The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina

by Zoraida Cordova

  The old bruja was right where she’d always been. Her warm brown skin was cracked like parched earth, and her hair, still ink-black despite the years, was braided into a crown around her head. Those black eyes crinkled at the corners, her mouth split into a dark smile.

  Rey felt his own heart spike with relief and terror combined.

  “Mamá?” Marimar gasped.

  “Oh, my saints,” Tatinelly said, pressing where her baby kicked hard.

  “Fuck me,” Rey said, reaching for a cigarette, but he was out.

  “What did I tell you about staring?” Orquídea asked, her voice strong and raspy as ever.

  “Do it?” Rey grinned.

  Because how could they not stare? Orquídea Divina Montoya was the same as she’d always been from the waist up. It was the rest of her that needed some getting used to.

  Thin green branches grew straight out of her wrists, her inner elbow, the divots between her finger tendons, like extensions of her veins. They wrapped around the high-backed upholstered chair with the laurel leaf embroidery. Flower buds the size of pearls bloomed from the branches sprouting out of her beautiful skin.

  Her peacock-blue dress was pulled up to show her knees, where flesh and bone ended, and thick brown tree bark began. Most spectacular of all were her feet, now turned into roots. The same roots that tore through the floorboards and dug straight into the earth, searching and searching for a place to cling to.

  7

  THE GIRL AND THE RIVER MONSTER

  Before she arrived in Four Rivers, before she came to steal her power, before her mother married, Orquídea was just an ordinary girl who spent most of her days by the river. Until one day, she had her first taste of the impossible. On the same day, she made a deal.

  It happened during an unusually dry summer when no one could catch a single fish. Not even Pancho Sandoval who’d been fishing in the same river since he was younger than Orquídea. Pancho was slender but muscular, the kind of body built by hunger and manual labor, his skin reddish brown from days under the equatorial sun. He was worried. They all were. No fish meant nothing to sell. No food. No food and no money meant sickness.

  Everyone in the city felt the strain. Jobs were scarce. Isabela’s office cut her days. She took a job cleaning houses for a fraction of the usual wages. They ate white rice with a fried egg on top for every meal for weeks. Orquídea did the only thing she could. She skipped school and took that familiar road to the end of the pier.

  The río Guayas was always clay brown, the rich earth giving it its color. Green weeds covered in thorns floated across the surface and always snagged her net. There was no breeze. There was no reprieve from the heat. Even the river was too warm to swim in.

  “Pancho, can I borrow your canoe?” she asked, shielding her eyes from the sun with the flat of her hand.

  “There’s nothing there,” he lamented. “Some of us are thinking of going a little ways south to scare up some luck.”

  “Well, so am I.”

  “You should be in school. I didn’t go to school. Now look at me.”

  She did look at him. Pancho could weave hammocks faster than anyone. He could swim across the río Guayas like a fish. He could climb the mango tree with his bare feet. But no one needed hammocks, and there were no fish, and the mangoes were rock hard that summer. Some people just had a talent for things, but they were born poor or ugly or unlucky, and all they could say was “look at me” and try their hardest.

  “I am looking at you,” Orquídea said. “I have a feeling. I need to be here. Let me take your canoe. I’ll split whatever I catch with you.”

  Pancho mopped the sweat on his face with the front of his shirt. He wheezed his cracked beer-bottle laughter. “I don’t know if you’re the devil’s child or an angel’s.”

  Orquídea shrugged. She’d already met her father and he was neither.

  “Fine,” he relented. “I’ll go with Jaime and the boys.”

  Ten and stubborn, she went out. Her arms hurt from the push and pull of the oars. Her head spun from sweating all the coffee and water she’d drank that morning. Guayaquil was laid out before her, an ever-changing landscape that was always at war with itself. It had the blood of fighters in its soil. Its rivers. And turmoil gives rise to monstrous things.

  The time of myths was long gone, but there were still stories that lingered. Stories she overheard from the wrinkled mouths of women who had witnessed and survived more than the turn of the century. They spoke of water spirits that liked to play tricks on humans. To keep them in their place, groveling in the dirt with sand in their eyes.

  In all her time fishing, she’d seen strange things. Inexplicable things. Fish with human teeth, a blue crab the size of a tortoise, a lizard with two heads. She’d hear the wind speak to her when she stood at just the right angle. She thought she’d seen a human face poke its head out of the water before swimming across the river to the shores of Durán.

  “I know you’re there,” she said.

  She couldn’t see the bottom. She could barely see the flat end of one of her oars because the river had so much sediment. She hoisted the oar up and over, laying it across her seat.

  “I know you’re there,” she said, this time louder.

  Orquídea stood up, her borrowed canoe bobbed on the surface of the river. A clump of leaves floated by, a plastic bottle tangled up at its center.

  “If you tell me what you want, then I’ll find a way to help you,” she said.

  Heat scorched her neck. She cupped a bit of water in her hand and splashed it on her skin. She sat, resting her elbows against her knees. Her mother had always told her not to sit that way, that ladies sat with their legs crossed and not open. But she wasn’t a lady out on the river. She was just like everyone else—someone who wanted answers and maybe a little bit of help.

  The river grew increasingly still. The wind died. Even the ships and cars, whose sounds made the city feel like a constant scream, stopped.

  A creature crept out of the murk and over the side of the canoe. Orquídea didn’t have a word for it, other than “monster.” But what was a monster, really? She remained where she was, showing neither fear nor revulsion at its crocodile face and reptilian humanoid body less than three feet tall. It had the patterned belly of a turtle. She noticed neither sex nor belly button. Its webbed hands ended in sharp yellow claws, but not as sharp as the toothy smile it flashed.

  “What do you want, Bastard Daughter of the Waves?” the creature asked.

  “My name is Orquídea.”

  “You do not bear your father’s name. But he is of the sea. A sailor through and through.”

  “I don’t claim him.”

  “Ah, but the water claims you. Hence—your title. Now, what do you want?”

  Orquídea decided not to argue with the river monster. “I want you to bring the fish back. People are starving.”

  “What is that to me?” the crocodile monster said, pressing a clawed hand to its chest, as if indignant to the accusation. “I have lived in this river since before the time of men. Before iron and smoke polluted these waters. I have lived in this river since before it ran red with blood and your people set the coasts on fire. What do I care if humans starve?”

  Sweat ran down the sides of her temples. Not because she was scared but because her insides were squeezing water out like her body was a wet rag.

  “I know why you’re angry. The world is bad and sometimes good things happen, not the other way around. But if you have been here since before strangers came to these shores, why starve us out now? Why are you angry now?”

  The creature turned its face to the side. Yellow reptilian pupils stared at her, unblinking.

  “I have always been angry, Bastard Daughter of the Waves. The other day, I was in the shallows near Puná, and I watched a ship unload garbage into the waters. I was buried under it for days and no one came to help me. The other fish and crabs couldn’t hear me.”

  “How did you get out?”r />
  It remained silent for a long time, showing the uneasy stillness of the animal it took its likeness from. “A little girl was rummaging through the waste. She cleared a path. I scared her.”

  “So, you hate us and starve us, but a girl helped you. That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “How did you even know I was here? No one knows my name.”

  “Someone does. Someone remembers you. When I was a little girl, there were these old women who talked about the crocodile monster who waits on the shore. That once, it wrestled a fisherman and lost.”

  “I did not lose,” the monster said, but its words were sour, angry. “He cheated. Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re trying to help them. I have seen you on the shore since you were old enough to walk alone and remember the way back home. Or perhaps, this river is the only home you want to claim.”

  Orquídea shrugged. “As long as I have a place to lay my head down and the roof doesn’t leak, I’m fine. But the reason I care is because I need to eat, too.”

  “Then I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let you catch fishes for two years.”

  She shook her head. “What about Pancho, who let me borrow this canoe? Tina, who welded the hole on the bottom so it wouldn’t sink? Gregorio, who made him the nets? It’s more than just one person.”

  “They are not your blood,” the river monster reminded her.

  “No, but they are part of this river and the river is my blood.” She smiled wryly. “You said it yourself. I am the Bastard Daughter of the Waves. Maybe that makes you and me cousins. Family in some way.”

  The river monster snapped its mandible in the air, but Orquídea only laughed, unladylike and coarse and wonderful.

  “What about this,” she said. “Whatever I catch, I will let half of what’s in my net return to you.”

  “Can you make that promise for everyone?”

  “No, I can only make it for myself. If you want to make a deal with all the other fishermen, you’re going to have to show yourself.”

  The river monster made a reptilian hiss at the back of its throat, then stared at Orquídea a little longer as their canoe was gently pushed by the current of the Guayas. It was so very tired of this world, of these people. All it had ever wanted was respect. And here Orquídea was, acknowledging it.

  “You have a deal,” the river monster said. It crept back over the side of the canoe; a ridged-back tail was the last thing to sink beneath the surface.

  Orquídea paddled back to the shore and left Pancho’s vessel tied up in the pier with the others. The next day, she told him of her bargain, and that they should all do the same. No one believed her, of course, but Orquídea kept her word. From then on, whatever she caught, she threw half back into the waters. When locals saw that this girl, the runt they called “Niña Mala Suerte” with her cosmic bad luck, was able to make a catch, they tried making their own bargains with the river. Some cleaned up the bottles and cans from the shore. Others offered stories and conversations. By the end of that season, the heat broke, the fish returned, and so did the rain.

  The river monster was never seen by anyone other than Orquídea, though there were rumors that it had been sighted by a gringo American tourist couple who documented exotic wildlife on their vegan travel blog. All they had to show was a blurry photo.

  The ancient creature felt the day of Orquídea’s death, a connection carried from root to dirt to sea. And for the first time in centuries, the river monster wept. They were, after all, family in some way.

  8

  THE UNEARTHING OF LUCK

  Orquídea gripped the arms of her chair and watched her children and grandchildren spill into the living room.

  “You’re all late,” she said, voice rough as gravel.

  “We were on time,” Enrique said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. The shadow of a partial handprint was still visible on his cheek. He yanked off his ruined silk tie and tossed it on the ground. “We’ve been just outside for hours.”

  “Ricky.” Félix gently squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “We’re here now.”

  “Abuelita, you’re, like, a tree,” Juan Luis said.

  His twin elbowed him, sucking his teeth. Gastón stage whispered, “Bro, you can’t just say that grandma is a tree.”

  “But she is!”

  One by one, they went to Orquídea. Hugging. Kissing her cheek, her forehead. Squeezing her rough, wrinkled hands covered in tiny branches. All, except Enrique, who glowered at the roaring flames in the fireplace. When he turned around, the green of his eyes moved, like embers had leapt into his irises and caught fire.

  “Mamá Orquídea!” Penelope shouted. She was thirteen, but still so young. Younger than Orquídea had ever been allowed to be at that age. Her thick curls were gathered into pigtails which made her look younger. But still, Penny ran to her grandmother, kneeling at her side and setting her face on her lap. Orquídea shut her eyes and took a deep breath as she gently stroked her granddaughter’s shoulders. “Mom said we were coming to your funeral. But you’re still here. Are you really dying?”

  “Not for a few more hours.”

  Penelope looked up with wide brown eyes and naïve worry. “Are you stuck?”

  “When I was born,” Orquídea began, “it was May 14. I only came out halfway. The doctor and nurse thought I was dead. It wasn’t until minutes after midnight that they were able to pull me the rest of the way out. My mother used to tell me that because of this, I would always live a life in between. My death is no different. So, yes, Penny. I suppose I am stuck. Not really here, nor there.”

  Aunt Silvia poured herself some wine and nodded thoughtfully. She liked to translate her mother’s stories into something like reason. “That was likely shoulder dystocia, and also likely because of the shape of your mother’s uterus.”

  “May 14,” Marimar said. “That’s today.”

  “I thought you hated birthdays,” Ernesta said, pinching the crooked bridge of her nose. “You never celebrated them. I never even knew what day it was. Did you?”

  Her siblings shook their heads, as if none of them had ever truly realized that they didn’t know when their mother was born. Marimar, like Rey, had snooped but never found a birth certificate or proof. Proof of what? That her grandmother was a real person and not some traveler from some faraway magical kingdom?

  “I spared you my birthdays. Which is why I’m asking you all to celebrate my death.”

  “That’s a bit morbid,” Rey said. “And I happen to love morbid.”

  Orquídea peered into the embers in the fireplace. For a moment, her eyes were milky white, but then she blinked, and the dark of her irises returned. “I know you have questions. I don’t have answers. I did the best I could. I knew the price y lo hice de todos modos. Ya no tengo tiempo.”

  The Montoyas traded worried glances. Orquídea never slipped between languages. It took Marimar and some of the others a moment to mentally translate their mother’s mother tongue. She knew the price and did it anyway. She’s out of time.

  Marimar took a tentative step forward. In her mind, Orquídea was as imposing as a mountain and as mysterious as the sea. She imposed hard rules. She filled their minds with whimsy. She would laugh one moment and then lock herself in her room the next. It was as if there was something jagged within her, a bruise that she had passed down to all of her kids, and maybe even grandkids. But this woman transforming in front of them was showing something Marimar wasn’t used to seeing—fear.

  “It’s okay, Ma,” Caleb Jr. said, his voice was soft, but his forehead lined with worry.

  Enrique grimaced. “None of this is okay.”

  There was a rustling sound, like loose pages carried off by a breeze. Ears popped. Floorboards and hinges creaked. A group of strangers appeared at the living room entrance. Five of them in total. They shared a family trait of beige skin, black hair, and haughty sneers. They all looked like they’d escaped out of an old photograph from the sixties. Three women all in dresses. Two t
all men in white button-downs tucked into belted brown slacks. Even though they clutched invitations in their hands, they looked like intruders. Sparrows among hummingbirds.

  Ever the diplomat, Félix waved them in. “Welcome! Give us a moment.”

  “Who the hell are they?” Rey muttered to Marimar.

  “Secret family?” she suggested. Marimar had a vague sense of déjà vu, like she’d met them before.

  One of the women sniffed at the air. Her hazel eyes settled on Orquídea with a quiet resentment. She took in the dust blanketing nearly every surface. The dirt soiling her sensible black dress shoes. She touched the golden stamp of the Virgin Mary resting against her chest.

  After an uncomfortable stretch, the oldest man of the bunch approached Orquídea, who somehow managed to look like a queen rooted in her throne.

  “Wilhelm,” Orquídea said in greeting.

  “Sister,” he said. There was a delay of sound when he spoke.

  “Sister?” Florecida repeated.

  Marimar felt a tiny surge of vindication and grinned. “Called it.”

  “These are the Buenasuertes,” Orquídea explained. “My brothers and sisters.”

  “I thought you were an only child?” Caleb Jr. asked.

  Orquídea gave a solemn shake of her head. The vines sprouting from the ground coiled around her chair, sprouting green buds. Her eyes went white then black again.

  “She ran away from us after mother married our father,” Wilhelm said.

  Even though he was standing right there, he looked like he had stepped out of a photograph, one of those old ones filtered by a shade of ochre or burnt sienna. Marimar had noticed it before, but now it was more pronounced. Like the longer they stood there, the more faded they became.

  “I ran away because I would have rather taken my chances on the street than spent one more minute under the Buenasuerte roof,” Orquídea said. “You saw to that.”

  Wilhelm sucked his teeth and smacked the air. “We were children. You were too sensitive. You’ve always been too soft.”