eyes widened. “I didn’t see any cars.”
“No. We don’t have cars.” Aluino chuckled. “Although yours is very nice.”
“Then…” The werewolf’s expression remained confused. “Well, how will you get there?”
“I will show you.” The man pushed himself to his feet and beckoned them to follow.
Romeo stood, gave Lily a hand up, and leaned toward her. “Do you have any idea what we’re about to see?”
“I can’t even begin to take a guess.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Together, they walked across the wide room of this village’s central building and joined Aluino at the far end. The rest of his family followed until all six of them stood at the edge. The hillside descended sharply into a sprawling valley below them, hidden from the rest of the village by the jungle and this elevated building. Six wooden wagons were lined up on the first gentle slope into the valley, all of them in various stages of being filled with clothes, tools, and brightly colored cloth in intricate patterns. Four oxen grazed within an enclosure farther below in the valley—huge white-gray beasts with massive curving horns.
“There aren’t even enough animals to pull everything,” Romeo muttered.
“You’re taking wagons.” Lily tried not to sound too skeptical but it was ridiculously hard.
“Yes.” Aluino smiled at them and nodded toward the valley again. “And one or two of the animals for the larger ones.”
“The rest of us will pull the others,” Chalina added.
Romeo simply stared and his mouth opened and closed before he finally settled on, “That’s a really long way to walk.”
Their host chuckled. “It would take many days, yes. If we were only walking to Ichacál. We will walk some, of course. But the earth will do the rest.”
“How’s that, exactly?”
Their host and his wife exchanged a knowing glance, and Chalina offered them a warm smile. “If you decide to travel with us tomorrow, you will see.”
“For now, our people turn their hearts to the feast and the celebration tonight.” Aluino put his arm around his wife and stepped away from the edge of the building. Filipe leaned a little farther over the edge and peered down until Rosalía caught the back of the oversized t-shirt he still wore and jerked him back.
The girl stepped quickly toward Romeo and Lily and forced them to stop when she leapt in front of them. “I want to show you our village. Before we leave.”
“Rosalía.” The girl’s name from her mother’s lips couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a warning. “Offer.”
Her daughter nodded and turned so her mother couldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Would you like me to show you our village before we leave?” It sounded genuine enough but she fought hard to keep a straight face as she made the required offer.
“That sounds great,” Lily said.
Romeo smirked. “Yeah, I’ll take a tour.”
“Okay.” She darted toward her parents with a huge grin and hugged each of them fiercely. “Filipe, come on.” Her brother merely stared at her, then spread his arms. With a quick sigh, she stomped her bare feet across the wooden floor toward her twin and poked him repeatedly in the ribs until he finally squirmed, fought back a laugh, and headed to the wide stairs.
“Join us at the fire when you’re ready.” Aluino smiled and leaned toward his guests. “My daughter will show you everything. She will say she is not finished, but Rosalía is never finished. If you let her decide when to return for the celebration, you may never come back. Hm?”
Lily smirked at him and nodded. “Actually, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”
The man threw his head back, his laugh louder and deeper than she expected from someone so tall and thin. He shook his head and waved them toward the stairs. “Go. Enjoy the views.” Still chuckling, he turned back inside and rejoined Chalina.
The twins raced down the stairs, pushing each other and shouting until Romeo and Lily reached the bottom. The girl grinned at them and widened her eyes. “Come see our house first. Then you can see the others.” She hurried through the village and turned back a few times to make sure they were following.
“It’s one of those tours.” Romeo grabbed Lily’s hand. “This is probably gonna take a while.”
“Well, we can afford to hang around for a day, right? We might be past the point of turning it down now, anyway.”
“Yeah.” He frowned and glanced at the wooden homes on stilts. “I’m not sure I wanna go to Guatemala with oxen-drawn carts, though. That’s gonna take a few weeks.”
“I’m right there with you. We can tell them that in the morning before we head out, then. Maybe we should simply roll with everything else tonight?”
“That’ll work. A party in the jungle doesn’t sound too bad.”
Sixteen
Rosalía did, in fact, try to show them inside every single house in the village.
“What about the wagons?” Lily asked, and the girl abandoned the houses that all looked the same to sprint across the village and showcase something else. They found that if they asked about a certain location or item, she would instantly switch her startlingly unfailing enthusiasm toward exactly that. Felipe moved slowly on the perimeter of their little tour. He sometimes lagged behind to stare off at nothing and sometimes shoved his sister around and tried to distract her.
“Okay.” Romeo scratched his head after two hours in which they’d seen the village houses, the river, the wagons, the oxen pen, the gardens, and another massive sinkhole pit at the bottom of the valley. “I’m actually hungry now.”
“Oh!” The girl darted past him and scrambled up the first hill toward the village at the ve
ry top. “We have so much food. Sometimes, we can smell it down here but usually, the wind blows toward the village. Come on!”
He groaned at the thought of having to walk up the steep hill again, and Lily laughed. “At least there’s more shade now,” she said. “A little.”
“I’m glad we don’t have to cook anything. I don’t know if I’d make it that far.”
Sweating and breathing a little heavier than usual, they took the worn path all the way to the center of the village and so many huts. When they reached the top, the smell of something cooking was almost overpowering—the sweetness of corn, something mildly sour, and a combination of spices neither of them recognized.
“It’s ready!” Rosalía waved them on and they followed her through the few homes beside the larger, taller meeting hut. Behind them, Filipe whacked a large stick against every hard surface he passed.
The massive cookfire that had been lit had also been stoked and put to use in the center of the village only a few yards in front of the wide staircase to the largest hut. Most of the villagers were already gathered here and at least five of them peeked under the huge, broad leaves with which they’d covered the food over blazing coals. A thick pillar of steam and a little smoke spun into the sky, and everyone grinned at Rosalía, Lily, and Romeo. They bombarded their guests again with pats on the back, wooden plates of steaming food were passed around, and a few apparent jokes were shared that Lily missed entirely in the chaos.
“You’ll like all this.”
“Best of the harvest.”
“Water! Go get them some water.”
“You might not leave after you eat that, eh?”
The other villagers served themselves plates of the massive meal cooking in the huge pit, and everyone sat on the packed dirt, talking and laughing while they dug into the piping-hot meal with their hands and never once reacted to the heat.
“Ow.” Lily flicked her fingers away from the giant helping of food on her plate. “How do they do that?”
Any Witch Way (The Witch Next Door Book 3) Page 10