Every time she left, he’d say, “Do not forget your promise, Orquídea.”
“I won’t,” she’d assure him. But she could never figure out who she was lying to, herself or him.
* * *
During the height of her pregnancy, Bolívar treated her like glass. The most fragile thing in his collection. She stopped performing but watched all the same. Watched his eyes linger on a pretty face in the crowd, watched as he auditioned new performers alone, at night, for hours. He wouldn’t make love to her while she was in her “condition.” After the baby came, a healthy beautiful boy who was a replica of him, Bolívar’s habits remained the same.
Orquídea could no longer escape the whispers. Mirabella and Agustina watched her with sympathy. Lucho gave her a kind smile and he never smiled at anyone but his lady love. Sometimes she wondered if this is what her mother had felt when Orquídea was born, waiting for a man to come back while a baby bled her breasts dry. Then she reminded herself that she wouldn’t feel the same shame. She was determined to be a better mother to Pedrito than Isabela Buenasuerte had ever been to her.
Soon, Bolívar’s cycles became hers. He left, he returned, he loved her, he left again. He assured Orquídea that his promise, the one he’d made to love her forever, was written in blood. She had his name. She had borne his child. Nothing else mattered but that and no tryst could compare.
She decided to put his theory to a test. Though Orquídea wasn’t unfaithful, she flirted with the danger of it. While the show was stationed in La Paz, Bolivia, she left Pedrito in the care of Agustina the Fortune-Teller and spent the night with her friends at a tavern. Men bought her drinks, tried to get close enough to count her freckles. They wanted her autograph written on the skin over their hearts. She was mid-signature when she heard the tavern door slam and she knew that it was him without looking up.
Bolívar found her. One of his porters must have followed and snitched. This time, Lucho wasn’t there to pry Bolívar off the man who’d touched his wife. He beat the stranger until both his eyes were swollen shut, until Orquídea let out a scream that shook him from his fever, and he was taken to the local jail.
The stranger had lived but went blind out of one eye, and Orquídea paid twice the bail funds in order to bring him home on the condition that the circus leave La Paz that same night.
Bolívar and Orquídea clung to each other out of desperation and fear of solitude. It was only when they fought that they could reignite the passion they had once felt for each other. He wanted her to scream his name. She wanted him to beg. Orquídea knew that it was not enough. Bolívar’s words were no longer enough. That life was no longer enough. And so, she made plans. She searched. She learned about the galaxy and magic from Lázaro. In order for her betrayal to work, she needed to be in Guayaquil. She needed his ring, which he never took off, and she needed the key.
When Pedrito was three months old, Bolívar started carrying on with one of the new Egyptian belly dancers they’d taken on for the Peruvian leg of the tour.
Orquídea admired herself in the mirror, taking down the pins from her hair, and he was getting ready to go back out, when she said, “Give Safi my compliments on her performance tonight.”
This time, he didn’t deny it. He just stormed out. And when he returned a breath later, she foolishly thought he’d come back to apologize. To make it up to her. To fuck her instead.
He’d only forgotten his top hat.
That was the moment Orquídea Divina figured it out. One part of her three-pronged conundrum. There was one item she’d never searched. There was a second item he always wore, and only took off in their private cabin.
With Bolívar gone for the night, she snuck in to see Lázaro. Pedrito slept snug in a sling against her chest.
“I know where the key is,” she said breathlessly.
Lázaro diminished his light in front of her and grinned. She’d grown used to his pale, naked figure. The pearlescent beauty marks on his skin. His irises moved like a starry sky. But she’d never seen him smile with such satisfaction. He was rather beautiful when he did.
“Then why are you here instead of getting it?”
“I told you,” she said. “We have to be in Guayaquil. I have to be home. There’s still the matter of the ring. He sleeps with it on. I’ve never seen him take it off.”
“Then seduce him until he is fast asleep.”
Orquídea made a strangled noise. “We haven’t—we don’t—he doesn’t want me that way anymore.”
“He does,” Lázaro affirmed. “He is simply content knowing that you are his.”
“I am no one’s.”
“Brave Orquídea,” he chuckled. “Who will entertain me when I am back among the stars?”
“Don’t you have friends? Family?”
Lázaro frowned. “We do not have those words. And my kind have no sense of humor.”
She smiled then, truly smiled. “Lázaro. When you share your magic with me, will it—will it hurt?”
“Me more than you,” he said softly. “I have to open up myself to you.”
“Sounds intimate,” she said, worry piqued in her voice.
“Believe me, it is not the fleshy awkward sex you humans have. I would be letting you into the thing that makes me me. I suppose your priests would call it a soul. It would be like opening a vein and letting you feed off me. Consume the very power that makes me what I am. I would have to trust you not to kill me in the process. I am putting all of my trust in you.”
“I know,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Then you are free to go your own way. Make your wishes come true. I truly hope our paths never cross again, my friend.” Lázaro reached through the iron bars and touched Pedrito’s nose and startled when the baby let out a cry. “What is wrong with it?”
She laughed and sang a nonsensical lullaby that her mother had sung to her. “Haven’t you ever held a baby?”
“Of course not.”
“Can you make them?” she wondered. “I mean, if you remained on earth?”
“Yes, I suppose I could. But I do not belong here,” he said, amazed at the way Pedrito quieted at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Remember, Orquídea, every time you use your magic, there is a price.”
“My dear fallen star, so you’ve told me again and again.”
“If your husband is any example of your kind, it is worth repeating.”
Orquídea looked away. “Bolívar seems fine to me.”
“As long as I am tied up here, he will not pay it. That is his loophole. So, for you, well, have a care. Wish for riches, and you might get a million dollars in sucres, but the next day the country’s currency becomes the dollar and the exchange rate is not in your favor. Wish for true love, and you might get it, but he might drown in a year because you were not specific.”
I wished for you. Bolívar had said. He had gotten her, in his own way.
“So, you’re saying be specific,” she teased.
“And careful. This is celestial magic, not a birthday candle. And after it is done, I want your word, your vow, that you will not look for me when the magic begins to fade.”
“I won’t want to,” she said, but smiled. “Where will you go?”
He looked up at the ceiling. How long since he’d looked up at the sky? “I am going home.”
29
THE GIFT OF THE RIVER MONSTER
After they sealed up the tomb, Ana Cruz drove them back to river shore in La Atarazana. This time, only the Montoyas got out of the car and walked to the edge of the rickety pier.
“What does a river monster look like?” Rhiannon asked.
“Ghosts and miracles, I have seen,” Rey said. “This is out of my peculiarities’ expertise.”
“Orquídea said that it was ancient, part human and part crocodile,” Marimar said. The skin around her clavicles itched and she pressed her fingers against both the old and the new thorn that had grown there. “The question isn’t what it looks like but h
ow we get its attention.”
“I know!” Rhiannon gasped and darted to the murky water’s edge, leaning over so far, the slightest breeze might tip her over. She stuck her little hand there and disturbed the surface.
“Rhiannon!” Rey startled and reached for her, but she wasn’t in danger.
“Papa Félix!” she said in her small, fairy voice. The water gently lapped at her touch. “I need your help. Can you find the river monster who was friends with Mamá Orquídea? Tell him that she says hello.”
They waited. Across the river, the city of Durán was obscured by low-hanging clouds. Before long the sky began to darken. Rain clouds unloaded overhead in torrential showers, and Jefita yelled that they would catch their death before any false god could get the chance. Traffic blared in the distance and pinpricks of lighting tore into the sky. They waited for a so long that they nearly turned away.
Marimar felt the weight of her family. The ache at the base of her throat. “We should go.”
Rhiannon pointed. “Look!”
A slick creature about one foot long, with a reptilian body and the humanoid head of a crocodile, crept up onto the pier. It clawed up to the top of a post to be closer to eye level.
“Orquídea Divina’s progeny,” the reptilian creature said in a wheezy voice.
“Orquídea’s… river monster—uh—friend?” Rey said.
Rhiannon picked it up in the cradle of her palms. It was smaller than any of them had expected. This was the creature that had wrestled grown men and made a pact with their grandmother?
“River monster,” it spat. “No one has called my name in a long time.”
“You’re so cute,” she giggled in that way of hers. “Mamá Orquídea said you were three feet long.”
Indignant, the creature wriggled and climbed up on Rhiannon’s shoulder like a questionable Jiminy Cricket.
“My spirit grows smaller and smaller as I am forgotten.”
Marimar brushed her damp hair back and wiped drizzle from her eyes. “Orquídea remembered you. She used to tell us stories about you.”
“My Bastard Daughter of the Waves.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” Rey said cautiously. “You’re not secretly our grandfather, are you?”
The river monster snapped at Rey’s hand, snatching a rose petal between sharp teeth and ate it. “No.”
Rey winced, and rubbed at the spot. “It’s been a strange couple of days. I needed to be sure.”
Marimar pinched the bridge of her nose as Rhiannon giggled. “Orquídea’s mother said that you were her only true friend here. There’s a man—a creature—after us. We need to know if Orquídea ever came back to seek your help. We have to stop him before he comes for us again.”
The small crocodile spirit smacked its tongue, like it savored the rose petal. With a shake of its whole body, the river monster perked up and scampered off Rhiannon’s shoulder, growing six inches in height and width.
“That’s better,” it sighed. Glossy yellow eyes took in the young Montoyas, and as if seeing them clearly for the first time, the creature spoke clearly. “After our pact, I never saw Orquídea. I do miss her presence on these shores.”
“You’ve seen everything that passes through these waters for centuries,” Marimar said. “And yet, you answered Orquídea’s plea. We’re here now. Make a bargain with us.”
The river monster chuckled. “You’re as demanding as she was… My power has faded, but perhaps I have something that might help you. One thing that is enchanted with a bargain. It will trap a hundred fish or a single man. Once caught, they can only be freed by myself or by Orquídea, as we are the ones whose vow enchanted it.”
“What is it?” Marimar asked.
The creature reached into its wide mouth and pulled out a shimmering string.
Not string, Marimar thought. A net.
The net her grandmother had used decades ago, when she was no bigger than Rhiannon.
“Take this.” The river monster crawled back on all fours, elongating to look more like a crocodile than a beast of legend; as if the more magic it expelled, it became something else.
Marimar took up the net, still perfectly intact. Her vow shimmered gold in the thread, for what was stronger than words?
“Thank you,” Marimar said.
“We don’t know your name?” Rhiannon said.
“No one asks. Sometimes I forget it.” It coughed, like it hurt to speak. “My name is Quilca.”
“I’ll tell Orquídea you said hi, Quilca,” Rhiannon assured him. “That you helped us.”
Quilca waded into the river, then stopped. “I am not the only one who remembers Orquídea, you know. Sometimes I hear her name, like a scream.”
Rey straightened. So had he, the day Tatinelly’s illness took hold. It had happened so fast he hadn’t processed it. “From where?”
“Up in the cerro Santa Ana. Once a month, when the full moon is out, I can hear it.”
Then, Quilca the river monster was gone.
30
THE SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR FIRE
The day the Londoño Spectacular Spectacular returned to Guayaquil was the day Orquídea’s life would never be the same. But she had already prepared for that. This time, the tents were bigger, the acts more astonishing. Bolívar’s fascination with spectacle and glamour made it an immersive experience for all who entered. Agustina spun the threads of fortunes at her table. Children cracked baby teeth on bright red candied apples. On stage, women walked across tightropes with wings growing out of their shoulders, angels all of them. Orquídea performed in her dress that bloomed like a living flower, and then again as a mermaid swimming across a sea. Dancers and jugglers and sword swallowers. Wolf girls and seal boys and beasts. Finally, Lázaro, the Living Star. At the heart of it all the ringmaster, the visionary, Bolívar Londoño III.
Orquídea had prepared for that day for so long, that when it finally arrived, she couldn’t stop trembling. She needed to compose herself or the plan wouldn’t work. She took everything into account. Bolívar’s activities, the time at which he bathed after the show, then left to play cards. He’d come back one more time to kiss Pedrito in his sleep. Her bag was packed and stowed under the bed. She’d take Pedrito to the storage tent where Lázaro waited. She’d free him, take her sliver of power, and then she’d be free.
She’d prepared for nearly everything, even made the rounds around the circus, saying goodbye without really saying the words. But on the way back to her tent, Orquídea was approached by someone she never thought she’d see again. Her mother.
There had been a moment when she was singing that she thought she’d imagined Isabela Buenasuerte in the audience. Her heartrate had spiked, agonizing over what her mother would think. What she’d say. But Orquídea ran away two years ago. She was a married woman. A mother in her own right. She’d seen more of the world than her mother, who had never even left the province she’d been born in. By the end of her song, Orquídea convinced herself that she was wrong. The faces in the audience blurred together after a while.
But there she was. Isabela Buenasuerte looked the same as always in her expensive dress, her elegant features turned up in distaste at the candy-coated popcorn and wood shavings on the ground.
Orquídea remembered the helplessness and anger she’d endured at the Buenasuerte home. All at once, it felt like trying to surface during an onslaught of waves. But if Orquídea was honest, her anger toward Isabela went further than that. Standing in front of her mother, Orquídea felt like that unlucky runt of a girl again. A stain in her mother’s perfect life. The bastard child left behind by a man who’d used her. Seeing her mother was like pressing on a bruise that had never healed. It had festered, rotted. It seeped down to the bone. She’d only learned to live with the pain.
“What do you want?” Orquídea asked, not letting her mother speak. She pulled Pedrito protectively against her chest.
Isabela Buenasuerte ignored the dagger that had become Orquíd
ea’s tongue. She tugged off her white gloves and smiled hopefully. “Who is this beautiful child?”
“This is my son,” Orquídea said tightly.
“Tell me his name, mijita.”
Orquídea didn’t want to, but the part of her that still wanted her mother’s love relented. “Pedrito.”
She should have stopped there. She was a spool of thread coming undone and there would be no one to put her back together. She should have turned and walked away like she had two years ago. Instead, she pointed at the large poster of Bolívar Londoño III with his smile, sharp as diamonds, welcoming one and all to his creation. She held up her glittering sapphire. “And that is my husband. And this is my circus. And I don’t want you here.”
“Orquídea—”
“Leave.”
When Orquídea recalled that memory from time to time, she admired the hands of destiny that orchestrated the longest minute of her life. From somewhere, fireworks sparked. Bells rang announcing the opening of the fairground portion of the night. Fortunes, games, prizes, a perfect storm of cruel fate! And there was Bolívar strutting across the grounds, so beautiful in his signature blue velvet that it was impossible not to notice him. Only instead of his wife and child, it was Safi, the belly dancer, draped on his arm. He’d skipped the card game and had gone straight to her. As he kissed her, he didn’t even try to hide his indiscretion. On any other day, Orquídea might have picked a fight. But on that night, of all the nights her mother had chosen to return to her life, she’d been witness to Orquídea’s shame.
Bolívar was unaware of his wife’s life shattering in front of his mother-in-law. Orquídea couldn’t bear it. Something inside her split. It was a tear in her whole being. A fracture that would never be able to be put back together.
“I said leave,” Orquídea repeated as Pedrito began to wail in her arms.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina Page 26